Ratlines (World War II)

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

The ratlines (German: Rattenlinien) were systems of escape routes for German Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe from 1945 onwards in the aftermath of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in the Americas, particularly in Argentina, though also in Paraguay, Colombia,[1] Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Bolivia, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia, Spain, and Switzerland.

There were two primary routes: the first went from Germany to Spain, then Argentina; the second from Germany to Rome, then Genoa, then South America. The two routes developed independently but eventually came together.[2] The ratlines were supported by rogue elements in the Vatican, particularly an Austrian bishop and four Croatian clergy of the Catholic Church who sympathized with the Ustaše.[3][4][5] Starting in 1947, U.S. Intelligence utilized existing ratlines to move certain Nazi strategists and scientists.[6]

While consensus among Western scholars is that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler died by suicide in 1945, in the late 1940s and 1950s the U.S. investigated claims that he survived and fled to South America.

  1. ^ "Colombia Nazi". Semana. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  2. ^ Phayer 2008, p. 173.
  3. ^ "What did the Vatican know about the Nazi escape routes? – DW – 03/01/2020". dw.com. Retrieved 18 December 2022. [...] thousands of Nazis and collaborators [...], with the help of a rogue bishop of the Catholic Church, escaped Europve[sic] via routes called 'ratlines' — some of which ran from Innsbruck over the Alps to Merano or Bolzano in South Tyrol, then to Rome and from there to the Italian port city of Genoa.
  4. ^ Kertzer, David I. (31 May 2022). "The Pope's Secret Back Channel to Hitler". The Atlantic. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
  5. ^ Aarons & Loftus 1998, p. 46.
  6. ^ "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. Archived 2007-10-08 at the Wayback Machine, from the original, jasenovac-info.com; accessed 7 February 2023. "During the summer of 1947 the undersigned received instructions from G-2, USFA, through Chief CIC, to establish a means of disposition for 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 US Zone of Austria and in some instances had requested the return of these persons to Soviet custody."