ratlines (history)

The ratlines () were systems of escape routes used by German Nazis and other fascists to flee Europe from 1945 onwards in the aftermath of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in South America, particularly Argentina, as well as Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Additional destinations included Spain, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States.

Two primary routes from Germany to South America developed independently with their operators eventually collaborating. The first transferred through Spain and the second through Rome and Genoa. The ratlines were supported by some clergy of the Catholic Church, such as Austrian bishop Alois Hudal and Croatian priest Krunoslav Draganović. Starting in 1947, U.S. Intelligence used existing ratlines to move certain Nazi strategists and scientists, known as Operation Paperclip.

Ratlines

Two primary routes developed independently but their operators eventually collaborated. The first went from Germany to Spain, then Argentina; the second led from Germany to Rome, then Genoa, and finally South America. As many as 9,000 Nazi war criminals and their collaborators reportedly escaped to Argentina (up to 5,000), Brazil (up to 2,000), and Chile (up to 1,000). Some immersed themselves in Latin America by pretending to be farmers and/or Catholic.

Franco's Spain

The origins of the first ratlines are connected to various developments in Vatican-Argentine relations before and during World War II. As early as 1942, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglioneevidently at the behest of Pope Pius XIIcontacted an ambassador of Argentina regarding that country's willingness to accept European Catholic immigrants in a timely manner, allowing them to live and work. Anton Weber, a German priest who headed the Roman branch of , travelled to Portugal with intentions to continue to Argentina, seemingly to lay the groundwork for Catholic immigration.

Some Catholic leaders accepted working with the Nazis to fight the common enemy of Bolshevism. By 1944, ratline activity centered in Francoist Spain was conducted to facilitate the escape of Nazis. Among the primary organizers were Charles Lescat, a French member of Action Françaisean organization suppressed by Pope Pius XI and rehabilitated by Pius XIIand Pierre Daye, a Belgian with contacts in the Spanish government. Lescat and Daye were the first to flee Europe with the help of Argentine cardinal Antonio Caggiano.

By 1946, there were hundreds of war criminals in Spain, as well as thousands of former Nazis and fascists. According to U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Vatican cooperation in turning over these "asylum-seekers" was "negligible". Unlike the Vatican emigration operation in Italy which centered on Vatican City, the Spanish ratlinesthough fostered by the Vaticanwere relatively independent of the Vatican Emigration Bureau's hierarchy.

Bishop Hudal's network

Austrian Catholic bishop Alois Hudal, a Nazi sympathiser, was rector of the Pontificio Istituto Teutonico Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome, a seminary for Austrian and German priests, and "Spiritual Director of the German People resident in Italy". After the end of the war in Italy, Hudal became active in ministering to German-speaking prisoners of war and internees then held in camps throughout Italy. In December 1944, the Allies allowed the Vatican to appoint a representative to visit the German-speaking civil internees in Italy, a job assigned to Hudal.

Hudal used this position to aid the escape of wanted Nazi war criminals, including Franz Stangl (commanding officer of the Treblinka extermination camp), Gustav Wagner (commanding officer of the Sobibor extermination camp), Alois Brunner (responsible for the Drancy internment camp near Paris and in charge of deportations in Slovakia to Nazi concentration camps), Erich Priebke (who was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre), and SS officer Adolf Eichmann (architect of the Holocaust); Hudal was later unashamedly open about his role. Some of these wanted men were being held in internment camps; generally lacking identity papers, they would be enrolled in camp registers under false names. Other Nazis hid in Italy and sought Hudal out after learning about his role in assisting escapes. In his memoirs, Hudal said of his actions, "I thank God that He llowed meto visit and comfort many victims in their prisons and concentration camps and to help them escape with false identity papers." He explained that in his eyes:

The Allies' War against Germany was not a crusade, but the rivalry of economic complexes for whose victory they had been fighting. This so-called business ... used catchwords like democracy, race, religious liberty and Christianity as a bait for the masses. All these experiences were the reason why I felt duty bound after 1945 to devote my whole charitable work mainly to former National Socialists and Fascists, especially to so-called 'war criminals'.

According to Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Hudal was the first Catholic priest to dedicate himself to establishing escape routes. The Rome office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued refugees Laissez-passer documents allowing passage from Italy. These were accepted as ''de facto'' passports in South America. Although typically required to be signed for in person, blank forms were accessible to Hudal and the signature of the ICRC official was confirmed to be forged in a number of cases.

Croatian Franciscans

A small but influential network of Croatian priests, members of the Franciscan order, led by Father Krunoslav Draganović, organised a highly sophisticated ratline with headquarters at the San Girolamo degli Illirici Seminary College in Rome, with links from Austria and an embarkation point in Genoa. The ratline initially focused on aiding members of the Croatian Ustaše including its leader, Ante Pavelić.

Priests active in the chain included: Fr. Vilim Cecelja, former Deputy Military Vicar to the Ustaše, based in Austria where many Ustashe and Nazi refugees remained in hiding; Fr. Dragutin Kamber, based at San Girolamo; Fr. Dominik Mandić, an official Vatican representative at San Girolamo and treasurer of the Franciscans, who put the Franciscan press at the ratline's disposal; and Monsignor Karlo Petranović, based in Genoa. Vilim would make contact with those hiding in Austria and help them cross the border to Italy; Kamber, Mandić and Draganović would find them lodgings, often in the monastery itself, while they arranged documentation; finally, Draganović would phone Petranović in Genoa with the number of required berths on ships leaving for South America.

The Draganović ratline was an open secret among the intelligence and diplomatic communities in Rome. As early as August 1945, Allied commanders in Rome were asking questions about the use of San Girolamo as a "haven" for Ustaše. A US State Department report of 12 July 1946 listed nine war criminals, including Albanians and Montenegrins as well as Croats, plus others "not actually sheltered" at San Girolamo Seminary who "enjoy Church support and protection".

In February 1947, CIC Special Agent Robert Clayton Mudd reported ten members of Pavelić's Ustaše cabinet living either in San Girolamo or in the Vatican itself. Mudd had infiltrated an agent into the seminary and confirmed that it was "honeycombed with cells of Ustashe operatives" guarded by "armed youths". Mudd reported a car protected under diplomatic immunity transported unidentified people between the Vatican and the Seminary. He concluded that:

DRAGANOVIC's sponsorship of these Croat Ustashes definitely links him up with the plan of the Vatican to shield these ex-Ustasha nationalists until such time as they are able to procure for them the proper documents to enable them to go to South America. The Vatican, undoubtedly banking on the strong anti-Communist feelings of these men, is endeavoring to infiltrate them into South America in any way possible to counteract the spread of Red doctrine. It has been reliably reported, for example that Dr. VRANCIC has already gone to South America and that Ante PAVELIC and General KREN are scheduled for an early departure to South America through Spain. All these operations are said to have been negotiated by DRAGANOVIC because of his influence in the Vatican.

Finnish ratlines

From 1944, a network of extreme right-wing Finns and Nazis in Finland, founded by Sturmbannführer (Major) Alarich Bross operated in Finland. Organized to engage in armed struggle against the Soviet occupation which never occurred, it smuggled out those who wanted to leave the country for Germany or Sweden. It created a system of safehouses in Finland under the cover of a company called "Great fishing cooperative" with routes provided by a 50–70-man maritime transport organization. Its targets in Sweden were secret loading bays in the small town of Härnösand in western Norrland. Others were smuggled to Sweden from the north over the Tornio river. Access to Europe was opened through the Swedish safehouse network.Lappalainen, Niilo: Aselevon jälkeen. WSOY, 1997. ISBN 951-0-21813-8. p. 111, 113–114

Through the safehouse routes, the resistance movement transported Finnish Nazis and fascists, officers and intelligence personnel, Estonian and East Karelian refugees and German citizens out of the country. Hundreds of people were assisted in Sweden, including more than a hundred German prisoners of war who had fled the Finns. Transport to Germany took place after the September 1944 break in German submarines, smuggling hundreds of people.

Perón's Argentina

During the war, Germany sent Nazi propaganda from its embassy in Tokyo, Japan, to Buenos Aires, Argentina. After Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945, the captain of the ', which had been operating in the northern Atlantic Ocean, decided to surrender to the Argentine Navy in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires Province, which occurred on 10 July. He was unable to explain why the voyage had taken two months nor the absence of the ship's log and the crew's identities. The Navy reported that no officers were aboard, although the police purportedly reported that Adolf Hitler and perhaps Eva Braun had been seen disembarking from a submarine in southern Argentina. The captured sub and its crew were sent to North America, which did not discourage the ', which also made for Argentina as the war ended in Europe, from surrendering in Buenos Aires on 17 August in hopes of being given shelter; the ship's log and the crew's identities were intact.

Argentine president Juan Perón spoke out against the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals (1945–1946).From the 'Perón tapes' he recorded the year before his death, published in ''Yo, Juan Domingo Perón'', Luca de Tena ''et al.'' "In Nuremberg at that time something was taking place that I personally considered a disgrace and an unfortunate lesson for the future of humanity. I became certain that the Argentine people also considered the Nuremberg process a disgrace, unworthy of the victors, who behaved as if they hadn't been victorious. Now we realize that they he Alliesdeserved to lose the war." The final period of German immigration to Argentina occurred between 1946 and 1950 when Perón ordered the creation of a ratline for prominent Nazis, collaborators and other fascists from Europe. According to Argentine researcher Uki Goñi, Argentine diplomats and intelligence officers had, on Perón's instructions, vigorously encouraged Nazi and fascist war criminals to make their home in Argentina. According to Goñi, the Argentines not only collaborated with Draganović's ratline, but set up additional ratlines running through Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Belgium. As many as 5,000 Nazi war criminals escaped to Argentina overall.

On 18 January 1946, Bishop Antonio Caggiano, leader of the Argentine chapter of Catholic Action, flew to Rome to be consecrated as cardinal by Pius XII. Both Caggiano and French cardinal Eugène Tisserant heavily interceded in helping Lescat and Daye and their associates emigrate from Spain to Argentina. Over the spring of 1946, a number of French war criminals, fascists and Vichy officials made it from Italy to Argentina in the same way; they were issued passports by the Rome ICRC office, which were then stamped with Argentine tourist visas. (The need for health certificates and return tickets was waived on Caggiano's recommendation.) The first documented case of a French war criminal arriving in Buenos Aires was Émile Dewoitine, who was later sentenced in absentia to 20 years of hard labour. He sailed first class on the same ship back with Cardinal Caggiano.

Shortly after this, Argentinian Nazi smuggling became institutionalised, according to Goñi when Perón's new government of February 1946 appointed anthropologist Santiago Peralta as Immigration Commissioner and former Ribbentrop agent Ludwig Freude as his intelligence chief. Goñi argues that these two then set up a "rescue team" of secret service agents and immigration "advisors", many of whom were themselves European war criminals, with Argentine citizenship and employment.

After entering Argentina under a false name, in the mid-1950s Josef Mengele (known as the "Angel of Death" due to his role in the Holocaust) reclaimed his surname to marry his brother's widow in Uruguay, then brought her to Argentina. In 1959, he used his real name to apply for a passport at the German embassy in Buenos Aires. By 1960, he had fled to Paraguay (drawing the attention of the Argentine police), and authorities of Brazil suspected his presence. He died in Brazil in 1979, with his remains identified via DNA analysis in 1992. The same year, Argentina's government declassified a voluminous file regarding Nazi escapees. In early 2025, President of Argentina Javier Milei met with representatives from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who requested in conjunction with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for cooperation in the latter's investigation of Credit Suisse's Nazi patronage. Late in April 2025, Argentina published 1,850 such documents online, many of which were declassified in 1992. The next month, United Press International reported that these files indicate the Nazis bribed Perón's government with $200 million in gold, some of which was allegedly delivered via to Perón's wife, Eva.

Additionally, in May 2025, the Supreme Court of Argentina discovered 83 boxes of archived material evidently sent by the Germans to spread wartime propaganda.

Role of U.S. intelligence

Starting in 1947, U.S. Intelligence used existing ratlines to move certain Nazi strategists and scientists.

According to a declassified U.S. Army intelligence report from 1950, by mid-1947 U.S. forces had begun to use Draganović's established network to evacuate "visitors who had been in the custody of the 430th CIC and completely processed in accordance with current directives and requirements, and whose continued residence in Austria constituted a security threat as well as a source of possible embarrassment to the Commanding General of USFA, since the Soviet Command had become aware that their presence in U.S. Zone of Austria and in some instances had requested the return of these persons to Soviet custody". The deal with Draganović involved getting the visitors to Rome: "Dragonovich handled all phases of the operation after the defectees arrived in Rome, such as the procurement of IRO Italian and South American documents, visas, stamps, arrangements for disposition, land or sea, and notification of resettlement committees in foreign lands.""History of the Italian Rat Line" (10 April 1950), document signed by "IB Operating Officer" Paul E. Lyon, 430th Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), Headquarters of the U.S. Forces in Austria. , fro
the original
jasenovac-info.com; accessed 4 August 2017.

Purported escape of Adolf Hitler

In 2014, over 700 FBI documents were declassified as part of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. These revealed that from the late 1940s to the 1950s, the US government investigated reports that Adolf Hitler had not died in 1945, but escaped to South America, as the Soviet Union suggested after capturing Berlin.

Although the CIA received a purported 1954 photograph of Hitler in Colombia with an alleged eyewitness, claims of Hitler's escape (as well as an alleged Soviet autopsy of his corpse) have been dismissed by Western scholars, who cite eyewitnesses and the dictator's dental remains as proving that Hitler died in 1945, excluding the possibility of mandibulectomy and supporting deception.

Ratline escapees

Some of the Nazis and war criminals who escaped using ratlines include:
* Andrija Artuković, escaped to the United States; arrested in 1984 after decades of delay and extradited to SFR Yugoslavia in 1986, where he died in prison in 1988.
* Klaus Barbie, fled to Bolivia in 1951 with help from the United States, as he had been an agent of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps since April 1947; captured in 1983; died in prison in France in September 1991.
* Alois Brunner, fled to Syria in 1954; died around 2001.
* Herberts Cukurs, fled to Brazil in 1945, assassinated by Mossad in Uruguay in 1965.
* Léon Degrelle, fled to Spain in 1945; founded the neo-Nazi organization CEDADE in 1966 while under protection by the Franco regime; died in Spain in 1994.
* Adolf Eichmann, fled to Argentina in 1950; captured 1960; executed in Israel on 1 June 1962.
* Aribert Heim, disappeared in 1962; most likely died in Egypt in 1992.
* Olavi Karpalo, fled to Venezuela in 1945, died in 1988.André Swanström : Suomalaiset SS-miehet ja sotarikokset, Suomen kirkkohistoriallinen seura 11.10.2017
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* Aarne Kauhanen, fled to Venezuela in 1945; arrested 1947; died in mysterious circumstances in 1949.Silvennoinen, Oula: Salaiset aseveljet : Suomen ja Saksan turvallisuuspoliisiyhteistyö 1933–1944, s. 306, 319. Helsinki: Otava, 2008. ISBN 978-951-12150-1-1.
* Sándor Képíró, fled to Argentina, returned to Hungary in 1996. He stood trial for war crimes in Budapest in February 2011, before his death in September.
* Josef Mengele, fled to Argentina in 1949, then to other countries; died in Brazil in 1979.
* Arvid Ojasti, fled to Norway in 1945, then Sweden, and finally Venezuela. In December 1963, he was shot and killed under unclear circumstances.
* Ante Pavelić, escaped to Argentina in 1948; died in Spain, in December 1959, of wounds sustained two years earlier in an assassination attempt.
* Friedrich Peter defended by Bruno Kreisky died 25 September 2005
* Erich Priebke, fled to Argentina in 1949; arrested in 1994; died in 2013.
* Walter Rauff, fled to Chile via Ecuador; protected by Augusto Pinochet; died in 1984.
* Eduard Roschmann, escaped to Argentina in 1948; fled to Paraguay to avoid extradition and died there in 1977.
* Hans-Ulrich Rudel, fled to Argentina in 1948; started the "Kameradenwerk", a relief organization for Nazi criminals that helped fugitives escape; died following a stroke in Rosenheim, Germany in 1982.
* Dinko Šakić, fled to Argentina in 1947, arrested in 1998 and extradited to Croatia. He was tried and found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, serving a 20-year sentence. He died in 2008.
* Otto Skorzeny, escaped an internment camp in 1948 and fled to Spain in 1950; in 1953 moved to Egypt and served as a military advisor to Gamal Abdel Nasser; travelled between Spain and Argentina serving as an advisor to Juan Perón; allegedly worked for Mossad; died in Spain in 1975.
* Boris Smyslovsky, fled to Argentina in 1948 from Liechtenstein with the First Russian National Army. He returned to Liechtenstein in 1966, and died of natural causes in 1988.
* Tscherim Soobzokov fled to the United States; died 1985
* Franz Stangl, fled to Brazil in 1951; arrested in 1967 and extradited to West Germany; died in 1971 of heart failure.
* Paavo Talvela, fled to Brazil in 1946, eventually returned to Finland.Uola, Mikko (2001). "Talvela, Paavo (1897–1973)". Kansallisbiografia. Studia Biographica (in Finnish). Vol. 4. The Finnish Literature Society. ISSN 1799-4349. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
* Ludolf von Alvensleben, fled to Argentina in 1946, sentenced to death in absentia, managed to avoid prosecution; died in 1970.
* Gustav Wagner, fled to Brazil in 1950; arrested in 1978; committed suicide in 1980.
* War criminals in Canada – Canada was the destination for many ratline escapees from non-German-speaking countries, including veterans of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division. ''(see also: Deschênes Commission)''
** Peter Savaryn, Ukrainian veteran of the Galicia Division, who became a lawyer in Canada. He became Chancellor of the University of Alberta, and president of the Ukrainian World Congress and Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1987, and died in 2007.
** Yaroslav Hunka, Ukrainian veteran of the Galicia Division. In September 2023, Hunka was invited by Speaker Anthony Rota to be recognised by the Canadian House of Commons during a state visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This incident provoked enormous scandal, and prompted Rota to resign five days later, triggering the 2023 speakership election.

See also

* Aunt Anna's, a safe house in Merano, Italy, often used by Nazi and SS members
* ''Die Spinne''
* Nazism in the Americas
* Otto Wächter
* U.S. intelligence involvement with German and Japanese war criminals after World War II

References

;Sources

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* Sachslehner, Johannes (2019). ''Hitlers Mann im Vatikan: Bischof Alois Hudal. Ein dunkles Kapitel in der Geschichte der Kirche.'' Vienna-Graz: Molden, 2019. .
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* Wiesenthal, Simon (1989). ''Justice not Vengeance''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Further reading

* Birn, Ruth Bettina. ''Review of Goñi, Uki, Odessa: Die wahre Geschichte: Fluchthilfe für NS-Kriegsverbrecher and Schneppen, Heinz, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte''
H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Net Reviews
October, 2007.
* Breitman, Richard; Goda, Norman J. W.; Naftali, Timothy; and Wolfe, Robert (2005). ''U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis''. Cambridge University Press; .
* Graham, Robert and Alvarez, David. (1998). ''Nothing Sacred: Nazi Espionage against the Vatican, 1939–1945''. London: Frank Cass.
* Loftus, John. (2010). ''America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History''. Waterwille: (Trine Day); .
* Simpson, Christopher (1988). ''Blowback: The First Full Account of America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Disastrous Effect on The cold war, Our Domestic and Foreign Policy''. New York: (Grove/Atlantic); .
* Steinacher, Gerald (2006). ''The Cape of Last Hope: The Flight of Nazi War Criminals through Italy to South America'', in Eisterer, Klaus and Günter Bischof (eds; 2006) ''Transatlantic Relations: Austria and Latin America in the 19th and 20th Century'' (Transatlantica 1), pp. 203–24. New Brunswick: Transatlantica.
* Steinacher, Gerald (2012; P/B edition). ''Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice''. Oxford University Press; .

External links

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Aftermath of the Holocaust
Aftermath of World War II
Argentina in World War II
South America in World War II
Nazis in South America
Far-right politics in Argentina
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