Nazis why south america

In , the Allies published a list of Nazi war criminals. They only found and judged 50, out of , people. This means the rest either escaped or died. Experts speculate that around 10, of those missing fled to South America. How could they have run away in a time when the whole world was turning their backs on them?

In a time when everyone was doing an effort to uncover war crimes by the day? People of each branch operated a different escape route.

Government senior officials, former soldiers, war pilots, doctors, foreign governments, aid organizations and the Catholic Church worked actively to help Nazis evade justice and find new homes in South America, shipping Nazis from the Spanish or Italian coast. Many South American and European Catholic officials issued fake documents for them to get passports from the Vatican or the Red Cross—who were also complicit—so they could travel freely. They provided the false papers that facilitated people like Adolf Eichmann to sail to South America, along with other Secret Service members.

But what countries would be open to receiving people declared persona non grata—like the Nazis? In most cases, those with dictatorships or governments that simpathized with Nazism—actually, many South American countries were breeding grounds of anti-semite sentiments for half a century.

His ulterior motive in helping Nazis flee to Argentina was to continue laundering money—over one billion dollars—for Nazi-owned companies. Besides, there were many well-established German colonies all over South America ready to welcome the new wave of German immigrants. The communities gave the Nazis good jobs within large corporations, factories, diverse industries, and even farms. Moving to Nazi colonies in South America meant having every aspect of a regular, even above average, life.

Some of them did remain out of sight, but most felt at home in local German colonies whose members would welcome them warmly into their network. The transition into their new identities and lives included getting to know a new country whose arms were wide open for Nazi members.

Since economy and war are deeply intertwined, in , the rest of the neutral nations decided to enter war favoring the Allied cause. Despite many pro-fascist sympathizers in Latin America during World War II, all the countries of the region broke relations with the Axis powers. There was a strong Nazi influence within youth organizations in Chile before Nazi Germany did everything in their power in order to pursue a Nazification policy in Chile but it did not work to a significant degree.

Its leader, Paul Shafer, was a low-ranking Nazi official who turned into cult leader. European authorities accused him of several abuses before fleeing Germany, and the Chilean government issued warrants against him more than 30 years later. He disappeared for 8 years, and resurfaced in Argentina.

The two countries worked together to extradite him and convict him—he remained in prison for 4 years until he died. The Colony had a free hospital, care centers, bakeries, cropping areas, and many facilities in order to lure new members in.

He reinforced security perimeters constantly with new technology so no one would go out or come in. This included dogs, security officers, motion sensors, tall fences, and outposts. He also built a secret tunnel with a sound proof safe room where he could handle anything that worked with electricity from afar. Mengele conducted human experiments on more than twins during his time in Germany, and was later one of the most wanted men of World War II. One of the many atrocities of his reign was the abduction, torture, killing and dissappearing of around 80 thousand people who opposed his regime.

There were many concentration camps to accomplish this, one of them being within Colonia Dignidad. Apparently the Chilean government wanted to take advantage of Nazi experience and knowledge of prisioner torture and interrogation. The colony also fabricated and stored an arsenal, guns, grenades and all sorts of weapons. Unger changed his first name to Luis and waited for his wife, Betty Unger, and her sister, Gusti Hansen, to arrive on the St.

Louis, a luxury liner-turned-refugee ship bound for Havana. Louis en route to Cuba in The Cubans turned the ship away. So did every other country in the Americas, including the United States. Courtesy David Unger There, most of the passengers learned their visas were invalid because the Cuban official who approved them was deemed corrupt. The ship tried to reach the US but was pressured away by the Coast Guard.

It returned to Europe, where hundreds of its passengers perished in the Holocaust — including Betty and Gusti, who both died at Sobibor. Surviving the Inquisition, Sephardim — or, Spanish Jews — were later joined by coreligionists from Germany. In general, McConahay said, they coexisted peacefully with non-Jews before the war exposed anti-Semitism.

Often, groups were homegrown. It led to preventing Jews from coming into Latin America. In many cases, Latin countries looked to US law as a model. Latin American leaders played a complex role. His country was, however, a lone voice against the Anschluss in the League of Nations. Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic famously if not quite altruistically offered his nation as a refuge to Jews. As he walked to his small brick house in a middle-class Buenos Aires suburb on May 11, , he passed by a chauffer and two men working under the open hood of a black Buick limousine.

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. Everyone involved in the abduction was playing a high-stakes game of deception.

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. Eichmann was hardly alone among Nazis in finding refuge in South America after the fall of the Third Reich. According to a article in the Daily Mail, German prosecutors who examined secret files from Brazil and Chile discovered that as many as 9, Nazi officers and collaborators from other countries escaped from Europe to find sanctuary in South American countries.

Brazil took in between 1, and 2, Nazi war criminals, while between and 1, settled in Chile. However, by far the largest number—as many as 5,—relocated to Argentina.

Adolf Eichmann on trial, April 21, in Jerusalem. 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.