The Red Cross and the Vatican both helped thousands of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to escape after the second world war, according to a new book that pulls together evidence from previously unpublished documents.
The
Red Cross has previously acknowledged that its efforts to help refugees
were used by Nazi war criminals to escape because administrators were
overwhelmed, but the new research suggests that the numbers escaping
were much higher than previously thought.
Gerald Steinacher, a
research fellow at Harvard University, was given access to thousands of
internal documents in the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC).
The documents include ICRC travel documents issued to thousands
of Nazi war criminals and members of Nazi organisations among hundreds
of thousands of documents.
They throw significant new light on how
and why mass murderers such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus
Barbie and thousands of others were able to evade capture by the allies.
By
comparing lists of wanted war criminals to travel documents issued,
Steinacher says his research reveals that such was the chaos after the
war ended, Britain and Canada alone inadvertently took in around 8,000
former Waffen-SS members in 1947.
The documents – which are
discussed in Steinacher's book Nazis on the run: How Hilter's henchmen
fled justice – are particularly significant in offering an insight into
Vatican thinking because its own archives beyond 1939 are still closed.
The Vatican has consistently refused to comment on the incidents.
Steinacher
believes the Vatican's help was based on a hoped-for revival of
European Christianity and dread of the Soviet Union. But through the
Vatican Refugee Commission and a few priests and bishops, even war
criminals not seeking pardon were pardoned and knowingly provided with
false identities.
The ICRC, overwhelmed by millions of refugees,
relied substantially on Vatican Refugee Commission references and on the
often cursory Allied military checks in issuing ICRC travel papers,
known as 10.100s.
Though aware – as correspondence between ICRC
delegations in Genoa, Rome and Geneva show – that Nazis were getting
through, they believed that they were primarily helping innocent
refugees.
"Although the ICRC has acknowledged that it served as an
accessory … and has publicly apologised, its action went well beyond
helping a few people," said Steinacher.
Steinacher says the
documents indicate that the ICRC, mostly in Rome or Genoa, issued at
least 120,000 of the 10.100s, and that 90% of ex-Nazis fled via Italy,
mostly to Spain, and North and South America – notably Argentina. Former
SS members often mixed with genuine refugees and were able to present
themselves as "stateless" ethnic Germans to gain transit papers. Jews
trying to get to Palestine via Italy were sometimes smuggled over the
border with escaping Nazis.
Steinacher says that individual ICRC
delegations issued war criminals with 10.100s "out of sympathy for
individuals … political attitude, or simply because they were
overburdened". Stolen documents were also used to whisk Nazis to safety.
He said: "They were really in a dilemma... It was difficult. It wanted to get rid of the job. Nobody wanted to do it."
The
ICRC refused to comment directly on Steinacher's findings. However, the
organisation says on its website: "The ICRC has previously deplored the
fact that Eichmann and other Nazi criminals misused its travel
documents to cover their tracks."