Nazi Menace in South America

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23719, 27 July 1940, Page 1 (Supplement)

Nazi Menace in South America

of the order. Paraguay forbids Jews to enter the country, and Brazil, until the United States unofficially intervened, deported Jews wholesale. Mr. Carleton Beals, the most autliorilative American writer on South American affairs, bitterly denounced this Nazi-inspired persecution of the Jew's: — "The long, hairy arm of ignorant Nazi race-hatred reaches out across the Atlantic to persecute a great people that in Germany alone lias made more noble and worthy contributions to world culture than all the Nordic Germans have ever made since time began." If Hitler has been powerful enough in South America to secure persecution of the Jews some conception can be gained of the strength of his intrigues in other directions. For propaganda over the radio and in the press is not bis only weapon. Jn Brazil there are nearly one million pure-blooded Germans; in the Argentine one hundred thousand Germans take a very influential part in the agricultural and industrial life of the country. In every State of South America you meet the übiquitous German merchant —"courageous and determined, ever ready for beer and camaraderie," but always a icady agent of Nazism. The Gestapo sees to that. Himmler's dread organisation functions in South America and quickly brings to heel any anti-Nazi German. As in the Reich, no German can ever be sure that his countryman, be he business man or member of the working

SOUTH AMERICA is the land of story-book States whose history we were once inclined to dismiss with a wave of the hand as a series of blood-stained revolutions. If intervals between the revolutions are now considerably longer, democracy in the American republics seems still as far off as ever. They are naturally a fertile soil for Nazism and Fascism —for the Fifth Column of Hitler and Mussolini. Science has brought South America close to the. Dictators. Two months ago nt the Pan-American Scientific Congress President Roosevelt stressed the annihilation of time and space which had destroyed the isolation of the-great republics of the South. "From the point of view of conquests it is a shorter distance from the centre of Europe to Santiago de Chile than it was' for the chariots of Alexander to roll from Macedonia to Persia. In modern times it is a shorter distance from Europe to San Francisco than it was for the ships and legions of Caesar to move from Rome to Spain or Britain. To-day it is four or five hours from the Continent of Africa to the Continent of South America, where it was five weeks for the armies oi Napoleon to move from Paris to Rome or Paris to Poland."

Chile, the Argentine and Brazil. Goebbels broadcasts his propaganda over a powerful wireless system. For sixteen hours a day music is skilfully interposed with German news and doctrines. In Brazil particularly, even the local stations are in important instances German-owned. Every item of news broadcast from such stations is given the usual Nazi twist and aims at vilifying the democracies. The German news service, Press Schreibfunk, recently broadcast to Brazil calling the United States "a democracy of noise," contrasted the woes of the unemployed in the United States with the elimination of unemployment in Germany, and branded democracy as synonymous with rat-poison and atheism. Propaganda in Brazil German newspapers carry.oil the evil work —fifteen of them in Brazil alone. They indulge in the usual anti-semitic propaganda. Even American-owned newspapers have been forced by German advertisers to publish Jew-baiting articles. No mercy is shown to the unhappy JeAVS. Those running German businesses in South America before Hitler seized power were speedilj' expelled and ruined. Every instrument of propaganda—the radio, the press and pamphlets— was used to drive them from all their places of employment. So strong is the virus of Nazism that three republics have officially joined in i the Jew-hunt. Ecuador actually ordered the expulsion of all Jews, although external pressure lead to the rescission I

Hitler has endeavoured to shape the destinies of-the rich territories of Peru,

Underground. Fifth Column Activities Directed From

THE POLITICAL SITUATION FRANKLY EXAMINED

By JOHN KNOX

class, is not an agent of the Gestapo, ready to denounce him fox' slackness 01 disloyalty to the party. Those who persist in opposing Hitler lose their passports, are boycotted and are lucky if they escape beating up. The training of German agents in South America is conducted on a scientific basis. The so-called "Foreign Organisation in the Foreign Office" at Berlin supervises their activities after they have first secured a grip of Nazi ideology and passed a course in the aims and methods of German foreign policy. They arrive in South America With an intimate knowledge of the men and conditions of the State in which thev will work. They may be appointed to the diplomatic service whose privileges they will abuse, or be added to business firms which are forced to take them, whether they like it or not. Youth Movements With plenty of money at their. disposal, and backed by all the power of the Nazi Party, they seek to preserve the unity of the Germans living in each republic' and to elevate them into a "super-state racial body." Thus in the rich Brazilian province of the Rio Grande do Sul these agents of the German Foreign Office have established sixty Nazi organisations, of which the youth movements are not the least important. Ever the most militant and fanatic of the Germans, these Nazi

youth generally have hidden stores ot arms, and under the guise of training for sport, drill for the day when Brazil will become a semi-independent appanage of the Reich. It is not very easy to say precisely where Brazil stands with the Nazis. Some United States politicians have been worried enough by German influence in this enormously wealthy and important State. In 1938 a Congressman said forcibly that "it was the duty of the United States to prevent the propagation in Brazil of this sickness" of Nazism. On the other hand, the present dictator of Brazil, Getulio Vargas, has at times taken steps to repress German activities in the territories of the Republic. A few weeks ago he made a statement which undoubtedly showed marked sympathy with the Axis Powers but subsequently made haste to say that his remarks had been misinterpreted. It is best to judge President Vargas by his works. In 1937 he assumed absolute power and suppressed the constitution, but blandly said that the new Government was not Fascist, but "Brazilian." This is possibly why Mr. Sumner Welles condemned American journalists for calling Brazil Fascist and thus endangering American interests in that country. President Vargas is reasonably assured of power, as he remains in office until a plebiscite is held; no date has beon fixed for this interesting

event. Ho clambered into the Presidential chair with the aid of the Green Shirts —the Integralistas, a body subsidised with Nazi funds and rejoicing in Nazi and Fascist ideology.

But then Vargas refused to play the game. In most unsporting style he ordered the Green Shirts to disband, to the no small annoyance of the Germans. The Integralistas in 1938 rose in revolt—aided by Germans, German money and German arms. Vargas vigorously repressed the party, whose members a year before he had greeted with the Nazi salute. But the cream of the joke was the comment on the whole affair by a leading Berlin newspaper:— "It is to be hoped that the Vargas regime will learn from these experiences that in the long run it is impossible to rule merely with force against the people's will. It is doubtful how long bayonets will serve their purpose." "Wheat and Gigolos" This interesting criticism of autocracy must have afforded some comfort to the disaffected elements in Germany itself. It emphasises the Fascist character of Vargas' regime. As one English newspaper put it, "We have seen no statement as to the colour of Dr. Vargas' shirt, but it seems there is no reason to doubt that lie has one, and that it has a colour." Whatever may be the divergencies of opinion between the Nazi Party and the Brazilian Government, the underground activities of the German fifth column in Brazil continue and are a menace to its independence. Further south lies the Argentine—the region of the most vital concern to us. From its vast pampas come wheat, wool and meat. It is true, as the great Will Rogers once remarked, that the Argentine exports gigolos as well as. wheat, and that the United States got the gigolos. But in fact, the great Sister Republic of the North does not need even the wheat —it is Europe which hungers for the wealth of the Argentine plains and it is England in particular which takes nearly 40 per cent of their products. British investments in the Argentine exceed £400.000,000. With British influence so strong one might expect that fifth column activities in the Argentine would be less marked than elsewhere m South America. Yet they cannot be ignored. Although the German colony is comparatively small, the Italians are very strong. Over two million of them have emigrated to the Argentine, and in a population of thirteen millions they exercise great cultural and political influence.

Dr. Manuel Fresco, until March governor and virtual dictator of the important Buenos Aires province, is a leader of the National Democrats, tfho may be national, but are certainly not Democrats. They are in fact Fascists, whose sympathies are plainly with Germany and Italy. Dr. Fresco has called Mussolini and Hitler " the saviours of Europe." Four months ago the activities of Dr. Fresco exhausted the patience of Senor Roberto M. Ortiz, the President of the Republic. Senor Ortiz turned a deaf ear to the reproach that his own accession to power was in great part due'to the assistance of Fresco's National Democrats. The powerful provincial governor had to go and, with him, we may hope, a valuable tool for Mussolini in the Argentine. Senor Ortiz is, of course, a, dictator. Mr. Cordell Hull has praised the President for his "faith in the preservation of democratic institutions." In fact such institutions do not flourish in South America, where, as one authority has put it, democratic government means merely republican government in which the elite, not the masses, rule. An Italian City The President of the Argentine is a lawyer and has been closely connected with the great British Corporations which have played, and continue to play, so important a part in the development of his great country. He has "large ears, big smudge eyebrows and puffy lids over stern black ej'es, a wide, full, but firm mouth in a wide face, and a bulldog jaw." He will at any rate be master in his own house. In Peru it is another matter. Here the Italians wield greater power than even in the Argentine, and Brazil—Sao Paulo is very much an Italian city. The former President of Peru, Senor Oscar

Benavides, was thoroughly under Italian influence and permitted an Italian Mission to control the army and ' thd police. The air force is dominated by Italian officials, who have erected near Lima a big Caproni assembly plant: Even- the - schools are' subject to Italian influence, and on great occasions, the pupils are required to give the Fascist salute. . . • ! ■ ; "" The last Pan-American Conference was held in December, 1938, at Lima. The present is in session at Havana. At Lima every effort was made by the totalitarian Powers to intimidate the delegates. The of the New York Times said that Mr. Cordell Hull proceeded to the opening session through a sea of Swastika, Italian and Japanese flags. According to Mr. Carleton Beals a swarm of German, Italian and Franco lobbyists worked day and night to influence the various delegations against the United States. Hitler has already sought to intimidate some of the delegates to Havana and has warned them against anti-Nazi policies. ■ At the present conference, the Argentine Republic will take a leading part, as it did at' Lima. Susceptible as it is to Italian influence, ties of friendship and commerce bind it to Great Britain whose continued existence is indissolubly linked with the Argentine's prosperity. As the Argentine, representative said at Lima, "We must not exclude that which unites us with all the rest of the human race, and we cannot disinterest ourselves in what occurs outside of .America. Argentine never has done so, and never will do so, not only because of economic reasons, but also because of. historic and sentimental reasons." So long as the British Navy rules the seas, the Argentine will never be a party to a policy of narrow isolation. ■