61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

economy syndicate in Switzerland, Petrola AG, under the control of the «Energy
and Heating Section» («Sektion Kraft und Wärme»), which in turn was headed by
the prominent Socialist Robert Grimm. But now the war was over, Germany was
occupied, and the Allies were demanding the extradition of Switzerland’s guests
for suspected war crimes. However, the Swiss showed remarkably little interest
in the political background of these characters. They believed they knew who
they were dealing with, i.e., fundamentally «decent» Germans. In the circumstances,
the extradition requests from the Allies fell on deaf ears.
A certain Friedrich Kadgien had been heavily involved in criminal methods for
acquiring currency, securities and diamonds stolen from Jewish victims playing
a major role. Jewellery, too, and even stamp collections could potentially be
converted into currency, and were especially easy to smuggle across borders.
Kadgien and his colleagues had certainly put aside assets, and were able as early
as 1947/48 to set up a company using Swiss middlemen, thus preparing the way
for their departure to South America soon afterwards. Imhauka AG, whose
name records the initials of its three founders – Imfeld, Haupt, Kadgien – set
up its domicile in Sarnen in central Switzerland, and a second company with
the same name was established in Tangiers in North Africa and opened branches
in South America soon afterwards. A Zurich lawyer, Dr. Ernst Imfeld, who had
worked for Petrola during the war, ran the businesses from Zurich, while the
Germans involved moved to Bogotà and Rio de Janeiro, where they vanished
without trace. As far as we can discern, Imhauka acquired industrial holdings
and acted as an intermediary for movements of industrial equipment to Latin
America. It currently operates from Buenos Aires. 40
Other Germans were provided with identity papers by the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), but passed through Switzerland only fleetingly
or not at all as they went on their way. These included some major
criminals such as Adolf Eichmann and the former SS doctor at Auschwitz, Josef
Mengele, who relocated to Latin America. Soon after the war, the ICRC issued
a large number of provisional identity cards to people who had lost their papers;
the Germans in question had registered under a false identity, and slipped
unnoticed into the stream of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons seeking
to leave Europe after 1945. At the most, the ICRC could be criticised for not
carrying out sufficient checks, but there was a great deal of demand for quick
and relatively non-bureaucratic assistance. It is striking that these Germans did
not leave until a few years after the end of the war, after lying low in Germany
itself until then. From 1948/49 onwards, as the worst chaos of the immediate
post-war situation gradually came to an end, the opportunities for travel
improved. In addition, the attention and interest of the Western Allies had
waned considerably, except for cases in which they themselves took on notorious
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