Special Episode: The Second Career of a Mass Murderer: Walter Rauff in Pinochet’s Chile. On the Ratline and Impunity for Nazi Perpetrators. Guest: Philippe Sands

This special episode focuses on Philippe Sands' latest book, 38 Londres Street – On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia. The title of Sands' new book refers to the address of Pinochet’s torture centre in 38 London street, Santiago/Chile, and the quest to bring Pinochet to court for his deeds in London and Spain in the late 1990ies. Since the release of Philippe Sand’s book in April 2025, several court cases have been started against Pinochet’s officers in Chile.

A second strand of the book is devoted to a member of Pinochet's staff, the Nazi engineer Walter Rauff. Famous as the constructor of the so-called “gas-waggons”, he was also notorious as a torturer and as an intelligence officer in Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst during the 1940ies in the Nazi era, his specialty was “extraction of confessions”. He also is a protagonist of the so-called Ratline: in the post-war, he escaped several imprisonment camps and evaded justice. Like many Nazi perpetrators he emigrated to Latin America in the 1950ies and subsequently rose to new positions, with old duties. The book gives full account  of Rauffs involvement in the murders of the Pinochet intelligence agency DINA and their torture camps during the 1970ies, and his heinous practice to let people “disappear” in fishmeal factories.  

Special Hosts & Moderators: Prof. Dr. Kerstin von Lingen, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna; historian Dr. Linda Erker from the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW); MA history student Bruno Stern and journalist Klaus Taschwer (“Der Standard”, Vienna).

Production & Editing: Magdalena Ragl, Franziska Lamp-Miechowiecki