Nazis on the run : how Hitler's henchmen fled justice

411 Pages·2012·1.97 MB·English

by  Gerald Steinacher

Nazis on the Run
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Nazis on the Run
How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice
GERALD STEINACHER
1
3
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© 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
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ISBN 978–0–19–957686–9
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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 fi ve 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-Flem-
ing, 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, Har-
ald Toniatti of the State Archive in Bozen, and Elisabeth Klamper of
the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance in Vienna. Matteo
Sanfi lippo was a great source of help to me when dealing with the prob-
lems involved in the Roman archives. I should like to thank Johann
Hörist, the Rector of Santa Maria dell’Anima, the German and Aus-
trian 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, sug-
gestions, 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 diffi cult 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
vi Preface and Acknowledgements
terms of language, form, and content, and invested a great deal of
time in doing so. I should especially thank my mentor Rolf Stein-
inger, Innsbruck, who has always sympathetically accompanied my
professional and academic progress. As head of the Institute at Inns-
bruck 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 schol-
arly work a new direction. I wish to thank Linda and Eric Christen-
son 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 informa-
tion 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 post-
doctoral thesis.
Eva Trafojer, Norbert Sparer, Christian Url, Tanja Schluchter, and
Thomas Pardatscher sacrifi ced many hours to the formal revision of
individual chapters of this work, which made the fi nal revision consid-
erably 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 sugges-
tions for improvement. Thanks to Shaun Whiteside for his excellent
English translation and Jennifer Shimek for the accurate fi nal copy
editing of the book.
I owe a debt of thanks to the de Rachewiltz family for their hospital-
ity 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 fi nal 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.
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
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 xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction xv
1. The Nazi Escape Route through Italy 1
1. Italy as a Country of Refuge 3
2. Refugees, Prisoners of War, and War Criminals 8
3. Illegal Immigrants 15
4. Smuggling Goods and People 23
5. South Tyrol, the Nazi Bolt-Hole 32
6. Fake Papers 43
2. The Co-Responsibility of the International Red Cross 55
1. Red Cross Travel Documents 56
2. How the ICRC Issued Travel Documents in Italy 61
3. The Routine Nature of False Documentation 69
4. The Red Cross Calls a Halt 77
5. The Red Cross on the Escape Route 84
6. Escaping with Ethnic German Identity 90
3. The Vatican Network 101
1. The Vatican Relief Commission 102
2. The National Subcommittees 110
3. The Network of Bishop Alois Hudal 118
4. The Monsignor and the Croatian Fascists 128
5. The Role of the Church in South Tyrol 139
6. Denazifi cation through Baptism 148
4. The Intelligence Service Ratline 159
1. Operation Bernhard 161
2. The Special Case of Italy 169
3. ‘Recycled’ War Criminals 177
4. The Origins of the Italian Ratline 183
5. The Ratline Players 195
6. Escape along the Ratline 199