Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky accused Wiesenthal repeatedly in 1970s and 1980s of being a collaborator with the Gestapo.
"Wiesenthal was a liar and a fraud. I’d go so far as to say he was one of the biggest conmen of the 20th century."
His accounts of receiving a diploma as an architectural engineer in 1939 are rubbish. did he graduate from Prague. He matriculated in Feb 1929, but never completed his degree! Despite a lack of academic credentials, he would fraudulently use his supposed engineering diploma on his letter paper for the rest of his life.
During the war, he claimed to have spent years in a succession of concentration camps. He claimed time in Auschwitz — a claim for which there is no record. He claimed to escape and join partisans, becoming an officer. There is no evidence.
His biggest lie was his involvement in the hunt / capture of Eichmann. Quite unjustifiable.
Why I believe the king of the Nazi hunters, Simon Wiesenthal, was a fraud
10th September 2010
Revered: But did the Nazi hunter build his reputation on fantasy?
Rewriting history: Wiesenthal is shown attending a trial of suspected Nazi war criminals in Vienna, Austria in 1958
Those who thrilled at his life story can now do so once more, thanks to a new biography written by the Israeli historian Tom Segev.
The figure who emerges in the book is far more complex than one might expect.
Dr Segev shows that so much of Wiesenthal’s account of his life was the product of exaggeration and self-mythologising.
Appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme this week, the author said Wiesenthal was ‘a storyteller, a man who lived between reality and fantasy’.
In my view, Simon Wiesenthal was a liar and a fraud. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he was one of the biggest conmen of the 20th century.
I spent four years working on a history of Nazi-hunting that was published last year, and the material I gathered on Wiesenthal was enough to make me scream out loud.
But when I looked at all his memoirs, biographies and original archive material, I realised that, like so many others, the image I had built up of Simon Wiesenthal was hopelessly incorrect.
There were too many distortions and inconsistencies, too many outright lies — none of which could be explained away by sympathetic psycho-babble offered by the likes of Dr Segev.
The fact is that Wiesenthal lied about nearly everything in his life.
All of these accounts are rubbish.
The archives have records for other students from that period, but not for Wiesenthal — and there were no quota restrictions on Jewish students at that time.
Neither did he graduate from Prague. Although he matriculated on February 21, 1929, Wiesenthal never completed his degree. He passed his first state examination on February 15, 1932, and then he left that same year.
Despite a lack of academic credentials, he would fraudulently use his supposed engineering diploma on his letter paper for the rest of his life.
During the war, Wiesenthal claimed to have spent years in and out of a succession of concentration camps.
Although he certainly spent time in camps such as Mauthausen, he also said he had been in Auschwitz — a claim for which there is no record.
‘My rank was not so much as a strategic expert as a technical expert.’
One only needs a basic grasp of World War II military history to know that Wiesenthal’s claims are highly dubious.
As a Jew, it is also highly unlikely that he would have been made an officer in such a group, which was usually anti-semitic.
But the multiplicity of conflicting accounts demands that questions about the authenticity of his story must be raised by those who, like me, have no agenda.
However, I have no compunction in stating that the biggest lie he spun was over his involvement in the hunt and eventual capture of Adolf Eichmann, a supposed coup with which he will always be associated — and quite unjustifiably.
According to the myth, Simon Wiesenthal star ted hunting Eichmann almost as soon as the war was over.
Unfortunately, Wiesenthal’s intelligence was useless. Not only was he unable to supply Eichmann’s alias — Riccardo Klement — but at the time of the Baron’s letter, Eichmann was in fact working more than 800 miles from Buenos Aires, and by March 1954 he was living in the Argentine capital trying to establish his own business.
Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk
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