Austria offers 50,000-euro reward for fugitive Nazis

Jul 13, 2007, 15:51 GMT

Vienna - Austria's Justice Ministry on Friday announced rewards of 50,000 euros each for information leading to the capture of Nazi war criminals Aribert Heim and Alois Brunner.

Brunner, now aged 95, is accused of having assisted in the deportation of Jews from German-occupied Hungary and Greece as an officer in the elite Nazi SS organization.

'In the rank of SS captain, part-time commander of the central office for Jewish emigration in Vienna and through his operation in the then occupied areas especially in Greece and Hungary, Alois Brunner is strongly suspected of being significantly involved in the deportation of Jewish persons with the aim of murdering them,' the Justice Ministry stated on its website.

The statement referred to the Austrian as 'one of the coworkers of Adolf Eichmann,' a central figure carrying out Nazi Germany's extermination of the European Jews. Often referred to as 'Eichmann's best man,' Brunner is believed to be living in Syria, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Former concentration camp medic, Heim (now 93) is believed to be in hiding in South America and is accused of murdering hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen death camp via injections or organ removals without anaesthesia.

The medic, who ran a doctor's practice in Baden-Baden in Germany after World War II, has been on the run since 1962.

The notices, complete with photos and physical description will be officially posted in Vienna newspapers next week, a ministry spokesman was quoted by the Austrian Press Agency as saying.

Justice Minister Maria Berger did not rule out further rewards for alleged Nazi war criminals.