NO. 3 Peron’s “Ratlines” for Nazis

As the war in Europe came to a close, and it became evident Germany would be defeated, top level Nazis became desperate to flee. For reasons I’ll got into shortly, Perón was anxious to get many of them into Argentina. But, for this he needed allies.

He found them primarily in the governments of Spain and Italy, because of their fascist backgrounds.   But he also discovered a surprising supporter in the Vatican. At least via high-ranking clerics there.

The reasons offered for the Church’s help in establishing these escape routes are mostly tenuous or questionable. Especially since the Nazi’s oppressed the Church during their reign.  But the most likely reason to me is that with Germany’s defeat many in the Roman Catholic hierarchy feared Europe would be overrun by communists. They equated communism with atheism. Since a third of Germans were Roman Catholic plus the Nazis hated communists, they Church believed they could be a bulwark against communism.

The ratlines had two principal routes. One went from Germany to Spain to Argentina. The other from Germany to Rome to Genoa then Latin America.  However, they also allowed several uniquely gifted Germans to land in the United States with the help of the US Intelligences Services.  

On September 20, 1945. Wernher Von Braun, inventor of the deadly Nazi V-2 rocket and a member of the Nazi party and the SS arrived in America along with hundreds of other German scientests under Project Paperclip. In another twenty-five years his Saturn V rocket took the Apollo 11 crew to the moon.

What happened to the Nazis in their new homes? For the most part, nothing. They simply assimilated with or without new identities.

 One of the few exceptions was Adolph Eichmann.  After WW II, Eichmann, considered the “Author of the Final Solution” escaped from an allied prison camp and lived under a new identity in Germany. To avoid being arrested by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, he made his way to Austria, Italy and settled near Buenos Aires in 1958. Two years later, Israeli secret agents captured him and smuggled him to Israel. He faced trial and was found guilty.  He was hanged May 31, 1962 at age 56.

Josef Mengele, dubbed the “Angel of Death,” because of his grisly experiments on human subjects, fled to Buenos Aires then Paraguay and Brazil. He eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by and West German government and clandestine operations by Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming of the coast of Bertioga, Brazil. He was buried under the name Wolfgang Gerhard. He was 67.

While Argentina remained neutral during the war, they clearly favored the Axis. The country was full of Nazi spies. Argentine officers and diplomats held top positions in alliances sympathetic to the Nazis. Most Argentines were of Spanish, Italian or German descent and had close ties to the fascist governments and people. Perón also served as a conduit for millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of Nazi loot during and after the war.  Much of which has been unrecovered. Finally, Perón wanted his share of the German scientists escaping after the war.

While most authorities dispute it, many people believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun escaped to Argentina after the war. I deal with this in Coop’s trip to Bariloche in THE HANDS OF JUAN PERÓN.

 If you find this blog interesting, and you have any questions or comments, please contact me at handsofjuanperon@gmail.com. Thanks. Ron

Next: Himmler’s obsession with breeding that led to Lebensborn.