The blurb says

AT THE END of the Second World War some of the highest-ranking members of the Nazi party fled from the ruins of the Third Reich. Many are names that have resonated deeply in twentieth-century history – Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Franz Stangl 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 depths of Latin America, always one step ahead of their pursuers.

    The nature of their escapes was as gripping as any good thriller. Aided and abetted by Catholic priests in Rome, they travelled down secret escape routes, hiding in foreboding castles high in the Austrian Alps, and were taken in by shady Argentine secret agents. The attempts to bring them to justice are no less dramatic, with vengeful Holocaust survivors, inept politicians, and daring plots to kidnap or assassinate the fugitives.

    Guy Walters has travelled the world in pursuit of the real account of how the Nazis escaped at the end of the war, and charts the attempts, sometimes successful, to bring them to justice, and what really happened to those that got away. Walters also questions the existence of the ‘Odessa’ organisation, scrutinises the record of Simon Wiesenthal, and reveals the extent to which some Nazi war criminals were able to escape justice by being employed by Allied Intelligence.

    He has interviewed Nazi hunters and Nazis alike, former intelligence agents, travelled the escape routes themselves, and pored through archives in Germany, Britain, the United States, Austria and Italy to bring this remarkable period of our recent history to dramatic and vivid life.

Guy says

After I had finished Berlin Games, I was keen to write about the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and to explore once again the relationship between sport and politics. However, it became swiftly apparent that my editor was keen to publish another book that featured the Second World War. So – with no great reluctance, it must be admitted - I turned to the idea of Nazi hunting.

    I can’t deny that my initial knowledge of the subject matter was conventional: the Nazis escaped with the help of a network called ‘Odessa’, they ended up living in vast estancias in Latin American jungles, and were stalked by fearless and redoubtable Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal. The subject was clearly engaging and the huge interest shown in my book proposal confirmed my belief that the topic required a history that was both compelling and historically rigorous. It was only when I started my in-depth research that I realized that so much of what I held to be true was simply not so. For a while, I wanted to change the title to Hunting Evil (Or Not), but I never dared suggest it to my editor for fear that he would think I had sold him a pup. Although much of what I have learned contradicts what I knew, there is no doubt that the book is the better for it, and the constant process of discovery maintained my excitement over what was a long haul, both temporally and topographically.

    As is so common, I found the truth to be far more satisfying than what is served up by junk historians in print and online. I also found the truth to be utterly scandalous, and on numerous occasions I felt genuine anger at what I discovered. I make no apology for the occasions at which that emotion shines through, because it was certainly new to me that the British employed a senior officer in one of the Einsatzgruppen as an MI6 agent. It was also disturbing to discover that Simon Wiesenthal, for so long held to be some sort of secular saint, fabricated not only his role in the Eichmann hunt, but also countless other episodes in his life. I was also annoyed by the lack of political will for hunting Nazi criminals, many of whom could have easily been brought to justice had governments allocated even comparatively meagre resources to their pursuit. Some might suggest that as well as being angry I sometimes display retrospective wisdom, but once again, I make no apology. I certainly do my best to place any decisions made within their context, but where I judge those decisions to have been incorrect, I do not shy from condemnation. One of the privileges of writing history – and surely one of its purposes – is to make such judgements.