Declassified Report Shows How CIA Resettled Nazis In Canada
After 40 years the Canadian government has finally released a nearly fully unredacted version of historian Alti Rodal’s investigation into alleged Nazi war criminals in Canada.
The previously redacted sections reveal that the CIA was actively involved in resettling alleged Nazis in Canada after the Second World War, that the CIA deceived Canadian officials, and that a leading CIA officer in charge of resettlement operations was later the CIA’s representative in Ottawa.
“It was a ratline,” said historian Jared McBride, referring to the escape routes used by the Nazis and their collaborators to flee Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. “In an operational sense, this is what a ratline is.”
While the newly unredacted version of the Rodal Report doesn’t name the specific individuals who gained entry into Canada, it does reveal that Canadian visa control officers posted in Stockholm were aware of falsified documents coming from American sources as early as 1953.
Further, former RCMP deputy commissioner W.H. Kelly was informed in early 1954 of suspicious applications for security screenings coming from the U.S. zone of occupation in postwar Germany.
Kelly was subsequently contacted by a U.S. intelligence official named George McManus, who requested Canadian security personnel accept certain immigrants recommended by U.S. authorities without conducting background checks.
In March of that year, Kelly reported to Ottawa that nearly 40 people had already been accepted into Canada in 1953 alone based on American recommendations. Some of those people, the Rodal Report alleged, were known to be Nazi collaborators.
“This isn’t old news; this is new,” said McBride in an interview with The Maple. Among others, McBride pointed to the revelation that the Americans provided individuals slated for resettlement with false documentation.
“It’s not surprising they did this,” said McBride, “but where are the records? We really need to see the U.S. documentation on this.”
One previously redacted section of the Rodal Report tells of an individual who had been rejected by Canadian officials in 1953, yet who was presented again three months later — with a completely different set of documents and a new identity — by an American intelligence officer working for U.S. Armed Forces Europe (USAREUR) named Oscar Holtz.
Holtz is also identified in the unredacted sections as having supplied Canadian officials with a list of 35 individuals who had made it to Canada in 1953 with the assistance of USAREUR.
Another four had been identified by Canadian officials separately. USAREUR is also said to have advanced another 52 applicants for resettlement to Canada who were rejected by the RCMP, mostly on security grounds.
“Not only did the Canadian government know at the time that it was being deceived by U.S. intelligence, but Canadian officials learned of this again in the 1980s,” McBride said.
McBride noted that the Canadian government has consistently sought to bury the story rather than demanding transparency from the United States.