An octogenarian Nazi is hunted down and found living in comfortable exile in the mountains of southern Argentina. In due course he is arrested and extradited to Italy, where he is wanted for involvement in one of the most notorious massacres of the Second World War, the shooting of 335 civilians in March 1944 in the Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome. He then goes on trial for crimes against humanity, and a handful of surviving eyewitnesses duly testify to his ruthlessness and bureaucratic zealotry during his time as second-in-command at Gestapo headquarters in Rome. A guilty verdict looks a near-certainty.
At first sight the case against Erich Priebke seems a straightforward, if emotionally fraught, affair: a piece of historical justice finally tidied up after more than 50 years of neglect. Surely, one supposes, the only harm that this 83-year-old man, with his dapper grey suits and Tyrolean hats, can still do at this stage is to stir up unpleasant memories. It is only a matter of time, one feels, before the Rome military court does its duty and lays the past finally to rest.
If only it were that simple. The longer the Priebke trial goes on – it has been in progress for just over a month the more sensational and terrifyingly relevant it becomes. Old documents thought lost and old SS officers long thought to be dead have suddenly popped up to challenge the official version of history. The list of organisations suspected of protecting Priebke in South America for so many years now includes the Vatican, the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli counter-espionage service.
According to several witnesses, the secret network known as Odessa, which smuggled scores of Nazis out of Europe into exile in the 1940s and 1950s, is still operating, helping Hitler’s old underlings in Latin America to build up commercial links with multinational companies in Europe and the US. Plenty of old Nazis continue to live as well as Priebke used to, not because they have managed to disguise their true identity – indeed, many are happy to use their real names – but because they enjoy international protection at the highest level. Independent online article 13th June 1996, ‘The Nazi & the Protection Racket’
The Allies promised the world that they would bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice. 150,000 war criminals were named. Only 50,000 were caught. 100,000 of them escaped. Secret History s1e3: Ratlines, Channel 4 1991
The Americans discovered a secret network that implicated the Vatican, two popes, and western Intelligence. Pavelic is the key to that network. A network the Americans codenamed Ratlines. ibid.
In Argentina Peron employed Pavelic as a security advisor. ibid.
In April 1945 Hitler was the most wanted man in Europe. Dead or Alive, the victorious Allies needed to see his body. In the dock or in the grave. But in the chaos of war proof the dictator had died proved elusive. Secret History s11e2: Hitler of the Andes, Channel 4 2002
The Soviets refused to tell the Americans or the British what they were up to. ibid.
Eisenhower’s doubts were publicly quoted. The press rushed in to spread the confusion. ibid.
1,000 [US] agents working on these reports at any one time. ibid.
Even before 1945 Argentina had a large German population. ibid.
Argentina’s navy tried to capture the U-boats. ibid.
Catalina [maid] says Hitler came to the Eden Hotel in 1948. ibid.
Adolf Hitler – leader of the Nazi war machine that came within inches of conquering the world before he died in his bunker in 1945. But new evidence tells another story, of his escape to Argentina. A Fourth Reich in the Sun? 21st Century Wire, Gerrard Williams
Adolf Hitler lived in Argentina with his wife Eva and their children. But these people all of whose testimony is real swear it is true. ibid.
At 3 p.m. on 13th February 1962 tormented, demented and betrayed the most evil man of the twentieth century finally died. We were lied to. ibid.
Up to 100,000 ... Nazis of different forms. ibid.
They were allowed to flee, and they fled with the International Committee of the Red Cross ... And with the help of Pius XII and the whole organisation within the Catholic Church and the Vatican. ibid.
Martin Bormann arrived in Argentina in 1948. ibid.
They were helped by the Perons, the Catholic Church, the Red Cross and KLM under Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. ibid.
Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun and countless other high-ranking Nazis all spirited away to Argentina after the war and it was covered up by our own governments. ibid.
But in 1950 fearing capture, Nazi sympathisers in the Catholic Church helped to organise Eichmann’s passage to South America from the port of Genoa under the name Ricardo Klement. Nazi Hunters: Eichmann 2010
The real winner in the story of the V weapons may have been Wernher von Braun. He surrendered to the Americans with his entire research team. Secrets of World War II: The RAF versus the V2 ep17
Operation Paperclip was a classified military program. It has a public face … With the German scientists [1,600] came a propaganda campaign. Annie Jacobsen, lecture Operation Paperclip, Youtube 57.03
Immersed inside the army soldiers are the German scientists. ibid.
We were complicit in needing these scientists to be put forth as ‘the good scientists’. ibid.
The Nazis allow a film to be made that documents the infrastructure behind the holocaust. Recorded without sound, it provides a glimpse of their worst crime. Rise of the Nazis s4e2: The Manhunt: The Ratline, BBC 2023
The man who organised this transport network was SS Officer Adolf Eichmann. After the war Eichmann was still at large. ibid.
‘Eichmann is one of the most terrifying Nazis. Eichmann encapsulates the essence of Nazism.’ ibid. Dr Christian Soeschel
He obtains false papers … He manages to escape and goes into hiding. ibid.
Eichmann is just one of thousands of wanted Nazis who remain at large. But the hunt is on to find them. ibid.
‘Barbie: He is on his own. He has no place to go. His greatest fear is getting caught and being executed for his crimes. And that is a real possibility.’ ibid. historian
The Americans find Barbie a new home. And offer him a generous monthly salary. ibid.
Armed with false papers, Klaus Barbie and his family travel along the secret escape route the Ratline, used to smuggle wanted Nazis out of danger. ibid.
Draganovic tells Barbie he has already helped many wanted war criminals flee to South America in the hope that the Nazis may one day return and rise again. ibid.
We had to swear, Don’t tell anybody where you are or what you are doing, not even your wife or your parents. The life of nation depended on you holding on to that secrecy. Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis, young Jewish narrator, Netflix 2021
During World War II, the United States operated a secret military camp near Washington DC. It was kept classified for over 50 years. In 2006, the National Park Service conducted interviews with its veterans … ibid. captions
They called it PO Box 1142. It took quite a few weeks for us to be told that all these people that were gonna be there were Nazis. ibid. narrator
We were told to use our German to interrogate the German prisoners. ibid.
We had to swear, Don’t tell anybody where you are or what you are doing, not even your wife or your parents. The life of nation depended on you holding on to that secrecy. Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis, young Jewish narrator, Netflix 2021
During World War II, the United States operated a secret military camp near Washington DC. It was kept classified for over 50 years. In 2006, the National Park Service conducted interviews with its veterans … ibid. captions
They called it PO Box 1142. It took quite a few weeks for us to be told that all these people that were gonna be there were Nazis. ibid. narrator
We were told to use our German to interrogate the German prisoners. ibid.
I’d been given $1,000 and we were driving to Lansburgh Brothers … I knew it was Jewish but it gave me a nasty pleasure … Four German guys ordering panties for their lives. ibid.
Wernher von Braun: They treated him like a hero … He knew what was going on. ibid.
They were sons of bitches and I wanted them dead. ibid.
We were not only interested in what the Germans were able to do, but we were also interested in knowing about our ally at the time, the Soviet Union. And that became an important element. ibid.
The Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden. The man who helped establish the agency has been its president for six years, Paul Dickpopf, a top official with an apparently clean record, suggests that he had been an opponent of the Nazis. Until 1971 and in the Brandt era he is West Germany’s top criminal investigator … In 1968 he becomes head of Interpol. Nazis in the CIA, Netflix 2012
They became willing helpers, spies, because the US Intelligence Services could use their past to blackmail them. ibid.
The American Intelligence services were fighting a new enemy, communism, with the help of Nazis who worked for them as spies. ibid.
‘They were used for covert operations and this type of thing.’ ibid. man in the know
The Americans search all over Germany for the former SS officer [mass murderer] Intelligence officer, Eugen Steimle. ibid.
German industry made arrangements to keep its capital safe. ibid.
It [CIA] recruits fascists in Italy during the Cold War. They are to fight communism on behalf of the Americans. Since the 1960s, Italy is shaken by a series of bomb attacks. Hundreds of people die. These acts are first blamed on leftists, but it has been shown that they were committed by the far right. Stefano Delle Chiaie became the leader of the new right. ibid.
In 1970 the fascists and their backers want to stage a coup in Italy and eliminate the left-wing parties. ibid.
The unit is named Gladio and it is under the control of the CIA. ibid.
Many Italians believe that Moro was killed because he wanted to pursue a third way that contradicted Yalta. ibid.
‘Andreotti was the puppet of the Americans.’ ibid. man in the know
Licio Gelli was master of the influential Propaganda Due Masonic Lodge. Gelli had been an American agent since the War. ibid.
After the War, Barbie was recruited by the American Intelligence Services. ibid.
The Americans hide Barbie and other war criminals first in Germany, then in South America. ibid.