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

Steinacher, Gerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199642451 ISBN 13: 9780199642458

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

In Nazis on the Run, historian Gerald Steinacher provides the true story of how the Nazis escaped their fate. Drawing on extensive research in newly opened archives, 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 leaders of 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Gerald Steinacher is currently a Joseph A. Schumpeter Research Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and Lecturer on Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Review:

"A well-written book that is packed with startling information and grubby stories about the moral cost of political exigency."--New Statesman

"The standard for generations of historians who wish to study the fate of Hitler's followers who evaded justice for decades or escaped it altogether."--Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0199642451
• ISBN 13: 9780199642458
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416