艾瑞伯特·海姆1914—1992

以色列的国际犹太人权组织西蒙·维森塔尔中心将海姆列为“最后机会任务”（Operation: Last Chance）中“仍在世的纳粹10大战犯”之首。

Aribert Ferdinand Heim (28 June 1914 – 10 August 1992), also known as Dr. Death and Butcher of Mauthausen, was an Austrian Schutzstaffel (SS) doctor. During World War II, he served at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Mauthausen, killing and torturing inmates using various methods, such as the direct injection of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims and removing the organs of victims without anesthesia. He also was responsible for a high but unknown number of deaths due to the experimentation.

After the war, Heim lived in Cairo, Egypt, under the alias of Tarek Farid Hussein after his conversion to Islam. In February 2009, after years of attempts to locate him, German television network ZDF had found Heim's passport and other documents in Cairo. It was then reported that Heim had died there on 10 August 1992 from complications of rectal cancer, according to testimony by his son Rüdiger and lawyer. This information, though set forth by a German court, was questioned by Efraim Zuroff, a leading Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Zuroff stated that on a visit to Puerto Montt, Chile, in July 2008, Heim's daughter told him that Heim had died in 1993 in Argentina. In 2012, a court in Baden-Baden confirmed again that Heim had died in 1992 in Egypt, based on new evidence provided by his family and lawyer. The Wiesenthal Center continued to dispute these findings, and Heim remained on the list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals until 2013.

Early life

Heim was born on 28 June 1914, in Bad Radkersburg, Austria-Hungary, the son of a policeman and a housewife. He studied in Graz, and received his diploma in medicine from the University of Vienna in 1940, two years after Austria was annexed by Germany. Later the same year he volunteered to join Hitler's elite Waffen SS. In October 1941, Heim was assigned to Mauthausen near Linz, Austria as a camp doctor.

Mauthausen concentration camp

Aribert Heim worked in Mauthausen for six weeks as a doctor starting in October 1941 at the age of 27. Prisoners at Mauthausen called Heim "Dr. Death", or the "Butcher of Mauthausen" for his cruelty.

According to witnesses, Heim worked closely with SS pharmacist Erich Wasicky. The two performed gruesome experiments together, such as injecting various solutions into the hearts of Jewish prisoners to see which killed them the fastest.

Military career

From February 1942, Heim served in the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord in northern Finland, especially in Oulu's hospitals as an SS doctor. His service continued until at least October 1942.

On 15 March 1945, Heim was captured by US soldiers and sent to a camp for prisoners of war. He would remain imprisoned for a two-and-a-half year period.

Investigations and possible sightings

In the years following his disappearance, Heim was the target of a rapidly escalating manhunt and ever-increasing rewards for his capture. Following his escape there were reported sightings in Latin America, Spain and Africa, as well as formal investigations aimed at bringing him to justice, some of which took place even after he had apparently died in Egypt.

Later years and death

Heim and his former wife, Friedl, had two sons. He also had a daughter, Waltraud, born out of wedlock living in Chile.

In 2006, a German newspaper reported that his daughter, Waltraud, living on the outskirts of Puerto Montt, Chile, said he had died in 1993. However, when she tried to recover a multimillion-euro inheritance from an account in his name, she was unable to provide a death certificate.

In popular culture

Israeli author Danny Baz published The Secret Executioners in 2007, in which he claimed that a clandestine organisation called 'The Owl', operating outside of international law, tracked Heim down and assassinated him in the U.S. on an island off the California coast in 1982. Baz claimed he was a member of 'The Owl' himself and claimed that his group carried out several assassinations of Nazis who had sought refuge in the US. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has expressed doubts regarding Baz's claims.