"Ratlines": postwar Nazi escape routes

[Slater]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_%28history%29

Not sure if this is Political or General discussion so I put it here.

I never realized that the Catholic Church was involved in this affair (if this article is accurate to any degree). Reading further, it seems that many researchers now think that the Nazi ODESSA organization was largely a figment of imagination, and that smaller operations handled most of this type effort.

Anyone add any corrections/insight to all of this?

[Flagg]

The link beloiw is the only book I've ever read about "rat lines."

In this case it's a first hand account of US Army CIC activities in covertly shifting Soviet defectors of intelligence value and such out of Germany post WWII.

If I recall correctly it did mention some links(travel documentation I think) with the Catholic Church via a conduit in the form of a Yugoslavian priest implicated in WWII atrocities.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574880500/sr=8-1/qid=1154923090/ref=sr_1_1/102-7221148-9100140?ie=UTF8

I recall it being a pretty good book..especially since it's a FIRST HAND account.

[Atlantic Friend]

The link beloiw is the only book I've ever read about "rat lines."

In this case it's a first hand account of US Army CIC activities in covertly shifting Soviet defectors of intelligence value and such out of Germany post WWII.

If I recall correctly it did mention some links(travel documentation I think) with the Catholic Church via a conduit in the form of a Yugoslavian priest implicated in WWII atrocities.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574880500/sr=8-1/qid=1154923090/ref=sr_1_1/102-7221148-9100140?ie=UTF8

I recall it being a pretty good book..especially since it's a FIRST HAND account.

You recall corectly. Many things were run through the San Girolamo monastery in Rome, which was run by Croatian priests that had been involved in the fascist regime of Ante Pavelic and his Ustachis. DUring WW2, they had indulged into forced conversion to Catholicism, mass killing of Orthodox Christians and Communists, and a little ethnic cleansing. IIRC, the priest most directly involved was a father Draganovic, who helped Ante Pavelic escape along with lots of SS.

The most fascinating part was that the Ratlines were based on a project developed in the 1920s by the Vatican, called "Intermarum". Intermarum was supposed to be a coalition of Catholic (or Catholic-influenced) nations from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, who could help create a buffer zone between Europe and Soviet Russia.

Apparently Western intelligence services turned a blind eye to Draganovic's activities because it was proposed to have the Intermarum network work for them - evacuating Nazi intelligence operatives and conducting espionage operations behind the Iron Curtain. But the whole thing backfired, as the Intermarum agents had long been identified or compromised by the Soviets.