Listenings
The Ratline
Now here’s a history that makes the Second World War come alive.
An English lawyer (Phillipe Sands) investigates a Nazi (Baron Otto Wächter) who had evaded Nuremberg justice, and who just so happened to have wiped out Phillipe’s own family in the city of Lemberg - now called Lviv, and now in the Ukraine.
Philippe's investigations lead him to befriend the son of Otto, an elderly man who keeps a large archive in cold rooms in the old family castle. The story unfolds: after the war Otto escapes to the mountains and eventually makes his way to Rome, where he falls into the care of a Catholic Bishop (Alois Hudal), but not long after he ends he ends up dead anyway. Who was it that killed him?
Almost nothing makes sense - but this is real life. Americans, Germans, Austrians, Russians, Italians. Christians, Jews, Nazis, Communists. They all mingle and clash in post-war Rome under the looming shadow of Communism. Intrigue upon intrigue. The very stuff that inspires spy novels. Then history twists: due to practical necessity the arch-enemy is no longer European Fascism but European Communism. Foes become allies under the influence of American pragmatism; for others, ideological revenge is their driver. Which path followed was the worst? Don’t jump to conclusions.
Who or what killed Otto Wächter? That was the question; but it's what we discover along the way that shocks and shapes us.
I tuned in and so was transported to Fascist Central Europe. My recommendation: listen to this podcast series - then listen again, as I did.