german colonies in south america after ww2

The 1888 proclamation of the annexation of Nauru by Germany was donated to the Library by Brigadier General Thomas Griffiths, the Administrator of Nauru, in 1921. Similarly to those in Latin America, the Germans in Africa tended to isolate themselves and were more self-sufficient than other Europeans. In South America there are many German colonies where everything is German. As a German he didn’t feel the need to hide his true identity from her. But most importantly, many South American governments were sympathetic to the Nazi cause and proved willing to help. The street signs are in German. However, by far the largest number—as many as 5,000—relocated to Argentina. But the greatest ratlines led to South America. Thanks to the country’s controversial leader who had help from some Nazi sympathizers in Europe, as many as 5,000 SS Officers and Nazi Party members were thought to have found a new life in Argentina after the fall of the Third Reich. In the 1970s and 1980s Chile was ruled by authoritarian dictator Augusto Pinochet. But he could just have easily slipped away – and in the chaos of that time, escaped. German Argentines (German: Deutschargentinier, Spanish: germano-argentinos) are Argentine citizens of German ancestry. All Rights Reserved. More than two million artillery shells were dropped on the city. A MISSING German submarine said to have taken the defeated Nazi leadership to South America has been discovered after being lost at sea for nearly 73 years. As with numerous other fascist-leaning South American leaders, Peron had been drawn to the ideologies of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler while serving as a military attaché in Italy during the early years of World War II. New members were then forced to work and never allowed to leave. Secret files reveal 9,000 Nazi war criminals fled to South America after WWII. It was in this year Germany lost the deadliest conflict in human history. 81 comments. These are colonies settled by and controlled by the German Empire from 1884 to 1919. Are there any like this in your state? FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Lightning flashed across the Argentine skies as Ricardo Klement stepped off a bus after finishing his shift as an assembly line foreman at a Mercedes-Benz automotive plant. Many of these German states were officially Protestant, making them traditional allies of other Protestant nations, such as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, whose king, George III, was also the Prince-elector of Hanover. And while some Nazi colonies, like Colonia Dignidad and figures like Eichmann are well known – there could well be all kinds of people and places still hidden, waiting to be found. It wasn’t long before the Israeli government knew so too. But even after they and their children and their grandchildren are gone, they will have a legacy in South America. Strangely these communities received a spike in population growth after the war… I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. In 1962, the Chilean town of Colonia Dignidad was found to be home to 300 families who’d fled Germany after World War II, finding a welcome – and no questions asked – among their compatriots in South America.”. He made use of fences, outposts, and even motion sensors. HIS PATH TO SOUTH AMERICA: After World War II, Mengele spent three-plus years in hiding in Germany. By the end of the war ODESSA maintained a covert network of people and locations willing to help former Nazis flee. Eduard Roschmann, the “Butcher of Riga,” died in Paraguay in 1977. Paraguay: A Quaint Inn with a Dark Nazi Past - TIME; Why did so many Germans choose to move to Argentina after. As the years turned to decades, rumor spread that high ranking Nazis were being shielded in the colony. In the years after the end of the war, Argentine President Juan Peron secretly ordered diplomats and intelligence officers to establish escape routes, so-called “ratlines,” through ports in Spain and Italy to smuggle thousands of former SS officers and Nazi party members out of Europe. It was German traveller Baron Cosme Damián Schütz von Holzhausen, who, after visiting German colonies in Texas, USA had the idea of creating other colonies across South America. So they kidnapped him. The escape routes themselves came to be known as ratlines. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. So many made it that they were able to establish their own communities of former Nazis. Yes, the Nazi colonies will surely live on. Josef Mengele, who evaded capture, c. 1950. Mengele was known as the angel of death in Auschwitz, where he regularly performed human experimentation on prisoners. Gustav Wagner, an SS officer known as the “Beast,” died in Brazil in 1980 after the country’s supreme federal court refused to extradite him to Germany because of inaccuracies in the paperwork. It’s surprising to learn that South America was a bit of a hotbed for anti-Semitism from the late 19th century – and indeed that one of its most famous German immigrants, Bernhard Förster, was a key influence on Hitler’s political thinking. Germany lost all its overseas colonies after World War I, and therefore had none after WWII. For years the world’s most wanted Nazi was a man called Adolf Eichmann. And then there were high ranking Nazis. After the First and Second World Wars colonial control of the continent began to come apart. 1. It turns out they had been planning on doing so for quite some time. It’s secretive nature means little is known for certain about ODESSA. As soon as he heard the name Eichmann, the father realized who they were dealing with. And so a secretive cult of sex criminals genuinely operated their own colony in Chile, which became a haven for Nazis on the run and also a government torture camp. In 1946 allied forces published a list of 150 thousand war criminals. The 7 Most Notorious Nazis Who Escaped to South America. For ten years they lived a quiet life in Buenos Aires, Eichmann working at a nearby Mercedes factory. Even before it looked like they would lose the war, the Nazis had big plans for South America. And it wasn’t just Argentina. Schafer was but a low ranking Nazi, but was forced to flee Germany after being charged with the sexual abuse of children. European Colonies in North America. The Argentine president also sought to recruit those Nazis with particular military and technical expertise that he believed could help his country, much like the United States and the Soviet Union who both poached scientists from the Third Reich to assist them in the Cold War. They often held prestigious jobs and positions in the local German speaking community. But this was just a way of luring new members to the colony. Brazil took in between 1,500 and 2,000 Nazi war criminals, while between 500 and 1,000 settled in Chile. It’s called Colonia Dignidad and it was founded by Nazi official turned cult leader Paul Schafer. Eichmann was considered a major architect of the holocaust and a notoriously corrupt SS colonel. According to Goñi, Hudal, an Austrian-born admirer of Hitler who ministered to prisoners of war in Rome, admitted to abetting Nazi war criminals by providing them with false identity documents issued by the Vatican that were then used to obtain passports from the International Red Cross. Argentine dictator Juan Peron actively encouraged Nazis to come to Argentina, promising protection and a new life. Some were relatively short, leading to Spain or the middle east. It’s fair to say they weren’t happy about it. Adolf Eichmann (Credit: Adam Guz/Getty Images Poland/Getty Images). After 4 months he was sentenced to death by hanging. Of all the towns, neighborhoods, and colonies built by them after the war, it’s inconceivable that none will survive. Schafer was in effect king of this secret place cut off from the outside world. A fact that the Argentine tourism board prefers not to promote is the large scale migration of Nazis into Argentina after the end of the Second World War. It’s pure vastness and variety of terrain made it perfect to hide away in. In 1961 he fled to Chile, somehow convincing hundreds of others to go with him. Some Nazi colonies were rich and influential enough to help shape the modern history of South America. Allowing them to fall into Soviet hands would have been disastrous for the west. As he walked to his small brick house in a middle-class Buenos Aires suburb on May 11, 1960, he passed by a chauffer and two men working under the open hood of a black Buick limousine. One branch was run by Hitler’s own bodyguard, Otto Skorzany, who went on to work for the President of Argentina. So the cameras were built into the walls of the courtroom and the trial was seen around the world. (He, like his eventual acolyte, ended up committing suicide as his utopian colony failed.) Those territories constituted the German Colonial Empire. It’s actually a tourist attraction. Shortly after the German invasion, on June 22, 1941, ... Colonies kept in touch with each other through newspapers, especially Der Staats Anzeiger, based in North Dakota. Following the war, the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps recruited Klaus Barbie—the Gestapo chief in Lyon, France, who played a role in the deaths of thousands of French Jews and members of the French Resistance—as an agent to assist with anti-Communist efforts. But even after they and their children and their grandchildren are gone, they will have a legacy in South America. From all sides the allies fought their way to Berlin, cutting German society to pieces as they went. One hundred thousand either died or escaped. Not all Nazis on the run kept strictly to Nazi Colonies. The British colonies in the West Indies were under direct threat by German submarines, who were hunting for oil tankers and bauxite carriers making … 1945 was an especially bad year. In their attempts to aid Catholic refugees amid the post-war rise of communist regimes across Europe, numerous Vatican officials unwittingly aided in the escape of Nazi war criminals, but some clerics such as Bishop Alois Hudal did so with full knowledge of their actions. share. The history of Latin America during World War II is important because of the significant economic, political, and military changes that occurred throughout much of the region as a result of the war. Yet it’s unclear how exactly this was to be achieved, or even why. These made the prospect of escape virtually impossible, but also kept outsiders far away. He was a religious leader and the head of an orphanage. Hudal also aided the Franciscan monk in Genoa, Italy, who supplied Eichmann with an Argentine visa and signed an application for his falsified Red Cross passport, which allowed him to board a steamship to Buenos Aires in 1950 under the assumed identity of Ricardo Klement. So they established a new organization known today as ODESSA. But some were no where to be found, as if they had disappeared. He fled to Argentina in 1949 before moving to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil a year later. It’s known he spent time there, in Paraguay and in Brazil, where he died a free man. The German legal team that examined South American files in 2012 told the Daily Mail that most of the Nazis who entered the continent did so using forged Red Cross passports, including 800 SS members to Argentina alone. Tim Kennedy further discusses the history of Nazi's who escaped to South America. Klaus Barbie outside the Lyons court house following his sentencing on July 4, 1987. They are descendants of Germans who immigrated to Argentina from Germany and elsewhere in Europe. It was a former Nazi’s wet dream. That spring, French war criminals carrying passports issued by the International Red Cross stamped with Argentine tourist visas began to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Without needing to pay community members for their work, Schafer instead invested in security. Thanks to governmental secrecy we can never know exactly what crimes took place there. SS colonel Walter Rauff, who created mobile gas chambers that killed at least 100,000 people, died in Chile in 1984. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Bavarian houses in Oxapampa. King George III came from an ethnic German line, and was the first of the House of Hanover to speak E… These were colonies unsuccessfully settled by Brandenburg-Prussia (part of the Holy Roman Empire realm), after 1701 Kingdom of Prussia, before the foundation of the German Empire in 1871.. Africa. (Credit: John Milli/GPO via Getty Images). Everyone involved in the abduction was playing a high-stakes game of deception. They were free to torture as much as they wish, and no matter what, they were protected by the government. This would be an irrelevant piece of knowledge, if one of those camps had not been located within Colonia Dignidad. And so the Americans put huge effort into this pursuit. Only on arriving in Israel did the Argentine government learn of the operation. (Credit: STAFF/AFP/Getty Images). Across the continent have been found dozens of Nazi hideouts, often deep in remote rain forests and long abandoned. Eichmann was hardly alone among Nazis in finding refuge in South America after the fall of the Third Reich. By far the most notorious of such Nazi colonies can still be found in the Chilean Andes. How could so many escape when the whole world was closing in on them? This was the result of a new political climate, the rise of nationalism and the waging of independence campaigns in various colonies as well as the new domestic priorities in the post-war period for colonial rulers. Tanganyika. Of all the towns, neighborhoods, and colonies built by them after the war, it’s inconceivable that none will survive. According to Uki Goñi, author of “The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron’s Argentina,” the Peron government in 1946 sent word through Argentine Cardinal Antonio Caggiano to a French counterpart that the South American country would be willing to receive Nazi collaborators from France who faced potential war crimes prosecution. I mean, it’s still a colony lived in by the descendants of Nazis, but somehow it’s become a destination for tourism… and I don’t know how. So that’s the story of Adolf Eichmann, the least jolly Adolf to ever live. The papers of A.B. The judge objected to proceedings being filmed, fearing the cameras would serve as a distraction. The SECRET Nazi Colonies In South America - Eskify; Why did the European states have to give up their colonies. The story of Colonia Dignidad is just one of many in the long sting of Nazi escaped to South America. But after the war he escaped, heading to Italy where a sympathetic monk helped him flee to Argentina. When there the team abducted Eichmann and smuggled him out of the country. The climate before WW2 It was the only death sentence ever given by an Israeli court. But those are nothing compared to the former Nazi colonies of the continent. (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images). Steinberger formed part of the Ferguson Collection which was received in 1970. 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