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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?
Reviews
"The outcome is a feat of exhilarating storytelling—gripping, gratifying and morally robust."
"it would be a mistake to think of this rich, compulsively readable book as simply a treatise on the virulent scars etched deep by the Third Reich and its all-too-eager cohorts."
"Carefully, gently, meticulously, he's engaged every protest, every excuse, every question Horst has raised to show exactly who Otto was and what he did."
"In the end, The Ratline is about the Nazis who didn't escape and their descendants ..."
"[a] fascinating, disturbing story ..."
"Full of twists and turns, cover-ups and complicity, this gripping historical thrill ride will appeal to fans of John le Carré."
"The forensic stamina and precision that garnered such praise for Sands' 2016 work East West Street are equally in evidence here ..."
"But Sands is a lawyer, not a novelist, and his book is a carefully researched prosecution, not an exploration of motive ..."
"There's no question that Sands is a superlative historical researcher and excellent writer, but, ultimately, Wächter's career as a Nazi was unremarkable, and his postwar life and death of interest mostly to detail-obsessive academic historians specializing in Nazism."
"But the story line of a son trying to reconcile love for his father with the difficult facts of history is not sufficiently compelling to sustain the entire book."
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