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.)

A study of how surviving Nazis worked with the intelligence agencies of several countries after World War II. Orbach, a Jerusalem-based historian whose books include The Plots Against Hitler (2016), begins near the end of the war, when it became clear to many Germans that they had lost. Gen. Reinhard Gehlen, a senior German intelligence analyst, created a plan to barter his expertise on the Soviet armed forces in exchange for a safe future. Gehlen, writes the author, "was above all else a survivor and a careerist, and he had every intention of surviving, and even thriving, amongst the downfall." When American intelligence eventually realized what he could offer them, Gehlen was allowed to assemble the "Gehlen Org," an independent German secret service under U.S. auspices. That organization became the route to new respectability for many ex-Nazis, some of them active participants in the Holocaust. Other former Nazis were recruited as consultants, in many cases providing intelligence (much of it dubious) to anyone willing to pay. The key qualification, as far as the U.S. and other Western intelligence services were concerned, was anti-communism. As a result, the Gehlen Org proved to be easily penetrated by Soviet agents, which led to its dissolution in the late 1950s. Orbach also traces the roles of ex-Nazis in Middle Eastern politics, including an attempt by Egypt to build up a missile program by enlisting German rocket scientists and a long-running operation by ex-Nazis based in Syria. Meanwhile, Israel's Mossad took a lively interest in these characters' activities, leading to a complex spy-vs.-spy game throughout the Middle East. Orbach draws a richly detailed story of the extensive role of German intelligence and military advisers in the Cold War decades. The book is full of shady characters and preposterous plots, making it an entertaining read for fans of real-life espionage history. A lively history of the role played by former Nazis in the postwar intelligence community. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.