Argentina’s government will declassify all government-held files on Nazi fugitives who settled in Argentina after World War II, a top official has confirmed.
Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos announced Tuesday that President Javier Milei had ordered the release and declassification of the archives.
The files will concern “Nazis who sought refuge in Argentina and were protected for many years,” Francos explained in an exclusive interview with journalist Alfredo Leuco for the DNEWS media outlet.
The order includes documents detailing banking and financial transactions, as well as records held by Argentina’s Defence Ministry, said the official.
Milei’s decision follows a meeting at the Casa Rosada on February 17, 2025, between the head of state and US Republican Senator Steve Daines, an ally of US President Donald Trump and advocate for public access to the documents.
Francos made his announcement just a day after Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni said that secret files on the actions of the Armed Forces during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship would be declassified.
"The President has instructed that all relevant documents from any state institution be made public because there is no reason to keep them classified," Francos said.
Like Adorni’s announcement on the military files, he noted that an earlier government decree had ordered the release of these files, but that it had never been implemented.
"What the President is saying is that these are historical records that must be available in the National General Archive so that anyone can access them,” explained the Cabinet chief.
A number of notorious Nazi war criminals escaped and found refuge in Argentina after World War II. Many of the fugitives arrived in the immediate post-war years, during the first government of Juan Domingo Perón, and were shielded from justice for decades.
Among the most infamous was Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the "Final Solution" — the Nazi party’s genocidal plan to exterminate European Jews.
Eichmann arrived in Argentina in 1950 under the alias ‘Ricardo Klement,’ using one of a series of international escape routes for fascists known as the "ratlines." He lived discreetly in Buenos Aires until 1960, when he was captured by Mossad and taken to Israel, where he was tried and executed.
Another notorious fugitive was Josef Mengele, the man known as Auschwitz’s "Angel of Death," who was infamous for carrying out brutal medical experiments.
Mengele arrived in Argentina in 1949 and lived there for a decade before fleeing to Paraguay and later to Brazil, where he died in 1979 under a false identity.
Former SS commander Erich Priebke, who responsible for the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Italy, also settled in Argentina in 1948, living in Bariloche until his discovery in the 1990s and subsequent extradition to Italy.
– TIMES/NA/PERFIL
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