Nazi war criminal held in forests on Karnataka-Goa border

A former top Nazi stormtrooper, who was allegedly involved in the World War II genocide of the Jews, was nabbed in a joint operation carried out by intelligence officials from India and Germany in Khanapur forests along the border of Karnataka and Goa on Saturday.

A colonel in Hitler’s elite Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel), Johann Bach was absconding for more than 50 years and had recently moved into Goa and settled in Calangute area under a fake identity.

But, when the 88-year-old Bach placed an advertisement in an English daily in Goa recently to sell an 18th century piano, the intelligence wing of Perus Narkp, the Berlin-based German Chancellor’s Core was on his trial. For, the description of the antique piano matched that of a piano that went missing from a museum in East Berlin after World War II.

After observing him for almost six months, the German sleuths assisted by Indian intelligence zeroed in on Bach in his Goan hideout on Friday morning. But, the fugitive managed to give them a slip. However, the sleuths managed to nab Bach after a hot chase in the forests of Khanapur along the border of Karnataka and Goa on Saturday.

Soon after his arrest, Bach was taken away to an undisclosed destination. After his extradition to Germany, Bach is expected to face trial at the International Court of Justice at Hague in Netherlands.

Preliminary interrogation had revealed that Bach had been roaming around the world for more than half a century since the fall of the Third Reich. He had spent time in Argentina, Bulgaria, Yemen and Canada before arriving in Goa in India.

Though Bach had fled Germany after the defeat of Hitler, the German Government had included his name in the “most wanted list”.

Meanwhile, a press release issued by Perus Narkp said Bach had been posted as a senior adjutant at Marsha Tikash Whanaab concentration camp in East Berlin and was responsible for the genocide of more than 12,000 Jews in World War II.
Though Bach’s deeds had been glossed over during the Nuremburg trials, the case against him had been revived following reports in the Israeli media that the Nazi fugitive had resurfaced in India.