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By Joshua Rhett Miller
Senior Reporter
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A trove of documents detailing Nazi activities in Argentina following World War II has been publicly released, government officials announced.
The cache of more than 1,850 documents released Monday by Argentina's General Archives reveals the arrival and activities of prominent Nazi war criminals who fled to the South American nation after the war, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.
The dossiers, "Documentation on Nazi presence in Argentina," are separated into seven files and detail the result of investigations by federal authorities and the nation's top intelligence agency between the 1950s and 1980s, officials said.
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"Starting today, anyone can access and download these documents," Argentina's Ministry of Interior said late Monday in a statement on X.
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The Spanish-language files, which can be accessed online, were previously solely available for viewing by the public at Argentina's General Archive in Buenos Aires. President Javier Milei declassified the records following a request by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights organization announced in February.
One batch of documents contains intelligence bulletins and press reports on the post-WWII activities of Holocaust architect Eichmann, as well as Mengele — a Nazi officer and doctor known as the "Angel of Death" for his perverse human experiments — and Martin Bormann, a Nazi leader who served as Adolf Hitler's private secretary.
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The records also reportedly show how Mengele entered Argentina in 1949 using the alias of Gregor Helmut and later submitted his legalized birth certificate as Joseph Mengele in 1956.
Milei ordered the records to be released following a meeting in Argentina with reps from the Wiesenthal Center, marking a "potential watershed moment" as the human rights group tries to uncover the scope of South American banking networks that facilitated Nazis fleeing Europe via routes known as "ratlines." Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley had also requested the documents be released as he investigates previously unknown Nazi assets at Credit Suisse and its predecessor banks.
"We commend the release of declassified archives to the public," Simon Wiesenthal's Latin American office said in a statement early Tuesday.
Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Jim Berk has previously credited Grassley, a Republican, and the Senate Judiciary Committee for their efforts to expose banks that aided Nazi war criminals.
"Their commitment reinforces the urgency of our mission to document and expose the complicity of financial institutions in these historical injustices," Berk said in late February.
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Tens of thousands of documents have been uncovered as a result of a Senate committee investigation into Credit Suisse's World War II-era accounts. The bank failed to disclose the accounts during prior investigations, Grassley said in January.
In a statement to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Credit Suisse parent UBS said the bank was "committed to contributing to a fulsome review of the Credit Suisse archives concerning Nazi-linked legacy accounts previously held at predecessor banks of Credit Suisse."
"Since UBS acquired Credit Suisse in June 2023, we have made it a priority to ensure that the review is thorough and comprehensive and have re-engaged Neil Barofsky as Independent Ombudsman accordingly. We are providing all necessary assistance to facilitate his review of the Credit Suisse archives to continue to shed more light on this tragic period in history. While we were not part of discussions concerning the Argentinian archives, we remain dedicated to completing the review of the Credit Suisse archives."
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