An unrepentant old Nazi officer who served in some of the worst concentration camps gives the Hitler salute in Spain where he has hidden from justice for over 60 years.
Now Paul Maria Hafner is the subject of a TV documentary called "Hafner's Paradise" which chronicles his life in exile – and how he manages to draw pensions from three countries.
Operation Last Chance, the campaign to round up the last Nazis in Europe organised by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Israel, has him on their wanted list.
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'Hitler was a great man': Hafner, now 84, demonstrates the Nazi salute to the Fuhrer
Yet although Hafner, 84, continues to make outrageous statements that would put him behind bars in Germany or Austria, no government has sought to prosecute him.
He calls the death camp of Auschwitz, where 1.1 million Jews were murdered, "a ten star hotel" where "Jews were sent for their own protection. All that stuff about murder is Allied propaganda crap." Of Hitler he says: "I regard him as the greatest man who ever lived, the most important person in the history of the world."
'Setting the record straight': Hafner in his younger days
He said he gets out of bed every day to give the raised arm salute to his Fuehrer.
He agreed to a documentary being made on him "because I want to set the record straight about our ideals and our cause during the Third Reich."
He admits he dreams of seeing a "Fourth Reich" in Germany adding: "I am only sorry I will not be around to see it."
After WWII, Hafner found asylum in Franco's Spain, protected from allegations of war crimes and surrounded by old comrades.
This is why Spain is "paradise on earth" for him - a place that allows him to continue to nurture his fanaticism, and yet protects him from the scrutiny of international justice.
"No Jew was ever killed under Hitler for being a Jew," he said, refusing to elaborate on what he did when posted to the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Dachau in Germany.
Hafner is not being pursued actively by governments although Nazi war crime sleuths in Israel believe him guilty of atrocities in the two concentrations camps where he worked and on the Eastern Front where he served as a fighting SS man.
He draws three pensions because he qualifies for a war pension from Germany, an old age pension in Spain where he worked for many years as a pig farmer and one from Italy because it is the land of his birth.
Being a former concentration camp guard is not a barrier to receiving a German pension.
In the documentary, Hafner is brought face-to-face with a survivor from Dachau.
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'You survived well': Hafner's opinion to survivors of the concentration camps
"You survived quite well," Hafner responds matter-of-factly after the Jewish victim recounts his painful memories.
According to Hafner there are hundreds like him in Spain.
Gunter Schwaiger, who filmed Hafner's Paradise, said: "He is in close contact with people who are indeed wanted or have been convicted in other countries because of their anti-Semitic actions and declarations, or because they have denied the existence of the Holocaust.
"Paul María Hafner is neither a Martian nor a diabolical being, but an apparently respectable gentleman living in a smart Madrid neighbourhood who, aged 84, might be taken for a congenial grandfather, filled with goodness and affection.
"The defeat of the Third Reich was an enormous trauma for Hafner, from which he has not yet recovered. His convictions have simply become firmer. He is not troubled by the accounts of the victims, or that National Socialism led the world to disaster. His fanaticism remains just as intact today as 60 years ago." The film is due for release in the UK in the spring.
Unrepentant Nazi, 84, calls Auschwitz a 'ten star hotel' and tells Dachau victim 'you survived well' | the Daily Mail
Nazi, 84, calls Auschwitz a 'ten star hotel', tells Dachau victim 'you survived well"
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