The Real Odessa: how Perón brought the Nazi war criminals to Argentina by Uki Goñi

When I visited Valparaiso in Chile last year, I found a restaurant called Hamburg, owned by an elderly German emigré. Hamburg's walls abounded with memorabilia of the Nazi era. Ageing fascists sat there, reminiscing about the "glory years" – evidence, if it were needed, that South America still hides Nazi collaborators.

Until recently, the manner of their escape has remained obscure, but now The Real Odessa exposes how Argentina's General Perón conspired with Nazis and the Vatican to rescue thousands of war criminals from Europe. Uki Goñi begins his shocking history by uncovering a directive from Buenos Aires that prevented Jews emigrating to Argentina. This was approved in July 1938, and thereafter many Jews were sent back to Germany.

To ensure Argentina's "racial purity", the ruling class established a "Human Potential Commission". But, with the war turning against Hitler, Argentina sided with the Allies – if only so that its troops could legitimately enter Germany to protect the friends of its élite.

Thereafter, Perón set up an organisation to bring war criminals to Argentina. Using powerful families, allies in Switzerland, and friends in the Catholic Church, it provided Nazis with false passports and bundled them out of Europe. The extent of this network is deeply troubling. Goñi mentions that his grandfather had been one of the many consuls to deny Jews visas for Argentina.

This illustrates the strength of The Real Odessa: Goñi's meticulous research shows how everyone was complicit. There were routes to Argentina from Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, and companies such as KLM made huge profits from the Nazi flight. The roles of cardinals and Vatican officials is particularly repellent, but the British also admitted asking the Vatican to help some escaping collaborators, while the Americans arranged Klaus Barbie's safe passage to Bolivia in return for anti-communist information.

As Goñi trawls through archives, his grisly account is accompanied by signs of the official destruction of evidence. In Buenos Aires, Menem's Peronist government burned immigration files as recently as 1996. The history of the Nazis in Argentina resonates with many recent events, whether through the disturbing echoes of Blair's Third Way in Perón's "Third Position", or the role of the escapees in the politics of South America.

Goñi notes that the Catholic Church's support of murderous regimes in Argentina was merely an extension of its assistance to fleeing Nazis, while some German "emigrés" sold arms to dictators, including Pinochet. His book allows us to see that the Allies' abetting of the Nazi flight in return for anti-communist intelligence contributed to the atmosphere in which the brutal governments of the 1970s arose in Latin America.

When riots broke out in Buenos Aires last December, the world was shocked. But Argentina had been on a downward economic spiral for years, exacerbated by Menem's recent government. Menem's Peronists embodied many of the qualities of Perón's own regime, including rampant corruption and a growing anti-Semitism that culminated in two bombs planted against Jewish targets in Buenos Aires.

Some critics see official involvement in these crimes, which killed over 100 people and have never been solved. As Argentina tries to stay afloat, The Real Odessa shows that the legacy of her dirty wars is still being played out.