THE REAL ODESSA - Book review

Uki Goñi’s  2022 book is sub-titled ‘How Nazi War Criminals Escaped Europe’ and is an updated version of a book of the same title published in 2002. He has been relentless in delving into old archives in Argentina and Europe, and even the CIA. This testament reveals the people ‘co-mingling in a common cause: a bitter and shared hatred of communism that united the unlikely combination of capitalists, fascists and Catholics into the project known by Nazi sympathisers as the ‘Reich migratory route’.

While it is probably common knowledge that a number of war criminals escaped to Argentina, I for one was surprised at how many succeeded and escaped censure, later dying of old age. There were literally thousands who got away with mass murder.

In the 1970s, Goñi’s newspaper office was inundated with concerned citizens: ‘Daily, mothers of the victims would come in to report their tragedies. Men in green uniforms had broken into their homes in the middle of the night and taken their children from their beds to an unknown destination. They were never to be seen again’ (pxxxii).

Before the war, all nationalities were welcome to Argentina as immigrants. That changed in July 1938:  Directive 11 was sent out to all consuls, ordering them to deny visas to Jews trying to reach Argentina. The order only fell into disuse in the mid-1950s and was only repealed in 2005.

Goñi states: ‘I realised that the problem was not the bad guys: the problem was the good guys who out of fear or affinity protected them (the war criminals)’ (pxli)

During the war the Argentine embassy in Madrid served as a transit point for Nazi arms purchased by Argentina. It had the secret support of Franco’s regime, which provided cover for the overland transport of guns and munitions through occupied France to Spanish ports and their conveyance from there in Spanish ships to Argentina’ (p5).

Franco’s Spain was not quite as neutral as it appeared. ‘During the last days of the war neutral Spain became the main safe haven for fugitive Nazis and their French and Belgian collaborators...’ (p65). Spain and Italy aided and abetted by functionaries of the Vatican. Virtually every false passport of the Nazi criminals had the religion stated as ‘Catholic’. In fact, a good number of Jewish passports declared the same religion...

A good number of those who escaped did so with funds, some of which was doubtless passed on to them by Swiss banks. Funds pilfered from their countless victims. The sequestered money was meant to finance a post-war Fourth Reich (p248). Using their ill-gotten gains, many Nazi immigrants contributed to Perón’s election campaign in 1946. Perón dreamed of turning Argentina into a military-industrial power and utilising the many escapees’ expertise in munitions and aircraft-design and build...  (p138). The argument went that if Argentina didn’t get the German technicians then the Soviets would (not to mention the Americans and British) (p151). There were many reasons for this: one was that Perón and his Nazi pals believed a Third World War was imminent – against the Russians, probably in 1948.

Moral blindness: the Vatican and Allied intelligence conspired to look the other way regarding the whereabouts of the majority of Nazi war criminals – because they were anti-Communist, against International Marxism...

Goñi provides several biographies of escapees. It is remarkable how many Nazi war criminals were held in prisoner of war camps yet managed not only to escape but also to identify and use appropriate ‘ratlines’ to get them to Argentina.

Compulsive and gripping, these revelations, even at this time, are still deeply shocking.

DANE DARE #3: OPERATION SATURN - Book review

 

This is the third deluxe collector’s facsimile edition of Operation Saturn featured in the Eagle comic from February 1953 to May 1954.

Certainly, Dan Dare wasn’t the first comic-strip space hero: there were Buck Rogers (1929) and Flash Gordon (1934) among others...

It’s the year 2001. A number of Earth’s spaceships are being attacked by robotic remote-controlled projectiles – nicknamed ‘black cats’. Apparently, they originate from Saturn. [The ‘black cats’ reminded me of a similar invasion of a swarm of small metal ships in the movie Star Trek Beyond (2016)].

Dare, Digby and their pals take Dr Blasco on the special starship Valiant to investigate. It transpires that Blasco is in league with the high lords of Saturnia: they intend to invade Earth and Blasco will be a puppet ruler! Dan and Digby escape while the rest of the crew are captured by Blasco and his agents...

However, landing safely on the planet, Dan and Digby befriend one of the alien natives, Nikki, a short blue guy, who proves a valuable guide and introduction to Tharl, the leader of a planned rebellion. Indeed, the evil Vora who rules at present is in for a shock... 

Yet again Dan encounters colourful creatures, some deadly, others serving as vehicles, and there are plenty of alien cities and buildings in glorious colour too.

We’re in pre-Star Trek territory where a teleporter is a tele-sender; the video is a teleblower; at one point Dan is tortured by the zesto-ray that ‘causes intense pain throughout the nerve centres without leaving marks (p97). Of course Dan does not reveal anything about the rebels; so Blasco and Vora decide to torture Professor Jocelyn Peabody instead...!

It’s action all the way. Perhaps still too wordy, but enjoyable all the same.

There is also an 8-page adventure from the 1953 Eagle Annual.

MERCY - Book review - ADULT CONTENT

David Lindsey’s ‘sexually charged thriller’ Mercy was published in 1990 and runs to 673 pages and covers a harrowing series of murders in seven days.

Houston, Texas. Homicide detective Carmen Palma is dedicated and tenacious. She needs to be in a homicide department packed with men. Her older and vastly experienced fellow detective partner Birley is coming to the end of his career; he’s supportive and trustworthy. They’re both called out for the murder of Dorothy Ann Samerov – a grisly corpse with sexual overtones. It’s highly likely that this could be the second murder committed by a serial killer: the first was only a week ago: Sandra Moser.

Both deaths involved sadomasochism. The book title is the safe word used by a participant – called out to stop the pain when it gets too much. Each subject might have a different agreed safe word. Though in the case of Sandra, the safe word was ignored, and she became the first victim...

It soon becomes obvious that there’s an underground network of wealthy Houston women living secret double lives. Some of them are connected to the psychotherapist Broussard, yet he has a solid alibi...

FBI Profiler Sander Grant is called in to assist Palma, and he proves to be a fascinating character, almost as strong as Palma herself.

This is a police procedural that leaves little to the imagination in either gore or sex.

The high page-count can be partly attributed to the detail Lindsey provides in the description of every item of clothing, every tree, and the car routes taken by Palma in her investigations. It’s immersive narrative, often employed in non-fiction work such as David Simon’s ground-breaking Homicide.

Apart from the in-depth treatment of psychology of serial killers, psychosexual villains and psychiatry in general, Lindsey has a gripping often humane style, as these two examples might indicate:

‘Life was gradually taken away what it had gradually given. It was the nature of things, but few people understood their tentative ownership of their gifts until they saw them being taken away from someone they loved. If you were lucky life allowed you that, a preview of the way it was going to be’ (p219).

‘We only know people to the extent they want us to know them’ (p252).

And despite the graphic murder and sex scenes, his other visuals are also effective too:

‘rain glittering through the beans of her headlights like shattered glass falling out of the black sky’ (p331).

 However, if you think you’ll be offended by the subject matter, then avoid. 

The book was adapted into a movie with the same title in 2000.

ALL OUR TOMORROWS - Book review

Ted Allbeury’s 1982 novel All Our Tomorrows is another addition to the long list of alternate future histories. This one is about a take-over of Britain by the USSR in the latter part of the 1980s. It’s a time when the EU was the more benign EEC and Woolworths were still on the high streets. And of course the all-pervasive Internet and social media had not yet taken hold.

It’s not his usual spy story, but rather an angry assessment of the state of the nation at that time, beginning with a quotation from Lenin: ‘British Communism should... learn to support the Labour Party leaders by their votes “as the rope supports the hanged man”.’ (p6)

Britain is talking about pulling out of the EEC (the debilitating tentacles of the EU had not been foreseen then). The situation in the country was dire: ‘We let things drift. We let criminals get away with it... Rioting, looting, hooliganism, were excused as being caused by racialism... We are scared of being labelled Fascists or reactionaries. It’s nice to be soft. And liked. And in the end it could get you votes’ (p18).

‘It was obvious, even to the public, that the law of the land could no longer be enforced’ (p96). The country was becoming ungovernable. A State of Emergency was declared, ostensibly due to mounting inflation and high unemployment. Strikes were illegal. Freedoms were constrained – and this was accepted...

French President Becque sees the situation and approaches Soviet President Orlov, suggesting that without Britain as an ally and a base, the US could never supply NATO in a war. If the British government asked the Soviet Union for help and in return became neutral territory... The Russian advisers could bring Britain full employment and law and order would be restored... Cooper, the British PM is faced with a dilemma, posed by the Soviets: ‘A choice to avoid a war you can’t win. You haven’t got the arms, the men or the planes. And you haven’t got the will to fight’ (p93).

So, aware that his country’s problems seem insurmountable; the PM signs a treaty of neutrality, inviting the Soviet Union to assist in bringing law and order to Britain – ‘bring back stability’ (p97).

Stability meant the country would be subject to Soviet law.

Change. ‘Let me tell you of some of those changes... Politicians have not served this country well. They have been divisive not constructive, seeking privileges for themselves and their sponsors. Therefore there will be no political parties in this country for the next five years’ (p109).

Before the take-over, the royal family was spirited away to Canada. The Queen made a broadcast which could only offer hope despite ‘men of evil intent exploited our traditional tolerance and freedom for their own ends... Old friends deserted us, some went so far as to hasten our downfall...’ (p139) [She didn’t mention the French!] The text of her speech reads as if it actually had been her speaking.

It seems that as the Soviet yolk pressed down upon the people, they became accepting of the new conditions: ‘We daren’t say what we think; nobody can criticise the system and survive’ (p198).

However, there was resistance. SAS Colonel Harry Andrews and his men Joe Langley and Jamie Boyle have built up a veritable army of spies, activists, saboteurs and fighters throughout the country. Harry’s plea to the populace, subject to harsh and brutal reprisals from the occupying troops, was clear: ‘Be strong. Not just for today but tomorrow and all our tomorrows’ (p267).

And, as it happens, the US hasn’t given up on occupied Britain. President Wheeler has the ear of Colonel Andrews also.  The struggle can bear fruit... though perhaps nothing would ever be the same again.

A thought-provoking book with surprising relevance to the situation today.