german colonies in south america after ww2

So many made it to Argentina that the FBI began to investigate if Hitler himself could have. Barbie became one of the few Nazis who fled to South America but ultimately couldn’t escape justice, much like Eichmann who was also convicted of crimes against humanity by an Israeli court and executed in 1962. Knowing the war could genuinely be lost, some within the SS realized they might need to flee for their lives. They were free to torture as much as they wish, and no matter what, they were protected by the government. Not all Nazis on the run kept strictly to Nazi Colonies. How could so many escape when the whole world was closing in on them? He was a religious leader and the head of an orphanage. But he could just have easily slipped away – and in the chaos of that time, escaped. 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. Allowing them to fall into Soviet hands would have been disastrous for the west. Argentine dictator Juan Peron actively encouraged Nazis to come to Argentina, promising protection and a new life. 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. According to a 2012 article in the Daily Mail, German prosecutors who examined secret files from Brazil and Chile discovered that as many as 9,000 Nazi officers and collaborators from other countries escaped from Europe to find sanctuary in South American countries. And so the Americans put huge effort into this pursuit. Many headed for Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, and beyond. In some cases, the United States was complicit in the exodus of Nazi war criminals to South America. King George III came from an ethnic German line, and was the first of the House of Hanover to speak E… Everyone involved in the abduction was playing a high-stakes game of deception. 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. Of all the towns, neighborhoods, and colonies built by them after the war, it’s inconceivable that none will survive. Eichmann was hardly alone among Nazis in finding refuge in South America after the fall of the Third Reich. 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. Klement was actually Adolf Eichmann, the notorious Nazi SS lieutenant colonel who masterminded the transport of European Jews to concentration camps, and the men with the limousine were Israeli secret service agents. The climate before WW2 Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. In 1922 became a League of Nations mandate under the United Kingdom. So the prospect of hum being in Chile is not exactly absurd. Paraguay: A Quaint Inn with a Dark Nazi Past - TIME; Why did so many Germans choose to move to Argentina after. Adolf Eichmann, architect of the 'Final Solution,' was captured and executed in 1962. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. In Israel he was put on trial, a trial that lasted 4 months and broadcast in it’s entirety. The SECRET Nazi Colonies In South America - Eskify; Why did the European states have to give up their colonies. Secret files reveal 9,000 Nazi war criminals fled to South America after WWII. But those are nothing compared to the former Nazi colonies of the continent. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. So that’s the story of Adolf Eichmann, the least jolly Adolf to ever live. Throughout the '50s, '60s, and '70s, stories of former officials of the Third Reich hiding out in Argentina were common -- and they weren't just stories. Wituland (1885–1890) - si… Bavarian houses in Oxapampa. He was smuggled to Bolivia, where he continued his spy work and instructed the military regime on how to torture and interrogate political opponents. (He, like his eventual acolyte, ended up committing suicide as his utopian colony failed.) That spring, French war criminals carrying passports issued by the International Red Cross stamped with Argentine tourist visas began to cross the Atlantic Ocean. 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. 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. All Rights Reserved. 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. It turns out they had been planning on doing so for quite some time. What he didn’t know is that the girl’s father was a holocaust survivor. Are there any like this in your state? As it turned out, World War II hardly touched South America. Schafer was but a low ranking Nazi, but was forced to flee Germany after being charged with the sexual abuse of children. Mengele was known as the angel of death in Auschwitz, where he regularly performed human experimentation on prisoners. In 1961 he fled to Chile, somehow convincing hundreds of others to go with him. Across the continent have been found dozens of Nazi hideouts, often deep in remote rain forests and long abandoned. 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. These made the prospect of escape virtually impossible, but also kept outsiders far away. It’s called Colonia Dignidad and it was founded by Nazi official turned cult leader Paul Schafer. Yes, the Nazi colonies will surely live on. Steinberger formed part of the Ferguson Collection which was received in 1970. Another haven for Nazis was the Argentine city of Bariloche, where in the 90s it was revealed many SS officers were hiding. It was the only death sentence ever given by an Israeli court. The judge objected to proceedings being filmed, fearing the cameras would serve as a distraction. Only on arriving in Israel did the Argentine government learn of the operation. But only one third of those named were ever brought to justice. Without needing to pay community members for their work, Schafer instead invested in security. They typically led to dictatorships whose government was sympathetic to Nazism. I don’t know if you’re familiar with German history… but the 1940s were a real rough patch. The escape routes themselves came to be known as ratlines. Similarly to those in Latin America, the Germans in Africa tended to isolate themselves and were more self-sufficient than other Europeans. 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. 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. colonia Tovar is an example. One hundred thousand either died or escaped. Schafer was in effect king of this secret place cut off from the outside world. But it’s thought Mengele and other Nazis house there, used their experience with torture to interrogate political dissidents. The most senior Nazi whose fate even today remains unknown was Heinrich Muller. Some were relatively short, leading to Spain or the middle east. Everyone knew the war was ending and western leaders were already looking towards the next enemy: Soviet Russia. The British colonies in the West Indies were under direct threat by German submarines, who were hunting for oil tankers and bauxite carriers making … It’s secretive nature means little is known for certain about ODESSA. By far the most notorious of such Nazi colonies can still be found in the Chilean Andes. 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. It’s pure vastness and variety of terrain made it perfect to hide away in. 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. Perhaps the most notorious of the fugitives was Dr. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death” who conducted macabre experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Still, their time of earth is running out. But this was just a way of luring new members to the colony. For years the world’s most wanted Nazi was a man called Adolf Eichmann. It was claimed by the CIA that the infamous concentration camp Doctor Joseph Mengele was among them. Of all the towns, neighborhoods, and colonies built by them after the war, it’s inconceivable that none will survive. 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. 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. Adolf Eichmann on trial, April 21, 1961 in Jerusalem. It wasn’t long before the Israeli government knew so too. German South West Africa, German Deutsch-Südwestafrika, a former German colony (1884–1919) that is now the nation of Namibia, in southwestern Africa.In 1883 Franz Adolf Lüderitz, a merchant from Bremen, Germany, established a trading post in southwest Africa at Angra Pequena, which he renamed Lüderitzbucht.He also acquired the adjacent coastal area, which he named Lüderitzland. 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. 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. 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. It’s known he spent time there, in Paraguay and in Brazil, where he died a free man. The war caused significant panic in Latin America over economics as a large portions of economy of the region depended on the European investment capital, which was shut down. So they established a new organization known today as ODESSA. New members were then forced to work and never allowed to leave. Nazi Germany's conquest of Europe ended in 1945, but fugitive Nazis in South America lasted for decades. And then there were high ranking Nazis. But the craziest part of this story is that their colony still exists. Yet it’s unclear how exactly this was to be achieved, or even why. 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. Germany lost all its overseas colonies after World War I, and therefore had none after WWII. There’s a long story behind how Nazi colonies came to exist in the remote regions of South America. 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. SS colonel Walter Rauff, who created mobile gas chambers that killed at least 100,000 people, died in Chile in 1984. (Credit: STAFF/AFP/Getty Images). This would be an irrelevant piece of knowledge, if one of those camps had not been located within Colonia Dignidad. It’s fair to say they weren’t happy about it. However, by far the largest number—as many as 5,000—relocated to Argentina. In the 1970s and 1980s Chile was ruled by authoritarian dictator Augusto Pinochet. They often held prestigious jobs and positions in the local German speaking community. Such a man could easily have died in the bombing of Berlin. 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. For every Eichmann there are many more Nazis who seem to have escaped justice. 81 comments. From all sides the allies fought their way to Berlin, cutting German society to pieces as they went. Many Nazi officials were killed or taken prisoner. 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. Suddenly, Klement was grabbed by the men and hauled kicking and screaming into the back seat of the vehicle, which sped off into the night. As the years turned to decades, rumor spread that high ranking Nazis were being shielded in the colony. Across the continent there are still small pockets where German is the common language. South America; Argentina; W alking through La Cumbrecita is a surreal experience. But even after they and their children and their grandchildren are gone, they will have a legacy in South America. © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. https://www.history.com/news/how-south-america-became-a-nazi-haven It wont be long now until no former Nazis are left alive. In 1955, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, a grandson of immigrants from Bavaria, opened Paraguay to former Nazis. In those days South America seemed like a different world to Europe. Adolf Eichmann (Credit: Adam Guz/Getty Images Poland/Getty Images). So the cameras were built into the walls of the courtroom and the trial was seen around the world. By the end of the war ODESSA maintained a covert network of people and locations willing to help former Nazis flee. Soon after, the German Moravians founded the town of Salem in 1766 (now a historical section in the center of Winston-Salem) and Salem College (an early female college) in 1772. In 1946 allied forces published a list of 150 thousand war criminals. Little is known of their activity in those early years but the colony grew steadily. Brazil took in between 1,500 and 2,000 Nazi war criminals, while between 500 and 1,000 settled in Chile. In the years and months leading up to Germany’s defeat, many Nazis carefully planned ways to escape justice. Klaus Barbie outside the Lyons court house following his sentencing on July 4, 1987. But researchers were not the only thing thousands of soldiers were aggressively looking for. But the greatest ratlines led to South America. Muller was director of Germany’s secret police, a close confidant of Hitler, and a notorious figure ominously known as “Gestapo Muller”. German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika): 1.1. And it wasn’t just Argentina. So many made it that they were able to establish their own communities of former Nazis. Due to the hundreds of thousands of German immigrants who lived in the country, Argentina maintained close ties with Germany and remained neutral for much of World War II. 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. Many of the Nazis who escaped to South America were never brought to justice. Those territories constituted the German Colonial Empire. It was in this year Germany lost the deadliest conflict in human history. 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