Maier's research offers other hints at information still hidden in agencies' files. Consider what he discovered about SS officer Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny, one of Hitler's most rabid followers and a man whose files should certainly be released under the NWCDA. In 1943, Skorzeny led a commando raid that rescued Benito Mussolini from an Allied prison. The following year, he kidnapped Hungarian Regent Miklss Horthy, who was planning to sign a peace agreement with the Russians. Such exploits led the Allied press to dub Skorzeny "the most dangerous man in Europe."

In 1948, Skorzeny escaped from an American POW camp. He moved to Spain and became intimately involved in postwar neo-Nazi movements, and is suspected of involvement in the disposition of looted assets. According to several published accounts, including one by former U.S. intelligence agent Miles Copeland, Skorzeny, who died in 1975, helped the CIA train the Egyptian security services in the 1950s.

Other than a few bland pages from the Treasury Department, government agencies have turned over nothing on Skorzeny under the NWCDA. Meanwhile, Maier has uncovered a 1951 Air Force memo that details a meeting in Spain that year between Skorzeny and an unnamed American intelligence agent. The meeting occurred while Skorzeny was a fugitive on a U.S. arrest warrant, and hunted by German authorities for possible prosecution on war crimes charges.

The U.S. agent was clearly on good terms with Skorzeny -- "Customary greeting is not unlike being welcomed by a huge bear or engulfed by a Saint Bernard dog," reads his account. The agent seems to have been no fan, though, of Scarface's wife, Countess Ilsa von Finkelstein. During the conversation, Skorzeny complained that the U.S. Treasury had frozen the profits from the sale of his war memoirs. Reads the memo: "Commenting on this particular point, his wife displayed her rare appearing sense of humor: 'Good God, do you realize that by our money going to the U.S. Treasury, Rolf [Skorzeny's alias] is actually paying for re-arming the French!'"

The memo contains repeated references to Skorzeny's desire to aid America in the fight against communism (though he feared "a loss of face in his [Nazi] followers" should he openly collaborate with the U.S.). "His primary interest appears to be to find some kind of position for himself relative to the only trade he knows -- soldiering," the agent reported. "He champions the cause of those nationals of other countries who fought with the German allies against the Russians and who are now held in prison, and plunks for the creation of the nucleus of a German Commando Cadre in Spain about which could be formed a new German army to combat the Russians."

Skorzeny apparently had knowledge of a number of wanted war criminals, including Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Hitler's most decorated airman. Skorzeny indicated to the American agent that he had met with Rudel -- who at the time had found refuge in dictator Juan Peron's Argentina -- on a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Rudel, Skorzeny said, was bitter toward his former enemies "inasmuch as he was tried as a war criminal and convicted, [and] he cannot legally return to Germany." However, Skorzeny reported that Rudel had returned several times to Germany "in the black" and was "anxious to be on the side of the United States if given the opportunity."

The memo closed by saying that the reporting officer "sees Skorzeny frequently and has succeeded in winning his confidence completely, but it is felt that this source has scarcely been scratched when one considers the wealth of information he possesses. Skorzeny will continue to be watched and pertinent information forwarded when available."

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