German Influence in South Brazil

Abstract

Now that official Axis diplomats have been eliminated from Brazil following the Rio de Janeiro Conference, there remain three sources of possible subversive activities in that country: Axis nationals, Axis racial comrades of Brazilian citizenship, and general pro-fascist elements. In Southern Brazil, where 85% of the million Germanic settlers are Nazi sympathizers, is to be found the largest concentration of National Socialists in the world, outside Europe. Hitler's departing agents have left behind them a well-oiled machine, carefully trained to take over in case diplomatic relations were ever broken off. These states of Parana, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul caused Brazil much anxiety during the first World War, but they had not then been systematically schooled in a technique of world-wide military domination which recent history has seen Axis sympathizers employing in Norway, Holland, France, and at Pearl Harbor. Wide rural areas and sizeable cities in South Brazil are German settled and controlled. Their key civic leaders-mayors and merchants, peasants, pastors and professional men-form possibly the major fifth-column organization remaining in South America's largest country. Some North Americans discount the potential danger of this area. There were North Americans, too, who spoke glibly of France's army as the greatest in the world and smiled at any suggestion that Pearl Harbor might be assaulted. The Brazilian settlements are not the only population centers for Axis propaganda and sabotage remaining in Latin America. Mexico's German groups have been skilfully drilled for Axis usefulness by a galaxy of Nazi agents during nine consecutive years. The pro-