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The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive
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About This Book
As Governor of Galicia, SS Brigadeführer Otto Freiherr von Wächter presided over an authority on whose territory hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles were killed, including the family of the author's grandfather. By the time the war ended in May 1945, he was indicted for 'mass murder'. Hunted by the Soviets, the Americans, the Poles and the British, as well as groups of Jews, Wächter went on the run. He spent three years hiding in the Austrian Alps, assisted by his wife Charlotte, before making his way to Rome where he was helped by a Vatican bishop. He remained there for three months. While preparing to travel to Argentina on the 'ratline' he died unexpectedly, in July 1949, a few days after spending a weekend with an 'old comrade'. In The Ratline Philippe Sands offers a unique account of the daily life of a senior Nazi and fugitive, and of his wife. Drawing on a remarkable archive of family letters and diaries, he unveils a fascinating insight into life before and during the war, on the run, in Rome, and into the Cold War. Eventually the door is unlocked to a mystery that haunts Wächter's youngest son, who continues to believe his father was a good man - what happened to Otto Wächter, and how did he die?
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Reviews
"[a] fascinating, disturbing story ..."
"There is, in Horst, a fascinating psychology to explore: what has prompted this man, who claims to acknowledge the atrocities of Nazism, to spend his life denying his father's involvement?"
"the mesmerising story, both of an extraordinary love that bound Charlotte and Otto and that endured even as their world was brought to ruin and a forensic investigation ..."
"On the face of it, the second half of the book, with its cast of war criminals, secret agents and Nazi bishops, sounds almost impossibly thrilling."
"With enough twists and turns to keep the reader grimly absorbed, Ratline is an electrifying true crime for the contagion lockdown."
"The forensic stamina and precision that garnered such praise for Sands' 2016 work East West Street are equally in evidence here ..."
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