The Real Odessa: Smuggling The Nazis to Peron's Argentina by Uki Goni

From the Publisher

It has long been known that Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Erich Priebke, and many other war criminals found refuge in Argentina. Now, for the first time, a courageous Argentine journalist shows exactly how it was done. This riveting book is the first to map the precise details of the smuggling of Nazis into Argentina, an operation organized with the enthusiastic support of Peron's presidential palace. Using previously unseen archival sources, The Real Odessa covers a wide geography — Scandinavia, Switzerland, Italy — and proves the complicity of the Vatican and the Argentine Catholic Church in one of the great postwar scandals. This is a factual, historical version of the events fictionalized in Frederick Forsyth's best-selling novel The Odessa File.

The Denver Post

In an unprecedented book, the author of The Real Odessa (who grew up the son of a diplomat in the United States, Ireland and Argentina), untangles the web of deception first cast by the fascist Peron government in Argentina and stitched in place by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Italy, France, Germany and Argentina. — Brian Richard Boylan

Foreign Affairs

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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