NAZI FILE FOUND IN AN OPEN ARCHIVE
By ELAINE SCIOLINO, Special to the New York Times
Published: May 14, 1986
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., May 13— The master lists of more than 36,000 files of war criminals, suspects and witnesses kept secret in the United Nations archives for nearly 40 years have been discovered on an open shelf in a military archive in Maryland.
The 80 mimeographed lists, organized chronologically by the United Nations War Crimes Commission from 1943 to 1948, read like a Who's Who of the Axis. They include the names of major wartime figures - from Hitler to Mussolini - as well as some of the most wanted Nazi war criminals sought by the Israeli Government and Nazi-hunters such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, based in Los Angeles.
Among the most prominent names on the lists are Alois Brunner, a former deputy to Adolf Eichmann accused of brutality, who is reportedly living in Syria; Walter Kutschmann, a former Gestapo leader accused of murder, who was arrested last November in Buenos Aires, and
Dr. Hans Wilhelm Konig, a former deputy of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz wanted for ''complicity in murder and ill treatment,'' who is believed to be living in Switzerland or
Sweden.
The name of former Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who is listed as wanted for murder and the taking of hostages, appears on the 79th list.
The lists include the names of German industrialists and factory owners accused of ''complicity in forced labor,'' Jews used by the Germans as prison guards, Japanese soldiers wanted as war criminals by Australia, as well as Italians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Rumanians.
The lists will provide an invaluable resource to governments, organizations and historians in tracking down war criminals and will increase governments' access to the sealed files. 'It's Wonderful,' Israeli Says
''It's wonderful,'' Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's chief delegate here, said. ''It's an important discovery that reinforces the argument that the entire U.N. War Crimes Commission archives should be made open to public scrutiny.''
Nathan Perlmutter, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, called the discovery ''the beginning of the road down which we will be able to sort out rumor and suspicion from fact.''
The lists, which number about 3,000 pages, were found by accident last week by Richard L. Boylan, an archivist, on a shelf in the basement of the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Md., while he was searching for other documents. ''It didn't strike me as anything special, because they have been available,'' he said.
They include brief descriptions of the accused, ratings according to culpability and reference numbers to files detailing the charges. The only master copy of the files is believed to be sealed in the United Nations archives.
The United Nations has refused to give any government blanket access to all the files, but has turned over files when specific requests have been made.
Now that the lists have been discovered, the Israelis, who have been seeking access to the files, could theoretically ask for the files of every name on the lists. On Monday the Israeli Government sent a letter to Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar listing 1,379 officers, enlisted men and officials wanted by Israel for war crimes. Much Information Is Sketchy
Much of the information on individuals is sketchy and will take months or even years to verify. In some cases, entire units are listed as guilty of war crimes; many individuals are identified only by job description or unit, their names ''unknown.'' Others are identified only by nicknames or last names.
The United Nations War Crimes Commission sat in London from 1943 to 1948. It collected evidence on war crimes from the governments of its 17 members, investigated the charges and opened case files on individuals and units.
After it opened a sufficient number of cases, it published ''wanted'' lists that were sent to its members in the hopes that the accused criminals, suspects and witnesses could be found for the purposes of prosecution. When it disbanded, the commission turned over its 36,810 files to the United Nations for safekeeping without ever establishing precise rules for access.
The Suitland archive, which is part of the National Archives, received the commission lists from the Department of the Army in 1968, according to Edwin A. Thompson, head of the Declassification Division of the National Archives. They were reviewed in 1973 and again in 1976 to see if they should be declassified under a program that allows declassification of documents after 30 years, he said. All were declassified by April 1979.
The discovery of the lists indicates that American intelligence officials had the resources to learn about the wartime past of Mr. Waldheim when he ran successfully for Secretary General in 1971 and 1976 and unsuccessfully in 1981. 'A Very Significant Development'
''This is a very significant development and shows that the U.S. intelligence community was guilty of gross negligence in approving Kurt Waldheim as Secretary General,'' said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. ''All that it had to do was put a couple of researchers in the archives and they would have found his name.''
Rabbi Hier said his organization may urge a Congressional inquiry to investigate how senior diplomats from other countries are approved by the United States Government.
Discovery that the lists are in the public domain will force the United Nations to consult with the 17 countries that made up the commission to determine whether the rules governing access should be changed, said John Scott, a United Nations legal counsel.
Mr. Perez de Cuellar has already asked officials from the countries that made up the commission to designate member of their missions for informal consultations to consider an Israeli request that the files be opened to the public.
United Nations officials said they were particularly surprised that the original lists were discovered in Washington. In 1980 the Justice Department told the United Nations that it had lost its documents relating to the work of the War Crimes Commission, and the United Nations photocopied replacement copies of the documents, including all the lists, according to a high-ranking United Nations official.
Justice Department officials had no comment on whether they were aware of the existence of the original lists in the arhcives or whether the United Nations ever duplicated the lists for them.
''We're still researching it,'' Joe Krovisky, public information officer, said. ''We can't comment until our research is completed.''
The original commission members were Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, India, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, the United States and Yugoslavia. South Africa dropped out after initial consultations; Denmark became a member in 1945.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingr...00130009-0.pdf
