Argentina releases list of 12,000 Nazis to Simon Wiesenthal Center
An Argentine investigator, Pedro Filipuzzi, has shared a list of some 12,000 names of Nazis in Argentina with the Simon Wisenthal Center.
The list, found in Interior Ministry archives in Buenos Aires, was originally prepared by Argentina's Special Commission to Research Anti-Argentine Activities, based a raid on the now-defunct German Union of Labor Syndicates.
The country's Lower House of Congress studied the findings in 1941-43, and printed a report that included details on Nazi bank transfers from Argentina to Switzerland.
Many of those listed had contributed to one or more bank accounts at the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, which became Credit Suisse.
Following a Standard Oil-backed coup in 1930, Argentina was ruled by two right-wing regimes who welcomed a growing Nazi presence in Argentina.
The 1938 election of centrist anti-Nazi President Roberto Ortiz, was followed by the establishment of the Special Commission - principally to de-Nazify Argentina.
There were 1,400 members of the NSDAP/AO (the Nazi Party Foreign Organization) in Argentina in 1938 - with 12,000 supporters of the (the German Union of Labor Syndicates) front group, and an additional 8,000 affiliated to other Nazi organizations.
The Special Commission's files were burned after a nationalist, 1943 coup. Up to 10,000 Nazis (mainly SS officers) escaped to South America following World War II.
At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/wiesenthal-center-reveals-names-of-1200-nazis-that-fled-to-argentina.phtml
Argentine researcher Pedro Filipuzzi (left), with the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Director of International Relations, Ariel Gelblung (a fellow Argentine).
Filipuzzi found the list, compiled by the Argentine government in 1941-43 as part of a de-Nazification effort, in Interior Ministry files.
Some 6 million Europeans and Middle-Easterners emigrated to Argentina between 1880 and 1930 - among them 124,000 Germans. Many supported Hitler during the 1930s and '40s.
The list includes few if any post-war Nazi escapees - but rather German-Argentines who belonged to a pro-Nazi front group.
