WEBVTT - Are Nazi War Criminals Still At Large?

0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:07.600
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know?

0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:17.160
<v Speaker 1>Runhouse Stuff Works dot Com? I welcome to the podcast.

0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.360
<v Speaker 1>I'm Josh Clark. I'm a staff writer here at how

0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.000
<v Speaker 1>Stuff Works dot Com. With me as always is my

0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.440
<v Speaker 1>very attractive and trust the editor Chris Palette. Chris, how's

0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.200
<v Speaker 1>your go kie? Oh? It's great? Thanks. So we wrote

0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.559
<v Speaker 1>this article about whether or not Nazi war criminals are

0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.080
<v Speaker 1>still a large and UM the Simon Weisenthal Center. UH.

0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.120
<v Speaker 1>This this group that's dedicated to finding rooting out the

0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.319
<v Speaker 1>last of the Nazi war criminals who may or may

0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.919
<v Speaker 1>not be still alive. UM has launched Operation Last Day,

0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.960
<v Speaker 1>Last Chance UH in a in a in a last

0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.280
<v Speaker 1>ditch effort. But UM, while I was researching this, Chris,

0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.800
<v Speaker 1>I found a lot of stuff that that just I

0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.040
<v Speaker 1>couldn't fit into the article. UM. One of the things

0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.120
<v Speaker 1>that that stuck out to me the most was the Massad.

0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.360
<v Speaker 1>You know what the Massada is. That's the Israeli secret

0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.800
<v Speaker 1>service right it is now. They have been chasing Nazis

0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.520
<v Speaker 1>for decades and have been fairly successful at it. They

0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.040
<v Speaker 1>found Klaus Barbie. UH. They also found Adolf Eichmann, who

0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.760
<v Speaker 1>was pretty much the engineer of the nazis final solution

0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:28.119
<v Speaker 1>of exterminating all these um supposedly unwanted races. UM. But

0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:33.440
<v Speaker 1>I also found something very um interesting. The Massad actually

0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:38.800
<v Speaker 1>engaged in UH employing and hiding some wanted Nazi war criminals,

0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.160
<v Speaker 1>which I found startling. You know, this this group that's

0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.440
<v Speaker 1>dedicated to rooting out for conviction UM or at the

0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.320
<v Speaker 1>very least for trial Nazi war criminals UM having employed

0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.320
<v Speaker 1>one the guy they employed UM was this doctor who

0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.960
<v Speaker 1>actually came up with the idea of mobile gas vans, right,

0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.040
<v Speaker 1>so that the the Nazis wouldn't have to shoot the

0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.360
<v Speaker 1>Jews any longer to kill them. They could just load

0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.280
<v Speaker 1>them up in these vans and carbon monoxide was put

0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.239
<v Speaker 1>into the end of the vans and and whoever was

0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.120
<v Speaker 1>inside was killed. And the worst part was these vans

0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.280
<v Speaker 1>were they looked like Red Cross ambulances, which is just

0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.359
<v Speaker 1>just about as bad as it gets time to think. Yeah,

0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.280
<v Speaker 1>I think it's also a violation of the Geneva Convention.

0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.000
<v Speaker 1>I'm quite sure, but I think pretty much percent of

0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.280
<v Speaker 1>what the Nazis did was in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.320
<v Speaker 1>That was much out the window from day one, you know,

0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.320
<v Speaker 1>not about following the rules. Well you said too in

0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.760
<v Speaker 1>the article that they weren't the only ones who had

0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:44.440
<v Speaker 1>employed some of the former Nazis certainly not. Yeah, who else, um,

0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.960
<v Speaker 1>you know, even the American government. Um, I think you

0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.519
<v Speaker 1>said the British too. You know. Basically, if they had something,

0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.240
<v Speaker 1>uh that that they could use, the governments could use that,

0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.200
<v Speaker 1>they were willing to take them on. I know a

0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.560
<v Speaker 1>lot of that. The nuclear and rocket scientists too, were

0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.520
<v Speaker 1>were very important for them to uh to grab before

0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.880
<v Speaker 1>they could be tried. I guess definitely Project paper Clip.

0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:11.680
<v Speaker 1>It was an actual secret project undertaken by the United

0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.239
<v Speaker 1>States government to poach as many Nazi scientists as possible.

0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.919
<v Speaker 1>Some of them were war criminals, some of them were

0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.560
<v Speaker 1>lesser known, lesser involved people. But you know, a lot

0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:24.440
<v Speaker 1>of people argue that we wouldn't have made it to

0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.519
<v Speaker 1>space first had it not been for former Nazi scientists

0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.520
<v Speaker 1>like Verna von Brown and some of the other guys

0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.920
<v Speaker 1>like him who really helped on the American rocket team.

0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.960
<v Speaker 1>That's amazing to think about that they would be exonerated,

0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.280
<v Speaker 1>you know, simply because of you know, some of the

0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.320
<v Speaker 1>other things that they could bring. But at least maybe

0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.920
<v Speaker 1>they could uh make some positive contributions. And I think also, um,

0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:51.400
<v Speaker 1>from my understanding, Americans did undertake a process of determining

0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.200
<v Speaker 1>just how involved you know, a certain person was, at

0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.040
<v Speaker 1>least the the U. S. Government. I think with the

0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.920
<v Speaker 1>c i A. It was a a different matter. I

0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.640
<v Speaker 1>think they used whoever they felt could help them. I

0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.120
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't no matter what involvement they had. Do you know

0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.440
<v Speaker 1>anything about that? Honestly, I don't. I haven't done done

0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.560
<v Speaker 1>nearly as much research as year. Well, let me Adolf Eichmann, who,

0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.880
<v Speaker 1>like I said, was finally captured. He was actually kidnapped

0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.520
<v Speaker 1>in Argentina by the massade. Uh. He was used by

0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.880
<v Speaker 1>the CIA as a West German agent um and they

0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.240
<v Speaker 1>knew who he was, they knew what he'd done, and

0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.440
<v Speaker 1>they were still using him as a secret agent in

0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:34.120
<v Speaker 1>West Germany. It's amazing. Well that's it for for Are

0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.039
<v Speaker 1>there still Nazi more criminals at large? You can find

0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.320
<v Speaker 1>out more about it on how stuff works dot com.

0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:45.279
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening for more on this and thousands of

0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:50.719
<v Speaker 1>other topics. Because it how stuff works dot Com brought

0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.960
<v Speaker 1>to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:54.599
<v Speaker 1>are you