The suspected Nazi war criminal Klaas F., who is number five on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's most-wanted list, is enjoying a quiet retirement in Bavaria. While some alleged former Nazis are facing trial in their old age, the 87-year-old has managed to slip through the cracks in the German justice system.

Klaas F. and his wife, were nice people, the affable neighbor said on the phone, apparently they "kept themselves to themselves" but were "very decent." They went walking a lot, had three sons and drove around in a red Audi. "He used to work in an office," the woman says. "He can tell you the rest himself."

But Klaas F. remained silent. The 87-year-old has yet to answer a written interview request from Spiegel Online. He must have his reasons.

Klaas F. ranks number five on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of the 10 most wanted Nazi war criminals. In 1947, F. was sentenced by a Dutch court to life in prison for multiple murders during World War II. But the former Nazi collaborator escaped from prison with a gang of fellow inmates and fled across the border into Germany.

The former menswear salesman, who was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands, has lived in an apartment building in Ingolstadt in the German state of Bavaria since the 1960s. While other suspected Nazi criminals such as Heinrich Boere,  88, and Ivan Demjanjuk, 89, have to face charges relating to their roles in World War II atrocities despite their old age, F. no longer has anything to fear from the German justice system.