Names of 12,000 Nazis in Argentina revealed in newly-discovered document

Researchers think many of those listed had Swiss bank accounts holding monies from Jewish victims

A picture of the document found in an storage room in the former Nazi headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Wiesenthal Centre)

The names of 12,000 Nazis living in Argentina have been revealed by a newly-discovered list found in an old storage room, researchers say.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a US-based institute known for tracking down Nazis, published a few pages of the document on Monday and said that many of those listed had Swiss bank accounts.

In a statement, the centre said: “We believe that these long-dormant accounts hold monies looted from Jewish victims.”

The list of names were found by an Argentine investigator, Pedro Filipuzzi, in an old storage room in Buenos Aires.

It is thought that many of those named in the document had transferred money to bank accounts at the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, which later became Credit Suisse.

Nazi Germany started to appropriate Jewish property after implementing racist laws in 1935, with much money being sent to Swiss bank accounts.

For much of the 1930s, Argentina was ruled by a pro-Nazi military regime.

Once the anti-Nazi President Roberto Ortiz took power in 1938, he started the “Special Commission to Research Anti-Argentine Activities”.

This commission took possession of a cache of documents, which included the recently rediscovered list, in a raid on the Nazi Unión Alemana de Gremios (German Union of Syndicates).

After a pro-Nazi regime came to power in Buenos Aires in 1943, the findings seized by the commission were thought to have been burned.

The list of names was found by an Argentine investigator, Pedro Filipuzzi, in a storage room in the former Nazi headquarters in Buenos Aires.

In a statement to the AFP news agency, Credit Suisse said it would look into the affair again.

The bank previously cooperated with the Volcker Commission from 1997 to 1999, which investigated dormant Swiss bank accounts belonging to the victims of Nazi persecution.