Alois Brunner

Alois Brunner
Alois Brunner in 1940
Born	(1912-04-08)8 April 1912 Nádkút, Austria-Hungary
Died	2001 (aged 88 or 89) or 2010 (aged 97 or 98) Damascus, Syria (likely)
Allegiance	Nazi Germany  Syria
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1932–1945
Rank	Hauptsturmführer
Commands held	Drancy internment camp
Battles/wars	World War II
Other work	Advisor to the Syrian government; arms dealer in Egypt

Alois Brunner (8 April 1912 – 2001 or 2010) was an Austrian Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who worked as Adolf Eichmann's assistant. Brunner is held responsible for sending over 100,000 European Jews to ghettos and internment camps in eastern Europe. He was commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, from which nearly 24,000 people were deported.

After some narrow escapes from the Allies in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Brunner fled West Germany in 1954, first for Egypt, then Syria, where he remained until his death. He was the object of many manhunts and investigations over the years by different groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Klarsfelds and others. He was condemned to death in absentia in France in 1954 for crimes against humanity. 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, possibly by the Israeli Mossad. The government of Syria under Hafez el-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 survived all the attempts to detain him, unrepentant about his activities to the end. 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.