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Summary
Summary
This is the fascinating story of how Nazi war criminals escaped from justice at the end of the Second World War by fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports, and the role played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the major powers in smuggling them away from prosecution in Europe to a new life in South America. The Nazi sympathies held by groups and individuals within these organizations evolved into a successful assistance network for fugitive criminals, providing them not only with secret escape routes but hiding places for their loot. Gerald Steinacher skillfully traces the complex escape stories of some of the most prominent Nazi war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann, showing how they mingled and blended with thousands of technically stateless or displaced persons, all flooding across the Alps to Italy and from there, to destinations abroad. The story of their escape shows clearly just how difficult the apprehending of war criminals can be. As Steinacher shows, all the major countries in the post-war world had 'mixed motives' for their actions, ranging from the shortage of trained intelligence personnel in the immediate aftermath of the war to the emerging East-West confrontation after 1947, which led to many former Nazis being recruited as agents turned in the Cold War.
Author Notes
Gerald Steinacher is currently a Joseph A. Schumpeter Research Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and Lecturer on Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He is the author of numerous publications on German and Italian twentieth century history and is currently working on a study of the general attitudes and specific policies of the International Committee of the Red Cross in response to the Holocaust, the post-Second World War refugee crisis, and the early days of the Cold War.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
After the defeat of the Third Reich, hundreds of Nazi war criminals-most famously Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele-escaped capture, in many cases by going to Latin America. Based on extensive research on newly opened archives, historian Steinacher documents four surprising institutions that aided them in this process: the International Committee of the Red Cross, which freely issued travel documents based on the testimony of two witnesses identifying the Nazi escapees; the Catholic Church, particularly the Vatican Relief Committee and individual priests more interested in fighting communism and gaining new adherents; the U.S., who employed former SS men as anticommunist agents; and finally, Argentina, led by dictator Juan Peron, which admitted ex-Nazis, particularly those with military ties, in an effort to quickly modernize the country. Peron even declared an amnesty for those who had entered the country illegally. Steinacher, a research fellow at Harvard and lecturer on contemporary history at the University of Innsbruck (Austria), generally tells this story clearly and the depth of his research is impressive. Too many individual stories are related too briefly, though, and he gives too much bureaucratic detail. But this is still a fine contribution to the post-history of Nazism, particularly as it was influenced by the early cold war. 16 pages of b&w photos. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
In Frederick Forsyth's bestselling thriller The Odessa File, a tightly knit, top-secret organisation of SS veterans arranges escape routes for former Nazis, places them in powerful positions across the globe, and develops rocket facilities in Egypt to destroy Israel with a massive onslaught of biological weapons. Typically, the story was far from being a complete invention. Forsyth took as his starting-point the revelation by the Austrian Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal that a secret conference of senior SS officers and leading Nazi industrialists such as Emil Kirdorf, Fritz Thyssen and Gustav Krupp had taken place in a Strasbourg hotel on 10 August 1944 to ensure the continuation of Nazism after its coming defeat by setting up and funding what Wiesenthal called "the greatest fugitive organisation in world history". Known as Odessa, it was invoked frequently by Wiesenthal over the following years to alert the world to the scandal of Nazi murderers living with impunity in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America. Some, such as Adolf Eichmann, were eventually caught and put on trial. Most, like the camp doctor and author of gruesome medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz, Josef Mengele, were not. In reality, as this book demonstrates, Odessa never existed. Of the key participants in the supposed meeting in Strasbourg, Kirdorf had died in 1938, Krupp, partially paralysed by a stroke, had handed over all his business interests to his son, and Thyssen, having broken with the Nazis, was incarcerated in a concentration camp. The truth about Nazis on the run, as Gerald Steinacher shows, was a lot more prosaic than the myth created by Wiesenthal. Western Europe in 1945-46 was in a state of almost complete chaos. There were tens of millions of German and other refugees, former slave labourers of the Nazis, German and Austrian prisoners of war, and people fleeing the advance of communism in eastern Europe - most of them without papers, milling around in total confusion. In this situation, it was not difficult for ex-SS men to change their identities and obtain false passports. To get away from Germany, the best route lay across the Alps, over the border to Italy, and there was no shortage of experienced smugglers of other kinds of contraband to arrange their passage. Even better for the SS men, the way lay through the long-disputed territory of the South Tyrol, German-speaking but since the first world war under Italian rule. Many of its inhabitants had supported the Germans and helped them during the brief episode of Nazi control towards the end of the war. They were all too willing to assist men they regarded as fellow Germans. Here too, it was possible to make contact with former comrades and Nazi officials who would smooth the way. Once in Italy, the escapees found many different agencies where help could be provided, and the Red Cross was willing to issue travel documents without too many questions asked. Dedicated to an extremely broad principle of humanitarian aid, the Red Cross provided help to Jews seeking to emigrate illegally to Palestine, at the same time as giving ex-Nazis the identity papers they so badly needed. The problems confronting the Red Cross were too overwhelming for careful discrimination to be made. But it is hard to disagree with the author's conclusion that it was more careless than it should have been. There were criminal and corrupt Italians who were prepared to forge papers for the SS men - and if the price could not be paid, there were always those who would act out of ideological conviction. Most important, there was a group of Vatican priests around the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal, the deeply antisemitic author in the mid-1930s of a tract called The Foundations of National Socialism, which he had presented to Hitler. A number of fugitives succeeded in obtaining "denazification through conversion", as German Protestant or Nazi-style "deists" had themselves baptised to get the church's help. Pope Pius XII, a friend of Hudal's, turned a blind eye to his activities and interceded repeatedly for ex-Nazis. When a US state department report pointed the finger at Hudal in 1984, the Vatican reacted with fury, but after Steinacher's book there should be no doubt of Rome's complicity, despite the regrettable fact that the Vatican archives are still closed for this period. No wonder the current pope has put the canonisation of his wartime predecessor on hold. However, a more important part was played by the Americans, who saw in former SS technicians, spies and experts sources of information and possible assistance in the emerging cold war. The rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, who had employed forced labourers under deadly and degrading conditions in his underground V-2 factory, was put in charge of the American rocket programme; the Nazi spymaster Reinhard Gehlen, who claimed his network of spies in eastern Europe was still in place, was rescued by the Americans and subsequently put in charge of the West German intelligence service. Within the Vatican and the US government, significant groups and individuals helped ex-Nazis to escape justice because they saw in them men whose hatred of communism was as great as their own. After the Nuremberg war crimes trial, governments decided that strengthening German self-respect in the face of the Soviet threat was more important than meting out justice. Most surviving victims of the Nazis were too busy putting their lives back together for moral reflection on the recent past. Germans, Austrians and Italians simply wanted to forget. Nazi escapees took advantage of this growing silence and amnesia to make their escape. And in Juan Peron's Argentina, desperate for technical knowhow and not unsympathetic to Nazism, they found a government so keen to have them that it sent recruiting agents to Italy to persuade them to come. Like all the other institutions that helped former SS men such as Eichmann get away, the Peron government was well aware of the crimes they had committed. More than half a century later, their moral indifference, as Steinacher notes, is stunning. In this murky world of hidden identities, deception and secrets, it is good to have a book as level-headed as this one, based on thorough research. All the more pity, then, that it is written in such poor English and so shoddily edited that it does the reputation of Oxford University Press's New York office no good at all. Richard J Evans's The Third Reich at War is published by Penguin. To order Nazis on the Run for pounds 14 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Richard J Evans Caption: Captions: Aftermath . . . Marshall Space Flight Center director Dr Wernher von Braun at his desk In Frederick Forsyth's bestselling thriller The Odessa File, a tightly knit, top-secret organisation of SS veterans arranges escape routes for former Nazis, places them in powerful positions across the globe, and develops rocket facilities in Egypt to destroy Israel with a massive onslaught of biological weapons. Typically, the story was far from being a complete invention. Forsyth took as his starting-point the revelation by the Austrian Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal that a secret conference of senior SS officers and leading Nazi industrialists such as Emil Kirdorf, Fritz Thyssen and Gustav Krupp had taken place in a Strasbourg hotel on 10 August 1944 to ensure the continuation of Nazism after its coming defeat by setting up and funding what Wiesenthal called "the greatest fugitive organisation in world history". There were criminal and corrupt Italians who were prepared to forge papers for the SS men - and if the price could not be paid, there were always those who would act out of ideological conviction. Most important, there was a group of Vatican priests around the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal, the deeply antisemitic author in the mid-1930s of a tract called The Foundations of National Socialism, which he had presented to Hitler. A number of fugitives succeeded in obtaining "denazification through conversion", as German Protestant or Nazi-style "deists" had themselves baptised to get the church's help. Pope Pius XII, a friend of Hudal's, turned a blind eye to his activities and interceded repeatedly for ex-Nazis. When a US state department report pointed the finger at Hudal in 1984, the Vatican reacted with fury, but after [Gerald Steinacher]'s book there should be no doubt of Rome's complicity, despite the regrettable fact that the Vatican archives are still closed for this period. No wonder the current pope has put the canonisation of his wartime predecessor on hold. - Richard J Evans.
Library Journal Review
Steinacher (Joseph A. Schumpeter Research Fellow, Ctr. for European Studies, Harvard) has meticulously researched how so many Nazi war criminals were able to escape justice after World War II. While its title may lead some readers to expect a dashing adventure tale of espionage and escape, this book is really about the bureaucratic chaos that paralyzed the Allied governments in the early postwar period. By pouring over newly released archives, Steinacher shows how the International Red Cross, the Vatican, and Western intelligence agencies preoccupied with the Cold War against the Soviet Union were all complicit in the escape of key Nazi criminals. Often this assistance was given unintentionally, but the chaos that followed World War II made the escapes almost inevitable. The millions of displaced without documentation made it easy for thousands of war criminals to disappear. VERDICT This book will be the standard for generations of historians who wish to study the fate of Hitler's followers who evaded justice for decades or escaped it altogether. Recommended.-Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary Lib., Oviedo, FL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
