-the "ratlines" following the collapse of the Reich? From the Church's point of view... What was to be gained by helping Nazis? Many of whom were high ranking such as Adolf Eichmann...In short, the answer is they were helped because they were 'good' catholics and the Vatican thought they were being 'persecuted' by the Allies who wanted to punish them for the deaths they were directly responsible for.Over 80% of those who merited the death penalty were helped to escape by the Vatican, who lied to the Red Cross to get travel documents and the catholic charity Caritas, who paid for their boat tickets and covered their living expenses whilst they waited for these documents and travel arrangements to be made.
Near the end of the war, the nazi's arranged with Peron to issue 3,000 blank Argentine passports for use by the worse criminals. All a war criminal had to do was paste in a photo, write in a false name, get it stamped by the ever-ready Argentine consul and board a ship.All the landing (immigration) records for this period were burned in 1996 on orders of the Argentine government.
I don't think you will ever discover how complicit the Vatican is in all this, it is shameful.
For example Adolf Eichmann was given references for his Red Cross travel documents by a bishop, attesting to his character etc, despite knowing full well who he was and what he'd done,as he was deporting Jews from Italy when the Germans occupied the country in 1943.
The head of the RSHA office to do with the economic exploitation of Jews and other concentration camp prisoners was Richard Gluecks. He got an Argentine passport in the name of Ricaro Suertes, Gluecks and Suertes both mean the word 'luck' in their respective languages.
There is also some evidence that the Vatican helped to launder money to Swiss and South American banks through their diplomatic bags.The Germans were able to smuggle out billions of dollars in hard currency, gold bars and precious stones, some of which was used to bribe Peron and other Argentine government officials 'to look the other way'.
As for 'Operation Paperclip', the Americans granted US citizenship to people like Von Braun, who would have been barred from receiving this due to being an early member of the nazi party and using slave labour to buy his V1 and V2 rockets, but all that was OK of course! That also applies to the CIA employing ex-SS and Gestapo as intelligence officers during the Cold War and giving them new identities.We can only speculate on why members of the Vatican assisted escaping Nazis. One reason was already given by someone else. The Vatican had Germans working in it, and for family reasons or nationalistic pride they may have assisted their countrymen. Another reason was self-interest. While some Catholics, and some priests and higher officials opposed the Nazis in various ways, overall the Church settled for ignoring the Reich's abuses in exchange for official tolerance. In some cases there may have been active collaboration, with some Nazi officials knowing who had helped them and when. Such information would have provided enough leverage to get the help they needed to escape. One last reason that comes to mind is antisemitism. The Church was no more and no less antisemitic than other denominations of the time, and it's possible that some of the assistance was provided because the Vatican employees felt the Nazis had been doing "God's work".
Again, we will never know for sure which of these reasons, or what other reasons, are the actual answers. Not unless documentation appears some time in the future. But given human nature they are not unreasonable explanations.
Why do some people hide criminal against the police?
Everyone has human interaction with one another, many people had friends who ended up being Nazi's. I do not see these "ratlines" being official policy of the Church but more a result of people in the church helping out on time friends, family etc for personnel reasons, and some were simply for money or influence.
In today's society it is not uncommon for friends and family to hide criminals from the police.
For example, I know people who believe that the use of drugs should be legal and they have no problems with helping people they know who use, sell, distribute, drugs to avoid the police. The only difference is the degree of the crime. BTK even has some fans, people marry murders on death row, etc.
Many people not just Germans had anti Jewish movements in the pre WW2 world, even King Edward VIII was a fan of Hitler and very anti Jewish. Many people took Jews to be foreigners practicing a foreign religion in their country. So naturally a percentage of the catholic population must have shared the same views.
I'm positive I heard something about the CIA employing Nazi war criminals. That might have something to do with it but I don't have any dates and I really don't remember who told me this. That's a possibility. Though, when you say S.America I'm sure you mean the continent and not the USA which makes the whole Nazi Employment thing less likely.
Edit:
Ah Right. Well I'm keeping a close check on this question because this seems interesting. It's also shocking to say the least. The Vatican seems to be getting an even worse name for itself as the days go by.
The Vatican was against Communism and would do everything within it's power to stop its propagation. This included help to all the main fascist parties, here under, the support of fascist in Italy, Spain and the South Americas. A sort of an enemy of my enemy is a friend to be helped. And the Vatican did help, both Mussolini and Franco.The Vatican, generally supports very right winged politics.
There were Germans, and Nazi sympathizers, in the Vatican during/after WW2.
Look up Bishop Alois Hudal.
I heard that, too. One of many "black marks" in the Vatican's history. Don't know the real reason. It would be like helping a murderer.
Here is a cut-n-paste from the ODESSA page via Wikipedia.
The ODESSA, from the German Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angeh枚rigen, meaning 鈥淥rganization for Former SS Members,鈥?is believed to have been an international Nazi network set up toward the end of World War II by a group of SS officers. The purpose of the ODESSA was to establish and facilitate secret escape routes, later known as ratlines, to allow SS members to avoid their capture and prosecution for war crimes. Most of those fleeing out of Germany and Austria were helped to South America and the Middle East.
Several authoritative[peacock term] books by those involved in the War Crimes Commission (including T.H. Tetens and Joseph Wechsberg) have verified the organization's existence and provided details of its operations. Wechsberg studied Simon Wiesenthal's memoirs on the ODESSA and verified them with his own experiences in the book The Murderers Among Us.
In a note, persons claiming to represent the ODESSA claimed responsibility for a 9 July 1979 car bombing in France, which was aimed at anti-Nazi activists Serge and Beate Klarsfeld.
Wikipedia link to the above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODESSA
Ratlines page via Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(W鈥?/a>
One of the things which is often not understood about escaping Nazis and how some (possibly many) were helped by the Western Allies, is to do with intelligence. Many of these escaping Nazis were debriefed by the Allies before being sent on their way. A lot of these Nazis had been in the Soviet Union and had gathered a mass of useful intelligence.
By c1947 we were faced with the biggest stand-off in our history - Western Allies facing the USSR and it's satellite supporters in Eastern Europe including the now established DDR controlled by the USSR with their puppet Communist Government firmly in place - many of whom had spent the entire war years hidden away in the USSR presumably being made ready for the take over etc.
The death of the Death's Head Monster
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Panton/Man0鈥?/a>
There is a story going around that Winston Churchill (a Romantic Zionist) was doing deals with Himmler, exchanging trucks for Jewish prisoners. The story goes that Winston had Himmler killed in order to shut him up for fear that he might fall into the hands of the Americans.
The Catholic Church and the Nazis
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ance鈥?/a>
One item from history which is sometimes either not known or ignored, is the fact that the Nazis believed that Christianity was a plot created by the Jews to destroy Western Europe and that it had succeeded. Therefore, they argued, by killing all the Jews, this would lay the way open to destroy the Christian Church starting with the Catholic Church.
We must also remember that this attempt to destroy Christianity in Europe had already been tried before by one Napoleon Bonaparte.
Hitler and the Nazis were Hell-bent on destroying Christendom once and for all and putting Fascism in the guise of the Nazi Party firmly in it's place, knowing that within a couple of generations the past would be re-written and all that opposed the Nazis would be dead and gone.
etc.
没有评论:
发表评论