Nazis on the Run - Reviews

"Thanks to Frederick Forsyth novel The Odessa File, and the film that followed, the popular myth that a secret Nazi organisation built escape routes and helped its members out of Europe is all most people know on the topic. But as Steinacher, a professor of history at the University of Nebraska, is quick to point out, ODESSA was a complete fabrication. The actual flight of Nazis was more mundane, but no less interesting." - Nicholas K. Smith, Vienna Review

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"Gerald Steinacher’s 'Nazis auf der Flucht' offers a well-researched, deeply engaging, and exhaustive analysis of escape routes of high-ranking Nazis and war criminals via Italy to Argentina and other overseas destinations. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of Nazi escape routes, for it not only demystifies the Odessa myth, but also sheds light on the complicity of influential organizations such as the Catholic Curch, the International Red Cross, and the U.S. and Argentinean governments." - Natalie Eppelsheimer, German Studies Review

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"The Vatican also went out of its way to protect criminals. It provided passports, refuge and other means of support for them. While the church’s record during the war may be open to some debate, its record in helping the murderers escape responsibility afterward is clear, as has been documented by both Michael Phayer in 'The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965' and Gerald Steinacher in 'Nazis auf der Flucht.'" Deborah Lipstadt, Washington Post 2011

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"This impressively researched work demolishes the myth of ODESSA" - Christopher Hirst, The Independent

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"Few of those institutions or countries mentioned in this study emerge with much credit, especially the I.C.R.C, even though the author is keen to show how complex were the backgrounds involved and how those involved in the post-war years simply saw things differently. This is a disturbing but valuable book." - Contemporary Review

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"For anyone interested in what happened to Hitler’s henchmen after the war, look no further." - Sunday Business Post

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"Steinacher’s book stands out as the first 'total history' of this complex topic. He uses a wealth of sources – memoirs, secret service papers, the files of the Red Cross and the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza – in order to substantiate his provocative but ultimately well documented claims. In so doing, he has raised the bar for all future studies on this subject." - Robert Gerwarth, “Martyrdom and Resistance”, International Society for Yad Vashem

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"… A recently published book by another Austrian, the brilliant young scholar Gerald Steinacher, lays out in powerful detail, how and why the Catholic church, through its personnel, financing, and aid from institutions, committees, and priests, protected Nazi war criminals." - Kevin J. Madigan, Commentary Israel

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"Nazis on the Run is a valuable and informative study that successfully brings all the threads together and provides a detailed account of the results of current historiography, adding details that shed light on previously unknown aspects." - Stephan Glienke, German History

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"Nazis on the Run has been praised for its meticulous research. Historian Richard Breitman called the book 'The latest and broadest effort to dispel the fog of myths regarding the fate of Nazi war criminals after World War II. This is a work based on careful and impressively wide research; it is a reliable guide to a controversial and fascinating subject.'" - History News Network

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"An excellent study of Nazi escapees is Gerald Steinacher’s Nazis on the Run…" - Norman J. W. Goda, The Holocaust

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"… Gerald Steinacher describes exactly how they managed this in 'Nazis on the Run'—only the second authoritative book on the subject, after Uki Goni’s 'The Real Odessa' (2002)." - Philip Kerr, Wall Street Journal

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"Steinacher is an historian who understands the importance of careful study and meticulous attention to detail. His analysis of the material he worked with, from the many sources he consulted, is of the highest calibre…" - Robert Gerwarth, Irish Times

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"…. Nazis on the Run is the most thoroughly-researched scholarly study now available." - Steven P. Remy, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

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"[Nazis on the Run] does an admirably thorough job of surveying the larger factors involved in the escape of Nazi perpetrators. […] the book is a model of careful archival research and raises important questions not only of immediate postwar history but postwar memory as well." - Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, Central European History

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"…it is good to have a book as level-headed as this one, based on thorough research." - Richard J. Evans, The Guardian

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"… a well-written book that is packed with startling information and grubby stories about the moral cost of political exigency." - David Cesarani, New Statesman

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"Steinacher also provides a specifically Tyrolean angle. Tyrol here is not the wronged, divided province beloved by western alpinists of the time or the international cause célèbre denied the right of self-determination in 1919. It is the incubator of a cohort of deeply unpleasant racial activists, some of whom became war criminals. Those who then fled through the province were often able to fall back on intact networks, whether from school or student days or the SS and Wehrmacht." - Robert Knight, Times Literary Supplement