A final attempt to track down Germany´s last surviving Nazis, including an SS doctor who disappeared after the second world war, has been launched in Berlin.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre said yesterday it was extending its attempt to catch elderly war criminals living in eastern Europe, entitled Operation Last Chance, to Germany. The centre is offering a €10,000 (about £7,000) reward for information, and placing adverts in German newspapers with the slogan: "Nazi murderers are still among us."

Efraim Zuroff, the centre´s Israeli director, said he believed there were still thousands of war criminals who had been living in Germany since the second world war, and who had not been brought to justice.

Top of the list is Aribert Heim, an SS doctor who worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz, in Austria. He is accused of killing inmates with deadly injections. Mr Zuroff said he was convinced Heim was still alive. "He has a fortune of €1m lying in a Berlin bank. If he were dead, his heirs would have got in touch," he said. Others on the list include Alois Brunner, who worked closely with Adolf Eichmann and was responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths from across Europe. He is believed to be living in Damascus, Syria. (Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 01/28/05)