The Disappearing Act

By Steve Rodan and Elly Sinclair

If there was one Nazi who emerged victorious from World War II, it was Kurt Becher.

The dashing colonel served as the bag man for SS chief Heichrich Himmler, confiscating hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loot from the doomed Jews of Hungary and Poland. Himmler committed suicide after his capture in May 1945, but Becher managed to escape prosecution and regain the loot to make him one of the richest men in Germany.

On paper, this never should have happened. After the war, Becher was under investigation by Hungary, Poland, Switzerland and the United States. But Becher was protected by the Zionist movement and at least one major U.S. Jewish organization, the American Joint Distribution Committee, which dealt with the high-level Nazi during the final year of the war.

Documents from the U.S. archives show how extensive Becher's theft was and suggest how he was able to go scot-free while lower-level Nazis were prosecuted at Nuremberg. The documents report a U.S. Army investigation to find what appeared to be tens of millions of dollars worth of gold and art that Becher tried to smuggle from Austria to neighboring and neutral Switzerland during the last weeks of the war.

Art for V-2s

Becher used the German camp of Redl-Zipf for the operation. Established in October 1943 as a rocket facility in central Austria, the camp at one point contained thousands of slave laborers who tested and produced such rockets as the V-2. As World War II wound down and rocket production dwindled, the SS stepped in and used Redl-Zipf as a base for the huge amount of loot taken from the Jews and others. The cellars of what had been a brewery concealed at least hundreds of valuable works of art, much of it believed to have been the property of the family of the late Manfred Weiss, one of the leading industrialists in Hungary.

Both the Weiss family and the post-war Hungarian government pressed Washington to find Becher and his stolen treasures. U.S. Army headquarters in Austria assigned officers to investigate. Testimony pointed to Becher. Philipp Strecker, a Yugoslav soldier recruited by the SS and stationed at Redl-Zipf recalled Becher and his crew arriving at the camp with a truck and Mercedes automobile. Becher was said to have been accompanied by a few SS men, a Jewish couple and a Hungarian dancer named Irene.

"They have 80 kg. [kilograms] of gold with them, which they carried along from Hungary," Strecker said on May 15, 1945. [1]

George Krallis also remembered Becher. Krallis had been a locksmith at Redl-Zipf and said he heard of Becher repeatedly at the camp. Becher was said to have been working with other SS men to hide the wartime loot and to smuggle the valuables to nearby Switzerland.

"However, I may report that goods of various kinds were located at Redl-Zipf, which brought along to this place by trucks, have been removed again," Krallis said. [2]

The SS operation continued even after the U.S. Army arrived in Redl-Zipf in May 1945. Under the unsuspecting eyes of American soldiers, the SS worked furiously to remove art and other valuables from the underground lairs of the camp.

"At the time of the occupation by the American troops, very much has been plundered at Redl-Zipf," Johann Bachmann, the former police commander at the camp, recalled. "This plundering kept on day and night for a whole week." [3]

Where did the loot go? Bachmann testified that much of the art was smuggled to the University of Vienna, under the administration of Dr. Walter Leibrecht. But the U.S. documents do not report finding any of the stolen art or whether the university was even searched.

Indeed, at every turn, the U.S. Army claimed failure. It could not find the Hungarian art or even Becher. To Budapest, finding Becher was the key.

"[Becher has] perfect knowledge of the exact lieu where those art treasures were hidden as he was present when they were stored," the Hungarian Foreign Ministry was quoted as telling the U.S. Army. [4]

Where was Becher? To hear the U.S. Army and its friends in Washington, Himmler's aide had disappeared. Investigators inquired in several prisoners of war camp to no avail.

The sham

The U.S. investigation, however, was designed to be a sham. One U.S. Army correspondence placed Becher in custody near Bad Ischl and requested access to the inmate. But by now, things turned awry. Becher's name was misspelled to "Bachert" and "Bauchert," and indeed there was nobody in the PoW facilities with that name.

"No one could be traced who had personally known him," a U.S. Army memo read in early 1948. [5]

What happened to the U.S. Army investigation can best be reported by two officers who interrogated Becher in the summer of 1945. Becher insisted that he spent the war trying to save Jews from Hitler and transferred Jewish valuables to JDC's representative in Switzerland, Sally Mayer.

Capt. Carl Kittstein and Sgt. Richard Essex caught up with Mayer in Switzerland and wrote a report that concluded that the Swiss jeweler, instrumental in SS hostage negotiations during the last year of the war, had deposited stolen Jewish valuables in Swiss bank accounts that could be eventually accessed by Becher. Days after their report was submitted, Essex was called into the office of his superior and told never to mention what he had found. [6]

Becher was released from prison in December 1947 and within two years started his journey toward becoming one of the top food exporters in Europe. He sold millions of dollars worth of merchandise to the State of Israel, hailed as a hero by his ex-partner Hungarian Zionist leader Rudolf Kastner. Eventually, U.S. intelligence quietly acknowledged that Becher had withdrawn the Jewish loot from Switzerland within weeks of his release. [7]

Notes

1. Hungarian Claims, File No. 354. NARA

2. Krallis in Ampfwang. Jan. 19, 1948.

3. Bachmann, Dec. 17, 1947.

4. Lt. Col. E.S. McKee, June 12, 1947.

5. "Report" Jan. 12, 1948 and memo of Jan. 20, 1948.

6. Interview of Essex, May 4, 2000, cited in "Whose Booty did German Plunder Become?" Egon Mayer.

7. Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice. Gerald Steinacher. Page 41. Oxfond University Press, 2011

Below: Kurt Becher after World War II