ARIBERT HELM

A Nazi War Criminal's Last Years in Cairo

By Markus Deggerich, Amira El Ahl and Jörg Schmitt in Der Spiegel, Germany, February 13, 2009

Aribert Heim, a former concentration camp doctor, apparently received support from his family in Germany as he hid for decades in Egypt. His family allegedly visited him without attracting the attention of authorities and kept mum about his death for 16 years.

DDP

The body of former concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim still hasn't been recovered.

Ataba is a neighborhood in Cairo where tourists rarely go astray. This was probably precisely what made it such a perfect hiding place for the tall German man. Abd al-Hakim Duma remembers the slim, athletic man well. Everyone in the neighborhood called him "the foreigner."
Duma's father owned the Hotel Kasr al-Medina on Port Said Street. The foreigner lived in a plain room on the eighth floor, directly adjacent to the Duma family. "He often came to our apartment for lunch," Abd al-Hakim Duma recalls. After converting to Islam, the German, who spoke fluent Arabic, took the name Tarek Hussein Farid. He was like an uncle to the children, often taking them along on his walks. He cited "problems with his family" at home in Germany as the reason that he emigrated to Egypt.

But his problems were of a more existential nature. The hotel in Cairo was apparently the last refuge for Aribert Heim, who is believed to have committed atrocities and murder at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941 and had been sought by police since 1962. Last week the New York Times and Germany's ZDF television network aired some of the mysteries surrounding the former Nazi's fate. According to their accounts, Heim died of cancer in Cairo on Aug. 10, 1992, at the age of 78. Several witnesses, including Heim's son Rüdiger, and file full of documents allegedly described his life in hiding.
The news of this death on the Nile marks the preliminary end of a decades-long hunt around the globe. But the details also attest to the embarrassingly lax work of the German investigators, who searched for Heim around the world after he had fled Germany in 1962. As far back as 1965 and 1967, the investigators had uncovered clues that Heim was living in Egypt. The German officials mailed friendly requests to the Egyptian authorities, and when they were unable to contribute in a substantive way, the Germans let the matter drop. They failed to notice the regular trips family members were apparently making between Germany and Egypt at the time.

DPA

Aribert Ferdinand Heim allegedly lived in the Kasr el Madina Hotel in Cairo's popular El Muski neighborhood.

According to information SPIEGEL has obtained, Rüdiger Heim was not the only one to visit the convert with a Nazi past in his new home on the Nile. His sister, his Frankfurt attorney and his mother-in-law are also believed to have met with Heim. Of all his relatives, he could rely most on his sister Hertha.
According to information recently uncovered, she was the one who brought cash to Switzerland in a suitcase and transferred it to Egypt from there, using Heim's only slightly modified name (he simply used his middle name, Ferdinand, as his first name). Heim used the money to buy more than just chocolate cake, too. Using a middleman, he bought property, including the Hotel Baghdad and an apartment in Alexandria. Investigators at the time also completely missed the flow of money to Egypt, which was only moderately concealed. Heim's sister, who had always held a protective hand over her brother and his memory, died in 1997. Shortly before her death, she told an acquaintance in Vienna that her brother had died of cancer. But she lied about the place of his death, telling her friend that Heim had passed away in South America. His other confidants remained tight-lipped. Only six months ago, Heim's son Rüdiger said: "If he is dead, I don't know where he is buried."
Investigators suspected for years that Rüdiger Heim knew more than he was saying. They questioned him repeatedly, even after they had received new clues about Egypt in 2004. This time they had a contact make inquiries locally, although he was unable to find a single one of the numerous clues that have now emerged.

AP

Heim apparently lived on this street in Cairo, evading German investigators for decades.

The investigators are irritated by the revelation that Heim's family, living in the southwestern German city of Baden-Baden, had not reported the fugitive's death in the last 16 years. Their doubts are also fueled by a current clue, unearthed in late January, that Heim supposedly lives in Spain and still receives money from family and friends. For this reason, the investigators are not yet prepared to close the case. Experts are still perplexed by the missing body and the strange role played by Heim's son Rüdiger. He claims to have been by his father's side when he died, but that he knows nothing about the whereabouts of the body. The Stuttgart investigators' next step is to search for DNA evidence in Cairo.
A fully packed briefcase belonging to Haim, which has now surfaced, closes some gaps in information about the suspected war criminal's spectacular run from the law. One of the documents is an eight-page letter to SPIEGEL, dated March 19, 1979, as a "response" to an article the magazine published about Heim's dark past. In the letter, which he never sent, Heim sets aside suspicions that he had received an insider tip before his abrupt disappearance in 1962. It was "pure coincide," Heim writes, "that the police were unable to arrest me, because (I) happened to be away from my house on business at the time."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

On July 18, 1936, the Spanish Civil War began as Gen. Francisco Franco led an uprising of army troops based in North Africa.

Spain Checks Army Rising as Morocco Forces Rebel; 2 Cities in Africa Bombed Leftist Cabinet Quits Resigns After Blocking Home Plot by Jailing Many Officers Seville Revolt Crushed But All Spanish Morocco Is Held by Revolutionary Force Numbering 20,000Outbreak in the Canaries Warships Rushed to Both Areas -- Workers Had Assured the Government of Support By William P. Carney Wireless to The New York Times OTHER HEADLINES Thomas Tells Convention of Townsend Plan Flaws; Delegates Donate $30,000: Socialist Nominee Booed: But He Tells Delegates Their 'Quack Remedy' Could Never Work: He Is Critical of Coughlin: Declares the Priest Has Not Retracted Gibe at Scheme as 'Economic Insanity': Hat is Passed for Fund: Coins and Bills Rain Down as Two Smiths Bury Hatchet for Effective Appeal Coughlin Is Chided by Detroit Bishop:Gallagher, Sailing for Vatican, Deplores Priest's Reference to President as Liar: Holds Course Untactful: But Prelate Praises Policies of Radio Preacher and Defends His Right to Criticize. Drought to Force 1,000,000 in West on 'Dole' in Winter: Relief Estimate for 5 States Is Made as Government Increases Jobs to 65,000: 16 States on Needy List: Rains Cool Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, but Southwest Still Sizzles Mark Wollner, Violinist, Is Seized in Co-Ed's Murder at Asheville: Musician Who Studied in Europe and Made Debut in New York Offers Alibi Backed by Girl, but Is Held for Questioning -- Watchman and Bellboy Are Also Detained Mayor Asks Voters to Nominate Berle:Rebuffed by Republicans, He Picks New Dealer as His Choice to Head Aldermen: Brunner Aided by Rift: United Support Is Held Vital to Morris -- Socialists Now Hope for Second Place Roosevelt Sails Through Fog Bank:President Drops Anchor in Nova Scotia Inlet After Fun From Cape Sable: Boards Escorting Yacht: Presses Radio Button Opening Fort Worth Fair -- Executive Has Grown Board on Cruise Canton Collapse Adds 200,000 Men to Nanking Forces:Chiang Kai-shek Also Inherits 300 Planes and Vast Arms and Munitions Stores: Japan Suffers a Blow: Central Regime Likely to Be Less Compliant to Tokyo's Demands in the North Nazis Defy League; Crush Danzig Foes:Forbid Appeal to Courts or to Geneva From Curbs or to Geneva From Curtis on Civil Liberties: Fear Grips Entire City: Most Families Said to Have Opposition Ties -- Deal With Poland Is Suspected Austrian Army Mission Goes to Consult Reich Hoover to Take Stump, Party Leaders Say, With First Speeches in Maine Campaign Lawyer Who Stood on Trip From Albany Demands Damages and Rail Fare Back Madrid, July 18 (Passed by the Censor) -- The Spanish Government announces that an extensive plot against the republic has broken out. It is now learned from the government that rebels seized the radio station in Ceuta, Spanish Morocco, and broadcast an announcement purporting to have been issued by the Seville radio station stating that all government buildings in Madrid had been seized. The government also announces that the Morocco operations were connected with a similar plot in Spain. The plot was quickly suppressed, according to the government, by promptly arresting many army officers, including General Barrera, who entered the Guadaljara military prison this morning. Moroccan Towns Bombed The government further states that the military aviation remained loyal to it and that bombing planes sent from Spain bombarded Ceuta and Melilla, also in Spanish Morocco. [A rebel force of 20,000 held complete control over Spanish Morocco last night, refugees reaching Tangier said, according to an Associated Press Dispatch.] It was learned from official sources that General Queipo de Llano had illegally declared martial law in Seville and had attempted to start a rebellion, which was quickly smothered by loyal troops there. [From French border points came reports of fighting in various Spanish cities, including Cadiz, Burgos, and Barcelona, according to The Associated Press, and at Hendaye it was rumored that all the garrisons in Andalusia had risen.] A telegram from the Civil Governor at Las Palmas, the Canary Islands, said that he and the commanding officer of the Civil Guards there were barricaded in the Governor's palace, which was surrounded and besieged by rebel troops. The Socialist workers' union at Las Palmas has declared a general strike to show its sympathy with the government. Situation in Madrid Normal Madrid presented a perfectly normal aspect today. It was officially denied that the rebels' plan was gradually to close in on the capital and strike here last. The government said in an official statement broadcast repeatedly today from the Ministry of the Interior, "Public order has not been disturbed in Madrid or anywhere in the provinces." The government categorically repudiated rumors that troops had crossed the straits from Morocco and landed at Algeciras or that General Francisco Franco, military Governor of the Canary Islands, had joined the rebellion. [Reports from North Africa said General Franco was heading the revolt in Morocco.] Rumors of a military uprising in the Balearic Islands were also officially refuted. It was officially announced that a "foreign airplane" intended to bring the revolt's leader to Madrid from Morocco had been seized. A joint note issued by the Socialist and Communist labor organizations was broadcast by a union radio station in Madrid tonight. It said that the Marxist trade unions would declare general strikes wherever martial law has been declared by military governors without the government's authorization. All the higher army officers in Madrid called on the War Minister last night to assure him of their loyalty and readiness to fight for the defense of the republic. A statement broadcast by the government early this morning said: "Enemies of the State are still indulging in spreading false news, but the loyalty of all the forces in Spain to the government is general. Only in Morocco are there still parts of our army that are showing a hostile attitude toward the republic. "The Ceuta radio station is trying to create alarm by broadcasting the announcement that some ships have been seized by rebel troops and are heading for the peninsula. The news is completely false. "At the moment our fleet is making for Spanish Morocco ports and is encountering no opposition in its efforts to restore peace. Peace and order will be completely restored very shortly. "The government wishes to make known once more that the rumor in connection with the proposed declaration of martial law in Spain is absolutely baseless. There is no power in Spain other than the civil one and all other subordinate to the civil power, which is the one power in command." The Socialist party's official newspaper, El Socialista, with bold headlines today urged the workers to "close up the guard with the necessary rigor for the decisive occasion." "The regime now faces the difficult test with which it has been threatened for sometime," it added. "But the regime has at its disposal reinforcements as reliable as they are considerable. These reinforcements have been offered unconditionally to the government by Leftist parties and organizations. "As they mount guard, the workers still have not forgotten the repression they suffered in Asturias [chief scene of the 1934 revolt]. The workers know well what they could expect if the regime's adversaries triumphed and succeeded in establishing a Fascist corporative State." A special Cabinet council was convoked tonight at the War Ministry. Although the Socialist leaders Indalecio Prieto and Francisco Largo Caballero have no portfolios, in the government, they were invited by Premier Santiago Casares Quiroga to attend. Jose Lucia, prominent member of the Catholic Popular Actionists and leader of that party in Valencia, sent a message to the government saying: "As a former Minister of the republic, as leader of the Valencia Catholic party, as a Cortes Deputy and as a Spaniard, in this great hour for my country and ignoring party differences for the moment, I wish a place by the side of the government as being the real institution impersonating authority in a republican country against a violence and rebellion."