I just finished watching “Schindler’s List” (my first time; took me a while to work up the nerve).
Anyway, it prompted me to read up on the stories of some of the people involved in the Holocaust. In an article on Josef Mengele, it stated that he was able to escape to Argentina because of a groundswell of pro-Nazi fervor that was taking place there at the time.
I guess I had always assumed that the fleeing war criminals went there because the government was corrupt, and they were able to use their wartime booty to buy a safe haven. It also seemed that the fact that Latin America was relatively untouched by the war might have helped their cause.
But this seems to say that there was more to it than this. So, why were the Nazis so beloved in Argentina?
I thought South American countries have always been the preferred refuge of criminals because they do not have extradition treaties with most other countries.
Juan Peron was very sympathic to the Facists and
help Mussolini in his rise to power. There’s
some speculation that he was really Giovannia
Peroni. Spain and Germany also backed the
Perons. So it makes sense that the losers would
go to Argentina.
It is little known in the U.S. that Argentina was actually in the war, and on our side. Argentina declared war on Germany and Japan, but only under very strong pressure from the U.S. and only when it was obvious that we would win. They declared war on March 27, 1945, a little more than a month before V-E day. I’ve never heard that they sent any troops into combat.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I think that the largest source of emigrants to Argentina was Italy, so there were lots of people with Italian ancestry there who were somewhat favorable to Italy. (Hardly any Argentinians are of Indian (i.e., pre-Columbina native) ancestry.) It’s like why the U.S. was so slow to get into World War I. A lot of people don’t realize this, but the largest ethnic ancestry of Americans (both then and now) is German. Irish is second and English is only third. And before World War I, unlike now, people of German ancestry still frequently grew up speaking German and still made a big deal of their ancestry. An awful lot of Americans thus had no particular love for England and didn’t want to get into the war. It wasn’t until Wilson, essentially by a trick (the Lusitania was in fact carrying war materiel to the British), got some sympathy for the British side that Americans came around to joining the war on the side of the Allies. Afterwards, most German-Americans decided to play down their ancestry. By the time of World War II, there wasn’t much identification with the Germans left.
It sounds to me from what I’ve heard that none of the parties which dominated Argentinian politics in the mid-20th century were so all-fired great for the people of Argentina. The Peronists were supposedly the party of the poor, but they were very corrupt and weren’t much helping the poor. They were also sympathetic to the Nazis and the Fascists. (Interestingly, Argentina has a large Jewish population.) The opposition parties were more favorable to the rich people, were dominated by the military, and were also quite corrupt.
I overstated a little. Let’s put it this way: Compared to the other countries of South America, there are relatively few people of Indian descent. Only 15% of all Argentinians have any Indian blood at all. In contrast, 95% of the inhabitants of Paraguay are mestizo (partly Indian). No Indian language is even among the top five languages spoken in Argentina (Spanish, English, Italian, German, and French).
In the early-to-mid-XXth century, Argentina had a policy, enshrined in its very Constitution itself, of encouraging maximum inmigration specifically of Europeans with economic means or a useful trade – no wretched refuse for them ; also, very little questions asked. Before that, in the late-XIXth century and around the turn of the 1900’s, the policy favored specifically Catholics willing to work the land – which attracted lots of Italians.
One odd twist to this whole story was that a lot of the WW-II-and-shortly-thereafter German inmigrés in Argentina sent their kids to German-language academies founded by…
…German Jews that moved to Argentina PRE-WWII.
Starting at the time of their respective unifications (1871), the Germans made themselves a presence in South America. In their effort to be a serious world power, they moved in with investment, technical advice, aid in organizing and modernizing their armies, navies and merchant fleets, financing, etc., to build up industries and trade relationships in order to have customers. This in contrast with the US and UK which, AT THE TIME, were mostly interested in just sucking out the region’s raw materials and crops for next to nothing. This went on well into the fascist age. Italy also did some of this, not as much due to its lesser economic power, but quite a bit in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
This led to a relationship between the ruling groups in SA and those in Germany, and the growth of Latino-Germanic communities, that created the kind of networking opportunities that made life easy for those who had to get the hell out of Deutschland circa 1945. Hints of that old influence can still be picked up – watch your nightly news for any footage from Chile on the Pinochet affair, for the formal dress uniform of the Chilean military to this day. In Paraguay the situation includes quite a paradox – it has great communities of German Mennonites who emigrated fleeing Prussian/Nazi militarism, and some of the worst Nazis-in-hiding took advantage by “losing” themselves among these pacifists…
In the particular case of Argentina, the Peronistas of the time were a populist-nationalist faux-socialistic movement with many affinities to Mussolini’s blackshirts(*). Perón himself during WWII was on a roller-coaster ride of favour within the Argentine military, which was deeply split on its sympathies – and almost unanimously uncomfortable with the idea of becoming Britain’s ally.
(*) Later they became something I can only compare to a combination of the (current)Reform Party and (bad-old-days)Teamsters Union, on Acid. Today they’re just another mediocre pander-to-everyone political party.
; also, very little questions asked. Before that, in the late-XIXth century and around the turn of the 1900’s, the policy favored specifically Catholics willing to work the land – which attracted lots of Italians.