as world war ii drew to a close the hunt was already
on to locate and punish the highest-ranking nazis
some like adolf hitler joseph goebbels hermann goering and heinrich himmler committed suicide
others like adolf eichmann were finally captured and brought the trial but what about those who
were never found after the war how did top nazis escape the allied manhunts where do they go and
why hello i'm colin heaton former soldier marine corps scott sniper history professor historian and
book author and we'll answer these questions and other issues on this segment of forgotten history
heinrich mueller was at the top of the list and his fate after world war ii remained unknown for
decades despite multiple investigations he started his career as a policeman before being a pilot in
the first world war he worked with hitler himmler and theodore ike in the night of the long knives
where the ss purged the sa and arrested their senior leadership and executed sa leader ernst
rome mueller devised and enhanced interrogation techniques to include torture in september of 1939
the gestapo and other police organizations were consolidated into the reich means security office
or rsha mueller was appointed chief of rsha out 4 the gestapo mueller oversaw the implementation of
hitler's policies against jews resistance members and other groups deemed a threat he helped plan
the phony polish attack on the gliwicz radio station in 1939 used to justify germany's attack
on poland he was also responsible for the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of soviet
persons of war jews and political prisoners mueller was also one of the 15 members of the
blindside conference on january 20th 1942 and was a direct subordinate to reinhard heydrich
adolf eichmann became mueller's direct subordinate after heydrich's assassination in june 1942 that
same month he ordered that the evidence of einstein's group and murders be destroyed as
the death camps were being built and placed into operation he signed the bullet order of march 1944
which authorized the shooting of escaped prisons of war a major violation of the geneva conventions
he also authorized the torture of officers suspected of involvement in the july 20th 1944
stauffenberg bomb plot to kill hitler mueller also ran the route cappell the red orchestra counter
espionage operation specializing in capturing soviet spies and turning them into german assets
which was among the greatest soviet intelligence setbacks of the war mueller's efforts earned him
the rare military declaration of the knights cross to the war service cross with swords in october
1944 last seen in hitler's bunker on april 29 1945 it was assumed that he had been killed possibly
with a boar man who also disappeared the documents showed that in a mass grave of 2400 people
many were still unidentified and in the jewish cemetery in berlin submitted section
there was only one in a gestapo general's uniform according to the paperwork at the time and the
identification papers were with the body but this information was suppressed as the soviets
controlled that area at the time rumors were that he had escaped to syria and created their secret
police living under a new identity others believed he had been captured and worked for the soviets
while other rumors had him living either in south america cuba panama germany or austria
under an assumed name as a result after the war mueller's wife and a mistress were both
placed under years of surveillance however his death was officially confirmed in october 2013
when evidence surfaced that he had been buried in a mass grave in berlin in 1945
but it wasn't really mueller there had not been any forensic tests dental records matched and
to date there was not even a dna test that question may still be unanswered
martin borman was the secretary of the nazi party and always one of hitler's constant companions
the mystery surrounding his disappearance also stirred great debate he was an early conspirator
in the holocaust also working with himmler and the ss hierarchy in organizing the von says conference
to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the final solution of the jewish
question this meeting was where the holocaust was created martin borman was never heard from again
and mysteries surrounding his disappearance also stirred great debate the nuremberg trials that
followed tried to boorman in absentia increasing the belief that he was still alive reports came in
from all over the world that he was in argentina and other places gorman's own chauffeur jacob
glass claimed he saw him in munich in 1946 and borman's wife was placed under surveillance the
cia and the west german governments attempted to locate borman without success for many years
sightings were reported at points all over the world including australia denmark italy and south
america in his autobiography nazi intelligence officer reinhard galen claimed that borman had
been a soviet spy and that he had escaped to moscow retired postal worker albert crumno
gave a statement in 1963 that he was on a burial detail that may have buried both men
the west german government declared that its hunt for borman was over in 1971 and on december 7 1972
construction workers uncovered human remains near where krumnov claimed to have buried the
bodies and a tentative identification was made the size of the body skull and existence of a
clavicle fracture consistent with an old writing injury sustained by bormann still did not consider
the matter closed and this was not considered conclusive nazi hunter simon wiesenthal had
always believed that bourbon was living in south america wiesenthal also followed all leads related
to borman's sightings however in 1998 dna was extracted from the skull believed to be mormons
and matched to his son and the confirmation was made the mystery of martin bormann is now closed
dr joseph mengele was the most high-profile nazi known to have escaped through the rat line into
south america who remained at large after eichmann in 1935 he earned a phd in physical anthropology
from the university of munich he also held a medical doctoral degree in genetic medicine
during the war he was assigned as a battalion surgeon on the eastern front to the 5th ss
division viking from june 1941 until january 1943 where he served the great distinction wounded
severely in a combat action that earned him the iron cross first and second class and the wounded
badge he was recommended for the award and a promotion ironically it was dr mengele who tended
to have badly wounded leon degrel in 1942 and they were both caught in the same battle the wounded
mengele returned to germany in january 1943 after he recovered he began work at the kaiser wilhelm
institute for anthropology human genetics and eugenics in april of 1943 he received a promotion
to the rank of ss captain or hobstone fury this promotion shortly proceeded mengeles transferred
to auschwitz on may 30th 1943 where he worked under ss captain dr edward verts his experiments
on twins gypsies dwarves and other interesting human specimens at auschwitz became legendary and
also horrified the world when they were discovered he also earned the nicknames angel of death
and white angel from his selecting those who would be saved for work or medical experiments and those
who would go immediately to the gas chambers as the soviet army advanced through poland mengele
fled and spent the next few weeks at the gross rosen concentration camp until its evacuation
he then fled west again to obey capture by the soviets simon wiesenthal and the mossad tracked
his movements for many years but were never quite able to pin down his location as they had eichmann
much of our early knowledge of mingle's activities at auschwitz comes from dr miklos nidiasi
a prisoner physician forced to work from england he askely published his experiences initially in
his native hungarian in 1946 his work titled auschwitz a doctor's eyewitness account
appeared in english in 1960. mengele spent a decade in paraguay before moving to brazil but he
still lived an impoverished nomadic and itinerant life the reason for not locating him easily was
that mengele unlike aikman never established a family in his new life and was therefore not
tied down his own biological son rolf mengele born in 1944 did travel to brazil to meet his estranged
father whom he had never seen in 1977. mingle has spent the last years of his life near sao paulo
in declining help mingler suffered a stroke and drowned while swimming at a vacation resort near
bertie yoga brazil on february 7 1979. he was buried in sao paulo under the name wolfgang
gerhart in 1985 german police working on evidence they had recently confiscated from a mengele
family friend in goonsburg located the grave and exhumed his corpse brazilian forensic experts
positively identified the remains as joseph mengele in 1992 dna evidence confirmed this
conclusion mengele had eluded his captors for 34 years the top nazis who fled went to countries
that had lenient extradition policies if any and those countries whose leaderships were at least
relaxed if not acquiescent to the third reich the one exception was brazil which would have
arrested mengele if they had known he was there and who he was in the end the fates of these men
has been resolved although conspiracy theorists will still believe that at least one if not
most escaped justice and lived out their lives in prosperity or at least in anonymity
we hope you enjoyed this segment of forgotten history please click like and subscribe for free
and please stay tuned and be engaged and informed send us comments if you have questions or even
show ideas and we will respond to all requests and comments as soon as we can thank you you