Die Spinne

Otto Skorzeny waiting in a cell as witness at the Nuremberg trials. On 27 July 1948 Skorzeny escaped with the help of former SS officers dressed in US Military Police uniforms. He later maintained that US authorities had aided his escape and had supplied the uniforms.[1]

Die Spinne (German for "the spider") was a post-World War II organisation that helped certain Nazi war criminals escape persecution. Its existence is still debated to this day. It is believed by some historians to be a different name for, or a branch of[2] ODESSA, an organisation established during the collapse of Nazi Germany, similar to Kameradenwerk and der Bruderschaft, and devoted to helping German war criminals flee Europe.[3][self-published source?] It was led in part by Otto Skorzeny (Hitler's commando chief), as well as by German intelligence officer Reinhard Gehlen.[4][5] Die Spinne helped as many as 600 former SS men escape from Germany to Francoist Spain, Juan Peron's Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Skorzeny, Gehlen and their network of collaborators gained significant influence in parts of Europe and Latin America. Skorzeny travelled between Francoist Spain and Argentina, where he acted as an adviser to President Juan Perón and as a bodyguard of Eva Perón,[6] while fostering an ambition for a "Fourth Reich" centred in Latin America.[7][8][9]

The idea for the Spinne network began in 1944 when Gehlen, then working as a senior Wehrmacht intelligence officer as the head of Foreign Armies East, foresaw a possible defeat of Nazi Germany[10] due to Axis military failures in the Soviet Union. T.H. Tetens, an expert on German geopolitics and a member of the US War Crimes Commission in 1946–47, referred to a group overlapping with die Spinne as the Führungsring ("a kind of political Mafia, with headquarters in Madrid... serving various purposes.")[11] The Madrid office built up what was referred to as a sort of Fascist international.[12] The German leadership also included Dr Hans Globke, who in 1936 had written an official commentary on the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Globke held the important position of Director of the German Chancellery from 1953 to 1963, serving as adviser to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. [13]

Breitman and Goda give a somewhat different account of die Spinne:

The Spinne is the stuff of legend. It was 'uncovered' in 1949 by the American journalist Curt Reiss who wrote that Goebbels's subordinate Dr. Johannes Leers stood at its head. In the 1960s it was said to be a secret organization of former Nazis with high contacts in West Germany that helped war criminals escape to the Middle East, South Africa, and elsewhere. [...] The true Spinne was actually a secret association of Austrian Nazis who in 1949 pressed for the rehabilitation of Austrian Nazis and for a pan-German agenda that included a second Anschluss with a reunited Germany.[14]

  1. ^ Lee, Martin A. (1999). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. Taylor & Francis; pp. 42-43; ISBN 0-415-92546-0.
  2. ^ Guy Walters (2010). Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice. Crown/Archetype. pp. 139–142. ISBN 978-0307592484 – via Google Books, preview.
  3. ^ Glen Yeadon (2008). The Nazi Hydra in America: Suppressed History of a Century. Lulu Press eBook Company. p. 363. ISBN 978-0930852436.
  4. ^ "Otto Skorzeny, Nazi Commando, Dead". The New York Times. 8 July 1975.
  5. ^ "Nazis: The Deadly Spider". Newsweek. 21 July 1975.
  6. ^ "Peculiar liaisons: in war, espionage, and terrorism in the twentieth century", John S. Craig. Algora Publishing, 2005; ISBN 0-87586-331-0/ISBN 978-0-87586-331-3, pg. 163
  7. ^ "Barbie's Postwar Ties With U.S. Army Detailed". Boston Globe. 14 February 1983.
  8. ^ Glenn Infield. The Secrets of the SS. Stein and Day, New York, 1981
  9. ^ Joseph Wechsberg, The Murderers Among Us. McGraw Hill, New York, 1967. pp. 81, 116.
  10. ^ Infield, p. 201
  11. ^ T.H. Tetens. The New Germany and the Old Nazis, Random House/Marzani+Munsel, 1961. p. 31
  12. ^ Tetens, p. 73
  13. ^ Tetens, pp. 38–41
  14. ^ Breitman, Richard; Goda, Norman J. W. (2010). "The CIC and Right-Wing Shadow Politics". Hitler's Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. DIANE Publishing. p. 60. ISBN 9781437944297. Retrieved 8 April 2023.