Why did so many Nazis choose to escape to Argentina, and how did they manage to escape over the Atlantic undetected?
In: 3074
Argentina had close cultural ties with Germany and Italy and a lot of Argentinians have Italian and/or German ancestry from a large number of immigrants that arrived in Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a German or Italian war criminal, it was easy to blend into the Italian or German immigrant communities in Argentina.
The Argentinian government also maintained close political ties with Germany and Italy for most of the war. The Vice President (and later president) of Argentina, Juan Peron, was a fascist sympathizer who had served as a military attaché in Italy during the early years of the war. He, with the help of the Vatican and other sympathizers, set up routes through ports in Italy as well as neutral Spain and to smuggle war criminals out of Europe and to South America using forged identity documents. There was a lot of chaos in Europe after the war and it was pretty easy to disappear without anyone noticing.
Edit: Just to add, it should be noted that Argentina was not the only country that helped Nazis and Axis war criminals escape. The U.S. and Britain has a massive program to secretly ferry thousands of prominent Nazi scientists to the U.S. and the U.K. to come work for them (Operation Paperclip and Operation Surgeon). Many of these were also war criminals. The only difference between these Nazis and the ones that ended up in South America are that these Nazis had skills that the U.S. and U.K. wanted to put to use.
There were a lot of German emigrants in Russia (the Volga Germans, named after the are where they settled), who had originally been invited there by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who was of German descent. After her passing, the Russia government began to roll back many of the benefits/privileges that Catherine had provided them, so they looked to leave Russia. At the time, a lot of South American countries were trying to attract immigrants from Europe to boost their population and settle the land. Argentina and Brazil attracted a lot of these German emigrants, as they both had officially installed Roman Catholicism as their state religion (the Volga Germans were mainly Catholics).
So there was a large population of ethnic Germans in Argentina long before the world wars. This led to friendly relationships between Argentina and both Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany. After the Second World War, this made Argentina a prime destination for those who were associated with Nazi Germany and wanted to flee. With the destruction caused by the war, record-keeping was not great, so it was not very difficult for officials to travel under false identities/papers in order to escape detection.
Argentina had a large German expat population so they could blend in there. The Argentinian government had also been relatively close to Nazi Germany during the war.
The Vatican helped a bunch of Nazis escape Europe through the “ratline”, and the US looked the other way or recruited Nazis through Operation Paperclip. The Nazis were after the war essentially more valued as anti-communists than defendants in war crimes trials.
Argentinian here
Shitty politicians doing what they love to do, basically
Our president back then basically gave them asylum here
Considering that almost 80 years later, we have a president from the same political party that was ruling back then, who, mere days before the Ukraine war, literally told Putin that it would be a good idea for Argentina to be the entrance door for Russia to Latin America, this should come as no surprise whatsoever
Following on from this question, I dated an Argentinian whose German grandparents ended up in Argentina right after the war.
She said it was because there was no economy in Germany and it was their best choice. But I’m just wondering what were the chances the grandfather was a fairly high ranking Nazi?
Not that I cared, she was nice and had to go home unfortunately. I have just always wondered
Edit: he was born in 1925 so probably just Joe Bloggs
Argentina’s government was sympathetic to Nazi ideology. I suggest you read The Ratline by Philip Sands.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp)
>Alfried was condemned to 12 years in prison and the “forfeiture of all [his] property both real and personal,” making him a pauper. Two years later, on 31 January 1951, John J. McCloy, High Commissioner of the American zone of occupation, issued an amnesty to the Krupp defendants. Much of Alfried’s industrial empire was restored, but he was forced to transfer some of his fortune to his siblings, and he renounced arms manufacturing.
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>By this time, West Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder had begun, and the Korean War had shifted the United States’s priority from denazification to anti-Communism. German industry was seen as integral to western Europe’s economic recovery, the limit on steel production was lifted, and the reputation of Hitler-era firms and industrialists was rehabilitated.
Saying they “escaped” to Argentina is bs, its more like they migrated to Argentina. This example shows a Nazi released just after serving 2 years in prison because they needed him to run his company. Other Nazis similarly needed to run the country.
By the time Cold war started just right after WW2 ended, there was no real interest in hunting down Nazi’s. The focus was on anti communism, who cares about Nazis at that point?
I thought it was basically witness protection. If they helped convict worse people or have us something valuable they were sent away where they could live a relatively peaceful life.
What’s up with so many nazi questions???
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