Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice

by Gerald Steinacher

After World War II, rumors circulated that a secret organization named "Odessa" had smuggled Nazi war criminals out of Europe, a rumor further fueled by the wildly popular novel The Odessa File. But "Odessa" was nothing more than a myth. Now, in Nazis on the Run, historian Gerald Steinacher provides the true story of how the Nazis escaped their fate.

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. The book takes a hard look at the International Committee of the Red Cross, proving that identification papers issued by the Red Cross made it possible for thousands of Nazis, war criminals, and collaborators - including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengale - to slip through the hands of justice and to find refuge in North and South America, Spain, and the Near East. Steinacher underscores the importance of the South Tyrol as a "ratline" from Germany to Italy and also reveals that many figures in the Catholic Church - sometimes knowingly, other times unwittingly - were involved in large-scale Nazi smuggling, often driven by the fear of an imminent communist takeover of Italy. Finally, the book documents how the Counter Intelligence Corps (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited former SS men to advise U.S. intelligence agencies and smuggled them out of Soviet-occupied areas of Austria and Eastern Europe into Italy and on to South America.

Based on extensive research in newly opened archives, Nazis on the Run is the first book to provide a complete picture of this little-known story of justice denied.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Holocaust, War, Politics

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a well-researched, comprehensive analysis of the post war escape of Nazis, this book is a success. As an engaging, accessible study, this book fails. It easily could have been half the length if the author’s goal was to outline the main points, but the detail and extreme scrutiny was exhausting at times.

Here’s what you need to know (and I wouldn’t consider this a spoiler, because it’s known history):
-The first half outlines the role that organizations like the International Red Cross, The Vatican and various US government agencies played in assisting Nazis and war criminals escape Europe.
-The main reason the aforementioned organizations turned a blind eye was because Communism became the enemy after the defeat of Nazi Germany and vanquishing “godless communists” was more of a priority than tracking down Nazis.
-The second half of the book is bogged down with redundant accounts of individuals of varying rank making their escape, often in the same way.
-The most used escape route, or “ratline” from Germany was through Italy via South Tyrol, then to Rome for identification papers from The Vatican and travel papers from the Red Cross, then sailing from Genoa to Argentina.

There were some fascinating morsels of which I was previously unaware. One example being that the German scientist who helped create the devastating V2 rocket was recruited by NASA after the war. Another intriguing item was Argentina’s role in providing a safe haven for fleeing Germans during the Peron regime. The author is effective in differentiating religious anti-Judaism and anti-Semitic racism. He also makes the distinction between refugees, displaced persons, POWs and war criminals, all of which were abundant throughout Europe. Most of these groups were in need of some type of relief aid, therefore it was easy for the Nazis to slip through the cracks among the masses.

Overall, there was just too much tedium. If the author “trimmed the fat” and restructured the book a bit, I feel this book would find a broader audience.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

While "Nazis on the Run" contains a great deal of interesting information, it is horribly disorganized. The author continually circles back to the same information, expands on it, wanders off into something else, circles back, etc. Also, what is with the endnotes? There is nothing more annoying than endnotes - having to constantly flip back and forth to check every reference. Why not do this: footnotes for the situations where more information is needed to expand on what is mentioned on the page, and a bibliography (with parenthetical notations in the text) for reference.

Obviously, based upon the title, this book describes how the Nazi's fled after the fall of the Third Reich - often with the help of Catholic priests - through Italy and disseminated throughout the world - South America, the Middle East, even North America. Many former Nazis were, in fact, used by the US and British intelligence services after WWII to serve in the Cold War against the communists. Including many names and often repeating the same information across chapters, this information is beat against the reader over and over.

While no one can fault the author's scholarship - his research was intensive and far-ranging - he really needed to be better organized. Those who are fascinated with WWII and any information related thereto should find this book of interest.

[Jeff Dawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always wondered how many of the high ranking Nazis escaped the clutches of the allied armies in occupied Europe. Gerald Steinacher makes a very compelling attempt on showing how they did.

There have been stories over the decades on how the Vatican was the sole machine used by those fleeing the hands of justice. How many realize how deeply involved the International Red Cross had a hand providing aide?

Dr. Steinacher mentions at the beginning that the book started out as a thesis. It is written as such which makes it a difficult read at times. The amount of research is meticulous and concise, but it is the presentation that lacks a good flow. The book constantly jumps back and forth with no definitive time line to follow. That was most disappointing. I feel if more time would have been spent in organizing and collating the date instead of putting down the thoughts as they came to light, it would have been an excellent read.

The book at times spends too much time on certain characters who were involved in assisting most of those fleeing, Alois Hudnal, Krunoslav Dragonovic, and Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Granted, these are the main men involved in providing the appropriate papers, documents, and at times, money or jobs to tide them over until proper passage was obtained, but the repetition became cumbersome.

I felt the conclusion was no on point with the book and the chapter dedicated to Argentina was just more repetition to fill pages.

Overall, the research and notes compounded into the work will be well received by those who thirst for knowledge and footnotes. Five stars. For readability and flow, only a two.

[Elyce Feliz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very badly organized and written -

[J.S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the chaos of Europe following WWII, many Nazi's (even those guilty of war crimes) were able to escape arrest and prosecution. Both the US and USSR helped some to leave Europe because of their technical knowledge, but many of those not at the top of the Nazi organization and not as useful to the world powers ended up in South America and other destinations. Their stories of how they got there is surprising not only for the routes but also for the sheer number of those who managed to slip away.

Because of the bureaucracy that restricted the IRO (International Refugee Organization) many displaced persons (such as those classified as "ethnic Germans") fell outside their jurisdiction. The International Red Cross (IORC), in an effort to remain neutral in their aid, became a prime conduit for many. ID papers issued by the IORC were easy to obtain or falsify and were accepted as more legitimate than they were intended. In addition, there were many Nazi sympathizers who were eager to help those seeking to flee, and routes through the Tyrol Mountains in Northern Italy were well-traveled. And once they got to Italy they even found a few among the Catholic Church leaders who were either sympathetic to their cause or at least their plight. Argentina even aggressively sought out these immigrants.

This is an extensively researched book that details the many ways the guilty were able to escape responsibility for their crimes, and it clearly demonstrates the confusion and scope of the problem, as well as the responsibility of the Red Cross and Catholic church (whether intentional or not). And while it's highly informative, it's not very readable. Those looking for research will find this book invaluable, but those with a more casual interest may find the book tedious outside of the individual stories (which are many).

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nazis on the run provides a very clear although dry account of how Nazi higher ups escaped following World War II. While blaming most of the escape on the emergence of the Cold War and the hunt for better talent brought about by the German Scientific Revolution, the overall theme traces three major escape points for Nazis. The first was via the Red Cross and help through Italy where Nazi's lied and bribed their way to friendly countries. When that was not enough they enlisted the United States by helping them find ways to smuggle their covert operatives into an ever closing Iron Curtain. The second group focused on the corruption in the Vatican whose fear of the Communists was probably greater than that of the United States. Sympathetic pro-German Bishops were a vital way to gather passports, provide certification of origins and create false citizenships when necessary. The eventual destination of these escaped Nazis was to countries that needed their technical expertise and could not swoop in directly in Germany like the United States and USSR. Argentina benefited tremendously from the expertise it brought in for modernizing the state under the wishes of Peron. Overall it is a thorough analysis of how Nazis escaped detailing the routes, sources that helped them and their eventual destination. As other reviews indicated it is not a riveting reading and it is actually amazing that one could take a topic like this and make it so dry. If you are in to academic reads on how Nazis left Germany this is a great book for you otherwise it will probably have limited appeal to a wide audience.

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the outset a couple of things are stated by Steinacher - one, that this is book form of his degree work thesis; and second, that there never was an organisation named ODESSA, as described by Frederick Forsyth in his novel named after it, and since known even more due to the film based on the book. He repeatedly mentions various people including Simon Wiesenthal accepting existence of this organisation as a fact, and one is supposed to infer this was pretty silly, this author asserting over and over to the contrary. This assertion is in line with the general denial suitable to nazis in particular, and therefore many Germans in general, but another writer, Alan Levy, on the topic - one who researched extensively, too, and probably being not connected to nazis in existence through twentieth century in Germany, Austria or South America in various nations, had little reason to deny the existence of the organisation - says the following in his book "Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File":-
..................................

Quoted from Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File by Alan Levy:-

"ODESSA, in capital letters, is not the Soviet seaport where Simon Wiesenthal spent two years apprenticing as an architect and another year designing huts for chicken feathers, but an acronym for Organisation der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen: Organization of SS Members. As amorphous as the Mafia, which exists even when one cannot prove it exists, ODESSA, like the Cosa Nostra ‘families’, forms and re-forms to fit the occasion or need. Under such aliases as ‘Spider’, ‘Sluice’, ‘Silent Help’, ‘The Brotherhood’, ‘Association of German Soldiers’, ‘Comradeship’, or even ‘Six-Pointed Star’ (not the Star of David, but an escape network in Austria’s six principal cities), it denies its existence and shrugs off Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling 1972 thriller, The Odessa File, for the fiction it is, even though Forsyth’s novel features such real-life heroes as Simon Wiesenthal and Lord Russell of Liverpool as well as, for a villain, Eduard Roschmann, ‘The Butcher of Riga’ who, as second-in-command of the Latvian capital’s ghetto, was responsible for 35,000 deaths and deportations. In his foreword, Forsyth dissociates fiction from fact by pointing out that ‘many Germans are inclined to say that the ODESSA does not exist. The short answer is: it exists.’

Wiesenthal won’t waste his time or anyone else’s arguing this question. He insists ODESSA was founded in Augsburg or Stuttgart in 1947, when higher-ranking Nazis in the SS and wartime German industry saw that, despite Allied disinterest, the revelation of war crimes and the question of accountability were not going to die a quiet death. With the impending new state of Israel and dedicated survivors like Wiesenthal determined to keep the fires alive, the Fourth Reich wasn’t about to happen very soon. Using just a portion of their plunder, which Wiesenthal values at between $750 million and 1 billion, they were able to set up three escape routes: from the north German seaport of Bremen to the Italian seaport of Genoa, where Christopher Columbus was born and, centuries later, Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele set sail for the New World: from Bremen to Rome, where the Vatican and the International Red Cross, wittingly or unwittingly, stood ready to expedite their escapes; and from Austria to Italy, which is the way Franz Stangl went."

"‘ODESSA provides its members with material aid, organizes social activities, and, when necessary, helps ex-Nazis escape to foreign countries,’ said prosecutor Gideon Hausner at the Eichmann trial. ‘It has its headquarters in Munich with branches all over Germany and Austria as well as in South American countries. The German community at Hohenau in Paraguay is dominated by ODESSA.’

‘ODESSA was organized as a thorough, efficient network,’ says Simon Wiesenthal. ‘Every forty miles was a shelter manned by a minimum of three and maximum of five people. They knew only the two surrounding shelters: the one from which the fugitives came to them and the one to which they were to be delivered safely.’ Ironically, some of the inns and farmhouses along ODESSA’S ‘rat line’, as the escape routes became known, were also used by Jewish refugees making their way illegally to what was still Palestine under an expiring British mandate which sought to maintain the population balance between Arabs and Jews. For some Displaced Persons, it was harder to leave Germany and Austria than it was for their former captors. Wiesenthal says: ‘I know of a small inn near Merano, in the Italian Tyrol, and another place near the Resch Pass between Austria and Italy, where illegal Nazi transports and illegal Jewish transports sometimes spent the night without knowing of each other’s presence. The Jews were hidden on the upper floor and told not to move. The Nazis, on the ground floor, were warned to stay inside.’"

"There was also substantial two-way commuter traffic of wanted Nazis across the border between Austria and Germany. Wiesenthal says that ODESSA used German drivers, hired in Munich under their own names or aliases, to deliver Stars and Stripes, the US Army’s daily newspaper printed in Germany, to the troops in Austria. Military Police would wave these US army vans through the border crossing on the Munich-Salzburg Autobahn and sometimes the drivers would repay the favour by handing them a few free copies while a Nazi fugitive crouched behind bundles of Stars and Stripes.

"The recruitment section of the French Foreign Legion, which asked no questions and into which scores of low-ranking SS men fled in the last days of the war, also served ODESSA well. In early 1948, Roschmann, the Graz-born ‘Butcher of Riga’, escaped from Austria into Italy with five other Nazi fugitives in a car with French licence plates and a Foreign Legion chauffeur outfitted with papers enabling the car to cross borders without being searched.

"Simon Wiesenthal estimates the value of the wealth that the Nazis smuggled out of Europe at close to a billion dollars. ‘After the war,’ says Wiesenthal, ‘the Nazis sent experts and money to Argentina. Perón himself, according to an investigation made in Buenos Aires after his downfall, was given around $100 million. Buenos Aires became the south terminal port for ODESSA. The Germans took over hotels and boarding houses, gave new SS immigrants jobs and identity papers, and had excellent connections with the highest government officials. At one time, a group of Argentinian Germans plotted to fly to Germany and set free all the Nazi criminals in Landsberg Prison.’"
...................................

However, Steinacher too admits, and it is amply clear anyway, that thousands of nazi criminals did not escape without plenty of help, and not just from personal contacts outside the nazi and SS, nor in spontaneous rather than an organised way, and moreover this book is all about describing the routes and the people and more who provided this help, not without systematic organisation - albeit not with a properly registered organisation named ODESSA! But then this much is clear to anyone and is what was the more pertinent of the facts - whether there was a specific ODESSA or whether it was all a bunch of big and small organisations attached to saving nazis from prosecution for war crimes, is a really minor point.

Actually, if he were correct in his assertion which is unlikely to say the least, but if it were the case then in absense of a single organisation and in light of facts being as Steinbacher describes, it is rather a far murkier view, with guilt spread across not only nazis fleeing and helping others to escape, or smugglers doing it for money or nazi sympathisers across board, but also various institutions that one normally doesn't or at least most people don't credit with such actions.

Shockingly or not, such help was provided by the Vatican and the International Red Cross. The former is less surprising all in all, but the latter contributes to the discredit the institution has brought on to itself and explains why it is somewhat in oblivion, albeit without explicit and noisy condemnation. Other than this the book is about describing general and specific data, about the dates and the escape routes and those that escaped and those that helped, and is not as well edited as one would like - much repetition for one, disorganised writing for another. Also, unless one is specifically into research about all the small and big cases of those who lived happily forever safe in either Argentina or southern Tyrol just across the border from Austria and not far from their homelands in central or eastern Europe, it gets repetitious soon enough. Whether it is intention of the author to make it look like all routine that happened half a century ago or longer, and nothing much can be done about it now since most criminals are safely finished with their lives lived quite well and long, is unclear, but if one has met Germans who attempt to make one think it is rather bad form to go on about it, since the crime was over and the criminals quite old and not likely to hurt anyone now, one gets a tad suspicious such a thought might have lurked in general surroundings of the author, if not deliberately implanted as a subliminal suggestion made stronger with the tedium of going through this to know just who and how many did so escape.

Funnily enough he does admit to various small but definite organisations who could be bunched under the general label ODESSA, after going on about how it did not exist! Some were or at least one was in fact so labelled by the investigative agencies.
Perhaps after a first few very tedious, repetitious, hard to read, badly written chapters, there might be something that makes it worth going through; but one can't but help think though, that it would have benefited immensely with a good editor pruning it ruthlessly, and cleaning up the phrases where sentences and more make very little sense due to confusion of "but" with "and" and more, so the whole work seems like a conspiracy to exhaust the reader into going "ok, enough already, have it your own way" or something like that. But a painstaking reading plodding through the headache of all that rewards one with at the very least about how various agencies related to Vatican, Red Cross and generally nazi friendly, anti semitic states either lied outright or made it sound like a virtue to protect or let go of war criminals, citing amongst other things, impartial treatment of refugees, equality, and so forth. Also, of course, the strange fact of south American states being more accepting of Red Cross identity papers which basically allowed forgery, false names, false pictures and more, at more than one stage, while rejecting the papers provided by IRO, the international agency which did in fact check up about whether someone was giving a false name and was in fact a war criminal.

One of the positive points about reading through is about quite how much Vatican and its associates helped, shielded and argued for sanctuary for nazis, including war criminals, giving various almost believable excuses including blaming Jewish organisations for pointing out such escape routes provided for war criminals and mass murderers, with a reasoning about such political vengeance against criminals is what brings antisemitism about, hence blaming Jews for the hatred against them and massacres including Holocaust. This part is introduced early but is more extensive post first quarter or so of the work.
....................................

Another revelation for those unaware is the role played by various US men then in authority in Europe, in helping this escape route, chiefly Allen Dulles, and others in the chain. This, in view of other little facts now allowed to escape, in revealing.

"The Allies were increasingly concerned. Fugitives included prominent perpetrators such as the SS officers Erich Priebke, Walter Rauff, and Willem (Wilhelm) Maria Sassen, as well as the commandant of the Riga Ghetto, Eduard Roschmann."

"The most important escape routes that have so far come to light, including the ones that smuggled National Socialists, were led by church groups. Understanding why and how some proponents of the Catholic Church were involved in Nazi smuggling facilitates a better understanding of the post-war alliances between former Nazis and Western intelligence services. One of the church organizations in particular is worth closer examination: the Catholic group Intermarium. Monsignor Krunoslav Draganović, who took care of the escape routes of Croatian fascists amongst other things, was the most senior Croatian representative in the self-appointed management committee of Intermarium. The organization was, according to American historian Christopher Simpson, hugely involved in Nazi border-crossing. Later Intermarium became an important source for the recruitment of exiled Eastern Europeans for the anti-communist propaganda machine or exile organizations sponsored by the CIA. Leading members of Intermarium ended up in CIA-sponsored media such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, or the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN).

"The leadership of the Catholic Church saw the Second World War as an intermezzo in a bigger struggle against ‘atheist Communism’. In this dispute, the Vatican allied itself with a series of Christian conservative and clerical-fascist political movements in Europe. The Vatican saw the National Socialists as the lesser evil. Even before the Second World War, the German counter-intelligence departments used members of Intermarium, who were seen as very effective and valuable because of their contacts. By the time the Wehrmacht overran half of Europe, Intermarium was already an ‘instrument of the German intelligence’, as one US Army report noted.88 With the collapse of the Third Reich in 1944/5, senior Catholic clerics organized humanitarian relief programmes for refugees from Eastern Europe. The members of these organizations barely differentiated between Catholics who were persecuted by the Soviets, deportees, and Nazis. The mass of refugees certainly had nothing to do with Nazi crimes; they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Wehrmacht or the Red Army laid waste their villages. At the same time, however, these channels became the most important escape route for SS members, collaborators, and war criminals. Within the Catholic Church were factions that had long sympathized with the Nazis and their fanatical opposition to communism and that wanted to forge an alliance with them. These groups organized programmes to bring tens of thousands of SS men and collaborators from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European states to safety."

Of course, that the virulent and false propaganda by church that has gone on ever since church made peace with Rome, and switched sides from the persecuted and oppressed Jews to precisely the persecuting agency and oppressors - namely, the then Roman empire - was at the root of the antisemitism of Europe that went beyond mere racism, and hence nazi version of antisemitism that - with typical German efficiency and technology - sought to execute a "final solution" by simply massacring all the Jews, made it all the easier for church to maintain this covert sympathy with nazi escapees, and maintaining silence about knowledge thereof wasn't that far from the code of secrecy of confessional that church strives to hold up in face of law everywhere, defending heinous crminals thereby, even absolving them merely for having confessed.

"The rescue of an entire division of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS—some 11,000 men and women—was perhaps the most dramatic action of Intermarium. In the Rimini internment camp, these Ukranians faced an uncertain future. Most were members of the Galicia grenadier division, which had been formed in 1943. Some members of this division were veterans of Ukrainian police and militia units who had collaborated with the Germans and taken part in anti-Semitic and anticommunist pogroms in their homeland. Some of these men may have even served as guards in concentration camps. Most of these men (with their families) were, however, private soldiers who had committed no war crimes and only found themselves in this compromising situation as a result of circumstances. These Catholic Ukrainians hoped for an independent, anticommunist Ukrainian state after the final victory of the Third Reich.90 The Ukrainian Waffen-SS soldiers finally surrendered to the Western Allies in May 1945.

"During the soldiers’ interment in Rimini, Ukrainian Archbishop Ivan Buchko now came to their aid. Along with other Ukrainian clerics—and with the blessing of the Pope—Buchko took a leading role in Intermarium. He petitioned the Pope in person for the ‘blossom of the Ukrainian nation’—meaning the Waffen-SS men in Rimini. The result was that the collaborators were ultimately not handed over to Stalin, but allowed to emigrate as ‘free colonists’ to Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and other Commonwealth states.92 Thus, thanks to the papal initiative, they escaped safely abroad."

As any reader of holocaust memoirs knows, Ukrainian antisemitism was as vicious, brutal as nazi, which helped the then German occupation.

"According to Simon Wiesenthal, Rauff and Hudal organized what was known as the ‘route via Rome’ for escaping senior Nazis. Even in the prisoner-of-war camps, the comrades were told who they could approach in Rome and elsewhere. The political background that made it easier to disguise this enterprise was the seizure of power by communist regimes in Eastern Europe. In all the former Nazi satellite states—Slovakia, Hungary, and Croatia—mass arrests were carried out by the new rulers, with former fascists their first targets. As these were all ‘good Catholics’, the Vatican set up relief agencies for this category of refugees. Rauff made contact with these institutions via Bishop Hudal to ensure that his colleagues were not forgotten. Rauff’s comrades included Eugen Dollmann, Hitler’s interpreter in Italy and a confidant of Himmler."

"As the former SS chief in Milan, Rauff was very well acquainted with Italy because even before the end of the war he had taken numerous precautions and established connections with the Church. Networks like the ones Rauff set up with the assistance of the Church helped serious criminals such as Franz Stangl, the ex-commandant of Treblinka; Josef Schwammberger, who was responsible for thousands of murders in the Przemysl Ghetto; and Adolf Eichmann, who escaped from US imprisonment under the identity SS-Untersturmführer Otto Eckmann in 1945 and arrived in Argentina in 1950 as the South Tyrolean ‘Richard Klement’.130 Fascist solidarity helped people like them to acquire new identities. The last official acts by Gestapo agencies were sometimes to declare the death of colleagues in order to assist their escape. In this way, for example, Gestapo inspector Gustav Jürges became the victim of a bombing raid and fled via Italy to South America as ‘Federico Pahl’."

"‘In their favor, it can be argued that, at least after 1949, the Western Allies, as a matter of policy, suspended all war crime prosecutions and consciously allowed former Nazi officials, SS officers, judges, and others to assume senior posts in West German government and industry.’"

"After their successful escape from Rimini prisoner-of-war camp, SS men were to report to Karl Hass, alias ‘Franco’, in Rome. There he would help them escape to South America, on the instructions of Bishop Hudal."

"One curious concluding detail: in the well-known 1969 film The Damned (La caduta degli dei) by Luchino Visconti, the supposedly dead Hass had a part as an extra, playing himself—a Nazi officer."

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best to read the chapter titled Conclusion to begin with, although it appears just after half the book is over.
............

At the outset a couple of things are stated by Steinacher - one, that this is book form of his degree work thesis; and second, that there never was an organisation named ODESSA, as described by Frederick Forsyth in his novel named after it, and since known even more due to the film based on the book. He repeatedly mentions various people including Simon Wiesenthal accepting existence of this organisation as a fact, and one is supposed to infer this was pretty silly, this author asserting over and over to the contrary. This assertion is in line with the general denial suitable to nazis in particular, and therefore many Germans in general, but another writer, Alan Levy, on the topic - one who researched extensively, too, and probably being not connected to nazis in existence through twentieth century in Germany, Austria or South America in various nations, had little reason to deny the existence of the organisation - says the following in his book "Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File":-
............

Quoted from Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File by Alan Levy:-

"ODESSA, in capital letters, is not the Soviet seaport where Simon Wiesenthal spent two years apprenticing as an architect and another year designing huts for chicken feathers, but an acronym for Organisation der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen: Organization of SS Members. As amorphous as the Mafia, which exists even when one cannot prove it exists, ODESSA, like the Cosa Nostra ‘families’, forms and re-forms to fit the occasion or need. Under such aliases as ‘Spider’, ‘Sluice’, ‘Silent Help’, ‘The Brotherhood’, ‘Association of German Soldiers’, ‘Comradeship’, or even ‘Six-Pointed Star’ (not the Star of David, but an escape network in Austria’s six principal cities), it denies its existence and shrugs off Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling 1972 thriller, The Odessa File, for the fiction it is, even though Forsyth’s novel features such real-life heroes as Simon Wiesenthal and Lord Russell of Liverpool as well as, for a villain, Eduard Roschmann, ‘The Butcher of Riga’ who, as second-in-command of the Latvian capital’s ghetto, was responsible for 35,000 deaths and deportations. In his foreword, Forsyth dissociates fiction from fact by pointing out that ‘many Germans are inclined to say that the ODESSA does not exist. The short answer is: it exists.’

Wiesenthal won’t waste his time or anyone else’s arguing this question. He insists ODESSA was founded in Augsburg or Stuttgart in 1947, when higher-ranking Nazis in the SS and wartime German industry saw that, despite Allied disinterest, the revelation of war crimes and the question of accountability were not going to die a quiet death. With the impending new state of Israel and dedicated survivors like Wiesenthal determined to keep the fires alive, the Fourth Reich wasn’t about to happen very soon. Using just a portion of their plunder, which Wiesenthal values at between $750 million and 1 billion, they were able to set up three escape routes: from the north German seaport of Bremen to the Italian seaport of Genoa, where Christopher Columbus was born and, centuries later, Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele set sail for the New World: from Bremen to Rome, where the Vatican and the International Red Cross, wittingly or unwittingly, stood ready to expedite their escapes; and from Austria to Italy, which is the way Franz Stangl went."

"‘ODESSA provides its members with material aid, organizes social activities, and, when necessary, helps ex-Nazis escape to foreign countries,’ said prosecutor Gideon Hausner at the Eichmann trial. ‘It has its headquarters in Munich with branches all over Germany and Austria as well as in South American countries. The German community at Hohenau in Paraguay is dominated by ODESSA.’

‘ODESSA was organized as a thorough, efficient network,’ says Simon Wiesenthal. ‘Every forty miles was a shelter manned by a minimum of three and maximum of five people. They knew only the two surrounding shelters: the one from which the fugitives came to them and the one to which they were to be delivered safely.’ Ironically, some of the inns and farmhouses along ODESSA’S ‘rat line’, as the escape routes became known, were also used by Jewish refugees making their way illegally to what was still Palestine under an expiring British mandate which sought to maintain the population balance between Arabs and Jews. For some Displaced Persons, it was harder to leave Germany and Austria than it was for their former captors. Wiesenthal says: ‘I know of a small inn near Merano, in the Italian Tyrol, and another place near the Resch Pass between Austria and Italy, where illegal Nazi transports and illegal Jewish transports sometimes spent the night without knowing of each other’s presence. The Jews were hidden on the upper floor and told not to move. The Nazis, on the ground floor, were warned to stay inside.’"

"There was also substantial two-way commuter traffic of wanted Nazis across the border between Austria and Germany. Wiesenthal says that ODESSA used German drivers, hired in Munich under their own names or aliases, to deliver Stars and Stripes, the US Army’s daily newspaper printed in Germany, to the troops in Austria. Military Police would wave these US army vans through the border crossing on the Munich-Salzburg Autobahn and sometimes the drivers would repay the favour by handing them a few free copies while a Nazi fugitive crouched behind bundles of Stars and Stripes.

"The recruitment section of the French Foreign Legion, which asked no questions and into which scores of low-ranking SS men fled in the last days of the war, also served ODESSA well. In early 1948, Roschmann, the Graz-born ‘Butcher of Riga’, escaped from Austria into Italy with five other Nazi fugitives in a car with French licence plates and a Foreign Legion chauffeur outfitted with papers enabling the car to cross borders without being searched.

"Simon Wiesenthal estimates the value of the wealth that the Nazis smuggled out of Europe at close to a billion dollars. ‘After the war,’ says Wiesenthal, ‘the Nazis sent experts and money to Argentina. Perón himself, according to an investigation made in Buenos Aires after his downfall, was given around $100 million. Buenos Aires became the south terminal port for ODESSA. The Germans took over hotels and boarding houses, gave new SS immigrants jobs and identity papers, and had excellent connections with the highest government officials. At one time, a group of Argentinian Germans plotted to fly to Germany and set free all the Nazi criminals in Landsberg Prison.’"
............

However, Steinacher too admits, and it is amply clear anyway, that thousands of nazi criminals did not escape without plenty of help, and not just from personal contacts outside the nazi and SS, nor in spontaneous rather than an organised way, and moreover this book is all about describing the routes and the people and more who provided this help, not without systematic organisation - albeit not with a properly registered organisation named ODESSA! But then this much is clear to anyone and is what was the more pertinent of the facts - whether there was a specific ODESSA or whether it was all a bunch of big and small organisations attached to saving nazis from prosecution for war crimes, is a really minor point.

Actually, if he were correct in his assertion which is unlikely to say the least, but if it were the case then in absense of a single organisation and in light of facts being as Steinbacher describes, it is rather a far murkier view, with guilt spread across not only nazis fleeing and helping others to escape, or smugglers doing it for money or nazi sympathisers across board, but also various institutions that one normally doesn't or at least most people don't credit with such actions.

Shockingly or not, such help was provided by the Vatican and the International Red Cross. The former is less surprising all in all, but the latter contributes to the discredit the institution has brought on to itself and explains why it is somewhat in oblivion, albeit without explicit and noisy condemnation. Other than this the book is about describing general and specific data, about the dates and the escape routes and those that escaped and those that helped, and is not as well edited as one would like - much repetition for one, disorganised writing for another. Also, unless one is specifically into research about all the small and big cases of those who lived happily forever safe in either Argentina or southern Tyrol just across the border from Austria and not far from their homelands in central or eastern Europe, it gets repetitious soon enough. Whether it is intention of the author to make it look like all routine that happened half a century ago or longer, and nothing much can be done about it now since most criminals are safely finished with their lives lived quite well and long, is unclear, but if one has met Germans who attempt to make one think it is rather bad form to go on about it, since the crime was over and the criminals quite old and not likely to hurt anyone now, one gets a tad suspicious such a thought might have lurked in general surroundings of the author, if not deliberately implanted as a subliminal suggestion made stronger with the tedium of going through this to know just who and how many did so escape.

Funnily enough he does admit to various small but definite organisations who could be bunched under the general label ODESSA, after going on about how it did not exist! Some were or at least one was in fact so labelled by the investigative agencies.
Perhaps after a first few very tedious, repetitious, hard to read, badly written chapters, there might be something that makes it worth going through; but one can't but help think though, that it would have benefited immensely with a good editor pruning it ruthlessly, and cleaning up the phrases where sentences and more make very little sense due to confusion of "but" with "and" and more, so the whole work seems like a conspiracy to exhaust the reader into going "ok, enough already, have it your own way" or something like that. But a painstaking reading plodding through the headache of all that rewards one with at the very least about how various agencies related to Vatican, Red Cross and generally nazi friendly, anti semitic states either lied outright or made it sound like a virtue to protect or let go of war criminals, citing amongst other things, impartial treatment of refugees, equality, and so forth. Also, of course, the strange fact of south American states being more accepting of Red Cross identity papers which basically allowed forgery, false names, false pictures and more, at more than one stage, while rejecting the papers provided by IRO, the international agency which did in fact check up about whether someone was giving a false name and was in fact a war criminal.

One of the positive points about reading through is about quite how much Vatican and its associates helped, shielded and argued for sanctuary for nazis, including war criminals, giving various almost believable excuses including blaming Jewish organisations for pointing out such escape routes provided for war criminals and mass murderers, with a reasoning about such political vengeance against criminals is what brings antisemitism about, hence blaming Jews for the hatred against them and massacres including Holocaust. This part is introduced early but is more extensive post first quarter or so of the work.
............

Another revelation for those unaware is the role played by various US men then in authority in Europe, in helping this escape route, chiefly Allen Dulles, and others in the chain. This, in view of other little facts now allowed to escape, in revealing.

"The Allies were increasingly concerned. Fugitives included prominent perpetrators such as the SS officers Erich Priebke, Walter Rauff, and Willem (Wilhelm) Maria Sassen, as well as the commandant of the Riga Ghetto, Eduard Roschmann."

"The most important escape routes that have so far come to light, including the ones that smuggled National Socialists, were led by church groups. Understanding why and how some proponents of the Catholic Church were involved in Nazi smuggling facilitates a better understanding of the post-war alliances between former Nazis and Western intelligence services. One of the church organizations in particular is worth closer examination: the Catholic group Intermarium. Monsignor Krunoslav Draganović, who took care of the escape routes of Croatian fascists amongst other things, was the most senior Croatian representative in the self-appointed management committee of Intermarium. The organization was, according to American historian Christopher Simpson, hugely involved in Nazi border-crossing. Later Intermarium became an important source for the recruitment of exiled Eastern Europeans for the anti-communist propaganda machine or exile organizations sponsored by the CIA. Leading members of Intermarium ended up in CIA-sponsored media such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, or the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN).

"The leadership of the Catholic Church saw the Second World War as an intermezzo in a bigger struggle against ‘atheist Communism’. In this dispute, the Vatican allied itself with a series of Christian conservative and clerical-fascist political movements in Europe. The Vatican saw the National Socialists as the lesser evil. Even before the Second World War, the German counter-intelligence departments used members of Intermarium, who were seen as very effective and valuable because of their contacts. By the time the Wehrmacht overran half of Europe, Intermarium was already an ‘instrument of the German intelligence’, as one US Army report noted.88 With the collapse of the Third Reich in 1944/5, senior Catholic clerics organized humanitarian relief programmes for refugees from Eastern Europe. The members of these organizations barely differentiated between Catholics who were persecuted by the Soviets, deportees, and Nazis. The mass of refugees certainly had nothing to do with Nazi crimes; they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Wehrmacht or the Red Army laid waste their villages. At the same time, however, these channels became the most important escape route for SS members, collaborators, and war criminals. Within the Catholic Church were factions that had long sympathized with the Nazis and their fanatical opposition to communism and that wanted to forge an alliance with them. These groups organized programmes to bring tens of thousands of SS men and collaborators from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European states to safety."

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nazis on the Run details through detailed archival research the escape routes and hiding places of Nazis and their collaborators, many of whom were wanted war criminals, in the aftermath of World War Two. In particular it concentrates on documenting the ‘ratlines’ through Austria, South Tyrol and Italy on to South America and the Middle East. South Tyrol proved to be an ideal place in which to lay low before being shepherded onwards because it had a large number of ethnic Germans who were technically living in Italy and were effectively stateless at the war’s end; it was on the north/south route for people who had been scattered by the war and thus used to the mass movement of out-of-place or stateless people; and it was in easy orbit of church organisations, notably the Vatican. Steinacher details five main groups that aided Nazis and collaborators along the ratlines – Nazis themselves and the South Tyrol Ethnic German community; The Red Cross and other aid organisations; religious orders including the Vatican; the US intelligence Services; and South American consuls and representatives, notably Argentina. Often working in tandem, these groups ensured those fleeing had shelter, work, finance, and suitable paperwork to evade justice. Over time the ratlines evolved into quite sophisticated networks and were fairly robust.

Steinacher creates a convincing weight of evidence from documentary sources to back-up his story, however, the story itself leaves a lot to be desired. The book is marketed as a popular history tome, but it is academic in its presentation and writing style. The result is rather dry and stogy. Even then, the analysis is rather descriptive in nature, detailing lots of information and anecdotal stories, but really fails to shift to explanation or a wider discussion of what the analysis means for how we interpret what happened. The conclusion starts to do this, but is relatively short and underdeveloped. More problematically, the book could have done with a really good edit to sort out issues of repetition and poor structuring. Given the high standards of OUP, I was quite surprised that this basic editorial work had not been undertaken. The level of repetition in particular is very noticeable. With a decent edit, about a twenty percent reduction in length, and the addition of some explanation, this would have been a first class book. As it is, whilst the research work seems sound, it just about passes muster.

[Sarah Mackey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agree with other reviewers who said that the book seemed disorganised and came back on itself a number of times. Nonetheless a good account of how thousands of war criminals escaped justice in the chaos the followed the end of World War II in Europe.

[Marc94 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 2.5 stars. I learned a bunch of new things from this book and it clearly came from a great deal of research, but it got a little repetitive at times and there was a bit of a struggle to finish it.

[Karima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very scholarly written thesis. Well researched and intensely filled with facts but not for the casual reader

[Rebecca Reddell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been an excellent resource into the ratlines and escape destinations of Nazi and SS soldiers after WWII. I found it helpful to gain more knowledge about the assistance given by certain priests, the Catholic church, the International Red Cross, and other organizations in their escape. Detailed information on certain escapees and how they escaped and were found was also insightful. There were tons of valuable chapters about the escape route through Italy, the US intelligence recruiting, and Argentina as a desirable location for escape. The facts and researched information was helpful and aided in my personal research for my own WWII story collection, The Four Chronicles series.

It's broken down very well, but I would say my only contention with the format came from the redundancy of some of the sub-passages throughout the chapters. Possibly, it could have been organized in a more streamlined way in its delivery, grouping similar stories together? With that said, it was an easy read, gave detailed information, and was very helpful in my own exploration.

The illustrations were really nice to have as well. South Tyrol's escape map through Italy and official documents were especially exciting to see. They each illustrated what was being said in a concrete form. Notes and bibliography of sources at the back were extremely beneficial for continued investigation. This is one book I'll definitely be keeping for its valuable information. Plus the fact that I penciled in notes and underlined throughout it. ;)

I'd like to suggest this as a book to read for anyone who loves history, wants to learn more about what happened after WWII to high-ranking Nazi and SS officials, detailed accounts of certain henchman, culpability of ICRC and the Vatican, need research assistance, learn more about European politics, or simply enjoy reading about the past. Thank you! :)

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is purely to convey information so it reads like a Wikipedia article. A disorganized article. Steinacher had done his research, but failed to make it into a compelling read. He jumps all over the map about where people escaped from: the South Tyrol, Genoa, even Germany itself. He also goes back and forth between individuals, with only occasional attention paid to Mengele and Eichmann. Most of the fleeing Nazis did heinous things too but for whatever reason are less well known.

He tracks the "ratlines" and finds plausible evidence that the International Red Cross, members of the Curia and non-Italian clergy resident in Rome and the Allied governments all were involved. Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyons", for example, was shielded by the embryonic CIA. We also picked up Werner Von Braun, responsible for thousands of prison labor deaths at the Peenemunde rocket facility. The Vatican clearly failed to bring the guilty to justice, but the surprise name here isn't Pius XII but Giovanni Montini, who became Pope in 1963. Montini handled the refugee issues for the Church, and seems to have colluded to get war criminals out of Europe because of sympathy for penitent Nazis who either returned to their Catholic faith or were willing to convert in order to get assistance. There were also bishops like the Austrian Alois Hudal, who were active Nazi supporters. The essential problem was a lack of central direction, leaving a patchwork quilt of clergy with divided loyalties. Again, Steinacher needs better organization to tell all of this coherently. That rarely happens.

I hope someone takes the topic up again, and that the various organizations can be persuaded to release pertinent information about Steinacher's accusations.

[Stephan Glienke · Rating 4 out of 5]

1945-46, Western Europe is in a chaotic state. Millions of German civilians fleeing from the advancing Red Army, slave labourers and displaced persons on the move, many of them without documents. Amongst them: numerous SS-men, Nazi-bureaucrats and war criminals, taking their chance, joining the tide of people on the move across the continent and simply blending in with the millions of displaced persons and refugees, changing their identities and obtaining forged passports.
Men like the mass murderer Adolf Eichmann or Treblinka-commander Franz Stangl are making use of the long-established smuggling routes. Once they reach South Tyrol, they find almost everything they could hope for to organize their flight. Ethnically German, many of the population of South Tyrol fiercely identifies with German nationalism and is more than ready to assist their fellow Germans. Merano and Bolzano - hubs for Nazi migration, wartime forgers are now supplying the Nazi perpetrators with whatever they need to obtain a new identity and to pass on to South America.
The historian Gerald Steinacher presents a valuable and informative study that successfully brings together all the threads together and provides a detailed account of the results of current historiography, adding details that shed light on yet unknown aspects of research. Even those familiar with the career of Klaus Barbie would hardly have heard about his involvement in the sale of Austrian tanks and military vehicles to Bolivia in 1979/80.
Overall this is a rich and detailed book that is easy to read, giving a good overview over the topic that will benefit history courses at BA level.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really interesting material written in an uninteresting (partly) way. The book seems repetitive at times as information on different individuals examined in the book is similar. This is going to make me sound kind of stupid (I can assure you I'm not), but there are a lot of really big German words in the book that are difficult to pronounce or even know if they mean something or if it's just a name. Yes, I could simply look them up online (which I did do with some), but the other issue is they're as numerous as Nazis in Germany in 1943 (so it's just not practical to stop every few sentences). WWII fascinates me and I'm still glad I read this book as this particular aspect of the war was never touched on in school. Thing is, I could have just read the conclusion and gotten the gist of it. 2.5 stars would be more accurate as it was between just okay and I liked it.

[Susu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein Berg an Informationen über die Reichsfluchtlinie der Nazis - über Südtirol, italienische Häfen nach z.B. Argentinien. Fluchtweg nach Italien, die Beteiligung von Rotem Kreuz und Vatikan, die Einmischung von Geheimdiensten und ein Blick auf das neue Leben am Beispiel Argentinien.
Eine erschreckende Version von Kontinuität - und wie selbstverstänlich selbst Spitzen-Massenmörder davon kommen konnten

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 2 out of 5]

The way the book is organized caused a lot of repetition. This could’ve been such a highly engaging book because the subject is fascinating and infuriating, but it’s clear that it was written as a thesis first.

[Christine Mathieu · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very repetitive. It took me 5 or 6 weeks to finish reading this. Not a good read at all. I will donate it to my public library.

[Sebastian Kwiatkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Społeczeństwo, które potrafi się zmierzyć z mrocznymi epizodami w swojej historii, jest zdolne do wyciągania wniosków z przeszłości w celu kształtowania lepszej przyszłości, a cel ten był również powodem napisania niniejszej książki, do drobiazgowego udokumentowania historii sprawców i ówczesnych uwarunkowań politycznych, a także do wyjaśnienia historycznego udziału instytucji i państw w ucieczce nazistów."

Książka niewątpliwie ważna. Ukazuje procesy jakie doprowadziły do ucieczki przed sprawiedliwością nazistów odpowiedzialnych za masowe morderstwa. Co ciekawe dopiero teraz udostępniane są archiwa, dzięki którym możemy uzyskać odpowiedzi na jeszcze wiele pytań (z wyjątkami np. Watykanu).
Sama publikacja jest "niestety" wydaniem książkowym pracy habilitacyjnej. Pisze niestety ponieważ z jednej strony zawiera bogato udokumentowane źródła, jak to praca naukowa, ale niektóre rozdziały czyta się dość ciężko. Miałem wrażenie ciągłych powtórzeń i zbyt "sztywnego" i "suchego" języka. Trochę szkoda, bo temat we współczesnych demokracjach bardzo ważny .

[LNae · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an ok book, a lot more academic then I was expecting. Nazis on the run deals with the systems and paths Nazis used to escape Europe after WW2 until the late 1950's. The book is set up with each chapter being a network of movement. it is not a bad way to set up the book, but there is a lot of overlap in each network and Steinacher starts at the beginning (Northern Italy) and on to a travel overseas (for the most part). I thought that it was dry at times and I found myself skimming the pages after a while. The book isn't bad but it is not amazing either. I found it interesting. I would try to read another book by him if he wrote one.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very important book on the post-War period, one which will serve as the foundation for future studies on the enabled flight of Nazis from Germany after V-E day. Steinacher's book is extraordinarily well documented, with 90 pages of endnotes. The writing is substantive rather than stylish, and does does repeat itself in various chapters.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bit on the over kill with info. Several stories were told a second or third time, some left you hanging or would start and have no ending.
I can not imagine the mess after WWII with so many people left homeless and stateless but major mistakes were made all in the fear of communism and the mistaken belief war criminals would return to religion of the Catholic faith.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horrifying to know that the Catholic Church, at the highest levels, and the U.S. Gov. Thru the CIA were so complicit in supporting the extradition of naziis to South America and the nazis elevation to important posts in the post war Germany all in the name of fighting communism. The research and conclusions all well documented and presented

[Andy Holdcroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very academic examination of how those responsible for atrocities escaped through a well oiled network, with the Vatican, International Red Cross, the CIA, various national governments etc all bearing culpability rather than some mythical "ODESSA" organisation.

[Krzysztof · Rating 2 out of 5]

(za) długa i (głównie) nudna książka na ciekawy temat

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating account of the ability of former Nazi's to obtain new identities and escape to other countries after WWII. The research is amazingly in depth and the book is well written.

[Agata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciekawa i solidna pozycja dla wszystkich zainteresowanych tematem. Autor wykonał naprawdę ogromną badawczą robotę. Szkoda, że zabrakło rozwinięcia niektórych wątków.