December 2009, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats.
Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol’s property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act.
Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol’s property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act.
Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America’s defense).
Ronald Noble Interpol Chief: Obama Key Man for European Union "Secret Service"
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[edit]Biography
He is a 1979 graduate of the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business and Economics with a bachelor's degree in economics and business administration and a 1982 graduate of Stanford Law School. Mr. Noble also is a tenured professor at the New York University School of Law, on leave of absence while serving at INTERPOL.
From 1993 until 1996 he was the Undersecretary for Enforcement of the United States Department of the Treasury, where he was in charge of the United States Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, theFederal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.[1] He was head of the Department's "Waco Administrative Review Team" which produced a report on the ATF's actions against the Branch Davidians leading to the Waco Siege.[2]
He was elected the first American Secretary General by the 69th INTERPOL General Assembly in Rhodes, Greece, in 2000, was unanimously re-elected to a second five-year term by the 74th INTERPOL General Assembly in Berlin, Germany, in 2005 and was unanimously re-elected to a third five-year term by the 79th INTERPOL General Assembly in Doha, Qatar, in 2010. INTERPOL is the largest international police organization serving 188 countries with a current budget of $72.2 million for 2008.[3]
During his September 20, 2005 acceptance speech in Berlin, the re-elected Secretary General stated:
Less than one year after my confirmation, Al Qaeda terrorists used US soil and US targets to murder thousands of U.S. citizens and citizens from more than 70 of our member countries spread around the globe. On September 11, 2001, the entire world’s attention was finally drawn to the importance of the anti-terrorism fight. On that day, we as a world community were put on notice by Al Qaeda that our personal and national security could never again be taken for granted. It does not matter where you were. It does not matter what you were doing. Each and every one of you can remember where you were when you first learned about or first saw images of the terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center on the 11th of September 2001. For INTERPOL, the 11th of September was a moment of reckoning. It was the time for us to decide what kind of international police organization we wanted INTERPOL to be. Although INTERPOL had been created over 80 years ago by police chiefs to provide operational police support internationally, something had happened to INTERPOL over the years. INTERPOL had become so slow, so unresponsive that in many police circles around the world INTERPOL was considered irrelevant to their day-to-day needs. But, it was on September 11, 2001 that INTERPOL went operational and that we committed ourselves to working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to support our NCBs and police services. And it was on that day that we first began reaching out to you in times of crisis, rather than waiting for you to ask for help. One can say that INTERPOL was reborn on the 11th of September 2001.[4]
Under Secretary General Noble's leadership, INTERPOL developed the world's first global database of stolen or lost travel documents (i.e., passports) from more than 120 countries and the first global police communications system, called I-24/7 as part of its international screening process for terrorists and dangerous criminals.
He created the world's first international automated DNA database and another automated database aimed at fighting the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. During his 2000-2007 tenure, nearly 22,000 wanted international criminals were arrested, he directed the opening of a new INTERPOL office at the United Nations in 2004 and another office at the European Union in Brussels, increased the nationalities of their staff from 52 to 80; created a bioterrorism prevention unit at the General Secretariat in Lyon and planned the formation of the first International Anti-Corruption Academy in Vienna, Austria.
In 2008, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.[5]
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Corrupted mindsets "runs downhill." The Secret Service under the U.S. Department of Treasury has had agents that operate under less than honorable leadership in Treasury. Treasury agents travel all over the world tracking down counterfeiters and assassination threats to the U.S. President .Their intel & access is coveted by all Spy Agencies friend and foe.
Richard Nixon used Secret Service agents and the FBI to gather dossiers to create his infamous "Dirty Tricks List:...where he also inserted disinformation and out and out lies to discredit and ruin those he feared with a paranoid obsession.
Louis B. Sims
Louis B, Sims was one of his top agents he used in many unconstitutional activities. I faced off with the man named Louis B. Sims. Treasury Agent, and on loan to INTERPOL as head of U.S. INTERPOL housed in the basement of the U.S. Treasury Building in D.C. Sims also was former Army Intelligence, and I had some back channel intel on him. Former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden claims Agent in Dallas were drunk on duty.
Abraham Bolden Former Secret Service Agent
Sims has been involved in everything...he was in Dallas when JFK was Assassinated, and Secret Service agents Louis B. Sims and Raymond C. Zumwalt, both assigned to the technical services division at the White House were in charge of maintaining the elaborate eavesdropping operation at the White House and changing the tapes,of Nixon tape cover-up according to the sources revealed in the 'Watergate Hearings."
Louis B. Sims---1950's: served three years with U.S. Army Intelligence at Fort Holabird, MD (Entered Secret Service in 4/61 and assigned to Chicago office until 1/64*; 1/64-12/65: WFO ; 12/65-7/69: Intelligence Division; 7/69-11/72: Liaison Section; 11/72-9/74: Technical Security Division; 9/74 until at least 5/78: Chief of Interpol)]*a member of the Chicago office with Bolden; also attended Bolden's trial (Bolden was in a cell across from Nagell for a time. Abraham Bolden grew up in ersitEast St. Louis, Illinois.[1] After receiving a degree in music from Lincoln Univy of Missouri,[2] he began his professional career as an Illinois state trooper. He joined the Secret Service in 1960 during the Eisenhower administration. In 1961, he became the first African American member of the Secret Service's Presidential Protective Division after being appointed by President John F. Kennedy.[3] According to Bolden, Kennedy personally invited him to join the White House Detail when the two met at an event in Chicago in April.[4] He worked in the dual capacities of guarding the President and investigating counterfeiting.[5]
In the wake of the 1963 John F. Kennedy assassination, Bolden contacted the Warren Commission, hoping to testify about an alleged assassination plot in Chicago two weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. He traveled to Washington but before he could testify, Bolden was returned to Chicago. There he was arrested on May 20, 1964 on federal charges that he had solicited a bribe from a counterfeiting ring that he had helped break.[6] He was accused of seeking $50,000 in exchange for a secret file on the investigation.[7] The government's case rested primarily on the testimony of two men, Frank Jones and Joseph Spagnoli, both facing felony charges originating from the same Secret Service office that Bolden was employed, and who were facing upcoming trials before the same Chicago court. The case against Jones was dismissed after the Bolden conviction.[8] The copy of the secret government file on the Spagnoli counterfeiting operation that Bolden allegedly put up for sale was never recovered, last being seen in the Chicago offices of the Secret Service, disappearing before charges were brought against Bolden. Bolden was neither accused of receiving, nor was he ever found to be in possession of any illicit funds from the accused felons who testified against him. He maintained his innocence, asserting that he had been framed because he planned to expose dereliction among the agents assigned to guard Kennedy in front of the Commission. The Secret Service denied Bolden's claims. United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Edward Hanrahan, was quoted in news reports from May 1964, as calling Bolden's assertion of "overall general laxity" of Secret Service agents assigned to the late President Kennedy, and Bolden's belief he was prosecuted for doing so, as "fantastic". Hanrahan implied Bolden should have brought the charges in 1961. Bolden claimed he did just that, to James J. Rowley, the head of the Secret Service, but without result. Lewiston Tribune, May 21, 1964. Bolden's first jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction, at which time presiding judge Joseph Sam Perry issued an Allen charge in which he expressed his belief that Bolden was guilty but that the jury was free to disregard his opinion. The jury remained deadlocked and Perry declared a mistrial on July 11, 1964. A black female juror was the sole vote against conviction. The second trial had an all white jury. In the retrial Bolden was convicted and Judge Perry sentenced him to six years in prison.[3] Bolden appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in part on Perry's Allen charge in the first trial. Bolden claimed that the charge was evidence that Perry was not impartial and that his failure to recuse himself denied Bolden a fair trial. The Appeals Court disagreed and upheld Bolden's conviction in a decision issued December 29, 1965.[8]
Following his release from prison, Bolden worked as a quality control supervisor in the automotive industry until his retirement in 2001.[9]
In January 1978, Abraham Bolden gave testimony on his experiences as an agent with the Secret Service to investigators of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U. S. House of Representatives. The Final Report of that Committee, released in March 1979 included these conclusions: "The Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated, or used by the Secret Service in connection with the president's trip to Dallas; in addition, Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the president from a sniper." National Archives of the United States.
In 2008, Bolden published his memoir, The Echo From Dealey Plaza: The True Story of the First African American on the White House Secret Service Detail and His Quest for Justice After the
Assassination of JFK see video click below
28720/News/Former-Secret-S.http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/694ervice-agent-speaks-out
From “The Washington Post,” 7/17/73 : " Reliable government sources said yesterday that Alfred Wong, the former head of the technical services division for the Secret Service at the White House [On JFK’s 9/24/63 Milford, PA trip], was in charge of installing the listening devices. Wong had recommended James W. McCord Jr., who was later convicted in the Watergate case, for McCord's position as head of security at the President's re-election committee. Secret Service agents LOUIS B. SIMS and Raymond C. Zumwalt, both presently assigned to the technical services division at the White House were in charge of maintaining the elaborate eavesdropping operation at the White House and changing the tapes, according to the sources." [Emphasis added; as we know, SAIC of PRS Robert Bouck was in charge of the taping system during JFK’s time in office]
Richard Case Nagell---7/1/54: assigned to Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) School at Fort Holabird, MD, serving in this capacity for several years. At the time the HSCA reviewed the Secret Service's CO2/ JFK-threat files on 4/20/78 which included a synopsis re: Nagell , Lawson was the SAIC of the Secret Service's Liaison Division, while Sims was the Chief of Interpol (and, of course, ALL three were investigated/ contacted by the HSCA)!
Sims even had Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple associations:
Within Peoples Temple, there was always suspicion of intelligence agency ... he also swore that Conn had bragged of his ties with the Treasury Department. ... through a document authored by a known Interpol agent, Louis B. Sims, ..{.excerpted from CIA docs.}
Louis B. Simms Treasury/Interpol Agent was agent at assasination...google "Louis B. Simms Warren Report" see (Time magazine report at that site also Washington Post and Ref House of representatives RIF# 180-10093-10022HSCA interview w/ Simms 5-22-78
Sims was With Nixon as his Chief of technical security, oversaw Oval office tapes that brought Nixon down andd is the one who erased the missing minuets, that they knew of.
Nixon resigned and instead of Sims fading into obscurity, he was made Chief of U.S.Interpol but remained as Treasury Secret Service Agent simultaneously even though Interpol is a privately owned company of Nazi SS origin.
Richard Case Nagell---7/1/54: assigned to Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) School at Fort Holabird, MD, serving in this capacity for several years. At the time the HSCA reviewed the Secret Service's CO2/ JFK-threat files on 4/20/78 which included a synopsis re: Nagell , Lawson was the SAIC of the Secret Service's Liaison Division, while Sims was the Chief of Interpol (and, of course, ALL three were investigated/ contacted by the HSCA)!
Sims even had Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple associations:
Within Peoples Temple, there was always suspicion of intelligence agency ... he also swore that Conn had bragged of his ties with the Treasury Department. ... through a document authored by a known Interpol agent, Louis B. Sims, ..{.excerpted from CIA docs.}
Louis B. Simms Treasury/Interpol Agent was agent at assasination...google "Louis B. Simms Warren Report" see (Time magazine report at that site also Washington Post and Ref House of representatives RIF# 180-10093-10022HSCA interview w/ Simms 5-22-78
Sims was With Nixon as his Chief of technical security, oversaw Oval office tapes that brought Nixon down andd is the one who erased the missing minuets, that they knew of.
Nixon resigned and instead of Sims fading into obscurity, he was made Chief of U.S.Interpol but remained as Treasury Secret Service Agent simultaneously even though Interpol is a privately owned company of Nazi SS origin.
The News American
Baltimore Maryland
SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 1975 VOL. 202-NO. 206
The Nazi Connection Part I
Interpol, with Ties to Reich, Gets Data on Americans
* First of three parts.
By MICHAEL OLESKER Staff Reporter
American law enforcement organizations - including Baltimore police - regularly provide top-secret information to a private international police agency whose top leaders, since World War II, have been former ranking officers in the German Gestapo and the Nazi SS. That information is contained in recently declassified U.S. and German documents about Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization.)
Interpol's president during the early war years was Rein hard Heydrich, who on Jan. 20, 1942, convened the meeting at which 15 top-ranking Nazis worked out the "final solution to the Jewish problem": mass execution.
The meeting was held at Interpol headquarters.
Its president from 1968 to 1971 (and German representative until 1973) was Paul Dickopf who, until he fled Germany when he apparently sensed the tide of victory turning, was SS officer 337259.
Interpol today, and historically, refuses to help search for wanted Nazi war criminals. Between Heydrich and Dickopf, records show Interpol'. top leadership included high ranking members and former members of the Third Reich.
Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies haw freely and regularly, exchanged confidential information with Interpol since 1947 by means of electronic communication links and exchange of personnel.
All of that information goes into Interpol's extensive in formation center and is also passed on to any of about 120 foreign countries.
Though it is a private agency officially attached to no particular government, Interpol receives direct funding from the U.S. Treasury Dept. and has its U.S. offices in the Treasury Building. Treasury Secretary William Simon said last week that no information can reach foreign hands through Interpol that would endanger either U.S. security or individual privacy. He said Interpol does not have direct access to highly confidential FBI records, but does have indirect access. Either directly or through the Treasury Dept., Interpol works with the FBI, Internal Revenue Service, Secret Service, Customs and other federal agencies.
It has access to the FBI's vast National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
And, as one government spokesman taking a hard look at Interpol said last week, "If everything the FBI has is in its NCIC computer and Interpol links with that, then the whole world has this information."
Interpol works directly with local police throughout the United States.
"We've done a considerable amount of work with the Baltimore Police Department," Louis Sims, Interpol's chief of American operations, remarked. "We do a lot of work with local police all over the country."
Col. Joseph Carroll, chief of detectives for Baltimore police, said he has given "sporadic" information to Interpol. No member of the police Inspectional Services Division (ISD), the police intelligence unit, would comment on any connection with Interpol.
Thomas Farrow, agent in charge of the FBI's Baltimore office, said he has exchanged information with Interpol, and
Turn to Page 6A, Col. 1
Sunday, March 16, 1975 THE NEWS AMERICAN
Continued from Page lA
Paul Kramer, deputy U.S attorney here, said his office gave Interpol information on at least one occasion - to try to track down convicted gambler Julius (Lord) Salsbury. No law enforcement person contacted in Baltimore conceded any knowledge of the lnterpol-Nazi connection.
And, while lnterpol chief Sims was quick to point out his agency's ties with U.S. organizations, he was unwilling to admit any links with the Third Reich.
Asked about Heydrich, the wartime Interpol chief, Sims said, "I've never heard the name before." Asked about Dickopf, who died in 1973 after heading lnterpol for four years, Sims said, "He was a German citizen who didn't desire to serve in the SS and fled to Switzerland."
But Dickopf, Sims admitted, joined the SS in 1938. His "desire not to serve" was not manifested until he fled four years later, when a number of Nazi leaders began to desert. Sims added, "Anyway, lnterpol didn't really exist during the war." That is untrue, Interpol was absorbed by the Gestapo.
So it is not surprising that the less than morally sound can rise to the level that the" Colombian Scandal Squad" achieved.
Like the military, the leadership is to be held responsible and heads should roll all the way to the top. When it has been customary for an agency to blindly obey corrupted leadership, it becomes the norm to enlist those who will compromise their oath to defend the Constitution.
The Treasury to this day has secret affiliations that are not sanctioned by their scope and purpose under the Constitution and Agency Charter..
The INTERPOL is Nazi organization who also was and is ODESSA. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Odessa
As early as 1947, Simon Wiesenthal began to identify escape routes used by Nazis to escape from Germany. The main route he discovered was from the small Bavarian town of Memmingen to Innsbruck, Austria. From there, it was possible to cross into Italy over the Brenner pass. Wiesenthal later learned the Nazis referred to this as the "B-B" route, from Bremen in Germany to the Italian port of Bari. He also knew that the fugitives had little or no difficulty obtaining false papers and seemed to have enough money available in their new home to establish comfortable new lives. Wiesenthal concluded a secret organization with substantial resources had to be involved in helping fugitive Nazis. The seeds of that project were planted before World War II ended.
By 1944 it was clear that the fortunes of war had turned against Nazi Germany. Many Germans began to anticipate defeat and to plan for that eventuality. On August 10, 1944, a secret meeting of top German industrialists and bankers was held at the Maison Rouge hotel in Strasbourg to devise a means of insuring a secure future for Nazis. Among those attending were coal tycoon Emil Kirdorf, Georg von Schnitzler of IG Farben, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, steel magnate, Fritz Thyssen, and banker Kurt von Schroeder.
The Nazis recognized that Germany's assets would fall into the hands of the rapidly approaching enemy if they were not transferred and hidden. The nation's wealth, much of it acquired through the plunder of the nations it invaded and the people the Nazis murdered, had to be transferred so they would be out of judicial reach, but accessible to fund a future movement to resurrect the party and build a new Reich. Leading Nazi officials also feared retribution from the Allies and, rather than face likely punishment for their war crimes, they decided to seek safe havens outside Germany, and beyond the reach of justice. According to the protocol from the meeting:
The party leadership is aware that, following the defeat of Germany, some of her best-known leaders may have to face trial as war criminals. Steps have therefore been taken to lodge the less prominent party leaders as "technical experts" in various German enterprises. The party is prepared to lend large sums of money to industrialists to enable every one of them to set up a secret post-war organization abroad, but as collateral it demands that the industrialists make available to it exisitng resources abroad, so that a strong German Reich may re-emerge after the defeat.....
The outcome of the meeting in Strasbourg was the genesis of an organization; one well-financed and well-organised, with the express purpose of helping fleeing Nazis escape justice. This organization was called the "Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen" ( "The Organization of former SS members) — better known as Odessa.
Wiesenthal learned of Odessa accidentally during conversations with a former member of German counter-espionage who he met during the Nuremberg trials.The source said the organization was set up in 1946 after many Nazis already had been imprisoned. Those in jail contacted friends and aid committees that had been established to promote the welfare of prisoners. The assistance often went beyond humanitarian aid to abetting their escape.
In short order, Odessa, built a large and reliable network geared to achieve its ends, and began operations. Routes were mapped and contacts were established. Influential Nazis vanished as they were secretly ushered out of Germany and assisted in starting new lives under false names in foreign countries. At the end of the war, only a handful of high-ranking Nazi officials stood trial. Many who were guilty of war crimes escaped with the help of Odessa.
Some war criminals remained in Germany and took on new identities, managing to get themselves smuggled out of Germany and to freedom during the chaos at the end of hostilities. An underground network called "Die Spinne" (The Spider) supplied false papers and passports, safe houses, and contacts that could smuggle war criminals across the un-patrolled Swiss borders. Once into Switzerland, they moved on quickly to Italy, using what some called "The Monastery Route." Roman Catholic priests, especially Franciscans, helped Odessa move fugitives from one monastery to the next until they reached Rome. According to Wiesenthal, one Franciscan monastery, Via Sicilia in Rome, was virtually a transit station for Nazis, an arrangement made possible by a bishop from Graz named Alois Hudal. Wiesenthal speculates that the motive for most of the priests was what he viewed as a misguided notion of Christian charity. Once in Italy, the fugitives were out of danger, and many then dispersed around the globe.
Some countries may not have known about their new immigrants' pasts, but many did and chose to look the other way. Others, including the United States, looked to exploit the knowledge of Nazis. Fascist countries, such as Spain under Franco, as well as those in South America, became safe havens. The establishment of the state of Israel after World War II led some Arab nations to welcome Nazis who shared their hatred of the Jews in the hope they would use their experise in areas such as rocketry to tilt the balance in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Adolf Eichmann was one of the most notorious of the Nazis to escape Germany thanks to ODESSA, but he was eventually captured in South America by Israeli Intelligence agents and brought back to Israel to stand trial for his crimes against the Jewish people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The INTERPOL is Nazi organization who also was and is ODESSA. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Odessa
As early as 1947, Simon Wiesenthal began to identify escape routes used by Nazis to escape from Germany. The main route he discovered was from the small Bavarian town of Memmingen to Innsbruck, Austria. From there, it was possible to cross into Italy over the Brenner pass. Wiesenthal later learned the Nazis referred to this as the "B-B" route, from Bremen in Germany to the Italian port of Bari. He also knew that the fugitives had little or no difficulty obtaining false papers and seemed to have enough money available in their new home to establish comfortable new lives. Wiesenthal concluded a secret organization with substantial resources had to be involved in helping fugitive Nazis. The seeds of that project were planted before World War II ended.
By 1944 it was clear that the fortunes of war had turned against Nazi Germany. Many Germans began to anticipate defeat and to plan for that eventuality. On August 10, 1944, a secret meeting of top German industrialists and bankers was held at the Maison Rouge hotel in Strasbourg to devise a means of insuring a secure future for Nazis. Among those attending were coal tycoon Emil Kirdorf, Georg von Schnitzler of IG Farben, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, steel magnate, Fritz Thyssen, and banker Kurt von Schroeder.
The Nazis recognized that Germany's assets would fall into the hands of the rapidly approaching enemy if they were not transferred and hidden. The nation's wealth, much of it acquired through the plunder of the nations it invaded and the people the Nazis murdered, had to be transferred so they would be out of judicial reach, but accessible to fund a future movement to resurrect the party and build a new Reich. Leading Nazi officials also feared retribution from the Allies and, rather than face likely punishment for their war crimes, they decided to seek safe havens outside Germany, and beyond the reach of justice. According to the protocol from the meeting:
The party leadership is aware that, following the defeat of Germany, some of her best-known leaders may have to face trial as war criminals. Steps have therefore been taken to lodge the less prominent party leaders as "technical experts" in various German enterprises. The party is prepared to lend large sums of money to industrialists to enable every one of them to set up a secret post-war organization abroad, but as collateral it demands that the industrialists make available to it exisitng resources abroad, so that a strong German Reich may re-emerge after the defeat.....
The outcome of the meeting in Strasbourg was the genesis of an organization; one well-financed and well-organised, with the express purpose of helping fleeing Nazis escape justice. This organization was called the "Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen" ( "The Organization of former SS members) — better known as Odessa.
Wiesenthal learned of Odessa accidentally during conversations with a former member of German counter-espionage who he met during the Nuremberg trials.The source said the organization was set up in 1946 after many Nazis already had been imprisoned. Those in jail contacted friends and aid committees that had been established to promote the welfare of prisoners. The assistance often went beyond humanitarian aid to abetting their escape.
In short order, Odessa, built a large and reliable network geared to achieve its ends, and began operations. Routes were mapped and contacts were established. Influential Nazis vanished as they were secretly ushered out of Germany and assisted in starting new lives under false names in foreign countries. At the end of the war, only a handful of high-ranking Nazi officials stood trial. Many who were guilty of war crimes escaped with the help of Odessa.
Some war criminals remained in Germany and took on new identities, managing to get themselves smuggled out of Germany and to freedom during the chaos at the end of hostilities. An underground network called "Die Spinne" (The Spider) supplied false papers and passports, safe houses, and contacts that could smuggle war criminals across the un-patrolled Swiss borders. Once into Switzerland, they moved on quickly to Italy, using what some called "The Monastery Route." Roman Catholic priests, especially Franciscans, helped Odessa move fugitives from one monastery to the next until they reached Rome. According to Wiesenthal, one Franciscan monastery, Via Sicilia in Rome, was virtually a transit station for Nazis, an arrangement made possible by a bishop from Graz named Alois Hudal. Wiesenthal speculates that the motive for most of the priests was what he viewed as a misguided notion of Christian charity. Once in Italy, the fugitives were out of danger, and many then dispersed around the globe.
Some countries may not have known about their new immigrants' pasts, but many did and chose to look the other way. Others, including the United States, looked to exploit the knowledge of Nazis. Fascist countries, such as Spain under Franco, as well as those in South America, became safe havens. The establishment of the state of Israel after World War II led some Arab nations to welcome Nazis who shared their hatred of the Jews in the hope they would use their experise in areas such as rocketry to tilt the balance in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Adolf Eichmann was one of the most notorious of the Nazis to escape Germany thanks to ODESSA, but he was eventually captured in South America by Israeli Intelligence agents and brought back to Israel to stand trial for his crimes against the Jewish people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Sources: Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance. NY: Grove, 1990; Lee Saunders, from “The Puzzle” project, Crystal Music International
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