Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice [ハードカバー]

I was extremely interested in reading Nazis On The Run as soon as I looked at the description. This looked like a spotlight on a fascinating and often overlooked area of history, like many other wonderful histories that I've read before. Where my difficulty stems from is that this book (which, in all fairness, is from the Oxford University Press) has its origins in an academic thesis, and is simply incapable of stepping far enough away from its roots to be a mainstream read. There are many, many wonderful books that I've read that are descendents of academic work (just off the top of my head: "Predictably Irrational," "Sperm Wars," "Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked" -- all of which I recommend!), but a mainstream non-fiction book simply cannot be presented like a thesis and be an enjoyable read. If this book is intended to exist solely as an academic text and resource, then frankly it is being marketed really poorly.

Nazis On The Run is extremely dry, relies on the reader having a very thorough understanding of the historical landscape, has a breakdown that is extremely useful for academic reference but is horrendously boring for the armchair historian, and boils an exciting topic into a rather dull lecture.

Let me state unequivocally: This is excellent research. It is poor non-fiction. The difference between those two is entirely in style and delivery, so I am making no aspersions at all to Steinacher's academic work and achievement -- only to his ability to present difficult and nuanced information in a way that engages, entertains, and informs the lay reader.

How the Nazi's fled Germany is an intriguing story--it's something that's interested me for a while, as both fodder for outrageous fictional stories, as well as a true-life account of corruption and the continuation of evil. That someone has written a concise history of their flight is great news for people interested in the subject.

The problem, however, is that Gerald Steinacher's NAZIS ON THE RUN is rather painful to read. He admits it started as a thesis; though he cut it, it still reads that way. With a story this complex, with so many details to be handled, it helps to create flow, tension, etc. Steinacher doesn't bother with this, which creates a book that is interesting but (dare I say it) boring. Certainly historians will enjoy this book, and won't mind the dull read; but people with a casual interest in the subject had better look elsewhere (though I'm not sure there IS anywhere else to look as of yet). Perhaps your best bet is to give it a try yourself--if you can wade through the jargon-heavy, non-user-friendly prose, there is a lot of intriguing, thought-provoking information to be gleaned from this book.

Eight years after drafting the policy that murdered Anne Frank and millions of others, it was Adolf Eichmann's turn to hide in the attic. A fellow ex-SS man in Innsbruck took one look at the architect of the Final Solution and told him to get out of his house. Another member of the network ferrying fugitive Nazis let him in, but now French police were on the prowl. Justice was about to call.

Then Eichmann found salvation of a kind - from a priest. The priest, who Eichmann noted with amusement had helped Jews during the war, now gave Eichmann wine, a needed change of clothes, and passage across the Brenner Pass. Why was this servant of a God Eichmann didn't believe in helping the criminal go free? And why were so many others - the Catholic Church, the U.S. government, the Red Cross - doing the same? How and why are the subjects of this new book.

As author Gerald Steinacher puts it, a concatenation of reasons shaped what became an escape trail, or "ratline," from Italian South Tyrol (where ethnic Germans often sympathized with the Third Reich) to distant points of refuge like Argentina, where President Juan Perón welcomed them without questions. Perón wanted the technical expertise, while high officials in the Red Cross, Vatican, and Washington D.C. placed a high value on what they called "anticommunists."

"The story of the U.S. ratline and the turncoat agents it ferried to freedom is one of expediency and hypocrisy justified by the advent of the Cold War," Steinacher writes. "For some Nazis, SS men, and collaborators, it proved to be a salvation, for others, merely a temporary respite from eventual justice."

"Nazis On The Run" is painful reading on two counts. First it exposes the culpability of institutions many of us would prefer to respect, if not venerate. Second, it's written in a choppy, repetitive style that cries out for a more engaged editor and translator. Steinacher has a vital story to tell, but the book's muddy prose often skips past vital details while repeating others ad nauseam.

It's a shame, because "Nazis On The Run" does a thorough job laying out the roles of key Catholic churchmen like the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal and the Croatian priest Krunoslav Draganovi in saving Nazis. For them, right-wingers for whom Nazism had a certain appeal, the saving of Nazis was seen as a humanitarian mission. There were even "conditionate" baptisms performed where Nazis went through the motions of renouncing their godless past in exchange for help saving their skins.

Steinacher writes with a moral sensibility but also a sense of fairness. He's careful to point out why some were understandably reluctant to send accused Eastern European fascists back behind the Iron Curtain where they escaped from (Soviet justice was of the Katyn Forest variety in those days). He also is careful to point out that not every Nazi was a war criminal, and not every leading member of the Vatican, Red Cross, or U.S. government a culpable accomplice in the escape of those who were. He strives to single out the guiltier parties, though with much difficulty given the vagueness of some records and the unavailability of others.

Much of the book details the horrid characters who found freedom from the ratlines, including Eichmann, Auschwitz's notorious Josef Mengele, and Eduard Roschmann, the "Butcher of Riga" who got all the usual aid but proved unable to cope with the notoriety of a bestselling novel, "The ODESSA File," which made him the lead villain.

"The ODESSA File," featuring a group of unrepentant Nazis who ran a sophisticated network for escape and skullduggery, was a work of fiction as Steinacher notes. The reality was worse. Fleeing Nazis didn't need ODESSA; they had other networks of people who should have known better.