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Ratlines (World War II)

German escape routes From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ratlines (World War II)
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The ratlines (German: Rattenlinien) 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, which reportedly coordinated with the Nazis – in addition to Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. Other destinations included Spain, Switzerland, and Canada.

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High-ranking fascists and Nazis who escaped from Europe via the ratlines after World War II: Ante Pavelić, Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele

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, as well as some outlets of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Starting in 1947, the United States utilized Draganović's network and an official at the International Refugee Organization to help some refugees in their custody in occupied Austria flee to South America – including Gestapo leader Klaus Barbie, who settled in Bolivia.

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Ratlines

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Two primary routes developed independently but their operators eventually collaborated.[1] 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).[2] Some refugees immersed themselves in Latin America by pretending to be farmers and/or Catholic.[3]

Franco's Spain

The origins of the first ratlines are connected to various developments in Vatican-Argentine relations before and during World War II.[4] As early as 1942, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglione – evidently at the behest of Pope Pius XII – contacted an ambassador of Argentina regarding that country's willingness to accept European Catholic immigrants in a timely manner, allowing them to live and work.[5] Anton Weber, a German priest who headed the Roman branch of Saint Raphael's Society [de], travelled to Portugal with intentions to continue to Argentina, seemingly to lay the groundwork for Catholic immigration.[5]

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.[6] Among the primary organizers were Charles Lescat, a French member of Action Française – an organization suppressed by Pope Pius XI and rehabilitated by Pius XII – and Pierre Daye, a Belgian with contacts in the Spanish government.[7] Lescat and Daye were the first to flee Europe with the help of Argentine cardinal Antonio Caggiano.[7]

By 1946, there were hundreds of war criminals in Spain, as well as thousands of former Nazis and fascists.[8] According to U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Vatican cooperation in turning over these "asylum-seekers" was "negligible".[8] Unlike the Vatican emigration operation in Italy which centered on Vatican City, the Spanish ratlines – though fostered by the Vatican – were relatively independent of the Vatican Emigration Bureau's hierarchy.[9]

Bishop Hudal's network

See also: Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza

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".[10] After the end of the war in Italy, Hudal became active in ministering to German-speaking prisoners of war and internees who were being 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.[11]

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.[12][13] 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.[14] In his memoirs, Hudal said of his actions, "I thank God that He [allowed me] to visit and comfort many victims in their prisons and concentration camps and to help them escape with false identity papers."[15] 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.[16] 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.[17] 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.[17]

Croatian Franciscans

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A travel ID issued to a Croatian national by the International Committee of the Red Cross

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.[18]

A number of priests were active in the chain, included Father Vilim Cecelja (former Deputy Military Vicar to the Ustaše),[19] who founded a branch of the Croatian Red Cross (which the IRC only supported in an unofficial capacity) in Austria. He used his Red Cross and United States papers to travel freely around Salzburg, where many Ustashe and Nazi refugees remained, providing Red Cross identities to numerous individuals who lacked identification. In October 1945, Cecelja was arrested by the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) for his Ustaše ties.[20] Father Dominik Mandić (an official Vatican representative at San Girolamo and treasurer of the Franciscans), used his Italian secret police connections to ensure that the Franciscans' identity cards would be considered sufficiently official to issue them Italian identity cards.[21] Finally, Draganović would phone Monsignor Karlo Petranović in Genoa with the number of required berths on ships to South America.[22]

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.[23] A U.S. 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".[24]

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.[25] Additionally, by mid-1947, British intelligence was aware that Petranović mainly helped war criminals.[22]

Nordic ratlines

Main article: Pro-German resistance movement in Finland
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Pro-Nazi industrialist Petter Forsström, who supported departures from Finland

In 1944, Sturmbannführer (Major) Alarich Bross founded a network of extreme right-wing Finns and Nazis in Finland. Organized to engage in an armed struggle against the Soviet occupation that never occurred, it smuggled out those who wanted to leave Finland for Germany or Sweden. A system of Finnish safehouses were created 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, western Norrland. Others were smuggled to Sweden from the north over the Tornio river. Access to Europe was opened through the Swedish safehouse network.[26]

Through the safehouse routes, the resistance movement transported German citizens, officers, intelligence personnel, Finnish Nazis and fascists, and Estonian and East Karelian refugees out of Finland. Hundreds of people were assisted in Sweden, including more than a hundred German prisoners of war who had fled the Finns. Hundreds were spirited to Germany via U-boat after the September 1944 break.[27][26] In 1946, Finnish industrialist Petter Forsström was convicted of treason for helping Nazis flee from Finland to Sweden, for instance by buying them motorboats.[28][29]

Argentine haven

See also: Argentina during World War II and Department 50

In June 1941, Germany sent 83 boxes of documents from its embassy in Tokyo, Japan, via the MS Nana Maru to Buenos Aires, Argentina.[30][31] Argentina's foreign ministry searched the boxes, reporting that five contained Nazi propaganda and the others housed less provocative material. A month later, Argentine officials raided secret offices of the banned Nazi Party disguised as German labor organizations. Perhaps 5,000 seized memberships from the German Labor Front and the German trade union association were stored by the Supreme Court of Argentina.[31] In May 1943, SS functionary Walter Schellenberg secured a secret agreement with the Argentine military that excluded Nazis from arrest in Argentina and established a diplomatic pouch exchange system between the two regimes. The Argentine nationalists conducted a coup d'état that June, opening a way for Juan Perón's rise to power.[32]

After Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945, the captain of U-530, then operating in the northern Atlantic Ocean, opted to surrender to the Argentine Navy in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires Province, which occurred on 10 July.[33] He was unable to explain why the voyage had taken two months nor the absence of usual documents. The Navy reported that no officers were aboard, while the police purportedly reported that Adolf Hitler and perhaps Eva Braun had been seen disembarking from a submarine.[33] The captured U-530 and its crew were sent to North America, which did not discourage the U-977 from surrendering in Buenos Aires in mid-August in hopes of being sheltered.[34] According to The New York Times, the U.S. State Department reported in 1945 that "the personal fortunes of Nazi officials" were delivered to Buenos Aires via diplomatic pouch, with Nazi higher-up Hermann Göring possessing over USD $20 million and a U-boat loaded with Nazi plunder.[35]

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.[36][7] During the spring of 1946, Caggiano implored the Argentine consul in Rome to stamp the passports of three confirmed French war criminals (and five other Frenchmen) with Argentine tourist visas, regardless of missing return tickets and health certificates.[37] 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 Caggiano.[38]

Perón's Argentina

See also: Juan Perón § Jewish and German communities of Argentina
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Rodolfo Freude (second from left) with Perón (right foreground)

German-Argentine millionaire Ludwig Freude, who was reportedly aligned with Nazi intelligence, coordinated contributions from Nazi collaborators to Perón's 1946 presidential campaign.[39][35] Perón appointed anthropologist Santiago Peralta (an avowed anti-Semite) as his immigration commissioner and Ludwig Freude's son Rodolfo as the head of the country's first intelligence bureau;[40][35] the two Péron subordinates evidently aided European war criminals by streamlining their pathway to citizenship and employing them within their departments.[41] Péron's regime collaborated with Draganović's ratline and operated additional ratlines through Scandinavia and Switzerland.[42] As many as 5,000 Nazi war criminals escaped to Argentina,[2] some as late as 1950, the year Adolf Eichmann arrived.[43] Péron later stated that he helped as many Nazi officials as possible in a reaction to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals (1945–1946), which he thought were a "disgrace".[3][44]

From the late 1940s to the 1950s, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) investigated reports that Hitler had not died in 1945, but escaped to South America – typically via Argentina, as the Soviets suggested after taking Berlin.[45][46] The CIA even received a purported photograph of Hitler in 1954.[47] According to Western scholars, however, the dictator's 1945 death is proven by his confirmed dental remains and eyewitnesses[45][48] – excluding the possibility of mandibulectomy and supporting deception.[49] In accordance with the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the FBI started releasing relevant files online c. 2011.[50]

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.[51] 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 c. 1963 authorities of Brazil suspected his presence. He died in Brazil in 1979, with his remains identified via DNA analysis in 1992.[52] The same year, Argentina's government declassified a voluminous file regarding Nazi escapees.[53]

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.[54][55][56] Late in April 2025, Argentina published 1,850 such documents online, many of which were previously declassified in 1992.[53] In May 2025, United Press International reported that these files indicate that the Nazis may have bribed Perón's government with $200 million in gold, some of which was allegedly delivered via U-boat before being delivered to Perón's wife, Eva.[57] The funds were reportedly handled by German "bankers" said to include Rodolfo Freude.[57]

Additionally, in May 2025 the Supreme Court of Argentina announced its discovery of 83 boxes of archived material,[30][31] which included Nazi propaganda, passports and party membership documents.[58] The court claimed that the boxes were impounded from the MS Nana Maru in June 1941 to avoid compromising the country's then-neutrality in the war. Argentine historian Julio Mutti points out that the party memberships instead seem to match the descriptions of those from the July 1941 raids on Argentine Nazi offices.[31] The documents are undergoing a restoration and digital preservation project.[58]

Role of U.S. intelligence

See also: Operation Paperclip
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SS-Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie

In April 1947, the 430th CIC, based in Allied-occupied Austria, began protecting Klaus Barbie, known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for his Gestapo leadership in Lyon, France. The French demanded Barbie's extradition in 1950, as rumors circulated that he had been employed by the 66th CIC (previously unaware that Barbie was being sheltered by the 430th).[59] Barbie gave the CIC access to knowledge about the French occupation zone in Germany, the Communist Party of Germany, and former SS officers.[60] Meanwhile, Barbie learned about the Austria-based Document Disposal Unit (DDU), a U.S. State Department intelligence unit led by CIA director Allen Dulles and staffed with Office of Strategic Services (OSS) men, also sometimes operating as War Department or OSS entities.[59][61] Fearing that France may have fallen to communism and wanted to extract CIC intel from Barbie,[60] the State Department claimed that he could not be found in the U.S. Zone of Austria, and by 1951, facilitated his escape via Draganović's route through Rome.[59][61] This ratline was reinforced by the DDU, which aimed to eliminate French and British control. Barbie settled in Bolivia and spent 33 years there before his arrest.[59][61]

The 430th reported in 1950 that in mid-1947, the Army instructed them to begin using Draganović's Roman network to evacuate some people out of Austria, supported by a U.S. official at the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The directive applied to:[62]

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 [the U.S. Forces in Austria], since the Soviet Command had become aware [of] their presence in [the] US Zone of Austria and in some instances had requested the return of these persons to Soviet custody. ... [Draganović] 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.

After June 1951, the 430th was no longer responsible for aiding ratline escapees, which the CIA was then slated to perform.[63]

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Ratline escapees

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Some of the Nazis and war criminals who escaped using ratlines include:

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