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Erich Priebke, a former SS captain

This article is taken from the New York Times - 1995

Nestled in Argentina's snow-capped Andes, overlooking a vast pristine lake, this picturesque ski town has long been a favorite of Latin American jet-setters. No wonder it was chosen as the site for the recent annual meeting of presidents from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries.

But despite Bariloche's many gingerbread houses, chocolate and fondue shops, pine forests and jagged peaks, which have led many visitors to compare it to Bavaria, the town's reputation has been undermined by an 82-year-old former Nazi who has become its most infamous resident.

Erich Priebke, a former SS captain who has lived in Bariloche for 50 years and has admitted taking part in the killings of 335 Italian civilians at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome in 1944, is under house arrest here as the Argentine Supreme Court decides whether he will be extradited to Italy.

For decades Argentines have quietly referred to Bariloche as a haven for Nazis who fled Germany after World War II. But it was not until two years ago, when Mr. Priebke was uncovered by a team from ABC News television, that the world began to associate this town with Nazis.

"You'd have to be either crazy or blind and deaf to think that Bariloche does not have its share of Nazis," said Rosario Zaballa, 48, a store clerk who has lived here all her life. "They don't bother anybody, but they are here."

Swastikas are regularly scrawled on walls and even appear in some public artwork. Throughout the town, people tell tales of Germans who still hold secret celebrations of Hitler's birthday on April 20.

Many residents openly support Mr. Priebke. He declined to be interviewed but has said he is innocent of any crime because he was obeying Hitler's orders.

The Italian massacre, which included 71 Jewish victims, was ordered by the SS in reprisal for an attack by Italian underground fighters that killed 33 German soldiers.

In August, an appeals court overturned a lower court judgment ordering the extradition of Mr. Priebke to Italy. His lawyer, Pedro Bianchi, told reporters here that the decision was based on Argentina's 15-year statute of limitations for murder.

A group of Mr. Priebke's supporters held a Mass to celebrate the court's ruling, and a local newspaper, Bariloche Hoy, said in a front-page article that Mr. Priebke was "an ideologically responsible person" and not guilty of the Nazi atrocities.

To many Jews, the appeals court's decision is another example of how Argentina continues to provide refuge for Nazis.

"We have his signed confession that he participated in these acts, and I can't understand why the court would refuse to extradite him," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is devoted to bringing Nazis to justice.

"There is a great support in Argentina for fascism and people who love the old days under Peron when people like Priebke were heroes," Rabbi Hier said. "What the Argentine Government really wants is a biological solution to the problem. That Priebke will die before they have to extradite him."

President Carlos Saul Menem's Government has said it is committed to bringing former Nazis living in Argentina to justice, including quick extraditions.

Tourism and municipal government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said people who believe that Bariloche is a Nazi refuge are judging the city unfairly, based solely on the past actions of a small fraction of its residents.

The officials said Bariloche, about 850 miles southwest of Buenos Aires, was one of the few cities in Argentina that had passed a resolution repudiating Nazism and noted that the city's three other papers had called for Mr. Priebke's extradition.

Bariloche, a town of more than 100,000 people that was founded 100 years ago by Germans from Chile, today has a German population of several hundred.

Daniel Reisfeld, a retailer who is president of Bariloche's small Jewish population of 35 families, said that while he had not encountered any anti-Semitism in the 15 years he has lived in Bariloche, he believed there were anti-Semites and Nazis living here.

"There is the same quantity, percentage-wise, of Nazis living in Bariloche as there is in any other city with a strong German population and history," Mr. Reisfeld said. "The only difference is that Bariloche is the only city with a Nazi who is waiting to be extradited and who has caught people's attention."

In the years that followed the exposure of Priebke’s criminal past, he was extradited to Italy, tried, and eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998. Due to his age and ill health, however, he remained under house arrest until his death in 2013 at the age of 100. He had requested his remains to be returned to Argentina so he could be buried with his wife; the request was denied by the Argentinian government, and instead the Italian authorities buried him in a secret location.

A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 30, 1995, Section A, Page 4 of the National edition with the headline: San Carlos de Bariloche Journal;In Nazi's Hiding Place, the Stain Won't Wash Away.

Nazis in Bariloche

These are other Nazi's reported to be in or lived in Bariloche

Reinhard Kopps (29 September 1914 Hamburg – 11 September 2001 Bariloche, Argentina) was an SS Officer for the Nazi Party during World War II. Following the defeat of Germany in World War II, he helped Nazis escape to Argentina, finally fleeing there himself. Under the assumed name of Juan Maler, Kopps was hiding in the small town of Bariloche in the Andes Mountains. Bariloche was the home of many Germans after World War II

Recently opened Nazi archives in 1994 caused ABC News to research Nazi war criminals. After research revealed many Nazis living in Argentina, Sam Donaldson confronted Maler on camera,[1] getting him to admit that he was Reinhard Kopps, a former Nazi, and that he assisted Nazis to leave Germany and settle in Argentina. In order to deflect attention away from himself, he told Donaldson that an even worse war criminal, Erich Priebke, was also living there, confirming ABC News research. Priebke was soon arrested, and Kopps fled. The story was made for ABC's Primetime Live, as well as Nazi Hunters. He died a free man in 2001.

In his 2004 book Bariloche nazi-guía turística, Argentine author Abel Basti claims that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun lived in the surroundings of Bariloche for many years after World War II.[6][7] Basti said that the Argentine Nazis chose the estate of Inalco as Hitler's refuge.[

Frederic Lantschner was a Nazi governor of Tyrol in Austria. He fled to Bariloche in 1948, where he set up a construction company, using the letters ‘SS’ for its emblem, and joined the mountaineering society Club Andino Bariloche, of which Priebke was also a member. He died a free man in Bariloche.

Josef Mengele was a Nazi officer and physician known as the “Angel of Death” for his role in conducting deadly human experiments. He was sheltered in Bariloche, and took his driving test outside the Town Hall. He fled the city as the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad closed in on him. In 1979, he was found drowned on a beach in Brazil.

Hans-Ulrich Rudel was a high-ranking Nazi ground pilot, one of Hitler’s close confidants and the most decorated German serviceman of World War II. In exile in Bariloche, he founded a relief organisation for Nazi criminals, helping them escape to South America and the Middle East. He later moved to Paraguay and then back to Germany, where he represented the neo-Nazi German People’s Union. He died in West Germany in 1982.

Josef Scwammberger was an SS commander in forced labour camps in Poland. He escaped to Bariloche in 1948, where he lived briefly in a lodge with his family. In 1987, he was extradited to Germany and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992.

Nazi diplomat Horst Wagner, a man with the blood of at least 350,000 Jews on his hands, who used the ratlines to reach Bariloche in the Fifties.

Adolf Eichmann transported Jews to death camps. He was caught in Buenos Aires and hanged in 1962.

Butcher of Lyon Klaus Barbie fled to Argentina. He died in prison in 1991.

Concentration camp commandant Dinko Sakic ran a textile factory in the country. He died in jail in 2008.

Walter Rauff was an SS colonel, Rauff was instrumental in the construction and implementation of the mobile gas chambers responsible for killing an estimated 100,000 people during World War II. According to the United Kingdom’s MI5 intelligence agency, Rauff oversaw the modifications of trucks that diverted their exhaust fumes into airtight chambers in the back of vehicles capable of carrying as many as 60 people. The trucks were driven to burial sites, and along the way victims would be poisoned and/or asphyxiated from the carbon monoxide. After persecuting Jews in Vichy France-controlled Tunisia during 1942 and 1943, Rauff oversaw Gestapo operations in northwest Italy. There, as in Tunisia, Rauff gained a “reputation for utter ruthlessness,” infamous for the indiscriminate execution of both Jews and local partisans.

Franz StanglWHAT HE’S INFAMOUS FOR: Nicknamed the “White Death” for his proclivity to wear a white uniform and carry a whip, the Austrian-born Stangl worked on the Aktion T-4 euthanasia program under which the Nazis killed those with mental and physical disabilities. He later served as the commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps in German-occupied Poland. More than 100,000 Jews are believed to have been murdered during his tenure at Sobibor before he moved to Treblinka, where he was directly responsible for the Nazis’ second-deadliest camp where 900,000 were killed.

Gerhard BohneA lawyer and SS officer, Bohne headed the Third Reich’s Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes and was responsible for the administrative logistics of Hitler’s Aktion T-4 euthanasia program. Claiming to be a “mercy killer,” Bohne was instead among the leaders who carried out a systemic extermination in order to purify the Aryan race and avoid state expenditures on those with mental and physical disabilities. All told, the program killed some 200,000 Germans with incurable diseases, mental illnesses and other handicaps. The victims were led to gas chambers in the institutions and then cremated. The program served as a trial run for the mass extermination camps later operated by the SS. Bohne was thrown out of the Nazi Party after submitting a report accusing his agency of fraud and corruption.

Four (4) Common Methods to Make The Journey

The first was the route taken by Erich Priebke – obtaining a false visa from the Vatican, which was known to be assisting Nazis.

A second possible route was via the Red Cross, which was issuing travel papers for refugees and relied on references from the Vatican or the allied military forces. Overwhelmed by the volume of applicants, war criminals could easily slip through the system.

Another option was to simply pay a large sum of money for a blank Argentinian passport in Italy.

The fourth method was via knowledge migration. In his mission to build a strong and self-sufficient Argentina, Perón sought to attract external talent, and saw an opportunity to bring in skilled German veterans, in particular scientists, in the war aftermath. Many with close ties to the Nazi regime were invited to Argentina. One such example was Ronald Richter, who was invited by Perón to develop a nuclear programme.