Fugitives A history of Nazi mercenaries during the Cold War

Danny Orbach

Book - 2022

"In the aftermath of WWII, the victorious Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals "to the ends of the earth." Yet many slipped away to the four corners of the world or were shielded by the Western Allies in exchange for cooperation. Most prominently, Reinhard Gehlen, the founder of West Germany's foreign intelligence service, welcomed SS operatives into the fold. This shortsighted decision nearly brought his cherished service down, as the KGB found his Nazi operatives easy to turn, while judiciously exposing them to threaten the very legitimacy of the Bonn Government. However, Gehlen was hardly alone in the excessive importance he placed on the supposed capabilities of former Nazi agents; his American sponsors did much t...he same in the early years of the Cold War. Other Nazi fugitives became freelance arms traffickers, spies, and covert operators, playing a crucial role in the clandestine struggle between the superpowers. From posh German restaurants, smuggler-infested Yugoslav ports, Damascene safehouses, Egyptian country clubs, and fascist holdouts in Franco's Spain, Nazi spies created a chaotic network of influence and information. This network was tapped by both America and the USSR, as well as by the West German, French, and Israeli secret services. Indeed, just as Gehlen and his U.S sponsors attached excessive importance to Nazi agents, so too did almost all other state and non-state actors, adding a combustible ingredient to the Cold War covert struggle. Shrouded in government secrecy, clouded by myths and propaganda, the tangled and often paradoxical tale of these Nazi fugitives and operatives has never been properly told--until now."--Amazon.com.

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Subjects
Published
New York, N.Y. : Pegasus Books, Ltd 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Danny Orbach (author)
Edition
First Pegasus Books cloth edition
Physical Description
xiv, 288 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-280) and index.
ISBN
9781643138954
  • Introduction
  • Part I. Downfall and Resurgence
  • Chapter 1. Misery Meadows
  • Chapter 2. Out of the Rubbish Heap-Nazi Mercenaries After the Downfall
  • Chapter 3. Beggars and Choosers-Gehlen and the CIA
  • Chapter 4. Venetian Blindfolds and Red Scares
  • Chapter 5. The Moscow Gambit-Operation Fireworks
  • Chapter 6. Chess and Double Agents-The Strange Case of Ludwig Albert
  • Part II. Fallout and Consequences
  • Chapter 7. Fishing in Troubled Waters
  • Chapter 8. The House on Rue Haddad
  • Chapter 9. Orient Trading Company-The Neo-Nazi Third World Scheme
  • Chapter 10. The Republic Strikes Back
  • Chapter 11. Beisner Blown Away
  • Chapter 12. An Enemy of My Enemy-Alois Brunner's Plots
  • Chapter 13. "A Punitive Attack"-Mossad Joins the Fray
  • Chapter 14. Winter in Syria-The Downfall of OTRACO
  • Chapter 15. Nazi Skeletons Unearthed-Gehlen's Darkest Hour
  • Part III. Aftershocks and Shadows
  • Chapter 16. Operation Damocles-Mossad Chasing Shadows
  • Chapter 17. A Willing Quarry and Nuclear Nightmares
  • Chapter 18. Faustian Bargains-Nazis in the Service of the Jewish State
  • Chapter 19. Catching Flies with Honey
  • Chapter 20. Fade Away
  • Epilogue: Ghosts in the Mirror-The Historical Significance of Nazi Mercenaries
  • Acknowledgments
  • List of Abbreviations
  • Bibliography
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Historian Orbach (The Plots Against Hitler) delivers a scrupulous and often distressing look at how former Nazis evaded war crimes trial and profited from the Cold War by selling their intelligence services and scientific expertise to the U.S., the Soviet Union, and other countries. He notes that Wolfgang Lutz, the director of West Germany's national intelligence agency, recruited Nazis as spies against the U.S.S.R. and that the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps employed Klaus Barbie, the notorious "Butcher of Lyon," and helped him escape to South America. Orbach packs the narrative with jaw-dropping anecdotes, including a plot by Adolf Eichmann's assistant Alois Brunner to kidnap World Jewish Congress leader Nahum Goldmann in 1960 and free him in exchange for Eichmann, who had recently been captured by the Mossad in Argentina and brought to Jerusalem to stand trial. He also recounts how Israel, after sending threatening letters (including a few with explosives tucked inside) to a group of German scientists working on Egypt's rocket program, prodded West German officials to offer the scientists lucrative jobs and repatriate them. Based on prodigious archival research and interviews in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, Orbach paints a damning picture of how self-interest triumphed over justice in the years after WWII. Readers will be outraged. (Mar.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A study of how surviving Nazis worked with the intelligence agencies of several countries after World War II. Orbach, a Jerusalem-based historian whose books include The Plots Against Hitler (2016), begins near the end of the war, when it became clear to many Germans that they had lost. Gen. Reinhard Gehlen, a senior German intelligence analyst, created a plan to barter his expertise on the Soviet armed forces in exchange for a safe future. Gehlen, writes the author, "was above all else a survivor and a careerist, and he had every intention of surviving, and even thriving, amongst the downfall." When American intelligence eventually realized what he could offer them, Gehlen was allowed to assemble the "Gehlen Org," an independent German secret service under U.S. auspices. That organization became the route to new respectability for many ex-Nazis, some of them active participants in the Holocaust. Other former Nazis were recruited as consultants, in many cases providing intelligence (much of it dubious) to anyone willing to pay. The key qualification, as far as the U.S. and other Western intelligence services were concerned, was anti-communism. As a result, the Gehlen Org proved to be easily penetrated by Soviet agents, which led to its dissolution in the late 1950s. Orbach also traces the roles of ex-Nazis in Middle Eastern politics, including an attempt by Egypt to build up a missile program by enlisting German rocket scientists and a long-running operation by ex-Nazis based in Syria. Meanwhile, Israel's Mossad took a lively interest in these characters' activities, leading to a complex spy-vs.-spy game throughout the Middle East. Orbach draws a richly detailed story of the extensive role of German intelligence and military advisers in the Cold War decades. The book is full of shady characters and preposterous plots, making it an entertaining read for fans of real-life espionage history. A lively history of the role played by former Nazis in the postwar intelligence community. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.