Thankfully not all of them remained at large. However, too many did and never saw the inside of a prison cell.
Here is a list of some of these nazi criminals and their fate:
Nazi criminals that got away. At first:
Adolf Eichmann: Eichmann was one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. He was responsible for the logistics of mass deportations of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. After the war, he escaped to Argentina. He was captured by Israeli Mossad agents in 1960 and brought to trial in Israel, where he was executed in 1962.
Klaus Barbie: Barbie, a high-ranking SS officer known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” was responsible for numerous war crimes in France during World War II. He escaped to South America and lived under various aliases. In 1983, he was finally arrested in Bolivia and extradited to France, where he faced trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Erich Priebke. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Erich Priebke: Priebke, an SS captain, was responsible for the massacre of 335 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine Caves in Rome in 1944. Like so many others he fled to Argentina, where he lived openly for decades. Priebke was finally extradited to Italy in 1994 to face trials for his crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2013 at the age of 100 years.
Herberts Cukurs: Cukurs was a Latvian pilot and member of the Arajs Kommando, a Latvian auxiliary police unit that is known for his involvement in the Holocaust and the murder of Jews in Latvia. In 1965, a team of Mossad agents located Cukurs in Montevideo, Uruguay, and he was confronted at a house in an operation known as “Operation Last Chance.” Cukurs was killed during the encounter.
Nazi criminals that got away completely:
Josef Mengele: Known as the “Angel of Death,” Mengele was an SS officer and a physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He performed deadly experiments on prisoners and was a central figure in the camp’s selection process. Mengele escaped to South America after the war and was never captured. He died in 1979.
Heinrich Müller: Müller was the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany. “Gestapo Müller”, as he was called, was last seen in the Führerbunker in Berlin on May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler’s suicide. His fate remains a mystery, as he was never captured or confirmed dead.
Alois Brunner 1940. Unknown Author. Public domain.
Alois Brunner: “I would do it all again” Alois Brunner said in an interview. Brunner was an Austrian Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who worked as Adolf Eichmann’s assistant. He was involved in the deportation of Jews. After the war, he lived in Syria under the alias Georg Fischer and died there in 2001 or 2010.
Aribert Heim: Heim, a doctor at the Mauthausen concentration camp known as “Dr. Death,” conducted sadistic medical experiments on prisoners. After the war, he escaped capture and lived in various countries, including Egypt and Uruguay. Heim remained on the run until his death in 1992, never facing trial for his crimes.
Walter Rauff: Rauff was an SS officer involved in the creation of mobile gas vans – vehicles designed to suffocate victims with exhaust fumes. After the war, he escaped to Chile and lived there until his death in 1984.
Eduard Roschmann: Roschmann, known as the “Butcher of Riga,” was a commander in the Riga Ghetto during the Holocaust. After the war, he managed to escape and found refuge in Argentina. In the 1970s, efforts were made to capture him, but Roschmann was tipped off and fled to Paraguay, where he lived until his death in 1977.
According to an article “Most Nazis escaped justice. Now Germany is racing to convict those who got away” on cnn.com, only a small percentage of the more than 200.000 perpetrators of nazi era crimes were ever brought to justice. Only 6,656 were ever convicted.