DOSSIER ON MENGELE RELEASED

GENEVA, SEPTEMBER 10 /SRNA/ - The Swiss intelligence service today released a 200-page dossier on notorious Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death for conducting horrific medical experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Historians searching for Mengele sought to establish whether he had spent time in Switzerland and asked the country to provide them with documents. The Swiss authorities had required that, for security reasons, the documents remain sealed until 2071 in order to protect the individuals named in them.

Historian Gérard Wettstein successfully challenged these restrictions before the Federal Supreme Court, after which the documents were published online.

The Swiss authorities said that parts of the documents had been redacted in order to protect sources and the personal data of third parties.

Among the documents released is material submitted to the police suggesting that Mengele may have returned to Switzerland after fleeing Germany or that he had planned to enter the country using a false name, German news agency DPA reported.

At the Auschwitz concentration camp, where around 1.1 million people were killed, Mengele carried out brutal experiments on prisoners, including children, under the guise of scientific research.

After the war, he managed to obtain Red Cross travel documents, which enabled him to leave Europe.

Like many Nazi officials, he spent many years hiding in South America before drowning in 1979 off the coast of the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.