# Any Nazis still in prison? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2007, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426 "2007-01-18T04:37:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/1 "2007-01-18T04:37:33Z")
After World War II, many Nazi leaders, soldiers, and camp guards were prosecuted for crimes and sentenced to life in prison. Are any of them still alive and serving their sentence? SS Hauptsturmführer [Hermann Hackmann](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hackmann) perhaps? (Wikipedia doesn’t list a date of death, but I’m not sure if that’s because he’s still alive or because his date of death is unknown.) ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/2 "2007-01-18T07:59:46Z")
SS officer [Erich Priebke](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Priebke) escaped after the war and was convicted only in the 1990s. The Wikipedia article is unclear, but I think he is still in Italian custody, under house arrest rather than in a regular prison. His co-defendant Karl Hass died a few years ago. Danish SS officer [Søren Kam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kam) was wanted by Denmark for many years and was just recently arrested in Germany. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/3 "2007-01-18T15:42:48Z")
Is [John Demjanjuk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk) still in prison? ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/4 "2007-01-18T15:55:10Z")
A google search reveals scads of stories about Nazi war criminals still being uncovered, including [this one](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F06%2F22%2Fnhs22.xml) from last summer or [this one](http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-nazi26dec26,0,4570967.story?coll=ktla-news-1) from December. Also found this relavant quote from Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal’s [wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal) > [@](#): > > In April 2003, Wiesenthal announced his retirement, saying that he had found the mass murderers he had been looking for: “I have survived them all. If there were any left, they’d be too old and weak to stand trial today. My work is done.” According to Simon Wiesenthal, the last major Austrian war criminal still alive is Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man, who is believed to be hiding in Syria under the protection of the Bashar Al-Asad regime. However, Wiesenthal was also believed to be working on the case of Aribert Heim, one of the most notorious and wanted Nazi concentration camp doctors, prior to his retirement. Only weeks after Wiesenthal died, Heim was discovered in Spain. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/5 "2007-01-18T16:41:40Z")
[QUOTE=anson2995] A google search reveals scads of stories about Nazi war criminals still being uncovered, including [this one](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F06%2F22%2Fnhs22.xml) from last summer or [this one](http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-me-nazi26dec26,0,4570967.story?coll=ktla-news-1) from December. [/QUOTE] Yes, I know that many war criminals escaped detection after the war, and have been hunted down ever since. However, I’m more interested in those who were apprehended and tried immediately after the war, and who are still serving a life sentence. I suspect that there may still be such prisoners around. For example Rudolf Hess was 92 when he died (and prematurely at that) in 1987 while serving a life sentence at Spandau; there are plenty of war criminals younger than him who, if they are still alive, would be about Hess’s age now. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/6 "2007-01-18T21:31:50Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] However, I’m more interested in those who were apprehended and tried immediately after the war, and who are still serving a life sentence. I suspect that there may still be such prisoners around. [/QUOTE] None of the people sentenced at the various Nuremberg trials (1946-49) are still imprisoned. Some of those who received life sentences are still alive but have had their sentences commuted or have been released for health reasons. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/7 "2007-01-18T21:53:45Z")
Just as a follow up… there were approximately 160 people convicted at the various Nuremberg trials. Of those who were not sentenced to death, the majority had their sentences commuted or were released for health reasons during the 1950s. I’m not positive (it wouldn’t be too hard to check), but I think that other than Hess, the longest prison term served by a Nuremberg convict was Albert Speer, who served 17 years of a 20 year sentence and was released in 1966. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/8 "2007-01-19T00:20:55Z")
[QUOTE=anson2995] None of the people sentenced at the various Nuremberg trials (1946-49) are still imprisoned. Some of those who received life sentences are still alive but have had their sentences commuted or have been released for health reasons. [/QUOTE] Thanks for the info. Any word on those convicted immediately after the war, but at a non-Nuremburg trial? ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/9 "2007-01-19T00:25:10Z")
Wiki list of living Nazi’s: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_living\_Nazis#Known\_to\_be\_alive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_living_Nazis#Known_to_be_alive) ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-nazis-still-in-prison/388426/10 "2007-01-19T01:47:59Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] Thanks for the info. Any word on those convicted immediately after the war, but at a non-Nuremburg trial? [/QUOTE] There were dozens of concentration camp trials… 1600 were tried at Dachau in 1947, and much smaller numbers – usually 40-60 at a time – were tried at Belsen (1945), Auschwitz (1947), and Ravensbruck (1948). But as I mentioned earlier, most of the convicted war criminals who were imprisoned in Germany were released as part of an amnesty program in the early 1950s. The Nuremberg prisoners were in a different category because they were held at Spandau Prison, which was controlled by the Allies. Hess died in 1987, Speer and Baldur von Schirach were released in 1966. They were the only Nuremburg convicts still in prison after 1957. To summarize, if the question is whether there were any Nazi war criminals who were caught and convicted before 1950 who are still in prison – I’m nearly positive that the answer is no, and that the last three to be in captivity are the three men I mentioned above from Spandau Prison.