The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina

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	• The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina Uki Goni Granta UK, 2003 - 410 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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As reviewed in 'Foreign Affairs' January/February 2003

The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron's Argentina. Uki Goni. New York: Granta Books, 2002, 382 pp. $29.95.

Reviewed by Kenneth Maxwell, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003

A chilling, detailed story of one of Argentina's most shameful secrets: the enthusiastic role of dictator Juan Peron in providing cover for major Nazi war criminals as the Third Reich collapsed, allowing them to lead prosperous and protected lives after the war. Few characters get off easily in this passionate account, which untangles the networks and escape mechanisms that made it all possible. Coming to Peron's assistance were numerous institutions and individuals: the Vatican, the Argentinean Catholic Church, the Argentinean government, and the Swiss authorities who cooperated through a secret office set up by Peron's agents in Bern. Operatives from Heinrich Himmler's secret service arrived in Madrid as early as 1944 to prepare an escape route; in 1946, this operation moved to Buenos Aires, establishing its headquarters in the presidential palace. Eventually, this operation's tentacles stretched from Scandinavia to Italy, aiding French and Belgian war criminals and bringing in gold that the Croatian state treasury had stolen from 600,000 Jewish and Serb victims of the Ustasha regime. Ingrained antisemitism, anticommunism, greed, and corruption all fortified these clandestine protection rackets. Today, the stain remains, as does the secrecy. This astonishing book delineates in gripping detail what was long suspected -- and also hints at how much remains to be told.

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The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina

A very interesting book. A subject by which I have always been fascinated.

Drawing on American and European intelligence documents, Uki Goni shows how from 1946 onward a Nazi escape operation was based at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, harboring such war criminals as Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. Goni uncovers an elaborate network that relied on the complicity of the Vatican, the Argentine Catholic Church, and the Swiss authorities. The discoveries made in this meticulously researched book reveal the entangled web of the Nazi regime and its sympathizers and has prompted Argentine officials to demand closed files on the Nazi era from their current government.

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