Red Cross and Vatican 'helped thousands of Nazi war criminals escape'

New research suggests number of Nazis and collaborators who used travel documents meant for genuine refugees was much higher than previously thought.

The Red Cross and the Vatican both helped thousands of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to escape after the second world war, according to a new book that pulls together evidence from previously unpublished documents.

The Red Cross has previously acknowledged that its efforts to help refugees were used by Nazi war criminals to escape because administrators were overwhelmed, but the new research suggests that the numbers escaping were much higher than previously thought.

Gerald Steinacher, a research fellow at Harvard University, was given access to thousands of internal documents in the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The documents include ICRC travel documents issued to thousands of Nazi war criminals and members of Nazi organisations among hundreds of thousands of documents....