Latin America and Nazi Germany Relations

[NatSoc420]

[I moved this topic from the "Holocaust" forum knowing that it wasn't a perfect fit. It does suggest that perhaps myself and our Webmaster need to consider building another forum for such outliers. Thanks, M1]

I'm curious on what were the relations between Latin American countries and the Third Reich before and during the war. Were they in good terms? Did some form alliances with the Third Reich during WW2?

[Kretschmer]

While every country in Latin America eventually joined the Allies over the course of the war, some were definitely more sympathetic and friendly towards Germany than others, most notably Brazil. A little over a year after Brazil successfully repressed a failed Bolshevik uprising in November of 1935 that had taken place in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and Natal, it received an invitation from Germany to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. However, President Getúlio Vargas declined it on the account that its economic ties with the US and UK were still strong enough to where the country simply could not risk isolating itself from either American or British trade.

Despite this, and Vargas' active repression of the German and Italian languages in Brazil's Southern Region as part of his campaign to integrate all foreigners into Brazilian society, Brazil and Germany still maintained close commercial and occasional governmental cooperation. Vargas also banned Jews from obtaining visas in 1935, and to put it mildly, he was not a fan of the international Jewish banking clique either. Naturally, relations became more strained in 1937 when Vargas outlawed all foreign political movements in the country, including the Brazilian branch of the NSDAP, but nonetheless, it was not until late 1940 when Brazil had no choice but to pragmatically favor the Allies, at least economically speaking.

Things would only get truly awful after the US effectively coerced Brazil into providing land for aircraft bases on the Northeast coast in early 1942, all the while Brazil was obligated through the 1942 Pan-American Conference in Rio de Janeiro to sever all diplomatic ties with Germany. Curiously, the English version of Zionist Wikipedia doesn't mention that Roosevelt, quite the "good neighbor" himself, had plans to launch an invasion of the Northeast if Vargas rejected his offers of aid to the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) in exchange for the aircraft bases.

However, there are several Portuguese sources that denote this subject (including this article: https://istoe.com.br/40070_INVASAO+PELO+NORDESTE/?pathImagens=&path=&actualArea=internalPage), with even the Portuguese edition of Wikipedia admitting this fact. What's also not mentioned by Wikipedia, as is all too predictable, is that while German U-boats did indeed operate in Brazilian waters since the autumn of 1941, they did not sink a single ship flying under the Brazilian flag until long after the events of the 1942 Pan-American Conference. Soon enough, I'll write up another post describing the relations that Germany had with other Latin American nations, particularly Brazil's Spanish-speaking neighbors.