c. December 2001 (aged 89) or c. 2010 (aged 97 or 98)
Damascus, Syria
Resting place
Al-Affif cemetery, Damascus, Syria
Known for
Eichmann's right-hand man
Commander of the Drancy internment camp
Advisor to the Syrian government
Arms trafficking
Conviction(s)
Crimes against humanity
Criminal penalty
Death (1954) (in absentia)
Life imprisonment (2001) (in absentia)
SS service
Allegiance
Nazi Germany
Service/branch
Schutzstaffel
Years of service
1932–1945
Rank
SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain)
Commands held
Drancy internment camp
Alois Brunner (8 April 1912 – c. December 2001 or c. 2010) was an Austrian officer who held the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) during World War II. Brunner played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, Macedonia, France, and Slovakia. He was known as Final Solution architect Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man.
Brunner was responsible for sending over 100,000 European Jews from Austria, Greece, France and Slovakia to ghettos and concentration camps in eastern Europe. At the start of the war, he oversaw the deportation of 47,000 Austrian Jews to camps. In Greece, 43,000 Jews were deported in two months while he was stationed in Thessaloniki. He then became commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, during which nearly 24,000 men, women and children were sent to the gas chambers. His last assignment involved the destruction of the Jewish community of Slovakia.
After some narrow escapes from the Allies in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Brunner managed to elude capture and fled West Germany in 1954, first for Egypt, then Syria, where he remained until his death. He was the object of many manhunts, investigations, and assassination attempts over the years by different groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Klarsfelds and Mossad. He was condemned to death in absentia in France in 1954 for crimes against humanity, later commuted to life imprisonment in absentia in 2001. He lost an eye and then the fingers of his left hand as a result of letter bombs sent to him in 1961 and 1980, reportedly by Israeli intelligence.[1] The Syrian government under Hafez al-Assad came close to extraditing him to East Germany before this plan was halted by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Brunner escaped all attempts to capture or kill him and was unrepentant about his activities. During his long residence in Syria, Brunner was reportedly granted asylum, a generous salary and protection by the ruling Ba'ath Party in exchange for his advice on effective torture and interrogation techniques used by the Germans in World War II.[2]
Starting in the 1990s and continuing for two decades, Brunner was one of the most-wanted Nazi war criminals. In November 2014, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that Brunner had died in Syria in 2010,[3] and that he was buried somewhere in Damascus. Brunner's exact date and place of death remain unknown. However, recent information based on new evidence uncovered during a 2017 investigation point to December 2001 as the time of his death in Damascus, Syria.
^Cite error: The named reference Bergman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Chandler, Adam (1 December 2014). "Eichmann's Best Man Lived and Died in Syria". The Atlantic.
^Cite error: The named reference swc2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
AloisBrunner (8 April 1912 – c. December 2001 or c. 2010) was an Austrian officer who held the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) during World War...
medical writer AloisBrunner (1912–2001), Austrian Nazi SS concentration camp war criminal Alois Carigiet (1902–1985), Swiss illustrator Alois Dryák (1872–1932)...
Alois Karl Hudal (also known as Luigi Hudal; 31 May 1885 – 13 May 1963) was an Austrian bishop of the Catholic Church, based in Rome. For thirty years...
from Bergman's book Rise and Kill First, says that Eli Cohen located AloisBrunner, a former Nazi official and Holocaust perpetrator suspected of living...
they did not have the blood group tattoo included Josef Mengele and AloisBrunner. Towards the end of the war and after, some (former) SS members tried...
party's general line that the West was plotting a revival of Nazi power. AloisBrunner, alleged to be an Org operative, was formerly responsible for the Drancy...
was taken over by the SS, which placed officer AloisBrunner in charge of the camp. In 2001, Brunner's case was brought before a French court by Nazi...
96". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 24 April 2020. "Nazi war criminal AloisBrunner died in Syria basement in 2001 – report". The Times of Israel. 11 January...
war criminals. Some notable targets of Nazi hunters have included: AloisBrunner, Eichmann's assistent and Commander of Drancy internment camp, was one...
The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth, pp. 160–182 "Nazi war criminal AloisBrunner died in Syria basement in 2001 – report". The Times of Israel. 11 January...
series of murders as an amateur master detective. Landa is based on AloisBrunner. Quentin Tarantino has said that Landa might be the greatest character...
documentation of numerous Nazi war criminals, including Kurt Lischka, AloisBrunner, Klaus Barbie, Ernst Ehlers [de] and Kurt Asche. In March 2012, she...
Sihanouk of Cambodia.[citation needed] 1961: The Nazi war criminal AloisBrunner received a letter bomb that caused the loss of an eye. In 1980 another...
been sent from Berlin as the head of the Agency, and his associate AloisBrunner, set the emigration quotas, the fulfillment of which was delegated by...
criminal AloisBrunner 'died in Syria'". BBC News. 1 December 2014. Archived from the original on 3 January 2023. "Nazi war criminal AloisBrunner 'died...
at 42 Velissariou Street in a confiscated Jewish villa. Its leaders, AloisBrunner and Dieter Wisliceny, stayed on the first floor while wealthy Jews were...
Latvia Gypsies Joseph Carlebach Simon Dubnow Else Hirsch Perpetrators AloisBrunner Rudolf Batz Fritz Dietrich Otto-Heinrich Drechsler Erich Ehrlinger Karl...
Zeitschel (1940–42), Theodor Dannecker (1940–42), Heinz Röthke (1942), AloisBrunner (1943–44) Germany: Leopold von Mildenstein (1934–36) and Herbert Hagen...
Adolf Hitler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Franz Stangl, AloisBrunner, Friedrich Rainer, and Odilo Globocnik, as were over 13 percent of the...
Latvia Gypsies Joseph Carlebach Simon Dubnow Else Hirsch Perpetrators AloisBrunner Rudolf Batz Fritz Dietrich Otto-Heinrich Drechsler Erich Ehrlinger Karl...
former Italian zone on 8 September 1943 and initiated brutal raids. AloisBrunner, the SS official for Jewish affairs, was placed at the head of units...
Franz Abromeit Ludolf von Alvensleben Klaus Barbie Hermine Braunsteiner AloisBrunner Adolf Eichmann Hans Eisele Aribert Heim Walter Kutschmann Johann von...
Debouche Hans Eisele Werner Fiedler Walter Frank Dr. Georg Fischer AloisBrunner Wolfgang Gerhard Josef Mengele Michael Gollwitzer Heinrich Seetzen Helmut...
the "Jewish problem" was solved.: 118 Vienna – reported judenfrei by AloisBrunner on October 9, 1942. Berlin, Germany – May 19, 1943. Erlangen, Germany...