Old Nazis Update

One of the top missing Nazi war criminals, Aribert Heim, who the sadistic SS doctor from Mauthausen concentration camp, who was captured by U.S. forces after World War II and then mysteriously released, is now reported dead. From Associated Press:

Horst Haug, spokesman for the Baden-Wuerttemberg state police unit that investigates Nazi-era crimes, said his office received word earlier this week from a person "close to Aribert Heim" confirming the most-wanted fugitive died in Egypt in 1992.

He would not identify the informant, saying only that "it was a serious source that we take earnestly." He added that his office is now working on a request to Egyptian authorities for German investigators to search there for definitive proof of Heim's death.

But other investigators are disputing the reports of Heim's death. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, for one, is dubious. From a BBC report:

"There's no body, no corpse, no DNA, no grave," Efraim Zuroff, the centre's leading Nazi hunter, told AP agency....

"We can't sign off on a story like this because of some semi-plausible explanation," he said.

"Keep in mind these people have a vested interest in being declared dead - it's a perfectly crafted story; that's the problem, it's too perfect," Mr Zuroff told the AP.

In its report, ZDF quoted witnesses, including Heim's son, as confirming that Aribert Heim, who was also known as Doctor Death, died in 1992.

Meanwhile, in another part of Europe, German broadcaster DW-World reports on the backlash from German Pope Benedict's reinstatement of a Catholic bishop who denied the extent of the holocaust.

Pope Benedict XVI has taken heat from all sides, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for reinstating a bishop who denied the Holocaust. Many readers are angry at the pope, while others take aim at Merkel.

One reader from Australia wrote:

Pope Benedict has checkmated himself with this crazy bishop move. Benedict is morally and politically crippled as a result of his invitation to Williamson and his nefarious associates. If Benedict pleads ignorance of the anti-Semitic smell then he condemns himself as either a fool or a liar: 10 minutes on the Web gives you the odor and Benedict has spent a considerable proportion of his career immersed in Catholic power machinations -- more often than not, sitting in the cockpit. If Benedict pleads pastoral healing then he condemns himself as either a fool or a sympathizer. His invitation has given oxygen to hate-mongering lies of the worst kind -- a sin several orders of magnitude worse than the internal Catholic power play that caused the original excommunication. The chief shepherd has opened the gate to wolves -- he's lost the plot and must either resign or be sacked.

Now, the Pope, who says he was unaware of British Bishop Richard Williamson's views on the holocaust, i.e., there were no gas chambers, only 300,000 died, not 6 million, etc., is demanding the Bishop, who belongs to the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X, recant his views.

Over sixty years since the end of World War II and we still are trying to clean up the mess left over by the orgy of fascism and totalitarian war and genocide. How long will it take us to clean up the mess left over by the imperialist war-mongering and torture fest that was the Bush Administration. Many members of the latter are pushing to keep the new Obama Administration prosecuting the "Global War on Terror." And if the latter will not carry all the bells and whistles of the Bush effort -- a large extraordinary rendition program, torture, indefinite detention -- then some are pushing to save at least some lesser version of those old polices.

German Pope Rehabilitates Holocaust Denier

Jesus, this headline practically wrote itself, as Reuters reports that Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of four far-right bishops belonging to the Society of Saint Pius X. Now, I don't care about the internal policies of the Roman Catholic Church, and what their ceremonies should be, or who should name bishops, or whatever the controversies over how to administrate this leftover from medieval times are.

But one of the four restored bishops is Richard Williamson, who has become notorious for making statements denying the extent of the Holocaust. From the article:

In comments to Swedish television broadcast on Wednesday and widely available on the Internet, Williamson said "I believe there were no gas chambers" and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of 6 million.

"I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler," he said.

Besides the obscenity that such a statement is, the sentiments feed anti-Semitic attitudes among many impressionable and/or bigoted people. They are also fertile recruiting slogans for the Zionists who run Israel, because they can point to such poisonous statements, now seemingly okay within Vatican circles, as a rationale for the nationalism that fuels Israel's attacks on the Palestinians and their leadership, such as the recent assault on Gaza that killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

Meanwhile, the Vatican thumbed its nose at Jewish leaders who protested the Pope's actions. Calling Williamson's holocaust denial merely "open to criticism", a Vatican spokesman said the comments were"'totally extraneous' to the lifting of the excommunications."

But Jewish leaders did not accept the explanation. They questioned why the Vatican had not issued a clear statement condemning Williamson and one said privately the decree represented "a nail in the coffin of 50 years of dialogue."

The Pope's actions should clearly be condemned.