Nazi commander 'was CIA agent'

2004-06-13 13:30

Berlin - An 86-year-old ex-commander of a Nazi German army unit charged with murdering 164 people at the end of World War II worked as a double agent for the United States, Focus magazine says in its new edition.

Ladislav Niznansky, who is in custody in Munich, southern Germany, worked as a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency while he was a member of the Czech secret service just after the worker, it said quoting CIA documents.

Niznansky is accused over the massacre of 146 people in two villages in modern-day Slovakia and later of ordering the execution of 18 Jews. He was arrested in January after a probe by Czech and Slovak officials.

In its edition on sale on Monday, Focus said he collaborated with the CIA just after he recruited by the Czech secret service in 1947 to keep tabs on the communist opposition in Austria.

He supplied the Americans with codenames, the addresses of safe houses and helped turn in enemy agents, according to the documents.

Niznansky lived unnoticed for years in Munich where he used to work for Radio Free Europe until he obtained German citizenship in 1996.

In early 1945, Niznansky was the commander of the Slovakian section of a Nazi unit codenamed Edelweiss that was tasked with hunting resistance fighters after an attempted uprising.

On January 21, 1945 the unit, which also included SS troops, rounded up and shot 146 people from Klak and Ostry Grun, including 70 women and 51 children, according to the statement.

Niznansky is said to have ordered that no one should be allowed to escape, and to have personally shot dead 20 of the victims.

On February 7, 1945 he formed an execution commando and ordered the killing of 18 Jews who had been found hiding in bunkers, prosecutors said.

He was sentenced to death in his absence in 1962 by a Czech court.

- AFP