HITLER’S SHADOW - Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War

by Richard Breitman

In 1998 Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act [P.L. 105-246] as part of a series of efforts to identify, declassify, and release federal records on the perpetration of Nazi war crimes and on Allied efforts to locate and punish war criminals. Under the direction of the National Archives the Interagency Working Group [IWG] opened to research over 8 million of pages of records - including recent 21st century documentation. Of particular importance to this volume are many declassified intelligence records from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Army Intelligence Command, which were not fully processed and available at the time that the IWG issued its Final Report in 2007.

Genres: History, War, Nonfiction, Politics, Germany

91 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2010

Reviews

[Bob]

https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/re...

If nothing else, read Chapter 5, the last chapter, beginning on pg. 81 or so. Discussed the CIA collaboration with Ukrainian Nationals during the 50’s & MI6s collaboration with Bandara. CIA was already to give him an American visa, but he was killed by KGB before he got it.
This book was published around 2010. It’s a compilation of newly released Govt documents; sort of an addendum to the authors’ 2004 book, which I haven’t read yet. Many interesting minutia fills in the narrative. The chap on the Nazi plans for the Middle East & the Mufti was my favorite besides the chapter about Ukraine.

[Tadas Talaikis]

Should be way bigger, just a glimpse.

[Sly Reference]

I was expecting more from the subtitle that what I got. I was hoping for information about Gehlen's organization or the Nazis who went to the Middle East after WW2. There was a bit of that, but the book mostly covered a handful of cases of Nazis in Europe, and their stories often ended within a decade of the end of the war.

One interesting exception was a Ukrainian who had worked with the Nazis during the war and the CIA after, if only because he appeared in a couple of books I read recently that tried to paint members of the Republican Party in the US as aligned with Nazis. He apparently was one of the most 'successful' operations of the CIA among the refugees after WW2.

In the end, the book was perfectly adequate. It was interesting and a quick read, told me about things I didn't know about before.

[Akrasia]

"En dehors de l’Église catholique, la République fédérale américaine fondée en 1776 est la seule entité constituée à oser s’identifier à la morale universelle. La « raison d’Etat », au sens classique que pouvaient lui assigner Richelieu ou Napoléon – tout subordonner à l’intérêt de la collectivité dont le gouvernement est comptable – lui est donc largement étrangère. Ce qui compte n’est pas tant de sauver la nation américaine, dont l’existence n’a jamais été menacée par quiconque depuis la Guerre d’indépendance, que le lui permettre d’imposer ses normes, de gré ou de force, à tout ce qui n’est pas elle – comprendre : « The rest of the World », formule qui, à elle seule, en dit long…

En proclamant que « la cause de l’Amérique est celle de toute l’humanité », George Washington n’a pas seulement légué à ses successeurs un formidable instrument d’ingérence internationale ; il a institué le gouvernement des États-Unis en juge planétaire… Un magistrat universel nanti du pouvoir exorbitant de claquer les attendus de ces décisions sur ses intérêts du moment !"

Richard Breitman