The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive By Philippe Sands

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Rating: 9.6 (4862 reviews)
Author: Philippe Sands

Books,History,World The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive Philippe Sands

4,4

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"Hypnotic, shocking, and unputdownable." --John le CarréFrom the author of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning East West Street: A tale of Nazi lives, mass murder, love, cold war espionage, a mysterious death in the Vatican--and "the Ratline," the Nazi escape route to Peron's Argentina.Baron Otto von Wächter, Austrian lawyer, husband, father, high Nazi official, senior SS officer, former governor of Galicia during the war, creator and overseer of the Krakow ghetto, indicted after as a war criminal for the mass murder of more than 100,000 Poles, hunted by the Soviets, the Americans, the British, by Simon Wiesenthal, on the run for three years, from 1945 to 1948 . . . Philippe Sands pieces together, in riveting detail, Wächter's extraordinary, shocking story. Given full access to the Wächter family archives--journals, diaries, tapes, and more--and with the assistance of the Wächters' son Horst, who believes his father to have been a "good man," Sands writes of Wächter's rise through the Nazi high command, his "blissful" marriage and family life as their world was brought to ruin, and his four-year flight to escape justice--to the Tirol, to Rome, and the Vatican; given a new identity, on his way to a new life via "the Ratline" to Perón's Argentina, the escape route taken by Eichmann, Mengele, and thousands of other Nazis. Wächter's escape was cut short by his mysterious, shocking death in Rome, in the midst of the burgeoning Cold War (was he being recruited in postwar Italy by the Americans and the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps or by the Soviet NKVD or by both; or was he poisoned by one side or the other, as his son believes--or by both?) . . .An extraordinary discovery, told up-close through access to a trove of family correspondence between Wächter and his wife--part historical detective story, part love story, part family memoir, part Cold War espionage thriller."Breathtaking, gripping, shattering." --Elif Shafak

At this time of writing, The Audiobook The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive has garnered 9 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Audiobook is Good TO READ!

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Mark Twain quipped that truth is often stranger than fiction because fiction has to be believable. Accurate as it is, however, that insightful observation doesn’t do this book justice. An historical narrative, this story ultimately reads like the most engrossing novel you’ve ever read.On the surface, it is the story of Baron Otto von Wächter, a womanizing Austrian lawyer who became a high Nazi official, a senior SS officer, and among other things, the former governor of Galicia (Poland) for the Third Reich. He created the infamous Krakow ghetto and was ultimately indicted as a war criminal for the mass murder of more than 100,000 Poles, although the number of people he was responsible for slaughtering was undoubtedly much higher.After the war Wachter escaped to Rome, where he hid in plain sight and ultimately died of unknown causes. He was never brought to justice for his war atrocities and much of the most incredible details of the book have to do with why.The book is meticulously researched and professionally written, and while some may fault the author for not being more harsh in some of his judgments, I believe that is very much to his credit, because at least one of the major themes of the book is the power, very often abused, of rationalization.The story of Otto is also the story of Charlotte, his wife, a protagonist unlike any you have ever encountered, her powers of self-delusion equaled only by her total inability to abide by any moral compass. And it includes an ongoing dialogue and debate between the author and the Wachter’s youngest son, Horst, who spends the entire book, despite finally admitting that he never really knew his father, defending his father as a good man only doing what he was forced to do and, in fact, doing much good along the way.The Ratline refers to an escape route set up after the war to help former (and generally unrepentant) Nazis escape through Rome on their way to South America and the Middle East. Otto became a part of it, as did Soviet and American Intelligence, the latter of which may have set up the whole thing.In the end, the rationalization is overwhelmingly disheartening, and when I was finally able to put down the book, it left me deeply saddened. Does the end always justify the means? I don’t think so. Yet, few in this story, other than the author himself, seem to have ever considered the question, a fact starkly reinforced by the author’s attempts to be balanced and to reserve his harshest judgments. (A brilliant literary strategy, I think.)Charlotte’s failure to condemn Otto, or even repent her own villainous activities and involvement (she stole many precious pieces of art and other valuables), is deplorable. Horst’s insistence on the goodness of his father is too, but perhaps a little more understandable. What truly rocked my core, however, was the degree to which American Intelligence, after the war, embraced known Nazis in order to use them as tools in the Cold War. They clearly knew Otto was in Rome for many months, for example, but never made any attempt to bring him to justice. And both the father and the father-in-law of one man who the author uncovered were American spies after the war, the former, an American Intelligence officer, actually being the handler of the latter, a known SS officer and heinous war criminal.What, in the end, do we really stand for if every moral dilemma becomes a transactional decision that we can rationalize in our self-interest as we momentarily define it? What do we teach our children? What ultimate fate do we crystalize?In the end, the Nazis slaughtered millions of Jews and other innocent civilians and many of fathers, sons, brothers, and other relatives died trying to stop them. While we shouldn’t blame current generations for the barbarous acts of their elders, none of those lost should ever be forgotten for any reason, whatever the rationalization.

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