Walter Rauff Walter Rauff ( June 19 , 1906 – May 14 , 1984 ) was an SS officer in Nazi Germany , attaining the grade of Colonel ( " Standartenführer " ) in June 1944 . From January 1938 he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the " Sicherheitsdienst " or SD , the SS security service , later in the " Reichssicherheitshauptamt " or RSHA , the Reich Security Main Office , a department created by Himmler in 1939 grouping the Gestapo , SD and " Kripo " , the criminal police . Between 1958 and 1962 he worked for the " Bundesnachrichtendienst " , West Germany ' s intelligence service . His funeral in Santiago , Chile was attended by hundreds of old Nazis . Rauff is thought to have been responsible for nearly 100 , 000 deaths during the Second World War . He was instrumental in the creation of the Nazis ’ “ mobile gas chamber ” . His victims included Communists , Jews , Roma and the physically and mentally ill . In the late 1970s and ' 80s , he was arguably the most wanted Nazi fugitive still alive . From the Navy to the SS . According to the MI5 file on Walter Rauff released in 2005 : During his thirteen years in the Navy , Rauff became acquainted with Reinhard Heydrich , and saw service in South America and Spain , as a young officer in 1924 . Between 1940 and 1941 Rauff went back to the Navy as a volunteer , commanding a mine sweeper flotilla in the English Channel . He was promoted Lieutenant Commander ( " Korvettenkapitän " ) in April 1941 , shortly before he was discharged from active service , he then returned to the Reich Security Main Office ( RSHA ) . During early 1940 he headed the SD in German occupied Norway . Gas van engineering . In 1941 - 1942 Rauff was involved in the development of gas van s , mobile gas chambers used to fatally poison Jews , disabled people , communists and others who were considered by the SS to be enemies of the German State . According to declassified C . I . A . documents : The MI5 file is more explicit concerning Rauff ' s " technical " skills : In 1972 , in Santiago de Chile , Rauff made a deposition as a witness before a German prosecutor . On the subject of the extermination of Jews in Poland and Russia , asked whether at that time he had any doubts concerning the use of gas vans , Rauff answered : Rauff delegated the task of keeping the gas vans operating in the Soviet Union and other Nazi - occupied areas to an SS chemist , August Becker . Becker kept Rauff fully informed on the gas van killing operations . Persecution in North Africa . Rauff was later involved in the persecution of Jews in North Africa during 1942 and 1943 , as part of the Nazis ' long - term aim to export the Jewish Holocaust to the Near and Middle East ( including the British Mandate of Palestine , British - occupied Iraq , French - occupied Syria , the Lebanon , Egypt , and Libya ) , and capture the region ’ s petroleum fields . A month after German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ’ s defeat of the British at Tobruk in June 1942 , the SS set up a special extermination unit to follow in the wake of Rommel ’ s Afrika Korps . The unit was commanded by Rauff who was empowered to carry out " executive measures on the civilian population " , the Nazi euphemism for mass murder and enslavement . According to a 2007 German national television series , " Rauff ’ s mission to exterminate the Middle East ' s Jewish population was brought to an abrupt halt by the British 8th Army ' s defeat of Rommel at El Alamein in October 1942 . Rommel was forced to withdraw the remnants of his army to Tunisia , where it sustained a bridgehead until May 1943 , enabling Rauff ' s SS to start the persecutions locally . The MI5 file records that Rauff was posted to Tunis in 1942 as head of the " Sicherheitsdienst " , where he led an " Einsatzkommando " ( an SS task force ) which conducted a " well - organised persecution campaign against the country ' s Jews and Partisans " . The Jewish community was particularly hard hit : Secret police boss in Northern Italy . Rauff was then sent to Milan in 1943 where he took charge of all Gestapo and " Sicherheitsdienst " operations throughout northwest Italy . The MI5 file states : Rauff remained in Italy until the end of the war . The MI5 file states : According to Rauff ' s declassified C . I . A . file : Spy officer in the Middle East . In 1948 he was recruited by Syrian intelligence and went to Damascus where he served as military adviser to President Hosni Zaim , only to fall out of favor after a coup there a year later . According to one report , he tortured Jews in Syria . He and his family then settled in Ecuador , later shifting to Chile " . After barely escaping from Syria , Rauff fled to Lebanon and later back to Italy , where he gained a transit pass for Ecuador . Before sailing for Ecuador ( December 1949 ) , Rauff is said to have worked for a while with Israeli intelligence . In 1949 Israeli secret agent Edmond " Ted " Cross wanted to send Rauff to Egypt . The idea was the utilization of former Nazi elements for observation and penetration in the Arab countries . This attempt having failed , Edmond Cross also helped Rauff to get the necessary papers for immigration to South America Final refuge in Chile . After settling in Chile in 1958 , Rauff worked as the manager of a king crab cannery in Punta Arenas , one of the southernmost towns in the world . From 1959 to 1963 Rauff earned 70 . 000 Deutsche Mark s from the West - German " Bundesnachrichtendienst " and he was warned ( and removed from the BND ) before his detention in Chile . He subsequently partially recovered the lawyer ' s fees from the BND . He had to build a spy network in South America . He was evaluated as " untrustworthy " ( " charakterlich äußerst unzuverlässig " ) , " intriguer " ( " er konspirierte nach allen Seiten " ) and drunkard ( " eng mit dem Alkohol befreundet " ) . In 1972 he confessed that in 1960 and / or 1962 he had been in Germany . He was arrested by the Chilean authorities in December 1962 after Germany requested his extradition , but was freed by Chile ' s Supreme Court five months later in 1963 . Salvador Allende ' s election as Chilean president in 1970 did not change the situation . In a friendly letter to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal , Allende wrote that he could not reverse the Supreme Court ' s 1963 decision . Rauff ’ s case has been looked at in a 2013 book by Daniel Stahl , " Nazi Hunt : South America ’ s Dictatorships and the Avenging of Nazi Crimes " . Rauff ' s address in Santiago was known to post - war West Germany ’ s foreign ministry , and Hans Strack , the German ambassador to Chile , was ordered to request his extradition . Strack however , " sympathised with war criminals in exile and delayed applying for Rauff ’ s extradition for 14 months . When he finally did so in 1962 , Chile was able to refuse extradition request because his murders had by then occurred too long ago under the country ’ s statute of limitations . " Under Augusto Pinochet ' s regime , Rauff may have served as an advisor in Chilean intelligence , DINA . Allegedly , C . I . A . officials could not determine Rauff ' s exact position . General Pinochet ' s government resisted all calls for his extradition to stand trial in West Germany or Israel . In the meantime Rauff disappeared and was discovered by the documentary filmmaker William Bemister in Los Pozos , Santiago de Chile , in 1979 , and interviewed . This interview was included in the Emmy - winning film " The Hunter and the Hunted " and shown on Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS ) Public television in the United States on October 21 , 1981 . The last request to extradite Rauff to West Germany was presented by renowned Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld in 1983 , but was flatly rejected by the Pinochet government , which alleged that Rauff had been a peaceful Chilean citizen for over 20 years and that the case was closed since the Supreme Court ' s 1963 decision . Klarsfeld organised protests in Chile and was twice arrested for causing disturbances . Following her brief detention , the Israeli government ' s foreign affairs director , David Kimche , officially requested Rauff ' s outright expulsion in a meeting with Chilean Foreign Minister Jaime del Valle , but the request was turned down . Death . Rauff died from lung cancer at the age of 77 in Santiago on 14 May 1984 . His funeral was the occasion of a Nazi celebration . According to his MI5 file , " he never showed any remorse for his actions , which he described as those of " a mere technical administrator " .