![]() It's the story of how easily red tape and shifting priorities (from WWII to The Cold War) can bog down righteous causes and it shows how easily the pursuit of justice can be turned to the pursuit of selfish ends. ![]() It's a history book of comprehensive research (there are 100+ pages of bibliography and notes) where the facts speak for themselves. Hunting Evil is full of these unforced revelations. Men like Adolf Eichmann (who organized the concentration camp system) and Franz Stangl (commandant at Treblinka) transformed into bitter but outwardly harmless old men, appearing no different from the curmudgeons and casual racists you might find anywhere. ![]() The varied, yet often bland, lives these men led after the war lends credence to the idea that there is evil lurking in every society, waiting for the right conditions. Most kept their noses clean, even as they held onto their delusion, paranoia and prejudice. Some became Cold War informants for the allied powers while most lived as working-class family men. Of the Nazi war criminals who evaded justice, some escaped to South America while others stayed in Germany. Based on all new interviews with Nazi hunters and former Nazis and intelligence agents, travels along the actual escape routes, and archival research in Germany, Britain, the United States, Austria, and Italy, Hunting Evil authoritatively debunks much of what has previously been understood about Nazis and Nazi hunters in the post war era, including myths about the alleged “Spider” and “Odessa” escape networks and the surprising truth about the world's most legendary Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.įrom its haunting chronicle of the monstrous mass murders the Nazis perpetrated and the murky details of their postwar existence to the challenges of hunting them down, Hunting Evil is a monumental work of nonfiction written with the pacing and intrigue of a thriller. In this exhaustively researched and compellingly written work of World War II history and investigative reporting, journalist and novelist Guy Walters gives a comprehensive account of one of the most shocking and important aspects of the war: how the most notorious Nazi war criminals escaped justice, how they were pursued, captured or able to remain free until their natural deaths and how the Nazis were assisted while they were on the run by "helpers" ranging from a Vatican bishop to a British camel doctor, and even members of Western intelligence services. ![]() The attempts to bring them to justice are no less dramatic, featuring vengeful Holocaust survivors, inept politicians, and daring plots to kidnap or assassinate the fugitives. Aided and abetted by prominent people throughout Europe, they hid in foreboding castles high in the Austrian alps, and were taken in by shady Argentine secret agents. Many of them have names that resonate deeply in twentieth-century history - Eichmann, Mengele, Martin Bormann, and Klaus Barbie - not just for the monstrosity of their crimes, but also because of the shadowy nature of their post-war existence, holed up in the depths of Latin America, always one step ahead of their pursuers. Already acclaimed in England as "first-rate" ( The Sunday Times) “a model of meticulous, courageous and path-breaking scholarship"( Literary Review) and "absorbing and thoroughly gripping… deserves a lasting place among histories of the war.” ( The Sunday Telegraph), Hunting Evil is the first complete and definitive account of how the Nazis escaped and were pursued and captured - or managed to live long lives as fugitives.Īt the end of the Second World War, an estimated 30,000 Nazi war criminals fled from justice, including some of the highest ranking members of the Nazi Party.
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