The Nazi Exiles

The director was able to reconstruct their exile from Rome, a hub for fleeing Nazis. Among them was Walther Rauff, one of the logistics coordinators of the Holocaust who organized the deployment of gas vans in Eastern Europe to exterminate Jews. Rauff, with the help of Bishop Alois Hudal and under the noses of the Vatican and the International Red Cross, orchestrated the exile to Syria of around fifty former Nazis, including Franz Stangl and Gustav Wagner, commanders of the extermination camps at Sobibor and Treblinka.

In Cairo, using previously unseen testimonies, the film tracks the whereabouts of several of these individuals: such as Artur Schmitt, a major-general of the Afrikakorps recruited by the Arab League; or Gerhard Mertins, a former Waffen-SS member, arms dealer, and guerrilla warfare specialist, who would later be involved in the neo-Nazi sect “Colonia Dignidad” in Chile.

In Egypt, the film also retraces the path of Johann von Leers, a former Nazi propaganda expert recruited by Nasser among others. A fanatical anti-Semite, Von Leers had worked under the Reich with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to promote an ideological rapprochement between National Socialism and Islam.

These activities of former Nazis in the Middle East secretly triggered diplomatic tensions between Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The former colonial power feared for its influence in Egypt, while, as the film reveals, behind Bonn’s back, the BND was recruiting some of these men to establish a stronger foothold in the region, including Gerhard Mertins and Johann von Leers, and later, Walther Rauff.

But the German secret services were not the only ones compromised in this way. By examining their activities in the Middle East, the documentary provides new evidence of the impunity enjoyed by many Nazis. Long after the war, in Europe and elsewhere, the political, religious, and judicial institutions supposed to pursue them were marked by their inertia. Many former Nazi officials were protected or even recruited by states, companies, and intelligence services of all kinds.