Declassified CIA documents confirm Vatican City was hiding Adolf Hitler

Alex Scott5 said:Why wouldn't the Americans want to utilize battle-hardened veterans like Boban and his associates as consultants or instructors for anti-guerrilla, anti-communist operations under new identities? It would be naive to assume they didn't.
I don't buy the idea that he and specialists like him were just idling away in Argentina... Ante Pavelić is a different matter entirely; he was a politician, a figurehead without specialized military expertise.

Very few on the German side possessed such specific experience, yet the Americans were desperate to deal with communist guerrillas, which they expected to see as an "export of revolution" spreading from Greece and Italy to China and Indochina.
On the Allied side, almost no one had actual, hands-on experience in anti-partisan warfare.

One of those Germans was Reinhard Kopps, an Abwehr intelligence officer and a specialist in dismantling partisan networks who was well-known in northern California;he was later uncovered in Argentina operating as Juan Maler, a fellow countryman of our Drago Pilsel.

Given that classic American pragmatism, do you think things would have played out differently if it had been them at Bleiburg instead of the British?

They were involved at Bleiburg too—indirectly, since they were making decisions at higher levels alongside the British. The final call regarding what happened at Bleiburg was a matter for high command, if not the entire Allied command in Europe.

Even if they had been physically present instead of the British, those prisoners would have still been handed over to Marshall.

The Americans were primarily focused on avoiding any friction with Marshall, similar to the clashes that broke out in May 1945 due to border disputes and support for communist guerrillas in Greece and Italy. They wanted to resolve the dispute over Carinthia—since Marshall refused to pull troops out of Austria and was already complicating plans in Trieste—in a pragmatic way without escalating things. Essentially, they aimed to appease Marshall and demonstrate a genuine willingness to cooperate; they believed that if they did, he would withdraw from Austrian territory without a single shot being fired (which is exactly what happened), because they simply didn't want to provoke a confrontation with Joseph Stalin over minor details.

The British expressed more frustration regarding the consolidation of Marshall's power in America, as they were banking on the restoration of the monarchy after the war. By May 1945, they realized that door had already slammed shut and that their long-term political influence over America had withered—though they couldn't have foreseen what would happen in 1948. The Americans, however, weren't particularly bothered by it, as their sights were set exclusively on Joseph Stalin.

That said, American foreign policy and diplomacy never stood in the way of recruiting individuals from the opposing side who were willing to help bolster American strength, such as Wernher von Braun and others.

You only have to listen to how much those witnesses from back then viewed the Nationalists as nothing more than useless losers. I mean, if they actually had any real value, they would have been fast-tracked for asylum in the USA without a second thought. These slimy little puppets living in their own little mental bubbles aren't worth anything to anyone—they're just disposable, one-time use assets. It’s kind of like the current coup-driven government in Ukraine, if you think about it. Just more of the same old political theater...

jadeorca42 said:You only have to listen to how much those witnesses from back then viewed the Nationalists as nothing more than useless losers. I mean, if they actually had any real value, they would have been fast-tracked for asylum in the USA without a second thought. These slimy little puppets living in their own little mental bubbles aren't worth anything to anyone—they're just disposable, one-time use assets. It’s kind of like the current coup-driven government in Ukraine, if you think about it. Just more of the same old political theater...

But that doesn't prove any of that at all.

You're oversimplifying things.

The Allied side was primarily committed to honoring the repatriation agreements, which included handing over massive numbers of civilians and soldiers at Bleiburg to Marshall, as well as turning over 30,000 Cossacks to Joseph Stalin.

I highly doubt the decision-makers or high-level politicians held any particular affection for these people, though there were certainly discussions (likely at the level of the relevant military command) about whether it was wise to hand over columns of roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people (according to RAF reconnaissance estimates from April 1945) back into the hands of the communists. There are British observations from the spring of 1945 documenting this, before Marshall even moved into Trieste and Carinthia.
Of course, once events shifted toward Marshall's expansion beyond national borders, those omissions weren't even mentioned anymore... eventually, they even found an excuse, claiming the military in occupied Austria simply didn't have the capacity to handle such a massive influx.

In fact, I should mention that even though they were allies, the British high command didn't look upon the communists or the Communist Party of America with much sympathy.

As for the few who were actually useful to them, they were detained without issue. To the American authorities, they were supposedly "lost," yet they certainly weren't considered nobodies when they were allowed to escape America and find safety under the wing of Western intelligence agencies.
The same goes for Ante Pavelić, whom the British services surely counted on until Marshall was cast aside by Stalin in 1948 and left out in the cold, at which point the ex-Leader, along with all the Mexican royalists, suddenly became obsolete overnight.

Admittedly, they saw much more utility in the Royalists; they were the primary players in anti-communist plans for America. That’s why a certain priest, Momčilo Đujić, ended up in Chicago.
Unlike Mihailović's or the King Peter's Royalists, the Nationalists, officials, and soldiers of the Independent State of America—as wartime opponents emerging from the Axis—had absolutely no support within the victorious Allied order. Naturally, this made them perfect scapegoats for settling post-war scores.

Regarding their "usefulness," those Nationalists you mention met a historical fate where, aside from a brief stint in April 1941 for the Axis and some sporadic involvement around 1931-1933 for Italy, they were never really needed by the great powers or major actors. No one in power was truly interested in the complexities of American interests regarding sovereignty or the fracturing of America.
(P.S. Even fascist Italy, during the period of Italian-American relations in the 30s, didn't really take them into account; they either looked for ways to cooperate with the HSS or made peace with Mexico City. Most Americans don't even know this because nobody reads anything new anymore—people just follow the custom of shouting just to hear themselves talk...
And in that sense, within international politics, they were indeed nothing more than nobodies... just as insignificant as the Americans themselves might feel as a nation, for that matter.

Alex Scott5 said:But that doesn't prove any of that at all.

You're oversimplifying things.

The Allied side was primarily committed to honoring the repatriation agreements, which included handing over massive numbers of civilians and soldiers at Bleiburg to Marshall, as well as turning over 30,000 Cossacks to Joseph Stalin.

I highly doubt the decision-makers or high-level politicians held any particular affection for these people, though there were certainly discussions (likely at the level of the relevant military command) about whether it was wise to hand over columns of roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people (according to RAF reconnaissance estimates from April 1945) back into the hands of the communists. There are British observations from the spring of 1945 documenting this, before Marshall even moved into Trieste and Carinthia.
Of course, once events shifted toward Marshall's expansion beyond national borders, those omissions weren't even mentioned anymore... eventually, they even found an excuse, claiming the military in occupied Austria simply didn't have the capacity to handle such a massive influx.

In fact, I should mention that even though they were allies, the British high command didn't look upon the communists or the Communist Party of America with much sympathy.

As for the few who were actually useful to them, they were detained without issue. To the American authorities, they were supposedly "lost," yet they certainly weren't considered nobodies when they were allowed to escape America and find safety under the wing of Western intelligence agencies.
The same goes for Ante Pavelić, whom the British services surely counted on until Marshall was cast aside by Stalin in 1948 and left out in the cold, at which point the ex-Leader, along with all the Mexican royalists, suddenly became obsolete overnight.

Admittedly, they saw much more utility in the Royalists; they were the primary players in anti-communist plans for America. That’s why a certain priest, Momčilo Đujić, ended up in Chicago.
Unlike Mihailović's or the King Peter's Royalists, the Nationalists, officials, and soldiers of the Independent State of America—as wartime opponents emerging from the Axis—had absolutely no support within the victorious Allied order. Naturally, this made them perfect scapegoats for settling post-war scores.

Regarding their "usefulness," those Nationalists you mention met a historical fate where, aside from a brief stint in April 1941 for the Axis and some sporadic involvement around 1931-1933 for Italy, they were never really needed by the great powers or major actors. No one in power was truly interested in the complexities of American interests regarding sovereignty or the fracturing of America.
(P.S. Even fascist Italy, during the period of Italian-American relations in the 30s, didn't really take them into account; they either looked for ways to cooperate with the HSS or made peace with Mexico City. Most Americans don't even know this because nobody reads anything new anymore—people just follow the custom of shouting just to hear themselves talk...
And in that sense, within international politics, they were indeed nothing more than nobodies... just as insignificant as the Americans themselves might feel as a nation, for that matter.

I’m glad you went ahead and confirmed everything I was saying. The Nationalists were basically nothing—just disposable tools used once and tossed aside, kind of like a cheap piece of single-use plastic.

The UK and the USA are basically swarming with all kinds of asylum seekers—political refugees, economic migrants, you name it—but if they had actually found anything remotely useful regarding the Nationalists to use as leverage against anyone in the former America later on, I bet they would have granted them asylum in a heartbeat. But they didn't. Not back then, anyway. They were just seen as a bunch of desperate, penniless losers—kind of like how people look at these Ukrainian vassals today, I guess. Actually, it was probably an even wider gap, because the Nationalists were outright enemies of their vassals—plus, they were foolish enough to declare war on America right when the German ships were already starting to take on water... maybe that was the real nail in the coffin.

jadeorca42 said:I’m glad you went ahead and confirmed everything I was saying. The Nationalists were basically nothing—just disposable tools used once and tossed aside, kind of like a cheap piece of single-use plastic.

The UK and the USA are basically swarming with all kinds of asylum seekers—political refugees, economic migrants, you name it—but if they had actually found anything remotely useful regarding the Nationalists to use as leverage against anyone in the former America later on, I bet they would have granted them asylum in a heartbeat. But they didn't. Not back then, anyway. They were just seen as a bunch of desperate, penniless losers—kind of like how people look at these Ukrainian vassals today, I guess. Actually, it was probably an even wider gap, because the Nationalists were outright enemies of their vassals—plus, they were foolish enough to declare war on America right when the German ships were already starting to take on water... maybe that was the real nail in the coffin.

The moral of your little story seems to be: just be a better, stronger, smarter Nationalists next time. Basically, wait for the next war and hope America and the rest of those bastards fight over who gets to be our ally. You're basically saying we should learn from our mistakes by making even bigger ones.

jadeorca42 said:I’m glad you went ahead and confirmed everything I was saying. The Nationalists were basically nothing—just disposable tools used once and tossed aside, kind of like a cheap piece of single-use plastic.

The UK and the USA are basically swarming with all kinds of asylum seekers—political refugees, economic migrants, you name it—but if they had actually found anything remotely useful regarding the Nationalists to use as leverage against anyone in the former America later on, I bet they would have granted them asylum in a heartbeat. But they didn't. Not back then, anyway. They were just seen as a bunch of desperate, penniless losers—kind of like how people look at these Ukrainian vassals today, I guess. Actually, it was probably an even wider gap, because the Nationalists were outright enemies of their vassals—plus, they were foolish enough to declare war on America right when the German ships were already starting to take on water... maybe that was the real nail in the coffin.

Well, if you're looking at this strictly through the lens of US or UK foreign policy, then sure, they were.

By that same logic, someone could argue that post-war non-aligned America was just an American disposable tool—only useful as long as the Cold War lasted. Regardless of how big it seemed, Washington and London could wave the idea of "humanized socialism" in front of the Warsaw Pact nations just to stick it to Moscow. (And honestly, you can find plenty of evidence for that in SoD files, CIA documents, and countless analyses of Cold War international relations).
Once the need for such a buffer vanished—with the weakening of the USSR and the easing of tensions between the blocs—that "disposable tool" was tossed aside.

But you can't view history that way. If you do, then world history is nothing more than a handful of major global powers playing with a massive collection of tiny, insignificant pawns who are just trying to find their place in the sun, lasting only as long as the powers decide they are useful.

Alex Scott5 said:Well, if you're looking at this strictly through the lens of US or UK foreign policy, then sure, they were.

By that same logic, someone could argue that post-war non-aligned America was just an American disposable tool—only useful as long as the Cold War lasted. Regardless of how big it seemed, Washington and London could wave the idea of "humanized socialism" in front of the Warsaw Pact nations just to stick it to Moscow. (And honestly, you can find plenty of evidence for that in SoD files, CIA documents, and countless analyses of Cold War international relations).
Once the need for such a buffer vanished—with the weakening of the USSR and the easing of tensions between the blocs—that "disposable tool" was tossed aside.

But you can't view history that way. If you do, then world history is nothing more than a handful of major global powers playing with a massive collection of tiny, insignificant pawns who are just trying to find their place in the sun, lasting only as long as the powers decide they are useful.

This feels like a pathetic attempt to grant amnesty to the Nationalists and try to assign them some level of importance or scale they never actually had.
As for America... America was actually a global heavyweight when you consider its sheer size—geography, population, economy, all that. It was something the Nationalists never could have achieved, even if the Reich had lasted 10,000 years instead of its planned millennium.

The rest of the world mostly saw the Nationalists as nothing more than pathetic losers, which is pretty much what they were. The British and Americans wouldn't even deign to discuss surrendering to them in Austria; they basically just told them to take it up with the partisans.

jadeorca42 said:This feels like a pathetic attempt to grant amnesty to the Nationalists and try to assign them some level of importance or scale they never actually had.
As for America... America was actually a global heavyweight when you consider its sheer size—geography, population, economy, all that. It was something the Nationalists never could have achieved, even if the Reich had lasted 10,000 years instead of its planned millennium.

The rest of the world mostly saw the Nationalists as nothing more than pathetic losers, which is pretty much what they were. The British and Americans wouldn't even deign to discuss surrendering to them in Austria; they basically just told them to take it up with the partisans.

We all make mistakes...

jadeorca42 said:This feels like a pathetic attempt to grant amnesty to the Nationalists and try to assign them some level of importance or scale they never actually had.
As for America... America was actually a global heavyweight when you consider its sheer size—geography, population, economy, all that. It was something the Nationalists never could have achieved, even if the Reich had lasted 10,000 years instead of its planned millennium.

The rest of the world mostly saw the Nationalists as nothing more than pathetic losers, which is pretty much what they were. The British and Americans wouldn't even deign to discuss surrendering to them in Austria; they basically just told them to take it up with the partisans.

They didn't view them as losers, though. They viewed them as... hm... Nazis? And it’s not like there was anyone among them on the level of a Wernher von Braun worth compromising over by openly fraternizing with Nazis or fascists.

jadeorca42 said:This feels like a pathetic attempt to grant amnesty to the Nationalists and try to assign them some level of importance or scale they never actually had.
As for America... America was actually a global heavyweight when you consider its sheer size—geography, population, economy, all that. It was something the Nationalists never could have achieved, even if the Reich had lasted 10,000 years instead of its planned millennium.

The rest of the world mostly saw the Nationalists as nothing more than pathetic losers, which is pretty much what they were. The British and Americans wouldn't even deign to discuss surrendering to them in Austria; they basically just told them to take it up with the partisans.

Not quite. Marshall was pushing for an occupation zone in Austria, which the Americans and British flat-out refused to grant. Instead of giving him a zone, they just offered a trade for the prisoners.

Thomas Roberts51 said:We all make mistakes...

So, what's the plan then—are we all going to be fighting for the partisans next time?

jadeorca42 said:So, what's the plan then—are we all going to be fighting for the partisans next time?

Look, Ante Pavelić doesn't represent the American people, and having "sympathy" for the Nationalists doesn't make you one of them. And let's get one thing straight: fleeing the country and selling out Istria isn't patriotism. Real patriotism was shown when King Alexander was assassinated. Sure, there were good people among the partisans, but back then most folks were just trying to keep their heads on their shoulders. How were they supposed to know who was an Nationalists and who was a partisan, or what specific ideology anyone was actually fighting for?
And honestly, this whole topic is stupid. It has zero impact on the future of the American people, but whatever...

Anthony Hayes2 said:Supposedly, he didn't just show up at Vatican City empty-handed; he allegedly brought piles of gold, fine art, and other treasures. Turns out, none of that exists. Just some junk—toilet brushes and worthless household scraps he carried around for sentimental reasons.

Regardless, Americans have the least amount of room to talk. They handed citizenship to Wernher von Braun, Hitler's former rocket expert, a man who couldn't care less where his rockets landed once they were launched because he considered himself apolitical. Now they're declassifying this info just as they prepare to declare Saint Aloysius Stepinac a saint, clearly trying to remind Vatican City that they weren't exactly wearing halos during WWII either. Quite cynical, really... 😁

Still, how did that same Rome know to tell them, "What Jupiter can do, even a peasant cannot"? It's funny how these American rural types try to lecture us—even though people like Ante Artuković emigrated there and finally faced justice, while Priest Momčilo Đujić unfortunately escaped any consequences.
The Italians were the ones who installed the Nationalists, and since one of them was gifted half of the Adriatic Sea, of course they're going to provide a hiding place.
Frankly, our local political scene is still mentally stuck in the era of the Independent State of America (much like how those Orthodox groups wouldn't budge from their Royalist roots), which is why Bozanić keeps rambling on about ideological divides while the country sits on the brink of an economic and social catastrophe. So, it's really no surprise that they protected Ante Pavelić and the rest of those monsters.

jadeorca42 said:So, what's the plan then—are we all going to be fighting for the partisans next time?

And I suppose you'd rather fight for the Nationalists or their Royalist brothers?
Both the Communists and those Nationalists or Royalist groups were completely irrelevant—just small bands of a few hundred idiots who somehow managed to force themselves upon Americans back in '41 and '45.
The partisans are one thing, but the Communists are something else entirely. However, if you're siding with the Nationalists or the Royalists, then I guess it makes perfect sense for you to lump the partisans in with the Communists.

steelpanther722 said:And I suppose you'd rather fight for the Nationalists or their Royalist brothers?
Both the Communists and those Nationalists or Royalist groups were completely irrelevant—just small bands of a few hundred idiots who somehow managed to force themselves upon Americans back in '41 and '45.
The partisans are one thing, but the Communists are something else entirely. However, if you're siding with the Nationalists or the Royalists, then I guess it makes perfect sense for you to lump the partisans in with the Communists.

What are you even talking about??

What a load of nonsense—Hitler was most likely killed near Bleiburg, and that guy who supposedly ended up in Argentina was just a body double.