Philippe Sands: Pinochet, Walter Rauff, and the Shadows of History

This week Adam Biles speaks with international lawyer and acclaimed author Philippe Sands about his latest book, 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia. Building on East West Street and The Ratline, Sands traces the remarkable and disturbing links between Nazi officer Walter Rauff—architect of the mobile gas vans—and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Their conversation explores how Rauff escaped Europe, settled in South America, and later became entangled with Pinochet’s regime, raising profound questions about memory, complicity, and justice. Sands also shares his personal and professional connection to this history: as a barrister involved in Pinochet’s extradition case, and as the descendant of a family decimated by the Holocaust. Blending archival detective work, courtroom drama, and encounters with extraordinary witnesses, Sands reveals the human stories behind the law. This is a gripping, moving, and sometimes unsettling dialogue about the echoes of history and the pursuit of accountability.

Buy 38 Londres Street: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/38-londres-street-2

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Philippe Sands was born in London in 1960 and studied Law at the University of Cambridge. His book East West Street was the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non Fiction 2016, the British Book Awards Non-fiction Book of the Year 2017 and 2018 Prix Montaigne He is also the author of Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules, which inspired a stage play (Called to Account, Tricycle Theatre) and a television film (The Trial of Tony Blair, Channel 4). He writes regularly for the press and serves as a commentator for the BBC, CNN and other radio and television producers. His BBC Storyville film My Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did premiered in April 2015 at the Tribecca Film Festival. Sands co-wrote a podcast of the same name for the BBC. Sands lectures around the world and has taught at New York University and been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, the University of Melbourne, and the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne). He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2003. The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive, was published in 2020 and The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy in 2022. His most recent book, 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia was published in 2025. He is currently Professor of Law at University College London and a barrister and arbitrator at 11 King's Bench Walk. He served as president of English PEN and is on the board of the Hay Festival of Arts and Literature.

Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.

Listen to Alex Freiman’s latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w

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