The concept of a powerful international conspiracy aiding Nazi war criminals has long fascinated writers and filmmakers, but the reality was far more chaotic. According to a BBC Radio 4 investigation, most fleeing Nazis experienced a haphazard and perilous journey, with no overarching organisation like SPECTRE pulling the strings.
The term 'ratline' was first used by US intelligence officers after the war to describe a network moving Croatian war criminals to South America. It gained wider recognition following a 1983 US Department of Justice report on Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon'. In 1951, US intelligence used the ratline to send Barbie to Bolivia rather than face a French extradition request that would have exposed their employment of him.
Notorious figures like Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz doctor who performed fatal experiments, and Adolf Eichmann, a key Holocaust co-ordinator, escaped via such routes. Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Israeli agents, tried, and executed in 1962, but Mengele evaded capture until his death in 1979.
South America, with its developing economies and pro-immigration policies, attracted many refugees, including those with tainted pasts. Juan Perón's Argentine government offered clandestine support, as revealed in Uki Goñi's 2003 book The Real Odessa.
Otto Wächter, the Nazi Governor of Galicia, spent three years hiding in the Austrian mountains before crossing into Italy with forged papers. In Rome, he sought a passport from the Red Cross, which issued documents to many legitimate refugees. He stayed in a monastery and met Alois Hudal, a Nazi-sympathising rector. After lunch with a 'very kind old comrade', Wächter fell ill and died, possibly poisoned. Philippe Sands investigates this story in the series Intrigue: The Ratline.
