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Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and The Swiss Banks
Written in rivetings fashion by the coauthors of The Secret War Against the Jews, Unholy Trinity tells one of the darkest tales of World War II. After the war had ended, fearing a surge of Soviet growth, the Papacy entered into an espionage alliance with British and American intelligence agents. Subsuming justice to the nascent Cold War ideology, these three powers ferreted Nazi criminals out of Europe so that they could be used in the supposedly greater fight against Communism. The Vatican's Nazi smuggling network was penetrated by Prince Anton Turkul, the great Soviet double agent who turned the operations into a sting for his masters in the Kremlin. Unholy Trinity exposes Turkul's "Red Nazi" operation for the first time and shows how Kim Philby, the infamous British-Soviet double agent, and his network were nearly sacrificed to preserve Turkul's Vatican operation.
Exploring the Vatican's role in aiding Nazi criminals to escape punishment for their crimes, this book, originally published in 1991, first revealed the Vatican-Swiss bank connection to Nazi gold and documented the hidden links to Western investors in Nazi Germany. Since 1991, major revelations about the role of Swiss banks have confirmed Unholy Trinity's expose of the flight of the Nazi's stolen treasures; the new introduction and new final chapters, written by Aarons and Loftus for this edition, bring the book completely up-to-date and show how the media have missed the vital Vatican connection in the Swiss bank story. Among other things, the authors demonstrate that U.S. and British code breakers were fully aware of the Holocaust as early as 1941 but lied to the Western press; that the code breakers bugged the Swiss banks and then buried secrets of Nazi gold transfers to protect U.S. intelligence chief Allen Dulles; and that the Australian, British, and Canadian governments are still waging a campaign to keep their citizens ignorant about the Nazi war criminals living among them.
Covers all these topics and more, Unholy Trinity is the definitive history of a series of profoundly disturbing cover-ups involving the Holy See, Allen Dulles, the Swiss banks, and the remnants of the Third Reich.
Exploring the Vatican's role in aiding Nazi criminals to escape punishment for their crimes, this book, originally published in 1991, first revealed the Vatican-Swiss bank connection to Nazi gold and documented the hidden links to Western investors in Nazi Germany. Since 1991, major revelations about the role of Swiss banks have confirmed Unholy Trinity's expose of the flight of the Nazi's stolen treasures; the new introduction and new final chapters, written by Aarons and Loftus for this edition, bring the book completely up-to-date and show how the media have missed the vital Vatican connection in the Swiss bank story. Among other things, the authors demonstrate that U.S. and British code breakers were fully aware of the Holocaust as early as 1941 but lied to the Western press; that the code breakers bugged the Swiss banks and then buried secrets of Nazi gold transfers to protect U.S. intelligence chief Allen Dulles; and that the Australian, British, and Canadian governments are still waging a campaign to keep their citizens ignorant about the Nazi war criminals living among them.
Covers all these topics and more, Unholy Trinity is the definitive history of a series of profoundly disturbing cover-ups involving the Holy See, Allen Dulles, the Swiss banks, and the remnants of the Third Reich.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Mark Aarons
12 books6 followersMark Aarons is an international award-winning investigative reporter and the author of several books on intelligence-related issues. He exposed Nazi war criminals in Australia, where he lives, and prompted changes to Australian federal law.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 17, 2009
An interesting book about the intrigue within the Vatican before, after and during the war with reference to their attitude toward Germany, the Soviet Union and the countries that they occupied. German and Croatian priests and bishops help war criminals escape to South America because they are anti-communist, and later, American-backed anti-communist ex-Nazis are placed in Russia who are turned by the Soviets and become double agents to give out inaccurate information to their handlers. Confused yet? This is a very confusing book, like the subject! The Nazi regime was anti-Catholic, (and yet Hitler and many prominent Nazis were theoretically Catholic). The Catholic Church frowned on the Nazis, but signed a concordat with them and maintained diplomatic relations with Germany right up until the end of the war. The allies were credited with ending the Holocaust, and yet did absolutely nothing to stop it from happening because they were appalled at the possibility of Jewish refugees being allowed into their countries. Pius XII was criticized for not doing enough to save the Jews, but ironically, saved about 138,000 Jews by allowing them to hide in the Vatican itself, or in monasteries and churches throughout Europe.
Everybody sucks in this one.
Everybody sucks in this one.
July 5, 2014
A superbly researched book that deserves renewed consideration and attention.
The primary thesis of this book is that the Vatican was instrumental in developing and maintaining escape routes out of Europe for known and suspected Nazi war criminals during and after WWII. This was done primarily by senior Vatican officials with the full knowledge of Pope Pius XII and senior Vatican advisor Giovanni Montini, later Pope Paul VI. War criminals were smuggled out under the auspices of the otherwise legitimate refugee relocation programs, with falsified International Red Cross documentation. This was done in order to have a ready made anti-Communist force as the Cold War became more and more of a reality.
The Vatican was not alone in this. British, and to a slightly lesser extent, American, intelligence were complicit in recruiting Nazis to serve as anti-communist leaders who needed to be smuggled out. But the hub and actual way station was the Vatican.
Unfortunately they were all played for fools by Soviet intelligence. Even before the war, the Soviet GRU (the military version of the KGB) was integrating itself into Vatican, British, German, and other intelligence services, passing themselves off as right wing supporters and feeding them false information on Soviet activities. Once the Vatican initiated its ratlines out to South America, Britain, America, Canada, and Australia, many of the agents they thought were Nazis were actually Soviet agents taking advantage of the Vatican's naiveté and Soviet agents in the Vatican itself (like Bishop Hudal and Father Dragonovic) to become implanted in Western nations and further into their intelligence services.
If you enjoy Vatican scandals, American and British scandals, WWII history generally, or good old fashioned spy stories, this is great book to read. It is a bit dense at times, and difficult to follow as there a lot of players involved, but it is definitely worth the time and effort.
The primary thesis of this book is that the Vatican was instrumental in developing and maintaining escape routes out of Europe for known and suspected Nazi war criminals during and after WWII. This was done primarily by senior Vatican officials with the full knowledge of Pope Pius XII and senior Vatican advisor Giovanni Montini, later Pope Paul VI. War criminals were smuggled out under the auspices of the otherwise legitimate refugee relocation programs, with falsified International Red Cross documentation. This was done in order to have a ready made anti-Communist force as the Cold War became more and more of a reality.
The Vatican was not alone in this. British, and to a slightly lesser extent, American, intelligence were complicit in recruiting Nazis to serve as anti-communist leaders who needed to be smuggled out. But the hub and actual way station was the Vatican.
Unfortunately they were all played for fools by Soviet intelligence. Even before the war, the Soviet GRU (the military version of the KGB) was integrating itself into Vatican, British, German, and other intelligence services, passing themselves off as right wing supporters and feeding them false information on Soviet activities. Once the Vatican initiated its ratlines out to South America, Britain, America, Canada, and Australia, many of the agents they thought were Nazis were actually Soviet agents taking advantage of the Vatican's naiveté and Soviet agents in the Vatican itself (like Bishop Hudal and Father Dragonovic) to become implanted in Western nations and further into their intelligence services.
If you enjoy Vatican scandals, American and British scandals, WWII history generally, or good old fashioned spy stories, this is great book to read. It is a bit dense at times, and difficult to follow as there a lot of players involved, but it is definitely worth the time and effort.
August 24, 2014
Nora knjiga! Prebral v treh dneh. Naučil sem se ogromno. Najbolj pa tega, da če imamo skupne sovražnike, smo zavezniki, pa čeprav se politično ne maramo! Zanimivo in nič novega, vendar vseeno šokantno. Koliko nedolžnih je umrlo ter ti isti klavci so se tresli pred zavezniki. Na koncu je pravo življenje ena sama kalkulacija in igra. Zmagajo najboljši ali najbogatejši, izgubijo pa predvsem revni in nespretni. Koliko se še moram naučiti! Koliko še!
November 30, 2013
David's review sums it up: everyone sucks in this one.
December 4, 2019
It became a drag in the second part, but there is so much information in here that it's a must read.
The translation is kinda horrible though, with lots of mistakes.
The translation is kinda horrible though, with lots of mistakes.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews