The Ratline - On The Trail Of A Nazi Fugitive

Philippe Sands, award-winning author of the bestselling East West Street, discusses his remarkable new book in conversation with Elif Shafak.

The Ratline is the story of Otto von Wächter who, as the Nazi Governor of Galicia, presided over a territory in which hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles were killed. Indicted for ‘mass murder’ at the end of the war and hunted by multiple international agencies, Wächter went into hiding, first in the Austrian Alps and then in Rome, where a Vatican bishop gave him refuge. But, just before he could take ‘the ratline’ to Argentina, he unexpectedly died.

A unique and fascinating insight into the life of a Nazi fugitive and the network of spies in early Cold War Rome, The Ratline is also a meticulously researched investigation, which unlocks the mysteries surrounding Wächter’s extraordinary life and death.