Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Innsbruck Wien [u.a.] StudienVerl. 2008
Description
Steinacher not only reveals how Nazi war criminals escaped from justice at the end of the Second World War, fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports, but he also highlights the key roles played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the major powers. --from publisher description
User reviews
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
This seems to be one of those academic books which is not really intended to be read cover to cover. Steinacher repeats the same information many times. For instance, German ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel gets the epithet "fighter pilot" every time he's first mentioned in one of the book's five major
In my case, while I did read the book cover to cover, I was most interested in the chapter "The Intelligence Service Ratline". I did not find all that much new. In fact, it's not completely unfair to say there is not a lot new in this book. I got the layman impression that Steinacher was simply gathering up a lot of information published elsewhere - though some significant stuff only exists in recently released U.S. and Red Cross archives. Anyway, Steinacher covers the familiar story of how the future head of West German intelligence, Reinhard Gehlen, was "recycled" from his prior life as Hitler's head of espionage in Eastern Europe. Operation Paperclip, the recruiting of technical experts in weaponry - particularly in rocket technology - by the United States, regardless of what they may have done in their Nazi past, is covered. But, again, that's nothing new. Unknown to me, but still mentioned in histories as far back as 1963 was Operation Bernhard. It was a German operation to destabilize the British economy by massively counterfeiting British pound notes. Surprisingly, a number of Jews were involved in this operation as they diverted some of the pound notes to help finance illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine starting in April 1945. Suspense novel readers might be interested to find out that the operation's base, Schloss Labers, was allegedly the inspiration for the Eagles Nest of Alistair MacLean's movie and novel Where Eagles Dare.
Steinacher's chapter on Italy reminds us of the post-WWII chaos in Italy, burdened with refugees and the site of an early Cold War struggle to keep the communists from gaining power in elections. Not only was the South Tryol region full of ethnic Germans - it was disputed territory between Italy and Germany until 1939, but it was ideally suited for illegal transit from Austria with long established smuggling routes. And wanted Nazis were only part of Italy's refugee problem. The same South Tyrol safehouses very well might have simultaneously housed Nazis and Jews seeking to leave Europe. Italy did not feel it had the luxury to punctiliously scrutinize everybody wanting to leave its shores.
The complicity of the Red Cross is a story of overwork, inexperience, and some corruption. Red Cross travel documents - in essence substitute passports - became crucial to those whom the post-war International Refugee Organization would not aid. Those were usually ethnic "stateless" Germans who often passed themselves off as having non-German citizenship. These documents were often issued after receiving vouching documentation from officials of the Catholic Church. While it is understandable that the Church wanted to protect its members from the violence of the Soviet Communist state that had taken over Easter Europe, there is no doubt that it knowingly aided war criminals, particularly the Hungarian Bishop Hudal and Croatian Father Draganovic. Steinacher rejects the characterization of Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope", but he does fairly show that the church was less interested in punishing Nazis than stopping communist influence in Europe and returning Protestants to the Catholic fold. The later effort led to the unofficial practice of "rebaptism" to purge Nazis of their sins - whether they were former Catholics or not.
Finally, Steinacher shows why Argentina was a well-known Nazi destination. Juan Peron was impressed by the German military he trained with in 1939 and 1940, and his regime was interested in the technological boost German scientists and technicians seemed - but never quite delivered - to offer. (One of the sources in the bibliography amusingly refers to the Perons as "the bitch Goddess and the Nazi Elvis".) Furthermore, Argentina already had a substantial German population before the war, and the refugees to the country after WWII did appreciably better their lives.
With an extensive index of names so you can look up your Nazi of interest, this book probably has some appeal to those interested in WWII and Nazi Germany.
What you won't see here is anything resembling the famed ODESSA organization, a myth perpetuated by Simon Weisenthal and propelled into the public mind by Frederick Forsyth's The Odessa File. Steinacher makes clear the truth is both more simple and more complicated.
There are, to me, two troubling aspects of the book which in no way cast aspersions on Steinacher's scholarship, only his implicit moral compass. First, he is too dismissive of the evils of the Soviet regime which confronted the Church and western leaders after WWII. The only real acknowledgement of its horrors are references to repatriated Yugoslavians being executed by the Tito regime. And he bizarrely and incoherently defines anticommunism at one point as "... an attitude which fundamentally rejects all social models that it deems to be communist. It includes within its critique all the considerations, conceptions, and ideas that are supposedly aimed at the same communist model of society ... reduced only to their negative historical manifestations". Purges, show trials, and engineered famines may be negative manifestations but seem enough to condemn the USSR and seem enough to want to stop its spread. Unfortunately, in the West, much of the 20th century did not offer the possibilities of a neat moral stand against both fascism and communism at once.
Steinacher ends with the conventional wisdom that, in our future, nations will readily acknowledge their historical injustices, that we will avoid both "victor's justice" and a repeat of so many Nazis escaping justice. Yet, I can't help but wonder how many Nazis would have escaped or been acquitted - and any truly fair trial of war criminals must have such a potential - if we would had simply resorted to that old fashioned victor's justice?
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chapters. Clearly, this tome is directed to an academic audience who is just going to dive into the chapter they want and pull information out. Those five chapters cover the major ways Nazis escaped: the primacy of Italy, particularly the South Tyrol region, as the geographic center of the Nazi underground; the negligence of the International Committee of the Red Cross in issuing travel documents; the efforts of some Catholic clergy; the aid of western, particularly United States', intelligence services; and the importance of Argentina as either a temporary or permanent refugee for Nazis.In my case, while I did read the book cover to cover, I was most interested in the chapter "The Intelligence Service Ratline". I did not find all that much new. In fact, it's not completely unfair to say there is not a lot new in this book. I got the layman impression that Steinacher was simply gathering up a lot of information published elsewhere - though some significant stuff only exists in recently released U.S. and Red Cross archives. Anyway, Steinacher covers the familiar story of how the future head of West German intelligence, Reinhard Gehlen, was "recycled" from his prior life as Hitler's head of espionage in Eastern Europe. Operation Paperclip, the recruiting of technical experts in weaponry - particularly in rocket technology - by the United States, regardless of what they may have done in their Nazi past, is covered. But, again, that's nothing new. Unknown to me, but still mentioned in histories as far back as 1963 was Operation Bernhard. It was a German operation to destabilize the British economy by massively counterfeiting British pound notes. Surprisingly, a number of Jews were involved in this operation as they diverted some of the pound notes to help finance illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine starting in April 1945. Suspense novel readers might be interested to find out that the operation's base, Schloss Labers, was allegedly the inspiration for the Eagles Nest of Alistair MacLean's movie and novel Where Eagles Dare.
Steinacher's chapter on Italy reminds us of the post-WWII chaos in Italy, burdened with refugees and the site of an early Cold War struggle to keep the communists from gaining power in elections. Not only was the South Tryol region full of ethnic Germans - it was disputed territory between Italy and Germany until 1939, but it was ideally suited for illegal transit from Austria with long established smuggling routes. And wanted Nazis were only part of Italy's refugee problem. The same South Tyrol safehouses very well might have simultaneously housed Nazis and Jews seeking to leave Europe. Italy did not feel it had the luxury to punctiliously scrutinize everybody wanting to leave its shores.
The complicity of the Red Cross is a story of overwork, inexperience, and some corruption. Red Cross travel documents - in essence substitute passports - became crucial to those whom the post-war International Refugee Organization would not aid. Those were usually ethnic "stateless" Germans who often passed themselves off as having non-German citizenship. These documents were often issued after receiving vouching documentation from officials of the Catholic Church. While it is understandable that the Church wanted to protect its members from the violence of the Soviet Communist state that had taken over Easter Europe, there is no doubt that it knowingly aided war criminals, particularly the Hungarian Bishop Hudal and Croatian Father Draganovic. Steinacher rejects the characterization of Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope", but he does fairly show that the church was less interested in punishing Nazis than stopping communist influence in Europe and returning Protestants to the Catholic fold. The later effort led to the unofficial practice of "rebaptism" to purge Nazis of their sins - whether they were former Catholics or not.
Finally, Steinacher shows why Argentina was a well-known Nazi destination. Juan Peron was impressed by the German military he trained with in 1939 and 1940, and his regime was interested in the technological boost German scientists and technicians seemed - but never quite delivered - to offer. (One of the sources in the bibliography amusingly refers to the Perons as "the bitch Goddess and the Nazi Elvis".) Furthermore, Argentina already had a substantial German population before the war, and the refugees to the country after WWII did appreciably better their lives.
With an extensive index of names so you can look up your Nazi of interest, this book probably has some appeal to those interested in WWII and Nazi Germany.
What you won't see here is anything resembling the famed ODESSA organization, a myth perpetuated by Simon Weisenthal and propelled into the public mind by Frederick Forsyth's The Odessa File. Steinacher makes clear the truth is both more simple and more complicated.
There are, to me, two troubling aspects of the book which in no way cast aspersions on Steinacher's scholarship, only his implicit moral compass. First, he is too dismissive of the evils of the Soviet regime which confronted the Church and western leaders after WWII. The only real acknowledgement of its horrors are references to repatriated Yugoslavians being executed by the Tito regime. And he bizarrely and incoherently defines anticommunism at one point as "... an attitude which fundamentally rejects all social models that it deems to be communist. It includes within its critique all the considerations, conceptions, and ideas that are supposedly aimed at the same communist model of society ... reduced only to their negative historical manifestations". Purges, show trials, and engineered famines may be negative manifestations but seem enough to condemn the USSR and seem enough to want to stop its spread. Unfortunately, in the West, much of the 20th century did not offer the possibilities of a neat moral stand against both fascism and communism at once.
Steinacher ends with the conventional wisdom that, in our future, nations will readily acknowledge their historical injustices, that we will avoid both "victor's justice" and a repeat of so many Nazis escaping justice. Yet, I can't help but wonder how many Nazis would have escaped or been acquitted - and any truly fair trial of war criminals must have such a potential - if we would had simply resorted to that old fashioned victor's justice?
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Subjects
Awards
National Jewish Book Award (Winner — 2011)
Language
Physical description
380 p.; 24 cm
ISBN
9783706540261