The Clock Is Ticking

Almost 65 years after the end of the World War Two, statistical analysis suggests that as many as 5,000 Nazi war criminals are still alive and free, living out the rest of their days in regimes that once (or still) share similarities with Fascist, Nazi Germany. The debate steams ahead on whether the ex-war criminals should be caught and brought to justice. The fact that these crimes were committed over half a century ago, shouldn't allow the elderly men to continue living the rest of their lives in safe havens, under the sun. Should we not act swiftly in respect for those that suffered and died at the hands of Adolf Hitler’s terrifying grip on Europe?

The Nazi regime was, as history rightly measures, the most inhumane and brutal the world has ever known. Not only because of the fascist and totalitarian state that Hitler and his party created, but because of the unbelievable oppression the Jews suffered in Europe, the Ghetto’s and eventually the infamous death camps. This has not gone unrecognised by the world. We are reminded of the atrocities regularly and quite rightly so. We document the holocaust and the associated regime on television, we teach it in our school curriculum, and it will be forever acknowledged, discussed and debated within the realms of socio-political, and history based academia.

Many atrocities have maimed and scarred fast regions of the planet since WWII. From Stalinism to Rwanda, Vietnam to the US led invasion of Iraq. The truth is, however, that the holocaust is historically unique. Never before, or since, has any regime implemented an industrial infrastructure, created for the elimination of an entire ethnic group, or any other group of undesirable elements, and largely based its political ideology on this. Fascism has of course existed outside of early/mid 20^th century Germany, but not to the same extent as Hitler’s implementation of extreme racialism and careful planning that resulted in an inconceivable death toll of over six million people. That makes Nazism, as it is measured today, unique to any other far-right regime.   

Questions will always arise when debating the capture and imprisonment of German SS figures. Firstly, is it ethical to spend time and money on elderly men who will be dead within a decade or should we not simply let them live out the rest of their years in constant fear of capture?  Some may view this issue as acceptable; however, it wouldn’t put a huge strain on any western state police resources. In fact it wouldn’t put a dent in the British security budget. Millions have been spent ‘securing’ the UK against terrorism, and we have seen some of our oldest and simplest civil liberties compromised as a result. The money is well within the public budget, and we are able to find these men, if the resources are put into pursuing their capture.

Secondly, it is important to know exactly who needs to be tracked down, caught and tried. Of course, not everyone involved in Nazi military infrastructure should be tried for war crimes. The people in discussion here are senior military officers that had a genuine ideological commitment to the Nazi project. Men such as Adolf Eichmann, Albert Heim and Alois Brunner are some of the figures in debate, and all of which played a serious and committed role in the orchestration of the Nazis ‘final solution’. Heim’s 53-year-old son Rudiger, who lives in Germany, claims his father died of cancer as long ago as 1992. Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Nazi-hunting organisation, accepted the claim with suspicion. He said: “There is no body, no corpse, no DNA and no grave”. This highlights the true extent of the cover up of trails that these men may have left, over the past 65 years.

A particular urgency is evident 65 years after the end of the war. Time is simply running out for both the Nazis and the survivors. Within a decade, it is probable that there won’t be any of the Nazi figures discussed here left in the world, they will be dead. It seems that by allowing the Nazi period to sit comfortably within the pages of history books isn’t enough. The general consensus suggests that before time runs out, a fully-fledged attempt to capture these men is indeed needed. Not only for the sake of those who died or survived the concentration camps, but also for those who rightly view Hitler’s ideology as the single biggest humanitarian tragedy the world has ever witnessed. Much has been learnt over the past 65 years, but so much more could be achieved over the next year, if the world puts its heart and mind into it.