Introduction
In 1967 Simon Wiesenthal, known as the ‘Nazi hunter’, wrote in his
book The Murderers among Us:
Late in 1947 I began to trace the escape routes of important missing
Nazis who were now on the wanted lists of several nations. I knew that
towards the end of the war all prominent SS leaders and Gestapo members had received from the RSHA [Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich
Main Security Office] false personal documents bearing new names.
But I was less interested in names than in routes. It was essential to fi nd
out where they had gone and by what means, and who had helped them
and paid for it all.1
Wiesenthal was referring at this time to a large gap in the research into
the background of the flight of SS members and war criminals
overseas—a gap that he himself did not close, and which has not yet
been fi lled even decades later. This book reconstructs the flight and the
escape routes of the Nazi perpetrators after 1945.
The history of the twentieth century is defi ned to a particularly
high degree by National Socialism and the Second World War with
its mass crimes and genocides. As a result, the study of National
Socialism has gained a great deal of ground over the last few decades.
The number of books, essays, internet texts, fi lms, and TV documentaries on the subject is vast. Research into Nazi perpetrators has now
become centrally important. The socialization, motives, and actions
of the planners, executives, and agents of the genocide occupy centre
stage, as for example in the recent much-discussed novel by Jonathan
Littell, The Kindly Ones.2
But the flight of war criminals and SS members is generally overlooked. It is only in the past few years that this subject has increasingly
attracted attention, but after the end of the war numerous Nazi war
criminals and National Socialists evaded punishment by escaping overseas. The circumstances which allowed them to do so and routes they
followed, as well as the issue of who helped the war criminals, was not
the subject of close investigation.3
xvi
Introduction
For decades, imaginative ideas of supposedly powerful secret
organizations such as ODESSA (Organisation der ehemaligen
SS-Angehörigen, Organisation of former SS members) were a strikingly unrealistic model. The ODESSA myth, based on claims by
Simon Wiesenthal, became the incarnation of the conspiracy myth
of the secret survival of the National Socialist elite. Foremost among
the proponents of such ideas is Frederick Forsyth’s 1972 novel The
Odessa File, the story of a tightly knit band of former SS men who
formed the secret ‘Odessa organization’. Both the novel and the fi lm
based on it became wildly popular across the globe. This vividly
drawn conspiratorial group—which was rumoured to have vast
fi nancial resources at its disposal and was jealously guarded its members, inserting them into positions of great influence in the post-war
world—was over time accepted as fact. ODESSA became known as
the biggest fugitive organization of all time, a powerful SS brotherhood operating on a global scale behind a nearly impenetrable veil of
secrecy. Tight discipline and an autocratic structure ensured that its
members were poised to revive Nazism, strike again, and impose a
brutal dystopia on the world. But this picture of Nazi fugitives and
their escape routes strayed rather far from the objective truth.
The shadowy ODESSA had actually garnered serious attention in
1946 and 1947 from the likes of the US Counter Intelligence Corps
(CIC). Despite dogged research, however, CIC agents were never able
to uncover any concrete facts about the founding, structure, or precise
activities of the fabled group. They even began to suspect that some
small and insignificant circles of former SS men, taking pleasure in the
rumours, had adopted the name ‘ODESSA’ to create an air of mystery
around their fraternity. Most of the information about ODESSA that
made its way to the CIC was extraordinarily vague and its origins not
quite credible, propped up as it was more by hearsay than by fact. Yet
the Americans at least initially opted to believe that the Nazi underground would enjoy a long life after the war, and they eagerly seized
upon every small incident or sign that supported this fear.
This Cold War climate of distrust gave rise to quite a formidable tale,
said to have unfolded at a hotel named Maison Rouge, which still exists
in Strasburg today. Bestsellers and the popular press continue to invoke
the fascinating story of a secret conference held there on 10 August
1944, in which economic leaders of the Third Reich together with the
Introduction
xvii
SS plotted out a course for the afterlife of Nazism. It was believed by
many, including such authorities as Simon Wiesenthal, that the participants planned to transfer several billion Goldmarks safely abroad for
‘underwriting the greatest fugitive organization in world history’. Wiesenthal confidently announced that participants at the conference had
included coal baron Emil Kirdorf and steel magnates Fritz Thyssen
and Gustav Krupp, all implicated in the use of forced labour from concentration camps. To this day, not a single piece of evidence has turned
up to support this incredible story of a high-level meeting to plan the
emergence of the Fourth Reich. In fact, Kirdorf had already died in
1938, Krupp had relinquished his position in 1943, and Thyssen was
imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the time.4
In his lifetime, Simon Wiesenthal chose to invoke ODESSA time
and again, clearly intrigued by a plausible symbol that resonated with
the difficulties of post-war reckoning. The legendary Strasburg meeting
and its supposed role in laying the ground for the ODESSA figured in
his 1967 book, The Murderers among Us. He claimed to have learned
about the organization in 1950 from ‘Hans’, a German former intelligence operative with insider knowledge: refuges for Nazis on the run
had been established in a series of way stations such as monasteries at
twenty-five-mile intervals; the final stage involved sailing from the port
of Genoa to the Argentina of General Perón.
The Vienna Nazi hunter ultimately used the image of this organization to explain all actual and alleged escapes, both by prominent criminals and the ‘foot soldiers’ in the Nazi machinery of genocide and
destruction. ODESSA conveniently stood in for the complicated and
shady phenomenon of a Nazi exodus. Inexhaustible in his pursuit of
perpetrators and justice, Wiesenthal had found a serviceable symbol to
keep alive public anxiety and outrage about conniving former SS men
and the impunity of their actions.
Individual escape stories such as that of Adolf Eichmann have by
now been spectacularly retold, but at the same time little research has
yet been carried out into the subject of Nazi fl ight, as for a long time
contemporary historians showed very little interest in the subject.
Holger Meding, a Latin America specialist at Cologne University,
gives three reasons for the lack of interest of researchers into the subject that prevailed for so long: the archives that remained inaccessible
until a few years ago, the fl ippant treatment of the escape stories (or
xviii
Introduction
even their invention) by journalists, and the sensationalist approach
towards invented or true individual cases such as those of Joseph
Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, and Martin Bormann, which has deterred
academic historians.5
Changing conditions have encouraged new inquiry into the subject
of escape aid for fleeing National Socialists, SS men, and collaborators.
New political conditions resulting in, among other things, the opening
of archives and the freedom to re-examine the past, have contributed
significantly to the improved state of academic research and growing
public interest. With the end of the Cold War, the political will to
address this subject has also grown; the shield that had protected those
SS officers and war criminals who were still alive and in hiding no
longer exists. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the
Cold War, many international archives were opened, legal authorities
resumed investigations, and some governments set up commissions of
historians to examine Nazi flight in the post-war years.
Historians such as Heinz Schneppen have in recent years shown that
an all-powerful, mythical organization like ODESSA never existed.
This research also makes abundantly clear that simple monocausal
models do not adequately account for the complicated relationships
that facilitated Nazi flight. Former Nazis and SS men had indisputably
forged bonds and support networks that secured their escape from
Germany. These loose associations gradually became more concrete in
1946 and thereafter, and often consisted of small groups of men who
had fought together. The network maintained by former members of
the Waffen-SS, for instance, shows how ties forged on the battlefield
and in combat units later served to jump-start and support post-war
careers. These men often helped one another not only to escape from
Europe, but also to put down roots in their new countries of residence.
Most of the research herein is devoted to Italy, since that country was
to become an all-important highway for war criminals (Reichsautobahn
für Kriegsverbrecher) on their way to overseas destinations. Of course, this
happened over time and as conditions allowed. The Allied military
occupation of Italy was only lifted in December of 1945 and deterred
fugitives from leaving from there earlier. But the research in this book
shows that the escape route through Italy began functioning in 1946
and that the majority of Nazis fleeing from Europe passed through Italian harbours on their journey abroad. Significant in helping the fugitives
Introduction
xix
was the German-speaking population of the Alto Adige (South Tyrol),
a border region subjected to intense Italianization under Benito
Mussolini. Often banned from using the German language and from
referring to Tyrolean culture, the population kept alive strong bonds
with German ethno-nationalism, even in the face of Hitler’s rejection to
defend its cause against Mussolini. By the end of 1945 South Tyrol was
also the first German-language region on the escape route to be freed
from Allied military government controls.
The book highlights how this set of conditions facilitated the emergence of an escape hatch (Nazi-Schlupfloch) in the conveniently located
region of South Tyrol. Former Nazis and SS officers fleeing from
Germany or Eastern Europe to Italy crossed the Austrian territory that
lay in between. They could be taken over the Brenner Pass on traditional smuggling routes, which entailed far fewer risks than travelling
through heavily policed northern gateways such as the ports of Rotterdam and Hamburg. Some smugglers made no distinction: in addition
to German immigrants whose destination was South America, their
clientele often included Jews who were illegally fleeing Europe to settle
in Palestine. In a macabre fashion, the paths of fugitive Nazi criminals
along the escape routes over the Alps often crossed with those of their
victims. South Tyrol became a natural hub for members of SS and business circles to reunite and forge connections between Germany, Italy,
Spain, and Argentina that would secure their escape. Fugitives were
often made so welcome in this border region that some chose to stay for
months and even years, working on local farms or living on borrowed
money to raise funds for emigration visas and steamship fares. Networks of assistance in South Tyrol were evidently well organized and
able to provide war criminals and SS officers on the run with essential
items, among them new identity papers under false names.
Beyond this, the book takes a hard look at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This organization derived its influence
and power above all from its moral standing as a neutral humanitarian
intermediary. The question of whether this position was tenable in a
world of realpolitik cropped up repeatedly in this research. It is well
known that the ICRC failed to speak out against the Holocaust, despite
having clear information on what was unfolding for the Jews of Europe.
The organization apparently made a tactical decision not to protest, for
fear that this would endanger its ability to carry on aid work in
xx
Introduction
German-occupied Europe. Moral authority thus gave way to practical
considerations. But how did the Committee actually react when Nazis
and war criminals began using Red Cross services to elude Allied justice? A central element deals with deciphering ICRC discussions in
Geneva over this dilemma. Historian Jean-Claude Favez and others
have already shown the organization’s role during World War II, particularly its failure to denounce the systematic murder of the Jews up to
1945. Yet the story of the ICRC in the immediate post-war years
remains largely unwritten, and this book is the first serious attempt to
close this gap.
The ICRC, albeit never a willing partner, evidently extended a significant helping hand to the fugitives. Hiding among the Displaced Persons (DPs) were such well-known criminals as Adolf Eichmann, Josef
Mengele, and Franz Stangl, who used transit papers from the ICRC to
flee abroad. In this way tainted biographies were transformed into spotless identities. Although the ICRC has acknowledged that it served as
an accessory in these cases and has publicly apologized, its action went
well beyond helping a few people. This book provides proof that travel
papers issued by the Committee made it possible for thousands of Nazis,
war criminals, and collaborators from all over Europe to slip through
the hands of justice and to find refuge in North and South America,
Spain, and the Near East. By the middle of 1951, the Red Cross had
issued at least 120,000 travel documents in what must be regarded as an
extremely problematic operation. The organization’s vetting procedure
for issuing identity papers may have been quite lax, indeed very insufficient, but its operations functioned surprisingly well, given the huge
numbers of refugees making claims on its personnel.
Nazis on the Run details the ICRC’s entanglement in the rescue operation that was exploited by fugitives and shows what the leaders of the
organization actually knew. It establishes beyond doubt that Paul
Ruegger, then president of the ICRC, was aware that Red Cross travel
documents were not always going into the right hands, but that he
nevertheless chose not to intervene. Again, a question about the lack of
proper action on the part of the ICRC must be asked: why did the
Committee not act quickly and effectively when the massive scale of
the travel documents scandal became known? Once more, practical
considerations came into play. The ICRC apparently saw the cases
related to the scandal as just a few ‘bad apples’ in the huge throng of
Introduction
xxi
DPs and did not want this matter to jeopardize its whole refugee assistance programme. Whenever the question came up, Red Cross officials
were quick to insist that the Allies and the Vatican were ultimately
responsible for weeding out suspect cases. This book identifies a chain
of deferred responsibility.
Nazis on the Run also examines the extent to which the background
and political beliefs of certain ICRC leaders played a role in this process of dodging responsibility and failing to verify adequately applicants’ details before issuing new identity papers. It is obvious that
President Carl Jacob Burckhardt had a history of pro-German sympathies and was at least latently anti-Semitic. Did this have a concrete
effect on the involvement of the International Red Cross in assistance
provided to the Nazi ratline? The question will remain on the table
until further research on the biographies and decisions of the ICRC
leadership is carried out. This book makes it clear, however, that
strongly anticommunist convictions and concerns influenced the ICRC
decision makers. One could say that the organization never acted
along strictly neutral lines and, from time to time, allowed itself to be
marshalled as a weapon in the early Cold War. This is supported by a
careful scrutiny of the Red Cross representatives in Italy immediately
after the war and of decisions made at headquarters in Geneva about
aid for DPs.
The book documents the close cooperation between the ICRC and
Vatican relief agencies for refugees in Italy. The attitude of the Vatican
and Pope Pius XII during the Nazi years has been the subject of ongoing historical debate, particularly the Pontiff’s silence on the Holocaust
as it unfolded. As in the case of the ICRC, the Vatican’s conflict between
moral standards and realpolitik becomes obvious in hindsight. Many
leaders of the Catholic Church—sometimes knowingly, at other times
unwittingly—were also involved in large-scale Nazi smuggling. A key
motive for the clergy was the need to fight against ‘godless communism’. Correspondence between bishops in the United States and the
Vatican reveals that the fear of a communist takeover in Italy was then
paramount and founded partly on the fact that Italy had the strongest
communist party in post-war Western Europe. Of special interest in
this political context is the role of the Vatican Pontifical Assistance
Commission for Refugees, an important charitable organization under
the supervision of Under-Secretary of State Giovanni Montini (later
xxii
Introduction
Paul VI). The commission (sponsored by the American Catholic
Church) was central to the overall strategy against communism at the
outset of the Cold War, as State Department officials documented at
the time. Evidence suggests that some figures in the Vatican used the
organization as a tool in the fight against the common enemy, the rise
of Soviet influence in Europe. A key player in this process was Alois
Hudal, Rector of the College of Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome (and
a convinced Nationalist and admirer of Adolf Hitler). A bishop since
1933 and Assistant to the Papal Throne, Hudal enjoyed close personal
ties to Pope Pius XII for many years. Although his influence waned at
the Vatican and within the church hierarchy from 1943 onwards, he
was still able to obtain special papal blessings for the Nazi aid programme. Hudal in later years became a scapegoat for the Vatican, but
his practices while in office were by no means the exception: the Vatican
refugee committees for Croats, Slovenes, Ukrainians, and Hungarians
acted in similar fashion, aiding former fascists and Nazi collaborators
to escape those countries.
The Catholic Church proved to be highly adaptable and flexible in
the complex political situation that was emerging. Consider the Church’s
history during fascist rule: in 1929, the Holy See and Italy had signed
the Lateran Treaty, ending years of antagonism between the Church
and the Italian State. In the very first article of this conciliation treaty,
Italy recognized the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion as the only
state religion. The importance of the Treaty in the evolution of events
across the spectrum in Europe, before, during, and after the war, cannot be overstated. Journalist John Cornwell suggests that the Italian
Concordat (Lateran Treaty) foreshadowed the 1933 Reich Concordat,
a deal reached after much protracted wrangling between Hitler and
Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII).
The Italian Concordat worked as an alliance of sorts between the
Church and the fascist regime and allowed both to agree on most issues,
at least until 1938 when the Mussolini regime introduced race laws
directed against the Jews and Slavs in Italy and the black African populations in the Italian colonies. Indeed, relations between fascists and the
clergy in Italy remained largely unproblematic up to 1943. Even after
the Nazis took control of northern Italy in September 1943, there was
no evidence of general anti-Catholic policies. In some cases, SS officials
and church representatives in northern Italy forged ties in their common
Introduction
xxiii
fear of a communist takeover in the region. The same cannot be said of
the situation that prevailed in Austria and Germany, where the Catholic Church repeatedly found itself in conflict with the Nazi regime,
especially regarding Nazi race ideology. The regime sometimes openly
attacked bishops, persecuted priests and sent them to concentration
camps, and shut down monasteries.
After the war, changing circumstances along with the ever-increasing fear of communist expansion weighed heavily in the way the Church
now understood its role in the world. With the liberation of Rome by
Allied troops in 1944, the Catholic Church ‘discovered’ democracy.
Pius XII declared that the Church would view democracy—if purified
by Christian influence—as a form of government on par with monarchy. Prior to this, the Church had traditionally aligned with the monarchy and authoritarian regimes, finding them more acceptable than
the alternatives. It now saw itself as a stabilizing force in post-war Italy
as one of the few indisputable authorities in the vacuum left by fascism,
National Socialism, and civil war. Certainly, the Church continued to
wield great influence over society and would not readily relinquish this
position. Fascist ideologies of ‘master races’ (Herrenrassen), the cult of
war, and extreme nationalism had led Europe into catastrophe, and
Christian churches wanted to turn the tide by regaining their supremacy in society and politics. Religious anti-Judaism (as distinguished
from anti-Semitic racism) may have played a role in helping Nazis to
escape. But other factors appear to have been more compelling, among
them a desire to help Catholics irrespective of their political background
and, above all, a determination to lead the opposition to communism in
the chaotic and unpredictable situation in post-war Europe.
It was very much part of the Church’s policy at the time to welcome
the return of ‘renegade’ Catholics and to embrace converted Protestants. This book presents unprecedented evidence that some priests on
occasion went so far as to offer ‘re-baptism’ to non-Catholic (mostly
Protestant) Germans who sought the clergy’s assistance in their flight
from likely retribution. The return to the Church of some lapsed members—men who had been temporarily ‘waylaid by the seductions of
Nazism’—was also greeted with enthusiasm. Certain members of the
Catholic Church saw this as an opportunity to re-Christianize Europe
after years of the pagan Nazi rule. Denazification through baptism
clearly operated on the margins of church doctrine, but exceptional
xxiv
Introduction
times bred exceptional measures; the fact it was practised suggests that
those in the Church who helped fugitives may have needed strong symbols to assuage their ambivalence over an extremely complex situation.
Many questions remain, but the Vatican Archives are still only accessible for the years up to 1939. Thus the book’s research relies heavily on
scholarly literature, witness testimonies, and archives from the German
National Church of the Anima in Rome, the Catholic Church of America, and regional churches. I also had the opportunity to conduct a
revealing interview with Monsignor Joseph Prader, a close confidant of
Bishop Hudal, on these and related activities.
One cannot ignore the role of the Western Allies, particularly the
involvement of the US intelligence services in assisting refugees with a
Nazi past and in recycling SS agents at the beginning of the Cold War.
The Allies were also gearing up to put a stop to the ‘clear and present
danger’ of communist expansion. Cold War concerns now trumped
post-war reckoning with Nazi crimes. At the same time, US intelligence
operations were undergoing radical internal changes, one of them being
the disbanding of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor
to the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA) in 1945. This left the Counter
Intelligence Corps (CIC) seriously understaffed and unprepared for
newly emerging challenges; in dire need of new sources of information,
its operations often seemed amateurish and slightly desperate.
In this context, underground networks born of the collaboration
between the ICRC and the Catholic Church to help Nazis escape
became useful to the Allies themselves. As early as 1947, the CIC itself
was using a ‘ratline’, as it was called in intelligence jargon. It smuggled
former SS men recruited to advise US intelligence agencies out of Soviet-occupied areas of Austria and eastern Europe into Italy and on to
South America. From the CIC’s perspective, SS men and German
counterintelligence agents had special expertise on the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe that could serve its post-war purposes. Scholars
such as Richard Breitman, Norman Goda, Timothy Naftali, Robert
Wolfe, and Kerstin von Lingen have documented this configuration in
great detail over the past years. In the end, the unsavoury new agents
recruited by the CIC produced very little valuable information on the
Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies. This book expands on
these histories by delving further into the concerns and conditions prevailing in Italy at the time and by closely examining the secret contacts
Introduction
xxv
already fostered between the SS in Italy and the OSS under Allen Dulles
up to the end of 1945. Until now, historical research had focused particularly on the role of Dulles and his intricate network of contacts. These
were crucial in defining the methods of Allied intelligence gathering, but
also in identifying likely participants for the Italian ratline. One network, for instance, surfaced from Operation Bernhard, a large-scale
counterfeiting operation recently brought to world audiences through
the Oscar-winning Austrian movie The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher). After
1945 some SS agents connected with Operation Bernhard went on to
organize escape routes and facilities across Italy and became a part of
the CIC ratline. But for the investigation of the precise connections
between Operation Bernhard and the ratline further research is required.
In describing the various links, I am able to bring a better understanding of the central position that Italy occupied in the chain of events.
This study does not focus strictly on Argentina as a destination for
Nazis on the run. Despite popular assumptions, this South American
country was only one of several that held considerable attraction for
war criminals, Nazis, and fascists in flight. Some researchers attribute
Argentina’s open-door policy mainly to a sympathetic attitude towards
Nazi ideology, but this book provides a more balanced picture. Argentina’s interest in hosting the fugitives had its basis in the same motives
found in other countries (most prominently, the United States, Great
Britain, the Soviet Union, and France). All of them put out the welcome
mat for Germans and Austrians deemed useful, regardless of their
political background or wartime activities; this spoke of a desire to pursue national interests with the help of a vast pool of unemployed Nazi
migrants, men with special skills—who incidentally had something to
hide. The works of Uki Goñi, Holger Meding, Heinz Schneppen, Carlota Jackisch, and other scholars have shown that the Argentine government also made particular efforts to recruit German specialists with
a military background or technical expertise. This study draws from
such literature as well as from new Italian and American archival
sources. The practical steps taken in the recruitment process by Argentinian officials is particularly striking. Both legal and illegal recruiting
was carried out by Argentinians of German extraction and, in Italy, by
SS officers lying low.
Once in Argentina, fugitive Nazis had indeed found a safe haven, for
extradition from that country was highly unlikely. How many war
xxvi
Introduction
criminals and Nazis fled overseas? It is still difficult to pin down precise
figures, for much depends on definitions of perpetrators of crimes under
National Socialism (who is a perpetrator?) and selection by nationality
(it was by no means only Germans and Austrians who fled). Fundamentally, one must distinguish between (1) high-ranking Nazis and SS officers, (2) war criminals and Holocaust perpetrators, and (3) fascists and
collaborators from across Europe. It is sometimes difficult to make clear
distinctions. According to Argentinian sources, some 180 prominent or
seriously implicated Nazi officials and SS officers entered the country
from Europe through the Buenos Aires harbour on the Río de la Plata
River. Historian Holger Meding, for his part, puts arrival figures at
between 300 and 800 high-level Nazis, including some fi fty known war
criminals and mass murderers. They were joined by thousands of collaborators and fascists from Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Belgium, Croatia,
and other countries. Among them were such prominent figures as Ante
Pavelić, the former head of state of Croatia.
As mentioned already, Argentina was hardly the only desirable destination for fugitives. Spain or countries in the Near East or in North
and South America—including the United States and Canada—appear to have been sought-after places to relocate. For example, in 1946,
some 9,000 Ukrainians from the Waffen-SS Division Galizien found
their way via Italy to Great Britain and from there to Canadian shores,
passing themselves off as agricultural settlers eager to work on Canada’s
vast tracts of farmland. Their numbers may have included former concentration camp personnel. A clear statistical picture concerning those
who fled abroad will only emerge once records have been thoroughly
examined for all major countries that accepted new immigrants, and
not just Argentina.
For this book, I visited numerous international archives over a fiveyear period and assessed their contents. They include the relevant
national archives in Italy, Austria, Germany, the United States, Great
Britain, and Switzerland as well as regional, church, and corporate
archives. I consulted intensively the Archive of the International Red
Cross Committee in Geneva; this was also the fi rst time that the
internal correspondence of the Red Cross during those years was
examined. Entirely fresh insights into escape aid also came from the
archives of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in Washington,
DC. In addition, I closely evaluated the rich deposits of the US National
Introduction
xxvii
Archives. Along with the documents of the International Red Cross,
they form the backbone of this richly sourced book. The Central State
Archive and the Istituto Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome, state
archives elsewhere in Italy, and parish offices and city archives supplied important missing pieces for the understanding of the post-war
situation in Italy.
Nazis on the Run is the first book to bring together and analyse all the
structures used by Nazis in their flight. It gives a more complete picture
of the organizations involved and of the links between them. First it
depicts the role of Italy and, in particular, the South Tyrol in the transit
of Nazis fleeing Europe. In the chapters that follow, the structures of the
escape route are examined: the role of the International Committee of
the Red Cross, the role of players inside the Vatican, and the actions of
the intelligence agencies in the post-war years. The last chapter is
devoted to Argentina, to which many of the perpetrators escaped. It is
my hope that this fresh, transnational, and interdisciplinary outlook
will provide a new understanding of how so many Nazis managed to
escape justice after 1945.