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Nazism in Chile

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Black-and-white photograph of Nazis standing in a decorated office. An empty table is in the foreground. Three men look towards the camera, including a young man on the left and one in the middle with a toothbrush moustache.
A group of Nazi collaborators, from Chile's 1939–1947 investigation (supported by the FBI)
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Black-and-white photograph of a large assembly with a Nazi flag on the back wall. Hitler Youth stand on the left. Seated in the front row are suited men with Nazi armbands; the central baldish man has a toothbrush moustache. Behind him are a hatted woman and a man with no sideburns, flanked by four-plus children.
Nazi assembly of men, women, and children (including Hitler Youth),[1] from the investigation[2]

Some local support of Nazism in Chile preceded Adolf Hitler's 1933 appointment as Chancellor of Germany, including a Chilean National Socialist party active from 1932 to 1938. Nazi Germany also pursued the Nazification of German Chileans.

Nazi spy networks operated in the country between 1937 and 1944. The Chilean government's Department 50 investigated Nazi activity throughout Latin America until 1947, with the help of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. Numerous files and photographs were declassified in 2017. History's investigative documentary series Hunting Hitler suggested that they possibly corroborated the dictator's escape from Berlin.

Other movements related to Nazism continued to operate in Chile until the latter half of the 20th century. This included Colonia Dignidad, a site of human rights abuses during Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship. Pinochet was supported by former Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Walter Rauff, who spent his later life in the country.

Background

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See also: Antisemitism in Chile and Racism in Chile

Chilean physician Nicolás Palacios, a proponent of the scientific racism ideology, considered the "Chilean race" to be a mix of two bellicose master races: the Visigoths of Spain and the Mapuche (Araucanians) of Chile.[3] Palacios traces the origins of the Spanish component of the "Chilean race" to the coast of the Baltic Sea, specifically to Götaland in Sweden,[3] one of the supposed homelands of the Goths. Palacios claimed that both the blonde-haired and the bronze-coloured Chilean Mestizos share a "moral physonomy" and a masculine psychology.[4] He opposed immigration from Southern Europe and argued that Mestizos who are derived from Southern Europeans lack "cerebral control" and are a social load.[5]

History

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See also: Nazism in the Americas and Operation Bolívar
Nazi station in Latin America
Nazis stand around some military paraphernalia. The boots are very tight on a balding foreground figure, who wears a Hitleresque jacket.
A man in a Nazi outfit indicating rank
In front of a crowd of casual Nazi saluters, two decorated men give a lower salute. The balding one on the left has a small nose and puffy cheeks. The stout man on the right has a thin moustache.
Decorated leader (centre) with a half-philtrum toothbrush moustache[a]

There was a German Chilean youth organization with strong Nazi influence prior to 1933 (when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party gained control of Germany). Germany pursued a policy of Nazification of the German Chilean community,[9] as it did elsewhere.[10] The German Chilean communities and their organizations were considered a cornerstone to extend the Nazi ideology across the world, and they mostly supported Nazi Germany (at least passively), with a widespread presence in the country's German Lutheran Church.[9] The Chilean German community, however, did not act as an official extension of the German state.[11] A local chapter of the Nazi Party was started in Chile.[9]

The National Socialist Movement of Chile (MNSCH) was founded in 1932. After it was dissolved in 1938, some of its notable former members migrated into the Agrarian Labor Party, obtaining high charges.[12] Other former MNSCH members formed new parties of that kind until 1952.[12]

Between 1937 and 1944, Nazi spy networks operated in Chile. After the Navy discovered their presence via radio, in 1941 the Chilean General Directorate of Investigations established the International Confidential Section (or "Department 50"), which investigated local pro-Nazi activity until 1947,[13][2] such as that of Bernardo Timmermann. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation's Special Intelligence Service assisted Chilean officials in their efforts. Related records, including numerous photographs, were subsequently maintained by the National Archives of Chile[14] (and declassified in 2017).[15] Department 50 broke up two spy rings and prevented plots to attack mines in northern Chile and the Panama Canal.[16] Its final probe detected Nazis in the coastal cities of Lima (Peru), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Montevideo (Uruguay), and São Paulo (Brazil).[17]

In 2018, History's investigative documentary series Hunting Hitler, which alleges the dictator's secret escape from Berlin, visited the archives and asserted the existence of a network of over 700 outposts resembling Chile's secretive Colonia Dignidad (which housed some Nazis).[18] Additionally, a concentration camp was claimed to have been run by former Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Walter Rauff[19][b] who supported Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.[21] Senior SS officer Richard Glücks, believed to have died in 1945, was speculated to have escaped Germany, allegedly to Chile.[22][23]

A new Nazi Party was formed in 1964 by school teacher Franz Pfeiffer;[12] it organised a "Miss Nazi" beauty contest and formed a Chilean branch of the Ku Klux Klan[12] before disbanding in 1970. Pfeiffer attempted to reboot the party in 1983 amid a wave of protests against Pinochet's military dictatorship.[12]

Colonia Dignidad

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This section is an excerpt from Colonia Dignidad.[edit]
Colonia Dignidad ('Dignity Colony' or 'Colony of Dignity') was an isolated colony established in post-World War II Chile by emigrant Germans which became notorious for the internment, torture, and murder of dissidents during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s while under the leadership of German emigrant preacher Paul Schäfer.[24] Colonia Dignidad has been described as a "state within a state".[25][26]

Resistance

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Nazism had also detractors in Chile. An example of this is the telegram sent by Salvador Allende and other members of the Congress of Chile to Hitler after the Kristallnacht (1938) in which they denounced the persecution of Jews.[27]

See also

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References

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Footnotes

  1. ^ According to one FBI report, the escaped Hitler had shaved his toothbrush, his upper mouth looking like buttocks. He allegedly headed from Argentina towards the southern Andes.[6] Compare ear shape.[7][8]
  2. ^ Rauff was known for modifying gas vans for mobile killings during the Holocaust.[20]

Citations

  1. ^ "Hitler Youth Hiking". Facing History & Ourselves. 28 June 2022. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  2. ^ a b Documentos Dpto.50 (II parte) (in Spanish). Archivo Nacional de Chile. 11 January 2018. Event occurs at :30. Retrieved 8 April 2024 – via YouTube.
  3. ^ a b Palacios 1918, pp. 35–36
  4. ^ Palacios 1918, p. 37
  5. ^ Palacios 1918, p. 41
  6. ^ "Adolf Hitler Part 01". FBI.gov. pp. 1–3. Retrieved 10 June 2025.
  7. ^ "Ears as effective as DNA in identifying people - new study". RNZ. 14 July 2023. Retrieved 10 June 2025. Ears are very unique for each person.
  8. ^ Tangalakis-Lippert, Katherine (19 March 2023). "Is Putin using a body double? Listen here: Skeptics say spotting a decoy is all in the ears". Business Insider. Retrieved 10 June 2025. As you grow older your ear doesn't change.
  9. ^ a b c Nocera, Raffaele (2005), "Ruptura con el Eje y el alineamiento con Estados Unidos. Chile durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial", Historia (in Spanish), 38 (2): 397–444[page needed]
  10. ^ Paula, Rogério Henrique Cardoso de (2017). "As comunidades alemãs frente ao nazismo no Brasil e noChile: uma História comparada" [The germans communities against nazism in the Chile and in the Brazil: comparative History]. Revista Trilhas da História (in Portuguese). 5 (10): 72–93. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
  11. ^ Penny, H. Glenn (2017). "Material Connections: German Schools, Things, and Soft Power in Argentina and Chile from the 1880s through the Interwar Period". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 59 (3): 519–549. doi:10.1017/S0010417517000159. S2CID 149372568. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  12. ^ a b c d e Etchepare, Jaime Antonio; Stewart, Hamish I. (1995), "Nazism in Chile: A Particular Type of Fascism in South America", Journal of Contemporary History, 30 (4): 577–605, doi:10.1177/002200949503000402, S2CID 154230676
  13. ^ "Transferencia de Archivos del Departamento 50 de la Dirección General de Investigaciones". Archivo Nacional (in Spanish). Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  14. ^ "Descifrando las redes de espionaje nazi: historia del Departamento 50 (1)". Archivo Nacional (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 10 December 2023. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  15. ^ "Chile publishes details of Nazi spy rings in World War Two". Reuters. 22 June 2017. Retrieved 29 May 2025.
  16. ^ "Chile police declassify files on Nazi plots". Deutsche Welle. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2025.
  17. ^ "Nazi Networks in Chile: Declassified Documents". Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural. Retrieved 16 June 2025.
  18. ^ Cassigoli, Rossana (May 2013). "Sobre la presencia nazi en Chile". Acta Sociológica (in Spanish). 61: 157–177. doi:10.1016/S0186-6028(13)70994-0.
  19. ^ "Hitler's Last Will". Hunting Hitler. Season 3. Episode 8. 2018. 7, 10 minutes in. History.
  20. ^ Tony Paterson (27 January 2013). "How the Nazis escaped justice". The Independent. Retrieved 9 June 2025.
  21. ^ Huismann, Wilfried: Pinochets deutscher Pate. Tagesschau. ARD, September 3, 2023 (in German).
  22. ^ Hamilton, Charles (1996). Leaders & Personalities of the Third Reich, Vol. 2. R. James Bender Publishing. p. 146. ISBN 0-912138-66-1.
  23. ^ "Ex-nazi Says Martin Bormann, Three Other Hitler Aides, Alive in Latin America". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 2 January 1968. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
  24. ^ Brown, Stephen (7 May 2012). "Insight: German sect victims seek escape from Chilean nightmare past". Reuters.
  25. ^ Rotella, Sebatian (25 June 1997). "Siege may force colony to yield its secrets". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  26. ^ Hevia Jordán, Evelyn (2022). "Colonia Dignidad: Lights and Shadows in the Recognition of the Victims". In Elizabeth Lira; Marcela Cornejo; Germán Morales (eds.). Human Rights Violations in Latin America. Peace Psychology Book Series. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 223–236. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-97542-5_16. ISBN 9783030975418. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  27. ^ "Telegram protesting against the persecution of Jews in Germany" (PDF) (in Spanish). El Clarín de Chile's.

Sources

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