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  • BBC History Magazine

    The sins of the father

    Apr 16, 2020 4 minutes
    The Ratline:
    Love, Lies and
    Justice on the Trail
    of a Nazi Fugitive
    by Philippe Sands Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
    432 pages, £20

    Four years ago, the BBC aired a deeply disturbing documentary called My Nazi  Legacy. It followed the journey of Horst Wächter, the son of notorious Nazi leader Otto Wächter, as he visited the places in eastern Europe where his father had presided over the Holocaust. Throughout the documentary, Horst was presented with evidence of his father’s crimes. And yet, while he was ready to denounce the Nazi system, he could never bring himself to admit his father’s personal responsibility.

    The presenter of that documentary was Philippe Sands, whose own family included people murdered by SS troops in the region governed by

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