During World War II, Nazi Germany was responsible for numerous heinous acts against humanity,
which today, 77 years later, we still remember as one of the darkest times in our species
history.
Almost 80 years can mean a lifetime for the ephemeral human existence, but still some
of those despicable people who walked the earth during those days are still sharing
oxygen with us, even holocaust survivors, who have those memories etched into their
minds.
Today we will get to know, in depth, the fate of those despicable people who did so much
damage to humanity in WW2, Welcome to Copernicus’s Galaxy.
Why was Argentina a Paradise for Nazi Exiles?
With the end of the war, those high commanders of Nazi ideology who perpetrated serious war
crimes, their followers and sympathizers went from their privileged status in German society
to scum that the Allied countries hunted down like rats.
After Hitler's death and the German surrender on May 8, 1945, the entire European continent
became a danger zone for these people who could potentially be prosecuted and tried
for their crimes, forcing them to flee as quickly as possible.
An undeniable fact was that the Nazis had an impeccable organizational capacity.
Anyone would think that in their situation, the escape attempts would be frantic or clandestine,
but, on the contrary, taking advantage of the help of their allies and the charity of
institutions such as the Catholic Church, they drew up a whole escape plan with strategic
stops and false documentation that gave them a new identity in a short period of time.
However, what place in this world would welcome these genocidal people with open arms?
Neither Europe or Asia were good options for obvious reasons.
Africa was practically a set of colonies of France and Great Britain, while the United
States together with Canada did not seem like a good idea either, so the best option was
Latin America.
Using specific routes they named "Ratlines", members of the Third Reich escaped across
the sea to their last hope and promise of new life.
Mainly 3 different routes were used: The Nordic route that went through Denmark to reach Sweden
from where the ship sailed, the Iberian route on the other hand went through Spain using
the different ports such as Galicia and finally, the most used was the Vatican route, which
crossed Rome and Genoa.
Among the Latin American countries, Argentina was the preferred one for the Nazis to settle
in, since the ruler of the nation, Juan Domingo Perón, was openly sympathetic to the now
deceased Hitler and his ideology, not to mention that even before his rise to power, there
were already secret treaties with the SS to provide them with documentation that would
allow them to move freely throughout South America.
Furthermore, behind the friendly face that Perón showed to the Germans he sheltered,
there were hidden political purposes aimed at recruiting brilliant scientific and military
minds.
This would position Argentina in an important role in the predicted conflicts that would
arise between the United States and Russia, in the famous Cold War.
It is estimated that at least 9,000 Nazis fled Europe, 5,000 of which took refuge in
Argentina, earning the nickname "Cape of Last Hope", where, to the good fortune of those
people, many managed to build another life.
How the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service Captured Adolf Eichmann
Faced with the flight of large numbers of members of the Nazi German regime to different
parts of Latin America, most of the Allied countries looked the other way and even helped
them to escape, although to the public they strongly claimed otherwise.
As Nazi sympathizers were conveniently scattered around the world, as is logical after a war,
they began new lives, having more important matters to attend to.
Although, this was not so for everyone.
Israel, having a large population of between 5 and 6 million Jews, clearly affected by
what they suffered at the hands of Nazis, took greater initiative in the hunt for these
fugitive war criminals.
Adolf Eichmann, nicknamed by his victims and persecutors as the "Architect of the Holocaust"
was a high commander of the Nazi political party who made his escape to South America,
specifically to Buenos Aires, Argentina, under the false name, Ricardo Klement.
During his years of service to the Führer, Eichmann was the mastermind behind the logistics
inside and outside the concentration camps, orchestrating major operations to capture
Jews, transporting them, organizing forced labor itineraries and strategically pulling
the strings to optimize the number of innocent people that could be executed in a day at
the death camps.
Such a terrible man now lived in a poor colony in the city of Buenos Aires with his wife
and son while working at a Mercedes-Benz plant.
He remained that way for approximately 10 years until a Jewish refugee in the same city
named Lothar Herrmann, recognized him when his daughter began dating his son.
And thanks to information provided by Herrmann, in 1960 his location reached the ears of the
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, who wasted no time preparing for an unofficial
secret operation to capture him.
With the authorization of Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, 8 Mossad men were sent to
Buenos Aires with the sole mission of bringing Eichmann to their country to face trial.
The plan was simple, locate the former Nazi, watch him for a couple of days to establish
his routine and kidnap him, basic steps, but the real challenge would come later.
Because Eichmann maintained a rigid routine where he left for work at the same time every
day and almost always returned immediately after his shift was over, it was easy for
the Mossad men to define the perfect spot where they would approach him, all within
a few meters after he got off the bus, on an unlit, untraveled street.
When the time came, one of the Israeli officers distracted the Nazi while another one put
him in a necklock and they put him in a car that was waiting for them on that rainy night.
They arrived at the house where they were staying and finally they could see directly
into the eyes of evil.
It should be noted that all the Mossad agents at that time had lost their entire families
at the hands of people under Eichmann's command.
Once he was in possession and his identity was confirmed, the simplest part of the plan
was complete.
Now the challenge would be to get the former Nazi general to sign a document where he agreed
to be transferred to Israel to attend his trial and to circumvent the Argentine airport
security, since they were committing more than one crime with this operation.
To achieve this, they bet everything on a Hollywood worthy performance, where Eichmann
would be sedated to the point of appearing to be under severe alcoholic influences and
dressed in an airline pilot's uniform, making up a story of a fun night out where he had
been drinking too much... of course they achieved their goal, taking him to the Israeli people,
where he was tried and sentenced to death without showing any repentance whatsoever.
The Fate of the Nazi Leaders
Although there are doubts as to whether Hitler actually died in his bunker or whether he
escaped to South America to avoid punishment for his actions as many of his top commanders
later did, it is a fact that Nazi Germany lost the war to its opponents, who soon realized
the magnitude of the horrors committed behind the walls of their concentration camps.
Witnessing those inhuman acts, operations were started to hunt down all the responsible
persons, but it was impossible to punish so many Nazi generals, soldiers, journalists
and workers, since their number amounted to 45 million people.
Lawyers, teachers and doctors sympathetic to that ideology were necessary to maintain
the country by their professions.
As a solution, only half of the professionals in each sector were forbidden to practice
their profession and were forced to perform manual labor.
Meanwhile, the Nuremberg trials were organized, where 24 of the Nazi military and political
leaders were tried, 13 of them receiving the death penalty by hanging.
The United States prosecuted and executed at least 200 doctors for their participation
in the deaths of thousands of people through forced euthanasia, however, many of the top
doctors escaped punishment in different ways.
For example, Heinrich Himmler, commander of the feared Waffen-SS and key figure in the
events of the Holocaust, was captured shortly after the end of the war by British soldiers,
and assuming his fate, he took his own life by biting a cyanide capsule while doctors
were examining him.
Infamous characters such as the so-called "Doctor Death", Josef Mengele managed to vanish
and live the rest of his life without paying for his actions, only to be heard of again
thanks to the identification of his body after his death in 1979.
Albert Speer was minister of armaments and war production during the Nazi regime.
He oversaw the evictions of thousands of Jews whom he also used as slaves for the creation
of weapons for the cause.
He was prosecuted for war crimes and almost condemned to hang, but instead served a sentence
of 20 years in prison, writing 2 books upon his release and dying in 1981 from a stroke.
Many leaders of the Third Reich died either in custody or enjoying a new life in the countries
of South America due to the loss of interest in searching for them once the new conflict
between the United States and the USSR began.
Which in turn, gave rise to the under the table recruitment of thousands of other former
Nazi scientists and military personnel to help both countries in their nuclear race.
Nowadays, the chances of meeting a former Nazi member are getting lower and lower.
The then youngest recruits are now about 90 years old and may deny everything if their
past is mentioned to them, however, the memory of all their victims know who they are.
We will never let their deeds be forgotten here, at Copernicus’s Galaxy.