After complaint Federal Intelligence Service now grants access to Mengele dossier after all
The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service opens the dossier on Nazi criminal Josef Mengele - at least in part. Following a complaint and a new legal review, access to the dossier will be possible under certain conditions.
04.05.2026, 11:15
04.05.2026, 11:16
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- The Swiss intelligence service wants to grant access to the Mengele dossier under certain conditions in future.
- The reason for this is a complaint that has led to a new legal assessment.
- Previously, requests were rejected due to a protection period, but now the access practice could change.
In future, the Swiss intelligence service will grant access to the dossier on Nazi criminal Josef Mengele - "subject to conditions yet to be defined". Following an appeal to the Federal Administrative Court, it has reassessed the legal situation.
The background to the new position is a pending appeal against a rejected request for access, as the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) announced on Monday. In this context, it had carried out "various clarifications" and had come to the conclusion that the basis for access was given.
According to the press release, a Federal Council decision from 2001 basically provides for a "liberal inspection practice" for the archive material evaluated by the Bergier Commission. The Federal Archives have confirmed that the Mengele dossier also falls under this scope of application.
The intelligence service has now promised the court and the complainant a new ruling. However, because the dossier still contains information worthy of protection, access will be subject to conditions. The FIS is taking the case as an opportunity to review its general access practice for archived documents together with the Federal Archives.
Access previously refused
The FIS has previously rejected requests for access to the dossier with reference to an 80-year protection period - most recently last February. According to media reports, the historian Gérard Wettstein contested this decision. He wants to find out whether Mengele was in Kloten in the canton of Zurich in 1961 and whether the Swiss authorities allowed the war criminal, who was the subject of an international arrest warrant, to escape.
Josef Mengele was responsible for gruesome medical experiments in the Auschwitz concentration camp and was known as the "Angel of Death of Auschwitz". He managed to escape to South America after the end of the war. In 1979, he drowned in a swimming accident in Brazil.
