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History See other History Articles Title: Did Hitler Escape to South America? During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Argentine province of Patagonia became a popular destination for German immigrants. Patagonia had a great deal to offer. Roughly the size of Texas but much more sparsely populated, Patagonia was a place where German immigrants could start from scratch and, instead of assimilating into another culture, create a society of their own. As time passed and more and more Germans moved to Patagonia, German became the principal language in many of the schools, and the German flag was often flown in preference to the Argentine flag. Many of the local German businesses went so far as to hire only German immigrants instead of native Argentines. It might seem remarkable that the central government in Buenos Aires would sit back and allow Patagonia to become virtually a German colony. Buenos Aires, however, was not minding the store. The Argentine Government kept such a low profile in Patagonia in those days that a traveler working his way through Patagonia might not have known that it was a province of the nation of Argentina. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, many Patagonian Germans supported the emerging National Socialist movement in Germany, led by Adolf Hitler. As National Socialism advanced more and more in Germany, German schools and other institutions in Patagonia started to display pictures of Hitler, the Nazi Swastika, and other Nazi paraphernalia. Some critics accused Hitler of planning to formally annex Patagonia as a German colony, but Hitler strenuously denied this. It is not surprising that with the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, many Nazi officials fled Europe and found a warm welcome in Argentina, then led by Juan Peron, a dictator and admirer of Hitler. In addition to his sympathy with the Nazi ideology, Peron had selfish reasons to take the Nazis in. The ambitious Peron, who ruled the eighth largest nation on earth in terms of land area, believed that the German refugees would bring with them extensive scientific and military technology that might enable Argentina to dominate South America or even become a world power. Now just as some Nazis were settling in Argentina, others were settling in neighboring Paraguay, a country that in those days was ruled by Alfredo Stroessner, the son of a German immigrant and, like Peron, a Nazi sympathizer. When Peron was overthrown in 1955 and the climate in Argentina became less friendly to the Nazis, many Nazis who had initially settled in his country moved next door to Paraguay, where Stroessner continued to rule unhindered. Could the fallen German dictator, Adolf Hitler, have been among those Nazis who found refuge in South America? To most historians, the idea is preposterous because everyone knows that Hitler committed suicide in an underground bunker in Berlin at the very end of WWII. But the notion that Hitler had fled Europe did not seem preposterous at the time. Did not Admiral Donitz, the head of the German Navy, once state that the German Navy had prepared a safe haven for Hitler somewhere in the world in the event that Hitler’s position in Europe became untenable? In the immediate aftermath of the war, there was world-wide speculation that Hitler had escaped. For example, on July 17, 1945, the Chicago Sun Times reported that that Hitler was still alive and living on a ranch in Argentina. Some well-informed persons in high places, notably General Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, took these reports quite seriously. The latter adamantly insisted until he died in 1953 that Hitler had escaped to either Spain or Argentina. But these doubters were increasingly ignored and the view that Hitler had committed suicide in Berlin became the official view and eventually hardened into dogma. Now and again, a few people in South America claimed to have seen Hitler on their continent, but these sightings were regarded in the same light as sightings of Elvis Presley are today. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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