The Ratline cover art

The Ratline

Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Ratline

By: Philippe Sands
Narrated by: Katja Riemann, Philippe Sands, Stephen Fry
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £14.35

Buy Now for £14.35

*FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF EAST WEST STREET*

As Governor of Galicia, SS Brigadeführer Otto Freiherr von Wächter presided over an authority on whose territory hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles were killed, including the family of the author's grandfather. By the time the war ended in May 1945, he was indicted for 'mass murder'. Hunted by the Soviets, the Americans, the Poles and the British, as well as groups of Jews, Wächter went on the run. He spent three years hiding in the Austrian Alps, assisted by his wife Charlotte, before making his way to Rome where he was helped by a Vatican bishop. He remained there for three months. While preparing to travel to Argentina on the 'ratline' he died unexpectedly, in July 1949, a few days after spending a weekend with an 'old comrade'.

In The Ratline Philippe Sands offers a unique account of the daily life of a senior Nazi and fugitive, and of his wife. Drawing on a remarkable archive of family letters and diaries, he unveils a fascinating insight into life before and during the war, on the run, in Rome, and into the Cold War. Eventually the door is unlocked to a mystery that haunts Wächter's youngest son, who continues to believe his father was a good man - what happened to Otto Wächter, and how did he die?

***

'A gripping adventure, an astounding journey of discovery and a terrifying and timely portrait of evil in all its complexity, banality, self-justification and madness. A stunning achievement' STEPHEN FRY

'Hypnotic, shocking and unputdownable' JOHN LE CARRÉ

'Breathtaking, gripping, and ultimately, shattering. Philippe Sands has done the unimaginable: look a butcher in the eye and tell his story without flinching' ELIF SHAFAK

'A triumph of research and brilliant storytelling' ANTONY BEEVOR©2019 Philippe Sands 20th Century Espionage Military Military & War Modern True Crime World War II War Exciting Scary Thought-Provoking Judaism Holocaust Rome
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic reviews

A gripping adventure, an astounding journey of discovery and a terrifying and timely portrait of evil in all its complexity, banality, self-justification and madness. A stunning achievement
Hypnotic, shocking and unputdownable
Breathtaking, gripping, and ultimately, shattering. Philippe Sands has done the unimaginable: look a butcher in the eye and tell his story without flinching
A triumph of research and brilliant storytelling
Remarkable . . . Sands's untangling of the mysteries surrounding Otto von Wächter is masterfully done
This is a burningly necessary book. Sands makes a gently unsparing dissection of deception, love, delusion and ineradicable evil. Elegant, painstaking, passionate and quietly enraging
This is a taut and finely crafted factual thriller, reminiscent in density and pace of John le Carré . . . a feat of exhilarating storytelling - gripping, gratifying and morally robust
The forensic stamina and precision that garnered such praise for Sands' 2016 work EAST WEST STREET are equally in evidence here. THE RATLINE is not only about events in the past, but their dangerous legacy in the world today. A formidable piece of historical sleuthing written with all the pace and suspense of a thriller, it is a timely reminder that crimes against humanity don't occur only at the level of states and governments. They take place also in the more secret and less fathomable depths of people's hearts and minds (Rebecca Abrams)
Extraordinary. In fast-paced, John le Carré-like pages (spies, Nazi-hunters, dark Vatican forces) . . . THE RATLINE is an electrifying true crime for the contagion lockdown
Sands is a terrier at research . . . The seething world of post-war Rome, with its senior fascists reprieved and returning to prominence, its war criminals lurking in hiding, its spies and secret services brokering deals and its adventurers and profiteers making fortunes, has seldom been more vividly described (Caroline Moorehead)
A book of twists and intrigues as complex as any le Carré thriller . . . like its predecessor, [it] is replete with vivid descriptions and Sands brings to it the same relentless narrative momentum
Fascinating . . . Switching between the distant and very recent past, the book is episodic in nature, but this only makes it more compelling. It combines a mystery with a straight retelling of history - shining a light into one of the less investigated corners of the Nazi era and its aftermath - and a thoughtful inquiry into how we reckon with it (David Bennum)
THE RATLINE is a compelling piece of forensic historical research - one that is every bit as good as EAST WEST STREET
A truly extraordinary book - a forensic yet deeply humane and measured exploration of the human capacity for self-deception and cruelty (HENRY MARSH)
All stars
Most relevant
The writer is very talented and keeps our attention during the entire book. I particularly liked the part where Otto hides in the Austrian Alps. That made feel like travelling however sad the whole story and subject is. The writer/narrator has a very deep and beautiful voice. Accidentally I spoilt the end of the book as I read about Otto on Wikipedia. So that made the last few chapters, where he describes the investigation into the death of Otto, a bit less interesting. The last few chapters are the ones I didn’t enjoy as much as the subject matter deviated a bit from the other parts of the book. I felt that the author kept quite calm during the narration and interactions with Horst Wächter, Otto Wächters son. As the author himself said he only lost his temper with him really once. I knew he could only be a Libra, such as the wife of Otto Wächter who I feel was the main character in this story. A Libra writing about a Libra. I still feel that the author portrayed the history on NOT such a negative way and traumatic historic events weren’t described in detail, so there wasn’t much detail about horrific occurrences during the holocaust. It was just mainly the family story and life of the Wächters. Philippe Sands is a law professor, so it is understandable that he would be as professional as possible and keep his calm when interacting with the son of Otto Wächter.

Excellent research into the life of Otto Wachter

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It's quite hard to sum up in a few words the story of this book but basically, as it says, it is a love story and the story of a high ranking Nazi and his family. The research, as one would expect from Philippe Sands, is first rate. It is detailed but never weighs down the telling of the story. Generally I don't like to hear more than one voice in an audio book but the merging of the voices here are seamless. I find the strong gentleness of Prof Sands voice adds more gravitas to facts that will make you weep and reflect.














Unforgettable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I don’t often leave reviews but I felt like I had to make an exception with The Ratline. After reading and listening to East West Street I was keen to carry on the journey with The Ratline. There were facts discovered in the book that literally left me open mouthed. The story is unearthed in a way more thrilling than any non-fiction, in fact why do you need non-fiction when true stories like this are far more shocking and dramatic? I feel slightly ashamed at my lack of knowledge over the immediate post war years and the questionable motives of the Americans and the Vatican in regards to former nazi war criminals. The book has led me to save a few other recommendations on this topic to my Wishlist. My only regret is that this story came to a conclusion and the journey is over. Many thanks to Philipe Sands for this book and the immense research that must have been undertaken. I’ve purposefully saved watching the accompanying documentary until I finished the book, which I now plan to view. 5* all round for the book’s content and great narration.

Thrilling sequel to East West Street

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The second superb book from this author, so well researched there isn't a part of that era and behavior that you feel isn't examined..I hope he has more to write in future..the negative to this is the truly terrible Stephen Fry narration the most inauthentic and irritating impression of Charlotte, not a likeable woman but the intonation from Stephen was just ridiculously over the top and the book deserved far better than this, it was a relief when the author began to speak and the book became authentic and enjoyable to listen to again

Absolutely superb research..

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
After 1945, a fog of amnesia as well as an iron curtain descended across Europe. Scores were settled, populations expelled and collaborators punished in episodes which have often been excused as justified revenge, best forgotten. But we should not forget that a surprisingly large number of senior Nazis escaped justice, often turning up in key peacetime roles, or disappearing from view, often with the collusion of Western powers and The Vatican via the Ratline, an escape hatch from Europe. Otto Wachter, Governor of Krakow then Galicia, mass murderer and senior SS member never made it beyond Rome, where he died in the arms of a Bishop. Had this been the sole theme of the book it might not have attracted much attention, but Philippe Sands, whose own family were victims of Wachter's administration, has the remarkable advantage of a long acquaintance with Wachter's own son and access to his rich family archive of diaries, recordings, photographs and documents. He is able to reconstruct the private live of Wachter and his flamboyant and ruthless wife - the latter remained an unrepentant Nazi until her death decades later - to startle the reader with the macabre contrast between the glamour of their social life and the mechanised carnage of Wachter's work.

The moral ambiguity of the story is often outrageous. It's easy to be caught up in the love story of the couple, the casually shameless plundering of artworks by Wachter's wife, the motivation of Wachter's son in trying against all the evidence to exonerate his father as a noble victim, even a hero. Here the author's surprising moral restraint about Wachter's story breaks down, pressing his son for a sign that he accepts the guilt of his father, as if this somehow will bring about a measure of justice. It's a sign that has never come despite his collaboration, over years, with the author on many iterations of the story which have become projects in their own right - publications, a podcast, public debates. The author has developed the material across these projects into a powerful story, of which this book is the ultimate telling. It's well-honed, and well presented. It's certainly compelling. I completed it in two days, pushing aside almost everything else I was doing.

The contrast between the personal biographies and the historical narrative shows up in the choice of narrator. While the author narrates the historical background and the story of the project itself, the choice of well-known actors for the biographical sections seems reasonable. Possibly because this is such a well-produced and well-told tale, Stephen Fry may have seemed a suitable choice. It's hard to listen to him narrate however without registering an element of comic irony. The gap between the private comfort and self-satisfaction of the Wachter's and the ghastly reality of their public life stands for itself, and sometimes the audible italics and raised eyebrow during these passages is a little too 'on the nose'.

This book is a fascinating revelation of how unspeakable evil coexists with everyday life, and how the most egregious injustices are normalised. It's a book that engages our emotions, a quest that we have to complete. It's a great story.

The banality of evil, and how easily we accept it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews