The ratlines () were systems of escape routes used by Nazis and their collaborators to flee Europe from 1945 onwards in the aftermath of World War II. Two primary routes developed independently with their operators eventually collaborating, the first transferring through Spain and the second through Rome and Genoa. Some escapees settled at these locations or used them to flee elsewhere, with the majority settling in Argentina or other South American countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay.

The ratlines were supported by some clergy of the Catholic Church, such as Austrian bishop Alois Hudal and Croatian priest Krunoslav Draganović, as well as some outlets of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Nazis paid Argentine officials (starting ) to shield their agents, bolstering the rise of Juan Perón, whose regime set up additional ratlines through Scandinavia and Switzerland.

A number of significant Nazis and their collaborators escaped, including Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić, as well as Schutzstaffel (SS) officers Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, both perpetrators of the Holocaust. Starting in 1945, the United States utilized the ratlines to aid the escape of some Soviet defectors and informants, as well as Gestapo leader Klaus Barbie (who had traded intel with the U.S. Army while being held in Austria). Decades later, the ratlines remain a subject of investigation and cultural interest.

Etymology

In sailing, ratlines are thin ropes (resembling the rungs of a ladder) used to ascend the mast. The term is first evidenced in reference to the Nazi escape routes –1950, amid the early Cold War, when the United States Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) in Austria was helping protect defectors from and informants against the Soviet Union, as well as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Klaus Barbie (known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for his Gestapo leadership in Lyon, France) by helping them flee from Europe to South America using the Nazi escape routes under the codename "Operation Ratline" or simply "Ratline". The term ratline now denotes any specific escape route of the system, while the plural term usually references the entire scheme—sometimes more explicitly called Nazi ratlines.

Overview Two primary routes developed independently but their operators eventually collaborated. The first went from Germany to Spain, then Argentina; the second led from Germany to Rome, then Genoa, and finally South America. As many as 9,000 Nazi war criminals and their collaborators reportedly escaped to Argentina (up to 5,000), Brazil (up to 2,000), and Chile (up to 1,000). Some refugees immersed themselves in Latin America by pretending to be farmers and/or Catholic.

Francoist Spain

The origins of the first ratlines are connected to various developments in Vatican-Argentina relations before and during World War II. As early as 1942, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglioneevidently at the behest of Pope Pius XIIcontacted an ambassador of Argentina regarding that country's willingness to accept European Catholic immigrants in a timely manner, allowing them to live and work. Anton Weber, a German priest who headed the Roman branch of , travelled to Portugal with the intention to travel to Argentina, seemingly to lay the groundwork for Catholic immigration.

Some Catholic leaders decided to work with the Nazis in an attempt to fight against their common enemy of Bolshevism. By 1944, ratline activity which was centered in Francoist Spain was conducted in an attempt to facilitate the escape of Nazis. Among the primary organizers were Charles Lescat, a French member of Action Françaisean organization suppressed by Pope Pius XI and rehabilitated by Pope Pius XIIand Pierre Daye, a Belgian with contacts in the Spanish government. Lescat and Daye were the first to flee from Europe with the assistance of the Argentinian cardinal Antonio Caggiano.

By 1946, hundreds of war criminals were living in Spain, as well as thousands of former Nazis and fascists. According to U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Vatican cooperation in turning over these "asylum-seekers" was "negligible". Unlike the Vatican emigration operation in Italy which centered on Vatican City, the Spanish ratlinesthough fostered by the Vaticanwere relatively independent of the Vatican Emigration Bureau's hierarchy.

Italian ratlines

Bishop Hudal's network

Austrian Catholic bishop Alois Hudal, a Nazi sympathiser, was rector of the Pontificio Istituto Teutonico Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome, a seminary for Austrian and German priests, and "Spiritual Director of the German People resident in Italy". After the end of the war in Italy, Hudal became active in ministering to German-speaking prisoners of war and internees who were being held in camps throughout Italy. In December 1944, the Allies allowed the Vatican to appoint a representative to visit the German-speaking civil internees in Italy, a job assigned to Hudal.

Hudal used this position to aid the escape of wanted Nazi war criminals, including Franz Stangl (commanding officer of the Treblinka extermination camp), Gustav Wagner (commanding officer of the Sobibor extermination camp), Alois Brunner (responsible for the Drancy internment camp near Paris and in charge of deportations in Slovakia to Nazi concentration camps), Erich Priebke (who was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre), and SS officer Adolf Eichmann (architect of the Holocaust); Hudal was later unashamedly open about his role. Some of these wanted men were being held in internment camps; generally lacking identity papers, they would be enrolled in camp registers under false names. Other Nazis hid in Italy and sought Hudal out after learning about his role in assisting escapes. In his memoirs, Hudal said of his actions, "I thank God that He [allowed me] to visit and comfort many victims in their prisons and concentration camps and to help them escape with false identity papers."Hudal, Römische Tagebücher He explained that in his eyes:

The Allies' War against Germany was not a crusade, but the rivalry of economic complexes for whose victory they had been fighting. This so-called business ... used catchwords like democracy, race, religious liberty and Christianity as a bait for the masses. All these experiences were the reason why I felt duty bound after 1945 to devote my whole charitable work mainly to former National Socialists and Fascists, especially to so-called 'war criminals'.

According to Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Hudal was the first Catholic priest to dedicate himself to establishing escape routes. The Rome office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued refugees Laissez-passer documents allowing passage from Italy. These were accepted as de facto passports in South America. Although typically required to be signed for in person, blank forms were accessible to Hudal and the signature of the ICRC official was confirmed to be forged in a number of cases. In a 1948 letter, Hudal directly asked President of Argentina Juan Perón to grant 5,000 visas for fleeing Germans and Austrians.

Croatian Franciscans

A small but influential network of Croatian Franciscan priests led by Father Krunoslav Draganović organised a highly sophisticated ratline with headquarters at the San Girolamo degli Illirici Seminary College in Rome, with links from Austria and an embarkation point in Genoa. The ratline initially focused on aiding members of the Croatian Ustaše including its leader, Ante Pavelić.

A number of priests participated, included Father Vilim Cecelja (former Deputy Military Vicar to the Ustaše), who founded a branch of the Croatian Red Cross in Austria (which the ICRC only supported in an unofficial capacity). He used his Red Cross and U.S. papers to travel freely around Salzburg, where many Ustashe and Nazi refugees remained, providing Red Cross identities to numerous individuals who lacked identification. In October 1945, Cecelja was arrested by the CIC for his Ustaše ties. Father Dominik Mandić (an official Vatican representative at San Girolamo and treasurer of the Franciscans) used his Italian secret police connections to ensure that the Franciscans' identity cards would be considered sufficiently official to issue them Italian identity cards. Finally, Draganović would phone Monsignor Karlo Petranović in Genoa with the number of required berths on ships to South America.

The Draganović ratline was an open secret among the intelligence and diplomatic communities in Rome. As early as August 1945, Allied commanders in Rome were asking questions about the use of San Girolamo as a "haven" for Ustaše. A U.S. State Department report of 12 July 1946 listed nine war criminals, including Albanians and Montenegrins as well as Croats, plus others "not actually sheltered" at San Girolamo Seminary who "enjoy Church support and protection".

In February 1947, CIC Special Agent Robert Clayton Mudd reported ten members of Pavelić's Ustaše cabinet living either in San Girolamo or in the Vatican itself. Mudd had infiltrated an agent into the seminary and confirmed that it was "honeycombed with cells of Ustashe operatives" guarded by "armed youths". Mudd reported a car protected under diplomatic immunity transported unidentified people between the Vatican and the seminary. Additionally, by mid-1947, British intelligence was aware that Petranović mainly helped war criminals.

Nordic shelter

In 1944, Sturmbannführer (Major) Alarich Bross founded a network of collaborationist Finns and Nazis in Finland. Organized to engage in an armed struggle against the Soviet occupation that never occurred, it smuggled out those who wanted to leave Finland for Germany or Sweden. A system of Finnish safehouses were created under the cover of a company called 'Great Fishing Cooperative' with routes provided by a 50–70-man maritime transport organization. Its targets in Sweden were secret loading bays in the small town of Härnösand, western Norrland. Others were smuggled to Sweden from the north over the Tornio river. Access to Europe was opened through the Swedish safehouse network.

Through the safehouse routes, the resistance movement transported German citizens, officers, intelligence personnel, Finnish Nazis and fascists, and Estonian and East Karelian refugees out of Finland. Hundreds of people were assisted in Sweden, including more than a hundred German prisoners of war who had fled the Finns. Hundreds were spirited to Germany via after the September 1944 break.Alava, Ali: Gestapo Suomessa. Hämeenlinna: Arvi A.Karisto Osakeyhtiö, 1974. ISBN 951-23-0844-4. In 1946, Finnish industrialist Petter Forsström was convicted of treason for helping Nazis flee from Finland to Sweden, for instance by buying them motorboats.

Argentine haven

The Nazis had a presence in Argentina before the war, peaking with 2,110 members in 1935. In June 1941, Germany sent 83 boxes of documents from its embassy in Tokyo, Japan, via the MS Nana Maru to Buenos Aires. Customs agents impounded the boxes, which were searched by Argentina's foreign ministry. Five boxes contained Nazi propaganda hidden amid material labeled as "scientific, literary and cultural", while the others housed mostly children's books, magazines and war photographs. A month later, Argentine officials raided the secret offices of the banned Nazi Party (disguised as German labor organizations). Perhaps 5,000 seized memberships from the German Labor Front and the German trade union association were stored by the Supreme Court of Argentina.