Ratlines (Pacovski Kanali), 1991., English subtitles - Vatican in Smuggling Nazi Ustashas

"Beyond the barrier there was the whirling cloud of dust.
The dust of thousands of slowly moving people
and with the dust, stale and heavy smell - the smell of death and decay,
corruption and filth.
I passed through the barrier and found myself
in the world of a nightmare."
At the end of the II World War the full horror of Nazi rule emerged.
The allies promised to the world
that they would bring the crime perpetrator to the justice.
150000 people were declared war criminals.
Only 50000 were captured and 100000 escaped.
This film is about one man - Ante Pavelic.
Pavelic was not an ordinary war criminal.
He is the forgotten Fuhrer of the II World War.
In Yugoslavia Pavelic and his Ustasha movement
carried out the Holocaust with the full blessing
of Hitler and his Nazis.
Pavelic sentenced to death half a million of his countrymen.
In terms of evilness he is shoulder to shoulder
with Hitler and Mussolini.
We can now reveal the way Pavelic evaded justice
despite being chased by the army of Russia, Britain and America.
The Americans discovered the secret network of Vatican,
two popes and the Western Intelligence Service.
Pavelic is the key of the network,
the network which Americans named " Ratlines".
Good evening! Ante Pavelic was exceptionally cruel
and uncompromising tyrant.
To understand how some of the most notorious criminals could escape,
one should familiarize himself with the chaos
which ruled the Eastern Europe in 1945.
II World War prompted the bloodshed in that area.
There most of civilians died in camps
and the death fields of the Holocaust.
The Germans altered the map of Eastern Europe
invading some countries and contracting alliance
with the others until the Nazi empire established the dominance
over the entire area.
In all these countries Germans found prepared collaborators,
local chauvinists filled with the old ethnic hate
who asked the Nazis to support them.
No where else had that been more pronounced than
in the Balcan Republic of Yugoslavia
in which the Croatian Nationalist Party fought for the independence.
From exile Pavelic organized the campaign
of terror and killing during the war.
" Two countries are wrapped in black.
The end came in the blink of an eye.
Several minutes after landing on the French soil
Yugoslavian King Alexander was dead."
Pavelic was being judged in absence.
He was declared guilty for conspiracy.
He found the refuge in Italy
under the protection and patronage of Mussolini.
In Italy Pavelic established the Ustashe - rebellious movement
which symbol was the Croatian coat of arms.
The Ustashe movement was the terroristic organization
with the aim of destroying the Yugoslavian state.
In the secret training camps
they prepared for taking over the government
swearing by their own blood and soil.
In 1941. the British supported the strike
for overthrowing the pro-German government of Yugoslavia.
Hitler was furious. The operation " Barbarossa ",
the assault on Russia,
was delayed and Wehrmacht attacked Balcans instead.
The Yugoslavian Defence experienced the breakdown.
The entire expedition lasted for only ten days.
Hitler was so angry for delaying the attack on Russia
that he ordered a special punishment of the capital - Belgrade.
The invading army shared the prey.
Yugoslavia was cut as a cake. All German allies got the territories.
The Nazis occupied Serbia and Croatia became a puppet state.
The flag-bearers of Croatian nationalism
were invited to establish the government.
Croatia was independent and Pavelic’s dream of power
became reality but only with the blessing of the Nazi Germany.
Once in power Pavelic revealed his true face.
The three-week old government ratified the anti-Semitic law
which was even more strict than the Nazi’s.
Within two months the government turned
at their old ethnic enemies - Serbs.
The Ustashi declared the program of deportation,
conversion to Catholicism and extermination
of two million Orthodox Serbs.
It was the beginning of a four-year long genocide.
At the meeting in 1941. Hitler told Pavelic
that if Croatia wished to be strong, it must conduct the policy
of national animosity for next 50 years.
Father Graham (official Vatican historian):
" The Croatians had the notion of the force conversion.
It was the idea which obsessed them.
They accepted and conducted the program
to force Orthodox Christians to become Catholic Christians,
namely of the Latin rite."
Armed Ustashi groups would go to the villages
and collect thousands of Serbian peasants.
Massive baptisms were held in public.
The group of Croats or Ustashi would enter the village
and asked a child to make the sign of the cross.
The Orthodox make the sign of the cross this way-
first touching right arm and then left.
Roman Catholics this way. Accordng to a story, tradition or rumors,
if a child would make a sign of the cross in the Orthodox way,
it meant he was a Serb and they would kill him.
Sir Fitzroy MacLean ( Commander British Military Mission):
" It was completely openly racist movement and they were proud of it.
The best example is doctor Budak, a minister for faith and education.
Once a journalist asked him
what the government policy would be considering non-Croats,
racial and religious minorities, he answered,
" For them we have 3 millions bullets."
The Croats had their own concentration camp in Jasenovac
at the bank of river Sava where thousands of people were killed.
They killed with unbelievably primitive cruelty.
The victims were finished in a medieval fashion.
They used wooden hammers
and daggers unlike creepy efficiency of Nazi death camps.
On one occasion in 1942. camp guards took a bet
on how many prisoners they could kill for a night.
The winner was a guard called Petar Brasic
who slaughtered 1360 camp prisoners with a special knife.
Ser Fitzroy MacLean: " I think that neither the SSS
nor the Fascists liked some of the things the Ustashi did.
Especially, the ordinary German and Italian soldiers
were horrified by the commited extremities.
When Pavelic met Hilter for the second time
he boasted about solving the problem of Jews in Croatia
before Hitler succeeded to do it in Germany.
Marsal Tito, the leader of Yugoslav partisans,
poses for the cameraman for the first time.
He and his guerilla units lead the constant battle
against the invader. Hiding in the mountains
these patriots attack quickly
and unexpectedly more superior Nazi forces.
There are many women in the units.
Often they would liberate towns and villages
from a far stronger enemy. Brave men and women
who will never surrender to the invader
or allow Yugoslavia to disappear.
The Yugoslav army advanced.
People went out on the streets
to welcome and greet their fearless liberators.
The war was over.
Pavelic panicaly fled from the column of loyal Ustashi.
Beaten Hitler’s unit, the army of headsmen and murderers,
would flee in a cowardly manner.
The Ustashi fled with all of those
who had stained their hands with the blood of their people.
They headed for the Austrian border in May 1945.
They passed into the British zone here in Maribor
under the shelter of the night.
The British army under the command
of the field marshal Alexander obviously knew nothing about it.
The most wanted man in Yugoslavia disappeared without trace.
At Yalta the allies agreed to repatriate war criminals
but in 1945. it was easier said than done.
Ruins all over the defeated Germany
were drastically a symbol of a desperate need
for the restoration as urgently as possible. Disorder at every step.
Ante Pavelic disappeared somewhere in Europe
which was in a complete chaos.
From Baltic to Adriatic Europe was flooded with refugees.
Millions were guided to the camps
where their identity could be certified.
Some were the victims of fascism,
some were war criminals and collaborationists.
But who was who?
" People were deported and depopulated.
Some wanted to go back to their homes but, on the other hand,
they said why would I come back home
when my land was occupied by the Red Army and the communists.
Among tens and hundreds of thousands refugees there were also Nazis,
Germans, or war criminals from Yugoslavia or Hungary.
They did not use their names.
They hadn't had any sort of documents
as they were destroyed and they were registered as refugees.
The war was over but for them the peace had not come yet.
Some were, no doubt, guilty for the crimes in their countries.
Others lived in the countries
which passed into other hands during the war.
Some again suffered so heavy in their countries
that they were afraid of coming back.
" It is true that the British and the Americans were cautious.
There were black lists and they observed watchfully fugitive Nazis.
But how to spot such individuals, practically,
a needle in a haystack,in the ocean of the refugees.
" 18 million people of race,
language and identity drowned in a general mass.
Tito’s diplomats asked for the United States
to extradite Pavelic and his Ustashi murderers in 1945.
The Yugoslavs already had in their hands
a thousand defeated Croats but they wanted the leaders
who had already crossed the border.
The Britain Foreign Office and the American State Department
promised to Yugoslav allies that it would be done.
The allied units went through the area
under their control not finding any trace of the wanted people.
In July 1945. Tito’s ambassador in London
said to the Britain Foreign Office:
"Pavelic has been captured
by the troops of the Field Marshal Alexander,
and he is now somewhere in Austria,
under the supervision of the British Army."
Britain Foreign Office categorically denied it.
It was declared to the Yugoslav Embassy in London that:
"Every effort is been made to
discover the location of doctor Pavelic."
The British Intelligence Service informed the Foreign Office
that according to the rumors Pavelic was in Salzburg,
in American Zone, or in the hands of the Soviet.
Austria was divided into zones between the British,
Americans, French and the Soviet but the Yugoslav’s suspicions
were directed towards the British zone.
Throughout 1945. and 1946. their accusations were more elaborate.
Pavelic is in the villa near Klagenfurt.
Pavelic is in the monastery disguised as a monk.
Pavelic is seen in his family house in Badishlo.
In August 1946. the British Embassy in Belgrade objected
that the claims of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia
were disrespectful and ungrounded:
"Pavelic has never been under the British authority,
and his residence has never been known to any British official."
Three months later it was admitted
by the intern announcement of the Foreign Office that:
"It is becoming increasingly apparent
that many of the most famous war criminals found refuge in the Church.
Owing to the American Freedom of Information Act
and recent taking off the sign ‘confidentiality data’
in American archives now we know how so many war criminals
slipped through the allies’ hands.
With the investigations in America, Australia and Yugoslavia
Pavelic’s way through the ratlines is reconstructed.
His story is typical of a thousands of others who escaped.
In Decembar 1946. Intelligence Service in Austria
announced it was more and more likely that Pavelic was in Italy
and that his place of residence was known
to doctor Draganovic and no one else.
Doctor Draganovic offered Pavelic the help in Austria
and provided him with the fake documents.
In April 1946, Pavelic left Austria, accompanied by an Ustashe lieutenant.
Both were disguised as Catholic priests.
In Milan, Pavelic used the documents provided by Draganovic
to get the Spanish passport under the name of "don Pedro Golla".
In May of 1946, Pavelic managed to get to the Rome.
Finally it became clear that he found the haven in the Vatican.
Who was Draganovic?
Which Vatican’s refuge did Pavelic use as a shelter?
Doctor Draganovic was Croatian priest who lived in Rome.
He was the secretary of the brotherhood of San Girolamo
and San Girolamo was the Pontifical Croatian College
connected to the Vatican.
" I think there is no doubt that many Croatian priests
and the clergy from that college were distinctly chauvinists
and therefore very much inclined
towards those who asked them for help."
Draganovic was the man who had a dark past.
During the war he held an official position in the Ustashi government.
Tito’s Yugoslavia declared him the war criminal.
Father Graham: " He was a Bosnian. He was also a super-patriot,
or even better, super-nationalist.
He took charge of saving his Croatian brothers.
He was very active and of course the main target of attack
of Tito’s government after the war. He probably deserved it.
He was incredibly active."
Nevertheless, the allied allowed him to enter the camps.
The Vatican diplomatic corespondence:
"To ensure normal activity of the Catholic religious prisoners,
and to continue his mission of mercy inherent in the church
providing shelter to those in need."
MacLean: " But what did Draganovic actually do?
The Intelligence Service presented a very significant report
about the activity of Father Draganovic from the Croatian College.
In summer 1945. Draganovic personally visited the camps
and got in touch with the main Ustashi representatives.
His close collaborator was Montagne
who maintained the contact between San Girolamo
and the Ustashi groups throughout Italy and Austria.
This led to the establishment of the political intelligence service.
Draganovic provided the loyal Ustashi
in the camps with the fake documents.
The value of these documents in the post-war years
must not be underestimated. Those are the papers
of the international organization of the Red Cross.
Father Graham: " Those were not passports but identity card for him
and him in such and such name.
It was a piece of paper which did not guarantee that him
and him who says that he is him and him actually is him
and him but in the bureaucratic machinery it was necessary."
There were two organizations for helping people
with those documents - the Vatican Commission for refugees,
it could vouch for an individual,
as well as the national representative of the Red Cross.
Croatian representative in the Red Cross was no other
than Father Draganovic. And Croatian hand of the Vatican Committee
for refuges was the College of San Girolamo.
According to the American files about Draganovic:
The Croatian Confraternity issues false identity cards to the Ustashi.
With such documents
and with the aprroval of the Pontificial Commission,
passports can be obtained from the International Red Cross,
where Draganovic has some way of securing their issue
Ivo Omrcanin had a leading role in that.
He was a former Croatian diplomat who lived in Rome.
He closely cooperated with Draganovic.
Ivo Omrcanin: " I could personally go
either to the delegation of the International Organization
of the Red Cross and provide the passport of the Red Cross
or to the Italian police in the city where I received
either normal police certificates or NANSEN’s passports.
Owing to Draganovic and Croatian ratlines Pavelic now had
a new identitity and a haven in the Vatican.
The Road from Austria to Rome began in the camps.
There Draganovic distributed fake documents for Italy
and neutral territory of the Vatican avoiding interrogations
of the allies 'hunters for the Nazis'.
While searching for the war criminals
the allies slowly constructed the mosaic of the ratlines,
especially Americans. Their exploration of fake documents
and Pavelic led to Father Draganovic.
Although Pavelic was not arrested, CIC,
the American Counter Intelligence Corps, was at his heels.
The Roman department of this Service believed
it would have had Pavelic arrested
had he not been protected by the Vatican.
In 1947. the files showed it was the public secret
of the western Intelligence Service
that the Vatican protected the Ustashi refuges
and hid Pavelic himself.
MacLean: " I think that most people in the Rome interested
in those things knew that to a certain extent,
especially Father Draganovic,
did everything possible to save those Ustashi,
those with a high rank, including Pavelic himself,
to transfer them from Rome to safer places."
But shock is about to ensue. Gowen, a special CIC agent,
entered the Croatian College as a spy.
That spy reported that San Girolamo was:
...honeycombed with cells of Ustashi operatives.
In order to entry these Monastery,
one must submit to a personal search for weapons and identification.
All doors are locked, and those that are not, have an armed guard.
A password is necessary to go from one room to another.
The whole area is guarded by armed Ustashi youth in civilian clothes,
and the Ustashi salute is exchanged constantly.
According to the CIC, Draganovic also held the secret meetings
with the former high ranking ministers of the Ustashi government.
San Girolamo was more than a sanctuary.
It protected the government in exile.
In January 1947. the Americans revealed Pavelic himself
was in San Girolamo. In February they found him
in the monastery San Sabina at the left bank of the Tiber river.
Americans called the secret meeting for April 11th. 1947.
to plan Pavelic’s arrest.
CIC was strongly determined to avoid the diplomatic incident
and therefore could not arrest him on Vatican soil.
MacLean: "Had the secret police just marched
into the Croatian College I think by doing so
it would have violated the international law
and caused the breakdown in relations with the Vatican."
Pavelic lived in Rome at the address which was believed
to have been the Vatican’s Library.
The files show that Pavelic was always one step ahead
of his prosecutors moving from one to the other Vatican’s shelter.
When traveling he drove a car registered in the Vatican.
He managed to stay uncatchable with Draganovic’s help
who even had his own spy.
Ivo Omrcina:" Draganovic was in a direct connection with the man
from American Service who told him everything Draganovic wanted
to know about the secrets of many other secret services."
But those problems concealed the real obstacle for his arrest.
In July the chief operating officer in the CIC was ordered
to arrest Pavelic on the spot.
A week later that order was changed by the hand-written instruction
" hands off! " That enigmatic breathing space enabled Pavelic
to leave Rome, the last phase of the ratlines.
Ivo Omrcina:" Pavelic knew that I could provide
Argentinian entry visas without anyone asking me anything.
When Draganovic sent his passport of the Red Cross,
I went to the Argentinian authorities,
got the visa and sent back the passport
so that Pavelic could leave Italy."
In Autumn 1947. Pavelic moved to Genova with the fake passport
Draganovic provided under the name of Pale Aranios,
a Hungarian refugee. In Genova,
another Croatian priest was the last link in the chain
of the ratlines. The Yugoslavs looked for Father Petranovic
as a suspected war criminal.
He provided the locals with the ships
for South America and informed Draganovic
how many free beds there were in the cabins.
Draganovic would then send that number of travelers from Rome.
The details of Pavelic’s depart are covered by veil of secrecy
but it is known that he left Italy by sea and set sailed
for the security of Buenos Aires.
MacLean: " Until that time two years after the war
I would say that a very small number of war criminals
was among people in the camps. Some of them came there,
risked, but majority of them had to be smuggled from Italy
to some safer place. All of them will find themselves in Argentina
to establish a new independent state of Croatia."
Now President Peron in the rank of a brigadier-general
holds a review of continental Marine Corps.
In Argentina Peron authorized Pavelic as the security councilor.
Peron approved of 35000 entry visas to Croats
to create a powerful block against communism.
" A new leader of the nation is the key
to solidarity of western hemisphere."
Why did church protect the man who was responsible
for slaughtering of 500000 people?
Why would a solitary Croatian priest protect Pavelic,
the man prosecuted by all the armies of Europe?
Why did the Croatian College
of San Girolamo tolerate his activity?
Why did not Vatican control his people? Or perhaps it did?
Croatia was one of Vatican’s favourite countries.
It served as a buffer against the Eastern Orthodox Church.
During the war Pavelic’s regime was purely catholic.
The Catholic Church and the Ustahi were very close
in the Independent State of Croatia.
Draganovic was a member of the Committee for forcible conversions.
Father Petranovic served at the concentration camp.
Archbishop Stepinac was a member of the Croatian Parliament.
The Catholic Church’s support of Pavelic
continued during his dictatorship.
One of the first Decrees of the Ustashi government
was to outlaw the Orthodox Church and legalize deportation
and killing in the name of the catholic faith.
Death squads even crucified some blasphemers.
And after ten months of such gruesome crimes the start
of the Parliament Session was blessed by archbishop Stepinac
and a papal delegate Marconi.
Archbishop Stepinac served at the Ustashi ceremony
by blessing volunteers for the Ustashi groups
with Ustashi symbols - a gun, a dagger and a bomb on the altar.
Franciscan monks actively participated
in the military campaign.
According to Pavelic’s order monasteries were used
as military strongholds.
In death camp, Jasenovac,
even a Franciscan monk was a common occurrence.
Immediately after coming to power in 1941.
Pavelic went to Vatican
to a private audience with the Pope Pius XII.
D’arcy Osborne, British ambassador to the Holy Sea,
received order from the Foreign Office
to convey the ministry’s astonishment.
His reception of Pavelic is deplorable.
It has done more to damage his reputation in this country
than any other act since war began
The Vatican remained indifferent. Giovanni Montini,
Assistant Secretary of State,
confided to the Ustashi representative that the Holy See
could not imagine a Croatian who was not a catholic.
Pavelic energetically conducted the policy in Croatia.
In May 1943. Pius XII received Pavelic again
in a private audience.
F. Graham: " Based on the conversation
with the American minister I know that the British,
especially Americans, were confused,
troubled with the news that pope received Pavelic.
Pavelic was, undoubtedly, a catholic.
If he comes to Pope as a catholic, a pope cannot refuse him.
He was a catholic so that the Vatican’s explanation
was that pope did not receive him
as the head of the Croatian state but as a catholic.
But it seemed as a sort of recognition
and Pavelic obviously emphasized it as the recognition of Croatia."
Although the official recognition was postponed,
Vatican received Croatian official representatives
numbers of times. Pius XII even called Pavelic
the most calumniated man. The communist victory in Yugoslavia
marked the end of the political power of the catholic Church.
In Tito’s new state there was no place for clergy.
The members of the old regime were arrested and executed.
Catholic Croatia was swallowed by the communist Yugoslavia.
Notwithstanding that the war whirlwind
separated Croatia from the Ustashi,
it did not separate the Ustashi from the church
nor from the criminal Draganovic.
Ivo Omrcanin: " Draganovic was a loud executor.
He was seen everywhere. Everybody knew what he did."
One of the priests who worked with him
in 1946. gave a recorded statement to our investigators.
Monsignor Simcic revealed that Draganovic often talked
about the activity of San Girolamo with Monsignor Montini,
Assistant Secretary of State in the Vatican.
Draganovic went to Montini to ask for advice on certain issues.
Their relations were extraordinary.
Draganovic asked Montini to get more visas,
to open the way to the thousands in the camps.
It ofen occurred that Montini asked Draganovic
to save people in danger. They had an excellent personal contact.
Did Draganovic know Pius XII? Of course!
Through Montini pope appreciated him very much
because he was a great man.
Monsignor Montini was the pope’s right hand
in the state secretariat for humanitarian activities.
He actually was the operative director.
Father Graham: " He supported the relation with Draganovic
and the refugees whom he met while working
in his quite constricted domain.
As we know, he became Pope Paul VI. "
The vatican allowed Draganovic to help Pavelic
and other war criminals to escape through ratlines.
What the did Vatican expect to gain?
The U.S agent of the Counter-Intelligence Corps,
William Gowen, discovered that the secret anti-communist group
called ‘Intermarium’ holds the answer in their hands.
Intermarium means between the sea.
In the 20’s and the 30’s the Vatican supported
the policy of creating the federation of the catholic countries
from the Baltic to the Adriatic
for the struggle against the Bolshevik danger.
F.Graham: " In the 30’s Stalin was a very powerful man
and communist propaganda was extremely strong.
Pius XI who died in 1939 was a fierce opponent of the communism.
He turned the catholic organizations towards the fight against communism.
Was he wrong? Of course not!
Intermarium was the political group established and sprang out in 1920.
from the Russian Revolution.
It consisted from catholic nationalists
who aimed to compress their orders against communists
the catholic curtain over the Europe.
Father Graham:" Communism caused harm to the church in two ways:
in theological, theoretical, ideological terms, first of all,
the theory that God does not exist and that modern society
should be predicated upon ungodliness. In the other,
practical terms, by persecution.
Stalin canceled the Catholic church in the Soviet Union
and the communist parties abroad followed the same path.
If they managed to gain political power,
they followed Stalin’s example.
Therefore the catholic church especially under the leadership
of a new pope had a perfectly good reason
to fiercely condemn the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin.
In the East the Catholic church fought for a bare survival.
This battle of life and death fell into the political intrigues
of the group Intermarium and ratlines.
The final chapter in the ratlines scandal
was discovered by agent Gowen through the confession
of a former Hungarian Nazi and war criminal, Terence Laite.
As an informer, he could hardly have better recommendations.
Before the war he was an active member of Intermarium.
He escaped to Rome through ratlines.
His story contains unbelievable discovery.
He claimed that the British and the French Intelligence Service
were connected with Intermarium before the war
directing the activity and protecting its agents.
When the Ustashi killed the Yugoslavian King
the British protected one of the conspirators,
Pavelic’s right-handed man, Artukovic,
who later during the war became Croatian interior minister
and the British agent.
Intemarium attracted the attention of the British during the war
as already well-established anti-Bolshevik organization.
It was considered that the British Intelligence Service
was distinctly nationalistic
and fiercely anti-Bolshevik in terms of its goals.
Stuart Menzies, who became the chief in 1939.
was a stern anti-Bolshevik,
as well as a member of the British elite.
Before the war broke out,
certain members of the British elite were openly pro-fascist
and they supported Hitler.
They saw Nazis as the protectors of Europe
defending it against communism.
They used their power and influence to preach that.
The main figure in that group was the Duke of Windsor.
In the company of doctor Lei,
the Duke began the tour of the industrial plants
visiting a factory in the suburb.
He had been explained in detail the German method
of the work organization.
The war delivered a lethal blow
to the hope of the Nazi-British pact against communists.
In fact, in 1945, all hopes of stopping the communism
were scattered. Red Army liberated the Eastern Europe
from the Nazis and occupied it itself. Local nationalists,
Vatican and the West had to resign themselves
with the fact that now Stalin was the one in charge.
The countries of Intermarium became the communist block.
The war turned the reality of the Catholic Curtain
into the reality of the Iron Curtain.
The war was a brief timeout in the battle against the communists.
Ambassador Bullitt: " The communists are the red fascists. Stalin
will not stop of his own volition. He can only be stopped.
The Yugoslavs were right.
Pavelic had been protected by the anti-communists in the Vatican.
The Yugoslavs pointed the finger of suspicion towards the British.
Have they been right?
In 1945. the British and the French Intelligence Service
renewed their relation with the fascists just as the Vatican did.
Gowen reported when Pavelic moved to Austria
"he was protected by the British,
in British guarded quarters for a two week period.
Due to the inevitable embarrassment of British command,
he then left these quarters,
but he remained on the British occupation zone
for two or three months more,
still in contact with the British Intelligence Service."
Gowen also reported:
"A British Liutenant Colonel was put in charge of two trucks
ladden with the suposed property of the Catholic Church
in the British zone of Austria,
these two trucks then entered Italy, and went on a unknown destination."
This was the treasure the Ustashi carried
during the escape from Zagreb.
A part of the gold never left Yugoslavia
and later was found in one Franciscan monastery.
It was stolen from the murdered Ustashi victims.
The treasure which was exported was given to Father Draganovic.
Ivo Omrcanin:" Draganovic was saying
that the money would be used for the liberation of Croatia."
The paper " Free Intermarium" was scattered though the camps
for displaced persons in Austria and Italy
and Ustashi radio station broadcasted the program of the British zone.
MacLean: " I think it was very difficult to control the camps
in the appropriate manner.
Partially because they did not want it but they managed.
I refer to the great number of displaced persons
that they alone establish and maintain their own regime of life.
You could buy automatic gun in the black market
for a kilo of coffee which enabled many to arm themselves.
In the hills lived these and those deserters and thugs.
That was what the allied government, as well as the British,
of course, wanted to put a stop to "
In 1947. the agreement with Tito was concluded.
The allies would return the high-ranking officials
but not the ones with the lower rank.
One of the negotiators was F.MacLean.
The hunt for war criminals was not on the allies’ list of priorities.
MacLean: " My job was to form the team for identifying those people
and to do everything I could
to find those nobody had nothing against
so they could not be considered war criminals.
Therefore to get them out of Italy
and free Italian government from the pressure to extradite them."
The camps were full of anti-communists
who fought against the Soviets in the war.
They proved themselves to be a fruitful soil
for recruiting the agents of Intermarium
including the wanted war criminals.
Ivo Omrcina: " Intermarium was founded by the British
and the money which kept arriving to Intermarium
was coming from the Britain."
And now appeared to Gowen
that the British Intelligence Service stands
behind the Vatican evacuation of the Ustashi leaders
and the revival of the Intermarium.
The most incredible stories warned the American
on the potential of Intermarium
as alredy settled anti-communist network.
Gowen immediately said to his superiors:
"The most outstanding feature of these complex activities
is the inability of these anti - communists
to find a stable base for their operations.
It is the opinion of this agent that friendly co- ordination
by the United States would build a firm base for the future.
The U.S.A joined the recruiting of anti-communists.
The practical problem was how to protect those sticklers
from the constant danger of kidnapping
and arresting by communists.
Trials in Yugoslavia highlighted danger.
The unfair communist trial to archbishop Stepinac was used
as the propaganda platform to accuse the Vatican, the Ustashi
and the West for plotting against the communist state.
The Americans needed the secret channels
to save their new friends from danger they turned to F.Draganovic.
I.Omrcina:" The CIC sent their men without any explanation.
They would simply say " here are these people"
and we would respond: "Alright! Let them come! "
Then those people would give their names, probably
the new ones, and they would receive the documents
whereupon they would be sent off through regular Croatian ways.
The Americans enabled about 1000 dollars for each person."
Everything was inconceivable for a long time.
The winners helped the fascist war criminals to escape
through the Vatican ratlines often disguised as priests.
Draganovic had the USA support.
"The agreement consists of simple mutual assistance.
These agents will assist persons of interest to father Draganovic.
And in turn, father Draganovic will assist persons of interest
to this command. Some of these persons may be of interest
to the de-nazification pollicy of allies.
Therefore this operation can not recieve any official aproval."
Alan Douglas and James Angleton
who will later get to the very top of the CIA,
used the ratlines to smuggle fascist scientists
and experienced agents from Germany.
Now we know how Klaus Barbie escaped to Bolivia.
He was known as the murdered from Lion
who the French sought after.
After the war he was recruited by the Americans.
He worked for the CIC in Munich.
The French discovered it and asked for his extradition.
The CIC ordered Klaus Barbie must not be extradited
no matter what the State Department might say publicly.
Barbie knew too much.
The French conservatives were in trouble
because he might reveal that some of De Gaul’s colleagues
were Nazi’s informers.
Barbie specifically threatened to reveal
that during the war he received information from Francois Poncet.
It was the stain which would give to French communist
a spectacular propaganda weapon.
Francois Poncet was De Gaul’s representative
in the international organization of the Red Cross
and the French high commissioner for Germany.
In order not to compromise conservative French friends,
Douglas sent him off through ratlines.
When Barbie met Draganovic he asked him why he helped him.
Draganovic answered that he saved the Nazis
and anti-communists because "we needed to have a sort of reserve
which we would use in the future".
MacLean: " Draganovic continued to perform his priestly duty
while he did everything he could for the Ustashi.
I think he was an active member
of the Ustashi movement from the very beginning."
Father Draganovic was not alone.
Clerics from Germany, Italy, Austria and Hungary had their own ratlines.
The crimes from the II World War were well-known to the Vatican
but it still allowed its priesthood to protect the culprits. WHY?
What did Vatican gain? The Vatican was exploited
by the most notorious war criminals of the 20th century
but it was accepted preparedly.
Affected by the paranoia of communism
the pontificates of the Catholic church
became blind in differentiating good and evil.
They betrayed the trust of millions.
The Vatican saved the war criminals in the name of Christian charity.
What did the allies gain from the operation ‘ratlines’?
The Intermarium net restored after the war swamped with Soviet spies.
The man whom the British appointed to conduct
the secret Soviet operations
including the recruiting of the Nazis was Kim Finley.
He escaped to Moscow in 1963.
The CIA had to revise all the results
of the verified Nazi fugitives which was done by the CIC.
More than ten years of the Cold War was irreversibly compromised.
Did anyone gain anything?
The only gainers were the thousands of wanted criminals
who escaped through the ratlines.
They left the Europe devastated with their crimes.
In return, they got the new identity.
It was their reward for the struggle against the communists before,
during and after the II World War.