The regime of Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad managed to stay in power for five decades by exercising brutally repressive methods inspired in part by Alois Brunner, a notorious Nazi war criminal who made a life for himself in Damascus as a confidant of the Assad clan.
Issued on: 12/12/2024 -
By: Grégoire SAUVAGE
SS officer Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man, in an undated photo.
© Archives AFP
The release of thousands of people imprisoned in Syrian jails has brought into focus the abuses committed by the Assads during their almost five decades in power. Their regime of terror was established in the 1970s at the start of Hafez al-Assad's reign, which made use of the experience of Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner – once the right-hand man of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution during World War II.
A 2017 investigative report by France’s Revue XXI magazine traced the links between the Syrian regime and Brunner, accused of having sent 128,500 Jews to extermination camps.
Brunner was in charge of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from 1943 to 1944 and was responsible for the deportation of 24,000 French Jews – or Jews residing in France – to Nazi death camps. He was convicted in absentia by a French court in 1954 for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.
But by the early 1950s, Brunner is thought to have fled to Egypt and then to Syria, where he was known as Georg Fischer and worked as an arms dealer in Damascus.
Syria had already provided refuge to Franz Stangl, former commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps.
From Damascus, Brunner plotted – with Syrian support – to free his former superior, Eichmann, who had been captured by Israel’s spy agency Mossad in Argentina in 1960 before being tried in Israel and hanged.
Despite the Syrian authorities' denials, Brunner’s presence in Syria was an open secret in the early 1960s. He was the target of at least two assassination attempts; in 1961, he lost his left eye after opening a letter bomb. Almost 20 years later, another letter bomb tore off several of his fingers.
Read moreMost-wanted Nazi war criminal ‘died in Syria’
Adviser to the Syrian secret services
Despite international pressure to extradite him, Brunner remained a protégé of successive regimes in Damascus in the years before the 1963 coup d'état carried out by leaders of the Syrian Ba'athist party.
By 1966, Brunner had managed to gain a powerful ally, Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad.
Brunner became a confidant of the elder Assad, who had just been appointed defence minister. When Assad seized power in a 1970 coup, Brunner helped the new regime set up an effective system of repression, inspired by the practices of the Third Reich.
"Complex, divided into numerous branches which all monitor and spy on each other, operating on the basis of absolute compartmentalisation, this apparatus is built on one principle: to hold the country by the use of unlimited terror,” write the authors of Revue XXI's investigation, Hedi Aouidj and Mathieu Palain.
The authors of the Revue XXI investigation, Hedi Aouidj and Mathieu Palain, describe the state apparatus of the time as "complex, divided into numerous branches that all monitor and spy on each other, operating on the basis of absolute compartmentalisation, this apparatus is built on one principle: to hold the country by the use of unlimited terror”.
During his new life in Syria, Brunner shared his expertise in surveillance, interrogation and torture techniques, drawing on his experience with the Gestapo.
The brutal methods he taught the Syrian secret services were to have a lasting influence on the way the regime repressed political dissent.
One of the means of torture used by the Syrians, drawing on Brunner's expertise, was the “German Chair”, a medieval-style rack used to stretch the victim’s spine.
Unknown burial site and date of death
Brunner was convicted a second time by a French court in absentia in 2001 for sending an estimated 345 Jewish children from the Drancy internment camp to their deaths in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
Requests to have Brunner extradited by Germany and several other countries were always refused by the Syrian authorities.
Although Brunner was never handed over to be tried, he gradually lost influence with the authorities until he became a mere bargaining chip for the Syrian regime. Careful to promote his image as a moderniser, Bashar al-Assad, who came to power in 2000, eventually abandoned his father's former Nazi adviser.
According to Revue XXI's investigation, Brunner ended his life in dismal circumstances, confined by the Syrian state to the basement of a residential building in Damascus. There were reports that he died in 2001 and was buried in the Al-Affif cemetery in Damascus.
In 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which tracks down Nazi war criminals, announced that it was taking Brunner off its list of the most wanted Holocaust perpetrators. Its then director, Efraim Zuroff, said that the former SS officer had died four years earlier.
"I am almost certain that he (Alois Brunner) is no longer alive,” Zuroff told AFP, adding that he believed Brunner died four years earlier in Damascus, where he had sought refuge. Zuroff said information from a former agent of the German intelligence services indicated that Brunner had died and the Centre had decided to remove him from its active search list of Nazi war criminals and their collaborators.
Brunner remained an unrepentant Nazi until the end of his life. In one of the rare interviews he gave from Damascus, he told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1987 that the Jews “deserved to die because they were the devil's agents and human garbage”.
“I have no regrets and would do it again.”
This article was translated from the original in French.
The release of thousands of people imprisoned in Syrian jails has brought into focus the abuses committed by the Assads during their almost five decades in power. Their regime of terror was established in the 1970s at the start of Hafez al-Assad's reign, which made use of the experience of Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner – once the right-hand man of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution during World War II.
A 2017 investigative report by France’s Revue XXI magazine traced the links between the Syrian regime and Brunner, accused of having sent 128,500 Jews to extermination camps.
Brunner was in charge of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from 1943 to 1944 and was responsible for the deportation of 24,000 French Jews – or Jews residing in France – to Nazi death camps. He was convicted in absentia by a French court in 1954 for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.
But by the early 1950s, Brunner is thought to have fled to Egypt and then to Syria, where he was known as Georg Fischer and worked as an arms dealer in Damascus.
Syria had already provided refuge to Franz Stangl, former commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps.
From Damascus, Brunner plotted – with Syrian support – to free his former superior, Eichmann, who had been captured by Israel’s spy agency Mossad in Argentina in 1960 before being tried in Israel and hanged.
Despite the Syrian authorities' denials, Brunner’s presence in Syria was an open secret in the early 1960s. He was the target of at least two assassination attempts; in 1961, he lost his left eye after opening a letter bomb. Almost 20 years later, another letter bomb tore off several of his fingers.
Read moreMost-wanted Nazi war criminal ‘died in Syria’
Adviser to the Syrian secret services
Despite international pressure to extradite him, Brunner remained a protégé of successive regimes in Damascus in the years before the 1963 coup d'état carried out by leaders of the Syrian Ba'athist party.
By 1966, Brunner had managed to gain a powerful ally, Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad.
Brunner became a confidant of the elder Assad, who had just been appointed defence minister. When Assad seized power in a 1970 coup, Brunner helped the new regime set up an effective system of repression, inspired by the practices of the Third Reich.
"Complex, divided into numerous branches which all monitor and spy on each other, operating on the basis of absolute compartmentalisation, this apparatus is built on one principle: to hold the country by the use of unlimited terror,” write the authors of Revue XXI's investigation, Hedi Aouidj and Mathieu Palain.
The authors of the Revue XXI investigation, Hedi Aouidj and Mathieu Palain, describe the state apparatus of the time as "complex, divided into numerous branches that all monitor and spy on each other, operating on the basis of absolute compartmentalisation, this apparatus is built on one principle: to hold the country by the use of unlimited terror”.
During his new life in Syria, Brunner shared his expertise in surveillance, interrogation and torture techniques, drawing on his experience with the Gestapo.
The brutal methods he taught the Syrian secret services were to have a lasting influence on the way the regime repressed political dissent.
One of the means of torture used by the Syrians, drawing on Brunner's expertise, was the “German Chair”, a medieval-style rack used to stretch the victim’s spine.
Unknown burial site and date of death
Brunner was convicted a second time by a French court in absentia in 2001 for sending an estimated 345 Jewish children from the Drancy internment camp to their deaths in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
Requests to have Brunner extradited by Germany and several other countries were always refused by the Syrian authorities.
Although Brunner was never handed over to be tried, he gradually lost influence with the authorities until he became a mere bargaining chip for the Syrian regime. Careful to promote his image as a moderniser, Bashar al-Assad, who came to power in 2000, eventually abandoned his father's former Nazi adviser.
According to Revue XXI's investigation, Brunner ended his life in dismal circumstances, confined by the Syrian state to the basement of a residential building in Damascus. There were reports that he died in 2001 and was buried in the Al-Affif cemetery in Damascus.
In 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which tracks down Nazi war criminals, announced that it was taking Brunner off its list of the most wanted Holocaust perpetrators. Its then director, Efraim Zuroff, said that the former SS officer had died four years earlier.
"I am almost certain that he (Alois Brunner) is no longer alive,” Zuroff told AFP, adding that he believed Brunner died four years earlier in Damascus, where he had sought refuge. Zuroff said information from a former agent of the German intelligence services indicated that Brunner had died and the Centre had decided to remove him from its active search list of Nazi war criminals and their collaborators.
Brunner remained an unrepentant Nazi until the end of his life. In one of the rare interviews he gave from Damascus, he told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1987 that the Jews “deserved to die because they were the devil's agents and human garbage”.
“I have no regrets and would do it again.”
This article was translated from the original in French.
Syria's secret services tactics echo Nazis, Stasi methods
Kersten Knipp
At the same time, the Syrian secret service was an instrument of suppression and torture by the regime, committing the most serious of human rights violations. This approach, Chalati said, resembles that of the Nazis and the Gestapo more than that of the Stasi.
"Essentially, we are looking at a regime and a secret service complex that combines the worst of both worlds," she said.
This article was originally written in German.
Kersten Knipp Political editor with a focus on the Middle East
Kersten Knipp
DW
14/12/2024
As more is revealed about the notorious Saydnaya Prison, it appears the tactics of the former Assad dictatorship were shaped by Nazi war criminals who fled abroad after World War II, as well as the East German Stasi.
'Worst of both worlds'
In fact, Chalati said it's difficult to prove conclusively that either Nazis or the Stasi directly influenced the Syrian secret services. "The overall picture, though, fits pretty well with what we are currently seeing in Syria," she said.
Files currently being unearthed show that the Syrian intelligence service was characterized by excessive bureaucracy. "This is a phenomenon we're familiar with from the GDR and the Stasi," said Chalati. "I can't claim that there's a direct, causal connection, but it's a striking phenomenon. Perhaps it's also a characteristic of secret services generally; more research on this is needed."
As more is revealed about the notorious Saydnaya Prison, it appears the tactics of the former Assad dictatorship were shaped by Nazi war criminals who fled abroad after World War II, as well as the East German Stasi.
Crowds of people have descended on Saydnaya Prison near Damascus, hoping to find their loved ones
Image: Asaad al-Asaad/UPI Photo/picture alliance
Horrific images have been circulating online since the liberation of Saydnaya Prison in Syria, five floors of which were hidden underground.
The images show gaunt, emaciated people, some standing in packed, overcrowded cells. Many prisoners had to be carried out of the building. The liberators also filmed a room where people were huddled in the semidarkness, screaming. Numerous bodies were found with signs of having been tortured to death. Thousands of prisoners were being held in the complex on the day it was liberated, according to media reports.
As many as 15,000 people were extrajudicially executed in the prison between September 2011 and December 2015 alone, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International.
Some people on social media see a direct link to the Nazis, in particular, Alois Brunner, a commanding officer in the Nazi paramilitary SS who fled to Syria in 1954. Brunner was a close associate of Adolf Eichmann, who, as one of the architects of the so-called "Final Solution," was partly responsible for the persecution, expulsion, deportation and murder of millions of Jews.
Former Nazis 'valued for their practical experience'
Brunner was not the only former SS or Wehrmacht member in Syria, as Noura Chalati from the Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin research institution explained.
"Many of them were employed directly by the Syrian general staff on one-year contracts, advising the army and the military intelligence service," she said.
Documents show that the general staff was particularly interested in these people because, at the time, they were stateless, from a country that supposedly had no colonial history — and, of course, because of their experience in war, including with methods of mass extermination.
"They were valued for their practical experience," said Chalati, whose research focuses on the relationship between the former East German state security service (Stasi) and Syria's secret services.
Horrific images have been circulating online since the liberation of Saydnaya Prison in Syria, five floors of which were hidden underground.
The images show gaunt, emaciated people, some standing in packed, overcrowded cells. Many prisoners had to be carried out of the building. The liberators also filmed a room where people were huddled in the semidarkness, screaming. Numerous bodies were found with signs of having been tortured to death. Thousands of prisoners were being held in the complex on the day it was liberated, according to media reports.
As many as 15,000 people were extrajudicially executed in the prison between September 2011 and December 2015 alone, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International.
Some people on social media see a direct link to the Nazis, in particular, Alois Brunner, a commanding officer in the Nazi paramilitary SS who fled to Syria in 1954. Brunner was a close associate of Adolf Eichmann, who, as one of the architects of the so-called "Final Solution," was partly responsible for the persecution, expulsion, deportation and murder of millions of Jews.
Former Nazis 'valued for their practical experience'
Brunner was not the only former SS or Wehrmacht member in Syria, as Noura Chalati from the Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin research institution explained.
"Many of them were employed directly by the Syrian general staff on one-year contracts, advising the army and the military intelligence service," she said.
Documents show that the general staff was particularly interested in these people because, at the time, they were stateless, from a country that supposedly had no colonial history — and, of course, because of their experience in war, including with methods of mass extermination.
"They were valued for their practical experience," said Chalati, whose research focuses on the relationship between the former East German state security service (Stasi) and Syria's secret services.
Rebels opened the cells in the infamous Saydnaya Prison, known as the 'human slaughterhouse,' on December 8Image: Hussein Malla/AP Photo/picture alliance
Brunner, who was sentenced in absentia to death for crimes against humanity in France in 1954, arrived in Syria shortly afterward under a false identity. In his book "Fugitives," about Nazi war criminals who fled abroad, Israeli historian Danny Orbach wrote that Brunner soon got involved in the smuggling of Western arms to Arab countries.
In 1959, the then-head of one of Syria's secret services had Brunner arrested on suspicion of spying and threatened him with life imprisonment, whereupon Brunner revealed his true identity and offered his services to Syrian intelligence.
Brunner, who was sentenced in absentia to death for crimes against humanity in France in 1954, arrived in Syria shortly afterward under a false identity. In his book "Fugitives," about Nazi war criminals who fled abroad, Israeli historian Danny Orbach wrote that Brunner soon got involved in the smuggling of Western arms to Arab countries.
In 1959, the then-head of one of Syria's secret services had Brunner arrested on suspicion of spying and threatened him with life imprisonment, whereupon Brunner revealed his true identity and offered his services to Syrian intelligence.
Portraits of some of those said to have died in the Hama massacre in 1982, perpetrated by the Syrian regimeImage: REPRODUCTION JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images
Over the years that followed, Brunner trained intelligence personnel in counterespionage and interrogation techniques. Many infamous Syrian secret servicemen took part in his training courses, including General Ali Haydar, who led the Syrian special forces for 26 years, Ali Douba, head of military intelligence, and Mustafa Tlass, subsequently defense minister for the Assad regime, who was responsible for brutally suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood-led uprising in Hama in 1982, in which as many as 30,000 people were killed.
Brunner 'knew exactly how to extract and use information'
One of the instruments of torture used until just recently by the Assad regime was known as the "German chair," an instrument which stretched victims until their spine broke. It has often been suggested that the chair was Brunner's invention.
Orbach considers this theory plausible, albeit unproven. He writes that Brunner helped to create gruesome instruments of torture, and the "German chair" may have been one.
Brunner proved useful to Syrian dictator Hafez Assad, who seized power in 1970 and was the father of Bashar Assad. "He knew exactly how to extract and use information, how to manipulate people, what is important for the activities of secret services," wrote Brunner's biographer, Didier Epelbaum. "He knew more than any Syrian officer. As a result, he was involved in restructuring the secret service."
Over the years that followed, Brunner trained intelligence personnel in counterespionage and interrogation techniques. Many infamous Syrian secret servicemen took part in his training courses, including General Ali Haydar, who led the Syrian special forces for 26 years, Ali Douba, head of military intelligence, and Mustafa Tlass, subsequently defense minister for the Assad regime, who was responsible for brutally suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood-led uprising in Hama in 1982, in which as many as 30,000 people were killed.
Brunner 'knew exactly how to extract and use information'
One of the instruments of torture used until just recently by the Assad regime was known as the "German chair," an instrument which stretched victims until their spine broke. It has often been suggested that the chair was Brunner's invention.
Orbach considers this theory plausible, albeit unproven. He writes that Brunner helped to create gruesome instruments of torture, and the "German chair" may have been one.
Brunner proved useful to Syrian dictator Hafez Assad, who seized power in 1970 and was the father of Bashar Assad. "He knew exactly how to extract and use information, how to manipulate people, what is important for the activities of secret services," wrote Brunner's biographer, Didier Epelbaum. "He knew more than any Syrian officer. As a result, he was involved in restructuring the secret service."
Convicted Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner fled to Syria in 1954, where he lived until his death in around 2002
Image: picture-alliance / dpa
Investigative journalist Hedi Aouidj told the radio station France Inter in 2017 that this knowledge enabled Brunner to maintain his position with the Syrian political elite.
"The deal was protection. In exchange for Nazi know-how. Brunner trained the Nazi secret service, the circle closest to Hafez al-Assad," explained Aouidj, who was able to shed light on Brunner's final years. He said Brunner was ultimately thrown in prison by the Assad regime in 1996, where he remained until his death, thought to have been in 2002.
Assistance from the Stasi
But the Syrian leadership didn't rely solely on fugitive Nazis for help. It also accepted support from the former the state security service of the East Germany — the Stasi.
This made political sense, according to the logic of the Cold War. Although Syria was non-aligned in the 1960s, under the Baath regime, it increasingly aligned itself with Europe's Eastern Bloc.
Investigative journalist Hedi Aouidj told the radio station France Inter in 2017 that this knowledge enabled Brunner to maintain his position with the Syrian political elite.
"The deal was protection. In exchange for Nazi know-how. Brunner trained the Nazi secret service, the circle closest to Hafez al-Assad," explained Aouidj, who was able to shed light on Brunner's final years. He said Brunner was ultimately thrown in prison by the Assad regime in 1996, where he remained until his death, thought to have been in 2002.
Assistance from the Stasi
But the Syrian leadership didn't rely solely on fugitive Nazis for help. It also accepted support from the former the state security service of the East Germany — the Stasi.
This made political sense, according to the logic of the Cold War. Although Syria was non-aligned in the 1960s, under the Baath regime, it increasingly aligned itself with Europe's Eastern Bloc.
After Bashar Assad's ouster, Syrians toppled statues of his father, Hafez Assad, and burned his tombImage: Hussein Malla/AP/dpa/picture alliance
Noura Chalati said contact was initially established following a request from Syria in 1966. Damascus was interested in everything from weapons technology to the structure and organization of intelligence services and political institutions.
"However, the ministry for state security [Stasi] was very reticent," according to Chalati. As she pointed out, it's difficult to obtain documentary evidence of their collaboration, as the Stasi destroyed all the relevant files when it was dissolved in 1989.
Noura Chalati said contact was initially established following a request from Syria in 1966. Damascus was interested in everything from weapons technology to the structure and organization of intelligence services and political institutions.
"However, the ministry for state security [Stasi] was very reticent," according to Chalati. As she pointed out, it's difficult to obtain documentary evidence of their collaboration, as the Stasi destroyed all the relevant files when it was dissolved in 1989.
'Worst of both worlds'
In fact, Chalati said it's difficult to prove conclusively that either Nazis or the Stasi directly influenced the Syrian secret services. "The overall picture, though, fits pretty well with what we are currently seeing in Syria," she said.
Files currently being unearthed show that the Syrian intelligence service was characterized by excessive bureaucracy. "This is a phenomenon we're familiar with from the GDR and the Stasi," said Chalati. "I can't claim that there's a direct, causal connection, but it's a striking phenomenon. Perhaps it's also a characteristic of secret services generally; more research on this is needed."
At the same time, the Syrian secret service was an instrument of suppression and torture by the regime, committing the most serious of human rights violations. This approach, Chalati said, resembles that of the Nazis and the Gestapo more than that of the Stasi.
"Essentially, we are looking at a regime and a secret service complex that combines the worst of both worlds," she said.
This article was originally written in German.
Kersten Knipp Political editor with a focus on the Middle East
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