At the end of the Second World War some of the highest ranking members of the Nazi party escaped from justice. Guy Walters has travelled the world in pursuit of the real account of how the Nazis escaped at the end of the war, the attempts, sometimes successful, to bring them to justice, and what really happened to those that got away.

Excellent source de la traque des SS dans le monde après la guerre 1940-45 ( )

If they wanted to save their skins, Nazi war criminals were faced with two choices at the end of WWII: either vamoose to distant lands (usually in South America) or sell your services to the allies who were just itching to jump into the cold war. The paradigmatic cases of the former were Klaus Barbie and Adolf Eichman, and for the latter there was Wilhelm Höttl. On the whole, the latter were more successful in the long term, since there was always a good market for "intelligence." The Nazi war crimes (and don't forget the Ustaše in Croatia), were of such enormity that their stain of culpability spread to nearly everyone associated with them: not just the enablers, like the Catholic Church and various governments around the world, but even, perhaps paradoxically, the very people sworn to bring the perpetrators to "justice." These Nazi hunters were, according to Walters, either corrupt, incompetent, indifferent or all three. Particular opprobrium is assigned to Simon Wiesenthal, whose mendacity and megalomania are depicted as equaling a Mengele or a Franz Stangl. It isn't until Walters gets to Serge & Beta Klarsfeld that he finds people upon whom he can bestow his favor, even if Serge comes off a little feckless in relation to his formidable spouse. ( )

I bought this book for two reasons. First a review made it sound interesting. Second I had several months earlier read "The Quiet Flame", a book by Philip Kerr set partly in Argentina and partly in pre-war Brazil. The Kerr book is fiction but characters include refugee Nazis such as Eichmann and Mengele. I went on to read other fictional works by Kerr set in post-war Europe and again Nazi war criminals play a role. I had read next to nothing about these war crimes since being a teenager in the late 1950s when I read books such as Russell's "Scourge of the Swastika". I expect my interest was then merely prurient since I do remember that the cheap paperback had pictures of naked women being herded to their deaths. Contrarily "Hunting Evil" as I learnt in mid-read from a second review is unsensationalist, well-researched, well-documented. I think that is all likely to be true. I found the book very heavy going at first but it became better as I read on. The main problem is that I am not the person the book is written for. The intended reader seems to be someone who already is quite knowledgeable about the subject. For example the name "Barbie" crops up quite early but I had no idea what he had done although his crimes were clearly committed in occupied France as it was the French who most wanted him brought to justice. He appears again near the end of the book as the "butcher of Lyons" but again there is little specific. The Second World War against Germany is sometimes dated as 1939–1945. I lived through that period but because I was a small child have few memories of the time. But there is a tendency to think that in 1946 that Europe got back to normal. Both as "Hunting Evil" and the Kerr books make clear this was not the case and chaos and confusion reigned. In Austria and Germany the victorious powers had their zones. Many of the war criminals were still in Europe for several years. "Hunting Evil" demolishes — successfully in my mind — a number of preconceptions. First it challenges the existence of "ODESSA". It suggests that the public's belief in ODESSA is largely due to a work of fiction by Frederick Forsyth which had "ODESSA" as its title. Walters does not believe that there was a large, rich, powerful, organization which helped Nazi refugees escape to South America. Which is not to imply that there were not people willing to aid these people. He also looks at the role of Simon Wiesanthal. In the final chapter he gives Wiesanthal credit for his positive achievements. Nevertheless he claims that Wiesanthal's role in hunting ex-Nazis was often less than Wiesanthal claimed and points out many discrepancies between Wiesanthal's own accounts at different time or compared with other writers. Wiesanthal was claiming sightings of Mengele many years after Mengele was dead. On the lives of Nazis in South America Walters makes clear that many were not living in luxury. In Buenos Aires or São Paulo many lived in very modest households. In regard to Eichmann the book has quite a long account of the events leading to his abduction. Far from a story of Mossad super-efficiency it seems to be a tale of monumental cock-ups by many. And to what extent did the allied powers seek to hunt down and bring to justice Nazi war criminals? The early chapters explain the very confused post-war conditions with divided jurisdictions. The western allies were more concerned about the USSR than war criminals. The result was that many escaped through confusion or lack of will. Others because they were co-opted to work for the occupying powers. This theme appears again near the book's close when the UK government brought in legislation against war criminals in the 1990s. Others who seem to have escaped real justice are discussed. I repeat that this is not really a book for somebody coming new to the subject matter. And I would have liked at least a brief account of conditions in post-war Germany, Austria, Italy to put the early chapters into context. Even if only half a dozen pages. ( )