The ratline : the exalted life and mysterious death of a Nazi fugitive / Philippe Sands.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sands, Philippe, 1960- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wächter, Otto, 1901-1949.

Wächter, Otto.

Wächter, Otto, 1901-1949--Friends and associates.

Wächter, Otto, 1901-1949--Death and burial.

Wächter, Horst von, 1939-.

Wächter, Horst von.

Nazis--Biography.

Nazis.

War criminals--Austria--Biography.

War criminals.

Fugitives from justice--Austria--Biography.

Fugitives from justice.

World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities.

World War, 1939-1945.

Atrocities.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Friendship.

Austria.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xviii, 417 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Edition:

First American edition.

Other Title:

Exalted life and mysterious death of a Nazi fugitive

Place of Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.

Summary:

"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 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?)"--Provided by the publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. I LOVE

1. 2012, Hagenberg

2. 1901, Otto

3. 1908, Charlotte

4. 1929, Vienna

5. 2013, Hagenberg

6. 1933, Vienna

7. 1934, Berlin

pt. II POWER

8. 1938, Vienna

9. 2014, London

10. 1938, Vienna

11. 1939, Krakow

12. Bronislawa

13. 1941, Krakow

14. 1942, Lemberg

15. Michael

16. 1943, Lemberg

17. 2014, Lviv

18. 1944, Lemberg

19. 1944, Bolzano

20. 1945, Thumersbach

pt. III FLIGHT

21. 2015, New York

22. 1945, Hagener Hiitte

Map 2 The Mountains, 1945

1948

23. Buko

24. 1948, Salzburg

25. 1949, Bolzano

Map 3 The Line South, 1949

26. 2016, Warsaw

27. May 1949, Vigna Pia

Map 4 Rome, 1949

28. Art

29. June 1949, Rome

30. July 1949, Santo Spirito

pt. IV DEATH

31. The Five Burials Of O.W.

32. 2016, Hagenberg

33. Testament

34. September 1949

35. The Bishop

36. Cold War

37. Wollenweber

38. Cic

39. Lauterbacher

40. Persilschein

41. Los Angeles

42. Hass

43. 2017, Rome

44. Anima

45. Cafe Doney

46. Lake Albano

47. Exhumation

48. Lucid

49. 2018, Albuquerque

50. Wiesenthal

51. Liver

52. 2018, Hagenberg.

Notes:

"Originally published in Great Britain in 2020 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd., London, in 2020"--Title page verso.

"A Borzoi Book"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Sands, Philippe, 1960- Ratline.

ISBN:

9780525520962

0525520961

OCLC:

1196821000

Publisher Number:

40030319431