http://modernnotion.com/how-interpol-became-the-long-arm-of-nazi-law-during-world-war-ii/
From 1938 to 1945, Interpol, or the International Criminal Police Commission, as it was then known, became little more than an extension of the Nazi state; the organization whose sole mission is to make the world safer, ruled from Berlin and was presided over by the very men responsible for planning and implementing the Holocaust.
Interpol officials had been wary of a German takeover as early as 1934, when they passed a pre-emptive resolution effectively banning German citizens from holding the organization’s highest role. When German troops marched into Vienna on the morning of March 12, 1938, however, the serving president was promptly arrested and bundled away to a darkened corner of the Reich.
With the Interpol presidency now vacant, SS leader and Heinrich Himmler’s second-in-command, Reinhard Heydrich, was eager to take on the role. He was eventually persuaded to make way for Otto Steinhäusl, an Austrian political prisoner whose apparent independence could placate America’s concerns about joining the organization.
But, Steinhäusl passed away in 1940—possibly from contracting tuberculosis in prison—and notices were sent to all member states asking them to approve Heydrich’s investiture as president. Each was summarily informed that silence would be taken as a vote in favor. The ensuing pseudo-democratic farce allowed Heydrich to claim a unanimous victory, and rubber-stamped Interpol’s incorporation into the German Reichsicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), the sinister panopticon at the heart of the Nazi vision.
Under Heydrich’s command, the Interpol offices were also moved from Vienna to Berlin, into the confiscated home of a Jewish merchant in the leafy suburb of Wannsee. It was in these offices that the infamous Wannsee Conference to decide the fate of European Jewry was originally scheduled to take place, before eventually being relocated to a mansion further down the road. Heydrich was assassinated in 1942, but his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, was also a senior-ranking Nazi official.
Although speculation is rife concerning the extent to which different countries collaborated with Interpol during the war, it is hard to know anything for certain. The little anecdotal evidence that survives, however, is chilling enough. For example, we know that soon after the Nazi take-over Interpol’s official search warrants were altered to include an entry for “race” alongside one for religion, and that the Commission collaborated with national police forces to arrest anyone offering assistance to Jewish refugees. Furthermore, the United States continued to exchange information with Interpol until just three days before Pearl Harbor, and as late as 1943, the ostensibly neutral Swiss government was still paying its annual subscription.
Following the end of the war—and Interpol President Kaltenbrunner’s execution at Nuremberg on the charge of Crimes against Humanity—Interpol turned its back on its past and began a slow’ and shaky journey towards rehabilitation. Rather than being dismissed as a historical footnote, however, its wartime activities should be acknowledged as a sobering reminder of the vulnerability of international organizations to political abuse.
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