Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War

Historian Orbach (The Plots Against Hitler) delivers a scrupulous and often distressing look at how former Nazis evaded war crimes trial and profited from the Cold War by selling their intelligence services and scientific expertise to the U.S., the Soviet Union, and other countries. He notes that Wolfgang Lutz, the director of West Germany’s national intelligence agency, recruited Nazis as spies against the U.S.S.R. and that the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps employed Klaus Barbie, the notorious “Butcher of Lyon,” and helped him escape to South America. Orbach packs the narrative with jaw-dropping anecdotes, including a plot by Adolf Eichmann’s assistant Alois Brunner to kidnap World Jewish Congress leader Nahum Goldmann in 1960 and free him in exchange for Eichmann, who had recently been captured by the Mossad in Argentina and brought to Jerusalem to stand trial. He also recounts how Israel, after sending threatening letters (including a few with explosives tucked inside) to a group of German scientists working on Egypt’s rocket program, prodded West German officials to offer the scientists lucrative jobs and repatriate them. Based on prodigious archival research and interviews in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, Orbach paints a damning picture of how self-interest triumphed over justice in the years after WWII. Readers will be outraged. (Mar.)