At the end of hostilities in Europe, the continent was in complete disarray. Critical infrastructure had been totally destroyed and millions of displaced people roamed the streets. Tens of thousands of prisoners of war had to be processed. Cracks in the tentative alliance between the allies and the Soviet Union were already beginning to show. The Soviet Union’s mistrust of America’s Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe further exacerbated tensions as the Soviets feared the US was attempting to consolidate its influence in Europe.

The huge debt amassed by the UK and other allied nations from American loans and military protection resulted in an era of massive budget cuts and decolonization for the countries of ‘Old Europe.’

The growing economic and political clout of the United States in the west and the Soviet Union in the east shifted the international balance of power from the former imperial superpowers of western and Central Europe to the United States and the USSR.

The immediate post-war period in Europe was dominated by the Soviet Union annexing or converting into Soviet Socialist Republics all of the countries captured by the Red Army as they drove the German invaders from central and Eastern Europe. New satellite states were created in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and East Germany; the latter carved out of the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. Yugoslavia emerged as an independent Communist state allied but not aligned with the Soviet Union. The American intelligence agencies were desperate to stay one step ahead of the Communists.

Facts and speculation

By mid-1944 it was clear to all but the most fanatical Nazis that the fortunes of war had turned against Germany. Many Germans began to anticipate defeat and to plan for that eventuality. On August 10, 1944, Martin Bormann convened a secret meeting of top German industrialists and bankers at the Maison Rouge hotel in Strasbourg to devise a means of insuring a secure economic future for the Reich in the event of Germany’s (likely) defeat. Among those attending the meeting were Georg von Schnitzler from global conglomerate IG Farben, steel magnate and arms merchant Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, coal tycoon Emil Kirdorf, Industrialist Fritz Thyssen, and banker Kurt von Schroeder.

These Nazis recognized that Germany’s enormous assets would fall into the hands of the rapidly approaching enemy if they did not take immediate action to safeguard them. The nation’s wealth, much of it acquired through the plunder of the countries it invaded, had to be transferred safely out of judicial reach, but accessible to fund a future movement to resurrect the party and build a new Reich. Leading Nazi officials also feared retribution from the Allies, and rather than face likely punishment for their war crimes, they decided to seek safe havens outside Germany and beyond the reach of justice – namely, friendly governments in Spain and South America. According to the protocol from the meeting:

“The party leadership is aware that, following the defeat of Germany, some of her best-known leaders may have to face trial as war criminals. Steps have therefore been taken to lodge the less prominent party leaders as ‘technical experts’ in various German enterprises. The party is prepared to lend large sums of money to industrialists to enable every one of them to set up a secret post-war organization abroad, but as collateral it demands that the industrialists make available to it existing resources abroad, so that a strong German Reich may re-emerge after the defeat…”

The outcome of the meeting in Strasbourg was the genesis of ODESSA; a well-financed and well-organized private corporation with the express purpose of helping fleeing Nazis escape justice. From the literal German, the name is: Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen (“The Organization of former SS members”).

A further component of Bormann’s plan – Operation Eagle Flight – involved smuggling the vast wealth acquired by the Rich through conduits in Switzerland and South America.

Aid and assistance / ‘Ratlines’ (ICRC / OSI, CIA / Vatican, ODESSA)

The Ratlines were a system of escape routes used by Nazis and other war criminals fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes led to safe havens in South America, primarily Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. All of these countries had substantial German émigré populations – especially Argentina, where entire colonies of settlers still spoke German and followed German customs. Other destinations included the United States (under PAPERCLIP) and the Middle East. There were two primary routes: the first went from Germany to Spain, then to Argentina; the second from Germany to Rome to Genoa, then to South America. The network was administered on the ground by former SS officers like “Hitler’s Favorite Commando” Otto Skorzeny, but it was Martin Bormann who handled the funding.

According to Mark Aarons and John Loftus in Unholy Trinity, a Catholic Priest by the name of Alois Hudal was the first to dedicate himself to establishing escape routes for fleeing fascists. Hudal provided the refugees with lodging, funds to help them escape, and most importantly with false papers, including identity documents issued by the Vatican Refugee Organization (Commissione Pontificia d’Assistenza). These papers were not full passports, but they could be used to obtain a Displaced Person passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which could then be used to apply for a visa. The ICRC would theoretically perform background checks on passport applicants, but in practice the word of a priest or particularly a bishop was good enough.

Based on declassified US intelligence reports, Hudal’s private operation was on a small scale compared to what came later. The major ratline was operated by a network of Croatian priests, members of the Franciscan order, led by Krunoslav Draganović. Father Draganović organized a highly sophisticated chain of safe houses with links from Austria to the final embarkation point at the port of Genoa. The ratline initially focused on aiding members of the Croatian Ustashe movement, most notably the wartime dictator Ante Pavelić, who was actually given refuge in the Vatican at one point. U.S. Diplomat

Allen Welsh Dulles and his brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, both played pivotal roles in the transfer of Nazi technology (and philosophy, arguably) to the United States. Throughout the war, Allen Dulles lived in Bern, Switzerland, (a ‘neutral’ country in name only) where he was a conduit for intelligence regarding German plans and activities, and he established important contacts with German émigrés, resistance leaders, and anti-Nazi intelligence officers. After the war in Europe, Dulles served as the Station Chief at the Office of Strategic Services – just long enough to secure the services of hundreds of former Nazis.

Dr. Joseph Mengele was Chief Medical Officer of the main infirmary at the Birkenau concentration camp. Contrary to popular belief, he was not the CMO at Auschwitz. Mengele was second in command. Auschwitz is where Mengele gained notoriety as the ‘Angel of Death’ however, because that is where he conducted his hideous genetic experiments on prisoners (especially twins). Mengele was placed on the list of war criminals before the war was even over, and although his name was mentioned several times at the Nuremberg trials, Allied forces were convinced that Mengele, too, was already dead by that time. Eventually, after many sightings by credible informants, an arrest warrant was issued by the West German authorities in 1958. The last confirmed sightings of Mengele placed him in Paraguay, but Mengele wisely stayed on the move, especially after Adolf Eichmann’s capture by Israeli MOSSAD. Eichmann was later tried for his crimes and hanged in 1962. Mengele died a free man in Brazil on February 7, 1979. He drowned while swimming in the Atlantic, possibly after suffering a stroke.

Klaus Barbie was known as the “Butcher of Lyon” France. During World War 2, Barbie was a member of the dreaded Waffen SS which was responsible for the deaths of thousands of French partisans under the German occupation. Barbie had been positively identified living in Bolivia as far back as 1971 but it took until January 1983 until Barbie was arrested and extradited to stand trial in France. From the end of the war until his capture and extradition in 1983, he helped governments set up death squads in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and elsewhere. In 1965, Barbie was even recruited by the West German foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) on a monthly salary of 500 Deutsche Marks per month! His trial in 1987 was sensational. On July 4th, 1987, Barbie was sentenced by a French court to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. He died in prison four years later at the age of 77.

Heinrich Muller remains the most senior Nazi figure who has never been captured or confirmed dead. “Gestapo” Muller was last seen in Hitler’s bunker in early May 1945, but many researchers believe he escaped to Argentina along with Bormann.

Recent revelations

Before becoming President, Dwight Eisenhower was Commander of all Allied Forces in World War Two. In 1952, Eisenhower is quoted as saying, “We have been unable to unearth one bit of tangible evidence of Hitler’s death. Many people believe that Hitler escaped from Berlin.” A recent book (Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler) by two British authors, Gerrard Williams and Simon Dunstan, claim there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ to suggest that Hitler and Eva Braun escaped at the end of the Second World War for a new life in the Nazi-controlled enclave of San Carlos de Bariloche in the Patagonian region of Argentina. Williams, a historian and journalist who has written extensively about World War Two, said, “We didn’t want to re-write history, but the evidence we’ve discovered about the escape of Adolf Hitler is just too overwhelming to ignore. There is no forensic evidence for his, or Eva Braun’s deaths, and the stories from the eyewitnesses to their continued survival in Argentina are compelling.”

The book also implies that American intelligence agencies were complicit in allowing Hitler’s escape, in return for access to war technology developed by the Nazis. For many years, it was claimed that Russia was in possession of skull fragments which belonged to Hitler, but recent DNA tests have proven that the fragments belong to those of a young woman under the age of 40. Hitler was 56 when he supposedly died.

The sensational claims made by the authors have naturally been ridiculed by historians like Guy Walters. He called the authors’ claims “2,000 per cent rubbish.” Unfortunately, Mr. Walters has less evidence at his disposal than the authors of Grey Wolf. Dunstan and Williams provide recently uncovered declassified documents and they cite the people, places, and dates which identify the plan’s escape route and hideouts. Dunstan and Williams make a perfectly reasonable argument based on historical evidence.

Hitler of course did not travel by the ‘regular’ Rat Line. Instead, he utilized a special route planned and implemented for him by none other than his ‘grey eminence,’ Martin Bormann. The Fuhrer was flown out of Berlin at the very last minute through a narrow aerial corridor, to Tonder, in Denmark, which at the time was still under Nazi occupation. From there he was flown to a military base near Barcelona in Spain, and then on to a special safe house in the Canary Islands.

The Hitlers spent a single restless night together at the Villa Winter in Fuerteventura, on the southern tip of the Islands. The next morning they boarded a U-Boat for the long journey to the coast of Playa del Mar, Argentina. The journey took several months – but the Nazis had submarines which could easily make the trip, submerged. After a difficult few years on the run from the FBI, Adolf and Eva apparently had two daughters and were able to remain in hiding at a secluded, heavily guarded complex on the shores of Lake Nahuel in Patagonia. The nearest city was San Carlos de Bariloche, a well-known refuge for Nazis in Argentina.

They lived a lonely life together in an enormous lakeside mansion called Inalco. Grey Wolf alleges that the ill-fated couple eventually divorced and Adolf ended up in the care of his fellow compatriots. The authors state that Hitler died in 1962 at the ripe old age of 73.

Other researchers allege that a new breed of Nazis, a Fourth Reich, has emerged from the ashes of defeat. It must be stated that the Nazis never surrendered to the allies; only the German Military (twice, actually). Many claim that the remnants of the Nazi Party have been working diligently behind the scenes since the end of World War II to enact some of the principles of Nazism today. Rampant militarism, rising fascism, never-ending wars of imperial conquest, spying on citizens; the use of corporations and propaganda to control national interests and ideas; all of these methods have been used very successfully to influence our current culture, government, and business practices – primarily in the United States.

Conclusion

In November 2010 an article by Eric Lichtblau in The New York Times discussed a newly-released 600-page Justice Department report, which the department tried to keep secret for forty years. The report confirmed that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in America for Nazis and their collaborators after the war, and it detailed decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad. The Justice Department resisted making the report public, but under threat of a lawsuit, it finally turned over a heavily redacted version to the National Security Archive, a private research group. The report’s most damning revelations come in its assessment of the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and many previous government reports had already acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report further detailed the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The media’s silence over these revelations was deafening.

The Nuremberg trials did not put an end to genocide or the conditions which encourage it; they merely helped to define the terms used to describe the acts themselves. They did lead to the creation of important protocols like The Nuremberg Principles and the Nuremberg Code, however. The Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. This document codified the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials, making such crimes prosecutable by international tribunals.

The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation created as a result of the subsequent Nuremberg Trials. This in turn led to the Fourth Geneva Conventions, which established the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war. The articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949 extensively defined the basic rights of prisoners in war time, established protections for the wounded, and instituted safeguards for civilians in and around a war zone.

The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in whole or with reservations, by 194 countries. Clearly, the world is more violent and war torn today than it ever was. Peace is nowhere in sight and things just seem to be getting worse as the years go by. The UN has proven itself to be totally ineffective in solving any of the world’s conflicts in a timely manner. The Nuremberg trials were nothing more than a self-righteous show trial for the sake of the victors. It was supposed to prove to the world that justice was somehow being served, while Allied war crimes were all but ignored. The prosecution’s opening statement made by Chief U.S. Counsel Justice Robert Jackson at the International Military Tribunal said it best:

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated…The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”

How nice it would have been if these principles were consistently upheld. In the end, the main purpose of the Nuremberg trials was to publicly humiliate and punish certain Nazi leaders while behind the scenes a very different picture was emerging. The political conditions at the end of WWII demanded that moral compromises be made in the name of fighting communism.

History has proven this to be folly.