I've ruled out uni because I want to live at home.

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future with the degree you didn't think was possible. The Open University. The future is open. Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

Well Patrick, we're coming to the end of what has been a two-year series actually.

We started with 1944. We're now well into

1945. We've effectively done the end of the war and now we're just going to clean up the

story with a couple of last episodes, one today on the so-called rat lines, that is the escape

routes used by Nazi fugitives to avoid justice. And then finally next week, we're going to be clearing up all final matters with questions

episode in which all your remaining questions will do our best to answer.

But let's start with the rat lines first.

I mean, it's an extraordinary story when you think about it, Patrick, isn't it?

Because these must have been the most wanted men in Europe at the time, and yet many of them found it relatively easy to get away.

Yeah, I think it's still staggering, really, isn't it, to look at the numbers who managed to

slip through the net. The net was obviously not very efficient. I think one of the reasons is just looking at it from a kind of

common senseical point of view was that there was so much post-war chaos and so many things

that needed to be done that justice, although it was high on the list of priorities, was not

at the very top. People were starving. People needed housing. There were

many, many challenges to be faced. And so the guilty men took advantage of this to make their

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