Rat lines

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Rat lines ( English rat lines ) was the name coined by US intelligence and military circles for escape routes of leading representatives of the Nazi regime , members of the SS and the Ustasha after the end of the Second World War . Due to the active participation of high-ranking representatives of the Catholic Church in the escape routes, they were called " Klosterrouten " until the US secret service became involved .

The escape routes led via Italy (mostly from South Tyrol to Genoa ) or via Spain (which was under the rule of the dictator Franco , who was allied with Hitler ) to South America and there mainly to Argentina , where the sympathizer Juan Perón won the presidential elections in 1946, but also to countries of the arab world . After the Second World War, a large number of Nazi perpetrators, fascists and collaborators from various European countries managed to escape criminal prosecution via these routes .

The Rattenlinie Nord is a specialty , as it did not lead out of Europe, but ran to Schleswig-Holstein in the direction of Flensburg, where the Mürwik special area was established in May 1945 with the last Reich government .

Organization and execution of the escape routes

The head of the escape organization is considered to be the fascist Croatian Franciscan priest Krunoslav Draganović , who prepared this escape route in 1943 and organized it together with the Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal . Many of the National Socialists and Ustaša people honored Draganović with the name "Golden Priest". He worked for the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) of the USA until 1962 ; he is also said to have worked for both British and Yugoslav and Soviet intelligence. Hudal obtained ID cards ("Carta di riconoscimento") for the fugitive National Socialists, which the "Austrian Bureau", a semi-official representation in Rome, issued. In the event of suspicion, the refugees also benefited from the support of papal aid agencies, which authenticated the refugees' identity and also procured the visas , while the Italian Red Cross was responsible for organizing the passports. The refugees were also supported by the German association Stille Hilfe , which was sponsored by high-ranking representatives of the German churches in its early days.

In some cases the National Socialists and Ustaše people were even passed off as survivors of concentration camps via forged papers. As the American secret service found out, employees of the Argentine consulate in Barcelona often helped to obtain these forged papers for a high fee. The escape organization was also benefited by the immigration agreement between Argentina and Italy, which made it easier to smuggle refugees into Argentina via Italy.

In addition to Italy, Spain , which was ruled by Franco , was also a safe place for the fleeing war criminals, where they were provided with accommodation, pocket money, food and not infrequently even start-up capital for their new existence by ship until they left. In most cases, the International Red Cross paid for these fugitives to cross by ship .

The US secret service CIC recognized the escape routes early on, but did not take any steps against it and from 1947 onwards used the routes for their own purposes to discreetly and quickly remove numerous spies from the part of Austria liberated and occupied by the Soviet Union . Many high officials of the National Socialist regime were u. a. provided with forged papers by American intelligence agencies , many of which remained undetected. The Americans renamed the “monastery routes” after their intervention in the organization of the routes into “rat lines”.

Aftermath and National Socialists who fled

With the help of the rat lines, most of the Ustasha leadership managed to escape, whose head, Ante Pavelić , even set up a government in exile in Buenos Aires (which, however, was not diplomatically recognized). In addition, many National Socialists and SS members also managed to evade their punishment and go into hiding. The magazine Der Weg ( El Sendero in Spanish ), which has been published in Buenos Aires since 1947 , was largely designed by the Nazi perpetrators who had fled (some under pseudonyms) and was primarily devoted to the apologetics of National Socialist Germany, but was not free from either partly blatant obscurity .

French collaborators of the Vichy regime , Rexists from Belgium as well as soldiers of the Vlasov army and members of eastern SS divisions, especially Ukrainians , managed to escape. Hans-Ulrich Rudel , who also managed to escape, became military advisor to the Argentine President Juan Perón , who welcomed the war criminals with open arms. Rudel later thanked the Church for “having saved the best of our nation and effectively thwarted the mad victor's mad desire for revenge and retribution”.

According to Uki Goñi , historian and author of The Real Odessa , the traces of the fugitives can no longer be traced in many cases because a large part of the files have been destroyed or blackened. However, he calculated a number of at least 300 Nazi functionaries who had reached Argentina, while the Argentine commission of historians CEANA found in its final report from 1999 that only 180 known Nazi perpetrators had reached Argentina via the "rat line".

Among the fugitives were Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben , Klaus Barbie , Gerhard Bohne , Adolf Eichmann , Berthold Heilig , Johann von Leers , Josef Mengele , Ante Pavelić , Erich Priebke , Walter Rauff , Eduard Roschmann , Josef Schwammberger , Franz Stangl , Friedrich Schwend , Gustav Wagner and Friedrich Warzok .

Role of the Vatican

The question of the role of the Vatican , which arises in view of the participation of several church dignitaries in the escape aid for National Socialists, cannot yet be conclusively assessed. It is certain that Pius XII. and his close collaborator Giovanni Montini (who later became Pope Paul VI) provided Alois Hudal with far-reaching powers that enabled him to organize the extradition. It remains unclear whether they knew in detail who was benefiting from the aid. Uki Goñi's studies, who sifted through British archive material, provide some clarity. Accordingly, in four cases, the Vatican State Secretariat turned to the London government through diplomatic channels to prevent Croatian war criminals from being expelled from Allied prisoner-of-war camps and extradited to Yugoslavia. Conversely, the British ambassador to the Holy See complained to Domenico Tardini that Yugoslav collaborators were taking refuge in extraterritorial institutions of the Vatican, without the church's help for fascists ceasing to exist. In Goñi's view, this suggests the tacit approval of the Pope for Draganović's activities.

In 1947, the American secret service agent Robert Clayton Mudd smuggled a spy into the Croatian national church in Rome, from where the Franciscan Krunoslav Draganović organized the escape of several Ustaša fascists. The report states that numerous Croatian fascists can be found in several rooms of the facility. Among them are former ministers and high-ranking military officials of the Ustaše state. The report goes on to say that some of the politicians stayed in the Vatican at times and used the vehicles of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See to travel to the Croatian national church.

Mark Aarons and John Loftus cite statements by clergymen in their book Unholy Trinity , according to which Pius XII. gave direct instruction for the organization of the rat line. They also show a picture that Montini shows during a visit to the Croatian national church. It is said to have originated at the time when, according to Mudd's secret service report, numerous Croatian fascists were staying there.

On July 25, 1943, the German ambassador to the Holy See, Ernst von Weizsäcker , reported to the Foreign Office in Berlin that he had heard of two interventions by the Vatican State Secretariat for members of the Mussolini family and other fascists.

See also

Films and literature

Books

Non-fiction

  • Ernst Klee : Persil notes and false passports. How the churches helped the Nazis. Fischer, Frankfurt 1991. ISBN 3-596-10956-6 u. ö. (see also films)
  • Rena and Thomas Giefer: The Rat Line. Escape routes of the Nazis. Beltz, Weinheim 1992. ISBN 3-89547-855-5 (see films) .
  • Uki Goñi: Odessa: The real story. Escape aid for Nazi war criminals. Association A, 2006, ISBN 3-935936-40-0 (link to detailed interview with the author in English, review in German and English on the publisher's website) Non-fiction book of the month at Arte . Translated from the English, Rev. ed. 2003 -
    • in Spanish: La auténtica "Odessa": la fuga nazi a la Argentina de Perón Publishing House Paidós, Barcelona-Buenos Aires-México 2002. ISBN 84-493-1329-5 .
  • Johannes Sachslehner : Hitler's husband in the Vatican: Bishop Alois Hudal. A dark chapter in the history of the Church. Molden, Vienna-Graz 2019, ISBN 978-3-222-15040-1 .
  • Gerald Steinacher : Nazis on the run. How war criminals escaped overseas via Italy StudienVerlag, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7065-4026-1 .
    • dsb .: “The Cape of Last Hope”. The Flight of Nazi War Criminals through Italy to South America . In: Günter Bischof, Klaus Eisterer (eds.): Transatlantic relations: Austria and Latin America from 1800 to the present . Series: Transatlantica, 1. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4213-7 (English preliminary version of the book).
  • Eckhard Schimpf: Holy. The escape of the Braunschweig Nazi leader on the Vatican route to South America. Appelhans, Braunschweig 2005, ISBN 978-3-937664-31-6 .
  • Heinz Schneppen: Odessa and the Fourth Reich. Myths of Contemporary History Metropol, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-938690-52-9 .
  • Karlheinz Deschner : A Century of Salvation History. The Politics of the Popes in the Age of World Wars. 2 volumes, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1982/83; exp. New edition in 1 volume ud T. The politics of the popes in the 20th century . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-498-01282-7 (On the role of the Catholic Church, state of knowledge at the time).
  • Andrej Angrick , Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo after 1945. Careers, conflicts, constructions. Publications of the research center Ludwigsburg , 14. WBG , Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-534-20673-5 .
  • Daniel Stahl: Nazi hunt: South America's dictatorships and the prosecution of Nazi crimes. Wallstein, Göttingen 2013. ISBN 978-3-835-31112-1 .
  • Guy Walters: Hunting Evil. How the Nazi was criminals escaped and the hunt to bring them to justice . Bantam Press, London 2009. ISBN 978-0-593-05991-3 .

As a novel

  1. Password: Forget-Me-Not 1975 (film version see below)
  2. The secret of the masks
  3. Depot in the Skagerrak
  4. The peacock has seven eyes

Movies

  • Karin Duregger: The Rat Line - Nazis on the run through South Tyrol. AUT / ITA, 46 min., 2015. (First broadcast: May 5, 2015 on ORF 2 in the religious magazine Kreuz und quer . )
  • Rena and Thomas Giefer: The Rat Line. Escape routes of the Nazis after 1945 1990. 45 min.
  • Ernst Klee (see books): “Persil notes and false passports.” How the churches helped the Nazis. Church historian Hans Prolingheuer on the false truths of the “clean wash ecumenism”. NDR, first broadcast October 9, 1992. Red. Ralph Ludwig. 25 min.
  • The invisible visor by Bonhoff & Schauer, directed by Peter Hagen; Television of the GDR 1973. (novel, see literature)
  • The Odessa Files after Frederick Forsyth, directed by Ronald Neame; 1974. 120 min (novel, see literature)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Paul : Zeitllauf: Flensburg comrades. In: Zeit Online . September 8, 2013, accessed November 1, 2018 . Bernd Philipsen: Bus tour through Flensburg: On the trail of contemporary history. In: Flensburger Tageblatt . January 30, 2012, accessed November 1, 2018 . Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015. Wolfgang Börnsen , Leve Börnsen: From decline to a new beginning. Kiel / Hamburg 2015, p. 60 f.
  2. ↑ Martin Lätzel:  HUDAL, Alois C .. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 687-692.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  3. ↑ Oliver Pieper: Escape Aid for Nazis: The Vatican and the Rat Line , dw.com, March 1, 2020
  4. ^ Clément Millon: A. Angrick, K. Mallmann, The Gestapo after 1945. In: Francia-Recensio 2010/3. July 29, 2010, accessed on November 1, 2018 (French, review, reproduced on perspectivia.net).
  5. ↑ Karin Duregger: Our documentary "The Rattenlinie - Nazis on the run through South Tyrol" at the Bolzano Film Festival in April 2015. In: karin-duregger.com. March 29, 2015, accessed November 1, 2018 (movie description).
  6. ↑ 70 years at the end of World War II: criss-cross: The Rattenlinie - Nazis on the run through South Tyrol. In: tv.orf.at. May 5, 2015, archived from the original on May 5, 2015 ; accessed on November 1, 2018 .
  7. ^ Eva Kreisky: SE The "Banality of Evil": Controversies about Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem", WS 2005 The rat line: Escape routes of the Nazis - a documentation. (pdf, 42 kB) Archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; accessed on November 1, 2018 .
  8. ^ "Persil notes and false passports": Did the Evangelical Church help the old Nazis? Church historian Hans Prolingheuer on the false truths of the “clean wash ecumenism”. (pdf, 156 kB) In: Church Stories in National Socialism. January 16, 2008, accessed November 1, 2018 (broadcast manuscript).