Jimbuna
04-30-19, 11:18 AM
As World War Two neared an end, Dutch Queen Wilhelmina sought a deal with the Nazis to save the Belgian royal family, according to the newly published diaries of her foreign minister.
By late March 1945, Belgium and the southern Netherlands had been liberated but Belgium's King Leopold III was being held captive in Austria.
Leopold's mother feared that the Nazis would murder the family.
So Wilhelmina considered a possible exchange, a Dutch historian has said.
She asked her foreign minister in exile in London, Eelco van Kleffens, to "sound out" via the Vatican whether high-ranking Nazis could be offered an escape route in return for the Belgian royal family's release, says Michael Riemens who has just published the minister's diaries.
The revelations shed further light on how top Nazis were trying to negotiate their escape from Europe in the dying days of the war. Many high-ranking Nazis were successfully spirited away to Latin America, including Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48104258
This gets me wondering what other deals if any were brokered in the final weeks and days of the war.
By late March 1945, Belgium and the southern Netherlands had been liberated but Belgium's King Leopold III was being held captive in Austria.
Leopold's mother feared that the Nazis would murder the family.
So Wilhelmina considered a possible exchange, a Dutch historian has said.
She asked her foreign minister in exile in London, Eelco van Kleffens, to "sound out" via the Vatican whether high-ranking Nazis could be offered an escape route in return for the Belgian royal family's release, says Michael Riemens who has just published the minister's diaries.
The revelations shed further light on how top Nazis were trying to negotiate their escape from Europe in the dying days of the war. Many high-ranking Nazis were successfully spirited away to Latin America, including Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48104258
This gets me wondering what other deals if any were brokered in the final weeks and days of the war.