Traitors: How Australia and its Allies betrayed our ANZACs and let Nazi and Japanese war criminals go free

by Frank Walker

The extraordinary revelations in Traitors detail the ugly side of war and power and the many betrayals of our ANZACs. In October 1943 Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin signed a solemn pact that once their enemies were defeated the Allied powers would 'pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may be done'. Nowhere did they say that justice would be selective. But it would prove to be. Traitors outlines the treachery of the British, American and Australian governments, who turned a blind eye to those who experimented on Australian prisoners of war. Journalist and bestselling author Frank Walker details how Nazis hired by ASIO were encouraged to settle in Australia and how the Catholic Church, CIA and MI6 helped the worst Nazi war criminals escape justice. While our soldiers were asked to risk their lives for King and country, Allied corporations traded with the enemy; Nazi and Japanese scientists were enticed to work for Australia, the US and UK; and Australia's own Hollywood hero Errol Flynn was associating with Nazi spies. After reading this book you can't help but wonder, what else did they hide?

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World War II

336 pages, Paperback

Published April 25, 2019

About the author

Frank Walker is a veteran journalist. His newspaper roles have included being chief reporter for the SUN-HERALD covering defence, veterans' affairs, national security and terrorism. He's also worked on the Sydney Morning Herald, the National Times, for News Limited in New York, and for Deutsche Welle international radio in Germany.

In 2009, Hachette published his first book, The Tiger Man of Vietnam - the remarkable true story of the secret war of Captain Barry Petersen in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It was a bestseller.

Frank followed this with his bestselling Ghost Platoon in 2012, Maralinga in 2014 and Commandos in 2015. He lives in Sydney with his family.

Reviews

[✰ BJ's Book Blog ✰Janeane ✰]

I have my Netflix, and with all the wonderful shows on there, lately I have found myself watching WW2 documentaries, shows about Hitler's career, shows about Nazi Hunters.

I threw myself into this book, not knowing what to expect (well, war stories of course!), however I was intrigued.

Then I was mad and sad - mad at our government and sad for the soldiers they betrayed.

I turned each page thinking "it can't get any worse", however each betrayal hurt my heart a bit more.

It is a very dry read - it told factually, without a lot of emotion tainting the reader's view

In fact, I think this would make a great documentary series

It was great to step away from my norm for a while, but now I think I need to read something light and fluffy again.

[Lou Grimm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have often wondered, did the multi-national companies who aided Nazi Germany know what they were doing, or did they hang their heads in sorrow and shame and hope for mercy when they found out at the end of the war?

Well, how stupid of me. They knew. And they happily took Hitler's stolen gold in payment.

Take Standard Oil, the giant American petroleum corporation that gave the formula for synthetic rubber to Nazi Germany rather than to its own country. But when the US government laid charges against it, its CEO forced them to drop the matter because, it said, the Allies would lose the war without Standard Oil. So, after paying a minuscule fine (and finally providing the US with the formula), this 'American' company continued to supply both sides. No wonder the 'baby Standards' today, Exxon, Chevron, and Amoco, get away with so much: it's in their charter.

Or take IBM. Its CEO was awarded, personally by Hitler, a swastika-bedecked 'Order of the German Eagle with Star'. Why? Because IBM leased thousands of punch-card machines (computer forerunners) to the Nazis from the time Hitler won power to the end of the war. For thirteen years IBM knew their machines were identifying everyone Hitler wanted killed. IBM helped round them up and send them to the deadly concentration camps, even classified their deaths. How do we know they knew what they were doing? Because IBM developed the telltale string-codes: first three digits for the concentration camp name (Aushwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, etc); more digits for reason for imprisonment (Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, antisocials, etc); even a digit for manner of death (execution, suicide, gas chamber, starvation, disease, even worked to death). They knew exactly what Hitler was paying them good money for. IBM even did the concentration camp rounds every two weeks to service the machines! Somehow managing to keep their lunches down in the process.

Everyone involved knew what was going on. Plausible denial is not at all plausible. And it wasn't just in the Nazi theatre:

The US government used those same IBM machines to round up civilians of Japanese descent for the western version of race prejudice and war hysteria. And the IBM fatcats happily took all the profits and became literally 'filthy' rich off these extraordinary miseries too.

Or take the Australian dockworkers in 1938 who refused to load pig iron on a ship bound for Japan, as it would be used to make weapons to conquer the south seas - the seemingly unstoppable Japanese forces had already invaded China and killed over a million Chinese troops. But the 'big Australian', the 'quiet achiever' BHP literally demanded its right to earn a huge profit. It sacked 4000 workers and cried for government help. In a dictatorial step, the Australian Prime Minister himself forced the workers to load the ship. How much of that pig iron was fired back at our brave troops in New Guinea we will probably never know.

These examples are just a sample of what Walker has put together in this mind-blowing exposé on the hidden priorities of our leaders and our corporations in times of war, and the cold hearts of the manufacturers of Hitler's ovens. It makes me wonder how their priorities could be any kinder in times of peace.

It is the kind of book that will never be taught in schools - it raises too many hard questions and threatens a way of life very comfortable for some. But if German schoolchildren have to tour the Camps, then we have to read this.

Gutsy, ballsy, and heartbreaking; this is a must-read.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Nigel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading, for those interested in Cold War politics and how it let down the very people it was suppose to serve ~ the soldiers who fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Also, this person was very disturbed by several chapters in the book. They were: chapter five, “Australia Welcomes Nazis”; chapter eight, “Ignore war Crimes of the Useful”; chapter nine, “The Evil of Japan’s Unit 731” and lastly chapter ten, “Why Japanese War Criminals Escaped Justice”.

This person was incredibly moved by how Mr. Frank Walker could use his skills as a journalist to not only recreate WW2 scenes, but also to re-tell how many Nazi's were able to escape after WW2. He was also able to contrast some of the catastrophic things things that some of these Nazi psychopaths did during WW2 with the total lack of empathy and inaction showed by the Australian government and its' security agency: ASIO (Aust. Security Intelligence Organisation). Indeed, "Australia turned a blind eye to the scientist's political backgrounds and whatever roles they played with Hitler's war machine", (p.177). In chapter eight, for example, Walker told us about numerous German scientists that were actively recruited by the Allies (including Australia) because they wanted to beat the Soviet Union (as it was known back then) from using them and the German's technical skills were well sort after 'Down Under'. At least twelve scientists, Walker told us were, "Key German military scientists" who were welcomed to Australia.

Even more concerning, if that wasn’t enough, was that when a Special Investigation Unit (SIU) was set up looking for suspected war criminals living in Australia, these scientists were covered up by the government. ~ probably to save any embarrassment to the Establishment and to ASIO. The Cold War was in full swing and the reader was told that the Allied forces (and its Conservative governments) had to everything in its power to stop the spread of communism ~ even if it meant using ex-Nazi’s to help them. In Australia, Argots Fricsons was an ex-Gestapo who migrated to Australia and was used to spy on the Latvian community to ferret out any trouble-makers and rebel rousers. Unbelievably, some of these ex-nazis even became politicians. Lyenko Urbanchich, who once worked for the Slovenian Militia for Nazi Germany joined the Liberal Party and was known for having a group of young, hard far-right goons called the “Uglies” in the 1970’s. Oh yes, it didn’t hurt that all these people so happened to be white because Australia was a racist place back then, where a White Australia Policy was in full swing. In 1947, the Federal Immigration Minister at that time, Arthur Calwell, who had carefully chosen migrants from the Baltic states of northern Europe and Germany accepted these people,” because, and only because, they were white”. (p.82). Indeed, the White Australia Policy was established in 1901 and was still supported, if not unofficially, up until the 1970’s. The far-right would have you believe that is still from and centre today.

Lastly, in chapters eight and nine, Walker told the reader about Japan's Unit 731 which specialised in bacterial experiments and the performance of human experiments which Japan only acknowledged almost forty years after the war, in 1982 (p.211). The reader got to re-live what happened to sister Vivian Bullwinkel and re-live through Walker’s telling of the Banka Beach Massacre in 1942. Truly horrendous stuff. The reader learnt all about Japan’s endeavours to build and use its biological warfare program to win the war. It was discovered that there were developments in anthrax, glanders, plague, cholera typhoid, dysentry, tetnus and even gas gangrene. The lead scientist in charge of these gruesome findings was a fella by the name of Ishii Shiro. You won’t be surprised to find that he was given immunity by the US because they wanted his knowledge and know-how and to use it against, who else but, the communist reds. In 1952, for example, “North Korea, China and the Soviet Union claimed the US was using germ warfare on a large scale in the Korean War” (p.210-211) against the communist North Koreans.

Yes, Mr. Frank Walker gave a very moving account of the apathy of the Australian government to track down and convict war criminals for their atrocities that they committed. Obviously, not for everyone, but this person highly recommends it. 5 STARS.

[Peter Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors definition of a traitor in the context this work is not singular by the nature of the cases he presents. Conflict, commercial, personal and state all receive attention in one form or another.

What struck me though is that the mantra, sic, of "the victor writes the history. The winner defines the peace", takes a backseat in consideration as the author produces his work of how the allied solders and/or countries of World War Two were betrayed by their leaders before, during and post the conflict.

Whilst it may be true that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, so too it can be that depending on the incident, one mans war criminal is another mans soldier. It is beyond doubt, discussion or argument that some actions in war are crimes against humanity and those who perpetuate them should be held to account. Yet this should, in my view, be balanced against the actions of all, and not judged solely by the victor against the defeated.

For example, the destruction of the French fleet by the Royal Navy in 1940, was this a crime order by Winston Churchill ? The fire bombing, inclusive if strategy and execution, of civilian populations, be it upon London or Dresden. War crimes ? The planned use of chemical weapons, be they supplied by Britain to the White Russians, or deployed against the Chinese population. War crimes by England and Japan ? Why, can the winning side claim these were not crimes, yet hold the defeated to account for actions such as these as crimes. A double standard.

I would estimate that circa ~50% of this book fell into, for me, this area of grey. However, with potentially parallel victor actions ignored or referenced, this resulted in a biased work.

For the other ~50%, to my reading and the definitions generally accepted, there is no doubt that crimes were committed that were not within the terms of "war" that the Geneva convention define as acceptable. In these cases were the soldiers of the victorious side betrayed ? Were those who upon the crimes were perpetrated betrayed ? In cases yes, as some of the perpetrators were not held to account and/or punished to any, or the whole, of what they may have been. Was this due to forgiveness, incompetency, ineptitude, cover-ups, expediency or political machinations? All of the previous and more.

Written in easy to engage style and prose, this is a work of consolidated examples of what you may or may not find to be traitorous acts against individuals, groups, communities and sovereign nations, be they the acts themselves to the outcomes of those acts.

2.5 upped to 3.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating, thorough, and depressing.
I’ve given this book three stars because it wasn’t terribly easy to read in parts, and I feel that the information could have been presented better (there is an excessive amount of information which seemed like it could have done with a few more edits).
The book seems to be comprehensively researched (I didn’t look too hard into his sources, admittedly), and is honestly quite shocking. Disappointing to read of the Western nations letting WWII criminals off scot-free, even going so far as welcoming them into Australia.
Allows one to appreciate that the current issues of the 21st century are not at all black and white, despite what might be presented in the media.

[Inside a Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informational, quick to read but sometimes a little rambly. Overall would easily recommend.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this twice now (a few years in between). It is esential reading because it debunks lies and reveals truths that are difficult to know about but must not be forgotten or covered up by the passage of time (and modern societys addiction to fake horror in films and documentary tv series with shallow reporting ).

[EscapefromMe]

What an eye-opener. That's all I can say.