Table Of ContentNazis on the Run
Nazis on the Run
How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice
GERALD STEINACHER
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Gerald Steinacher 2011. Originally published as Nazis auf der Flucht.
Wie Kriegsverbrecher über Italien nach Übersee entkamen
(= Innsbrucker Forschungen zur Zeitgeschichte Band 26),
© 2008 by Studienverlag Ges.m.b.H
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
ISBN 978–0–19–957686–9
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book was made possible in part through a Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellowship
at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington,
DC. The statements made and
views expressed, however, are solely the responsibility of the
author.
Jacket photo: International Committee of the Red Cross travel
document for Adolf Eichmann
alias Riccardo Klement; Fundación Memoria del Holocausto,
Buenos Aires.
Preface and Acknowledgements
This book originated as a professorial thesis (Habilitation) delivered to the
Leopold Franzens University in Innsbruck in 2007. It has been shortened and
rewritten for publication. Lengthy periods of archive research in Europe and the
United States were required for the investigation of this subject over the past five
years.
Without the support of various institutions and certain individuals this work
would not have been possible. First I should like to thank the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, where I was allowed to work on my thesis in the
context of a Research Fellowship. I was able to consult the archives of the
Holocaust Museum in detail and received invaluable feedback from a number of
people including Peter Black, Jürgen Matthäus, Lisa Yavnai, Bruce Tapper,
Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Jan Lambertz, and Richard Breitman.
I also received important suggestions and support from the staff of the
archives I consulted in Europe and the United States. In particular, I should like
to thank Marija Fueg of the Archive of the International Red Cross in Geneva,
John E. Taylor in College Park, Maryland, Harald Toniatti of the State Archive
in Bozen, and Elisabeth Klamper of the Documentation Centre of Austrian
Resistance in Vienna. Matteo Sanfilippo was a great source of help to me when
dealing with the problems involved in the Roman archives. I should like to thank
Johann Hörist, the Rector of Santa Maria dell’Anima, the German and Austrian
national church in Rome, for his help and support in my study of the Anima’s
archive.
Over the years, conversations with colleagues and friends have been
motivating and encouraging in various ways. Many ideas, suggestions,
questions, and connections arose out of these encounters. At this point I should
like to express particular thanks to Hans Heiss, Leopold Steurer, Stas Nikolova,
Andrea Di Michele, Horst Schreiber, Renate Telser, and Christof Mauch. They
have supported my research even during difficult phases, and without the advice
and encouragement of Hans Heiss and Leopold Steurer this book would never
have existed. They have also corrected a number of chapters in terms of
language, form, and content, and invested a great deal of time in doing so. I
should especially thank my mentor Rolf Steininger, Innsbruck, who has always
sympathetically accompanied my professional and academic progress. As head
of the Institute at Innsbruck University, Rolf Steininger has always closely
interwoven regional with international contemporary history: a perspective that
continues to inform my work today. During my period of study in the United
States, Günter Bischof in New Orleans opened up a new (and wide) world of
contemporary historical research that gave my scholarly work a new direction. I
wish to thank Linda and Eric Christenson for their repeated hospitality over the
past few years in the United States. Carlo Gentile and Kurt Schrimm have
allowed me an insight into the trials of Nazi war criminals in Italy and Germany
during the 1990s. Shraga Elam provided a great deal of background information
on Operation Bernhard. Uki Goñi and Luis Moraes in Buenos Aires made a
considerable contribution to my better understanding of Argentinian politics and
contemporary history. The historians Wolfgang Benz, Klaus Larres, Reiner
Pommerin, and Anton Pelinka contributed valuable suggestions to the reworking
of my postdoctoral thesis.
Eva Trafojer, Norbert Sparer, Christian Url, Tanja Schluchter, and Thomas
Pardatscher sacrificed many hours to the formal revision of individual chapters
of this work, which made the final revision considerably easier for me. Lou
Bessette in Montreal, Quebec, helped to translate the introduction to this edition;
Harald Dunajtschik drew up the index of proper names and contributed many
additional suggestions for improvement. Thanks to Shaun Whiteside for his
excellent English translation and Jennifer Shimek for the accurate final copy
editing of the book.
I owe a debt of thanks to the de Rachewiltz family for their hospitality at
Brunnenburg Castle near Meran: a true refuge for thinkers. It was there and at
the Center for European Studies at Harvard University that the final version of
the English edition was produced. I would also like to extend my thanks to my
friends and like-minded colleagues Georg Mischi, Pietro Fogale, and Philipp
Trafoier, who patiently endured lengthy discussions of this book’s subject matter
and individual research problems.
My family and friends have shown a great deal of understanding for my work
and have kept me from losing touch with life outside academia. To them, and
particularly to my brother Werner, this book is dedicated.
G.S.
Washington D.C., Harvard/Boston, and Brunnenburg near Meran
2010
People can face the truth.
Ingeborg Bachmann
Some people hoped a ‘line’ would be drawn under the National Socialist past.
Some were thinking less of the dead victims than of the living perpetrators.
German Federal President Horst Köhler, winter 2008
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Nazi Escape Route through Italy
1. Italy as a Country of Refuge
2. Refugees, Prisoners of War, and War Criminals
3. Illegal Immigrants
4. Smuggling Goods and People
5. South Tyrol, the Nazi Bolt-Hole
6. Fake Papers
2. The Co-Responsibility of the International Red Cross
1. Red Cross Travel Documents
2. How the ICRC Issued Travel Documents in Italy
3. The Routine Nature of False Documentation
4. The Red Cross Calls a Halt
5. The Red Cross on the Escape Route
6. Escaping with Ethnic German Identity
3. The Vatican Network
1. The Vatican Relief Commission
2. The National Subcommittees
3. The Network of Bishop Alois Hudal
4. The Monsignor and the Croatian Fascists
5. The Role of the Church in South Tyrol
6. Denazification through Baptism
4. The Intelligence Service Ratline
1. Operation Bernhard
2. The Special Case of Italy
3. ‘Recycled’ War Criminals
4. The Origins of the Italian Ratline
5. The Ratline Players
6. Escape along the Ratline
5. Destination Argentina
1. Argentinian Immigration Policy
2. The Recruitment of Specialists
3. Argentinian Diplomats and Agents in Italy
4. Perón’s Escape Agents in Italy
5. Austrian Pioneers in the Escape Network
6. The Escape of the Concentration Camp Commandants
7. A New Start in Argentina
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Names
General Index
