Aunt Anna's was a safe house, an inn in Merano, that was an often used stop for SS members, Nazi perpetrators, and war criminals on their escape, in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War. Reinhard Kops, for example, a member of the German espionage network used the inn and told of de:Emil Gelny, the SS doctor chiefly responsible for the euthanasia murders in the mental institutions of Gugging

Gugging

The Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic, known as Gugging, HAS BEEN a psychiatric institution located on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria. Several of its patients became known for their Outsider Art, and were referred to as the Gugging Artists...

 and Mauer-Öhling also having reached this destination.

Nazi flight in the post war years centred on Italy, an all-important highway for war criminals (Reichsautobahn für Kriegsverbrecher), and South Tyrol

South Tyrol

South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...

 in particular, - a "natural hub for members of SS and business circles to reunite and forge connections between Germany, Italy, Spain and Argentina that would secure their escape". The German speaking population of the South Tyrol, Alto Adige, kept strong ties with German ethno-nationalism and it was the first German-language region on the route used by Nazi war criminals to be freed from Allied

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 military government controls, by the end of 1945. (Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...

 used the escape route via the Alto Adige to Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 in 1950, by which time this escape route was widespread knowledge in SS circles - having reached Sterzing

Sterzing

Sterzing is a comune in South Tyrol in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy. It is the main village of the southern Wipptal, and the Eisack River flows through the medieval town.-Origin:...

 he moved to the Franciscan monastery in the South Tyrol's capital of Bolzano).