Nazi hunters use adverts in bid to snare Dr Death

Published on Wednesday 9 July 2008 21:46

NAZI hunters are hoping to flush out the most notorious member of the Third Reich still believed to be alive, Aribert Heim, known as "Dr Death", in southern Chile – with an advertising campaign.

Heim, who passed his 94th birthday on 28 June if he is still alive, documented the hundreds of victims he murdered and tortured at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during the Second World War.

The Nazi hunters believe he is hiding out in the Patagonia region of southern Chile, also home to his daughter.

"In the last few days we've received information from two different sources, both relating to Chile, which we think have very good potential," said Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. The group has put up a €315,000, (250,551) reward for information leading to the arrest of Heim, known to have decorated his wartime office with human body parts, using the skull of a man he decapitated as a paperweight.

Mr Zuroff and his team flew yesterday to Puerto Montt, a town 657 miles south of the Chilean capital Santiago, where Heim's daughter lives. They are hoping residents may come forward with new information.

The visit is part of what they call Operation Last Chance, which will include an advertising campaign in local newspapers in Chile and Argentina.

"We're hoping that our presence in the area will attract the necessary attention to receive the information that we're looking for," Mr Zuroff said.

Mr Zuroff said most evidence suggests Heim is alive. His children have not taken possession of a €1.2 million bank account in his name in Berlin, which would be theirs if they could present proof of his death. They would also have access to some €800,000 in stocks and bonds if Heim were proven dead.

An Austrian who killed hundreds of inmates by injecting petrol or poison in their hearts, Heim has been on the run since evading police in Germany in 1962 prior to a planned prosecution.