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(en) [AFIB] Evita, The Swiss & The Nazis
From
Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>
Date
Tue, 12 Jan 1999 09:41:05 -0800 (PST)
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|| * -- SPECIAL -- * January 12, 1999 * -- EDITION -- * ||
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* SPECIAL EDITION *
* * *
* THE CONSORTIUM *
For Independent Journalism
Web: http://www.consortiumnews.com
Tel: (703) 920-1580
E-mail: rparry@ix.netcom.com
- Volume 4, No. 2 (Issue 79) - January 18, 1999 -
-----
_________________________________________________________________
EVITA, THE SWISS & THE NAZIS
_________________________________________________________________
By Georg Hodel
http://www.consortiumnews.com/c010699a.html
Web Posted January 7, 1999
* * *
On June 6, 1947, Argentina's first lady Eva Peron left for a
glittering tour of Europe.
The glamorous ex-actress was feted in Spain, kissed the ring
of Pope Pius XII at the Vatican and hobnobbed with the rich-and-
famous in the mountains of Switzerland.
Eva Peron, known as "Evita" by her adoring followers, was
superficially on a trip to strengthen diplomatic, business and
cultural ties between Argentina and important leaders of Europe.
But there was a parallel mission behind the high-profile
trip, one that has contributed to a half century of violent
extremism in Latin America.
According to records now emerging from Swiss archives and
the investigations of Nazi hunters, an unpublicized side of
Evita's world tour was coordinating the network for helping Nazis
relocate in Argentina.
This new evidence of Evita's cozy ties with prominent Nazis
corroborates the long-held suspicion that she and her husband,
Gen. Juan Peron, laid the groundwork for a bloody resurgence of
fascism across Latin America in the 1970s and '80s.
Besides blemishing the Evita legend, the evidence threatens
to inflict more damage on Switzerland's image for plucky
neutrality. The international banking center is still staggering
from disclosures about its wartime collaboration with Adolf
Hitler and Swiss profiteering off his Jewish victims.
The archival records indicate that Switzerland's assistance
to Hitler's henchmen didn't stop with the collapse of the Third
Reich.
And the old Swiss-Argentine-Nazi connection reaches to the
present in another way. Spanish "superjudge" Baltasar Garzon is
seeking to open other Swiss records on bank accounts controlled
by Argentine military officers who led the so-called "Dirty War"
that killed and "disappeared" tens of thousands of Argentines
between 1976-83.
During World War II, Gen. Peron -- a populist military
leader -- made no secret of his sympathies for Mussolini's Italy
and Hitler's Germany.
Even as the Third Reich crumbled in the spring of 1945,
Peron remained a pro-fascist stalwart, making available more than
1,000 blank passports for Nazi collaborators fleeing Europe.
With Europe in chaos and the Allies near victory, tens of
thousands of ranking Nazis dropped out of sight, tried to mix in
with common refugees and began plotting escapes from Europe to
Argentina across clandestine "ratlines."
At the Argentine end of that voyage was Rodolfo Freude. He
also was Juan Peron's private secretary, one of Evita's principal
benefactors and the chief of Argentine internal security.
Freude's father, Ludwig, played another key role. As
managing director of the Banco Aleman Transatlantico in Buenos
Aires, he led the pro-Nazi German community in Argentina and
acted as trustee for hundreds of millions of German Reichsmarks
that the Fuehrer's top aides sent to Argentina near the war's
end.
By 1946, the first wave of defeated fascists was settling
into new Argentine homes. The country also was rife with rumors
that the thankful Nazis had begun to repay Peron by bankrolling
his campaign for the presidency, which he won with his stunning
wife at his side.
In 1947, Peron was living in Argentina's presidential palace
and was hearing pleas from thousands of other Nazis desperate to
flee Europe. The stage was set for one of the most troubling
boatlifts in human history.
The archival records reveal that Eva Peron stepped forward
to serve as Gen. Peron's personal emissary to this Nazi
underground. Already, Evita was an Argentine legend.
Born in 1919 as an illegitimate child, she became a
prostitute to survive and to get acting roles. As she climbed the
social ladder lover by lover, she built up deep resentments
toward the traditional elites.
As a mistress to other army officers, she caught the eye of
handsome military strongman Juan Peron. After a public love
affair, they married in 1945.
As Peron's second wife, Evita fashioned herself as the
"queen of the poor," the protector of those she called "mis
descamisados" -- "my shirtless ones." She created a foundation to
help the poor buy items from toys to houses.
But her charity extended, too, to her husband's Nazi allies.
In June 1947, Evita left for post-war Europe. A secret purpose of
her first major overseas trip apparently was pulling together the
many loose ends of the Nazi relocation.
Evita's first stop on her European tour was Spain, where
Generalissimo Francisco Franco -- her husband's model and mentor
-- greeted her with all the dignified folderol of a head of
state.
A fascist who favored the Axis powers but maintained
official neutrality in the war, Franco had survived to provide a
haven for the Third Reich's dispossessed. Franco's Spain was an
important early hide-out for Nazis who slipped through the grasp
of the Allies and needed a place to stay before continuing on to
more permanent homes in Latin America or the Middle East.
While in Spain, Evita reportedly met secretly with Nazis who
were part of the entourage of Otto Skorzeny, the dashing Austrian
commando leader known as Scarface because of a dueling scar
across his left cheek.
Though under Allied detention in 1947, Skorzeny already was
the purported leader of the clandestine organization, Die Spinne
or The Spider, which used millions of dollars looted from the
Reichsbank to smuggle Nazis from Europe to Argentina.
After escaping in 1948, Skorzeny set up the legendary ODESSA
organization which tapped into other hidden Nazi funds to help
ex-SS men rebuild their lives -- and the fascist movement --- in
South America.
Evita's next stop was equally fitting. The charismatic
beauty traveled to Rome for an audience with Pope Pius XII, a
Vatican meeting that lasted longer than the usual kiss on the
ring.
At the time, the Vatican was acting as a crucial way station
doling out forged documents for fascist fugitives. Pope Pius
himself was considered sympathetic to the tough anti-communism of
the fascists although he had kept a discreet public distance from
Hitler.
A top-secret State Department report from May 1947 -- a
month before Evita's trip -- had termed the Vatican "the largest
single organization involved in the illegal movement of
emigrants," including many Nazis. Leading ex-Nazis later publicly
thanked the Vatican for its vital assistance. [For details, see
Martin A. Lee's The Beast Reawakens.]
As for the Evita-Pius audience, former Justice Department
Nazi-hunter John Loftus has charged that the First Lady of the
Pampas and His Holiness discussed the care and feeding of the
Nazi faithful in Argentina.
After her Roman holiday, Evita hoped to meet Great Britain's
Queen Elizabeth. But the British government balked out of fear
that the presence of Peron's wife might provoke an embarrassing
debate over Argentina's pro-Nazi leanings and the royal family's
own pre-war cuddling up to Hitler.
Instead, Evita diverted to Rapallo, a town near Genoa on the
Italian Rivera. There, she was the guest of Alberto Dodero, owner
of an Argentine shipping fleet known for transporting some of the
world's most unsavory cargo.
On June 19, 1947, in the midst of Evita's trip, the first of
Dodero's ships, the Santa Fe, arrived in Buenos Aires and
disgorged hundreds of Nazis onto the docks of their new country.
Over the next few years, Dodero's boats would carry
thousands of Nazis to South America, including some of Hitler's
vilest war criminals, the likes of Mengele and Eichmann,
according to Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa.
On August 4, 1947, Evita and her entourage headed north to
the stately city of Geneva, a center for international finance.
There, she participated in more meetings with key figures from
the Nazi escape apparatus.
A Swiss diplomat named Jacques-Albert Cuttat welcomed the
onetime torch singer. The meeting was a reunion of sorts, since
Evita had known Cuttat when he worked at the Swiss Legation in
Argentina from 1938 to 1946.
Newly released documents from Argentina's Central Bank
showed that during the war, the Swiss Central Bank and a dozen
Swiss private banks maintained suspicious gold accounts in
Argentina. Among the account holders was Jacques-Albert Cuttat.
The Swiss files accused Cuttat of conducting unauthorized
private business and maintaining questionable wartime contacts
with known Nazis. In spite of those allegations, the Swiss
government promoted Cuttat to chief of protocol of the Swiss
Foreign Service, after his return from Argentina to Switzerland.
In that capacity, Cuttat escorted Eva Peron to meetings with
senior Swiss officials. The pair went to see Foreign Minister Max
Petitpierre and Philipp Etter, the Swiss president.
Etter extended a warm welcome to Evita, even accompanying
her the next day on a visit to the city of Lucerne, "the doorway
to the Swiss Alps."
After her "official" duties had ended, Evita dropped out of
public view. Supposedly, she joined some friends for rest and
recreation in the mountains of St. Moritz.
But the documents recounting her Swiss tour revealed that
she continued making business contacts that would advance both
Argentine commerce and the relocation of Hitler's henchmen. She
was a guest of the "Instituto Suizo-Argentino" at a private
reception at the Hotel "Baur au Lac" in Zurich, the banking
capital of Switzerland's German-speaking sector.
There, Professor William Dunkel, the president of the
Institute, addressed an audience of more than 200 Swiss bankers
and businessmen -- plus Eva Peron -- on the wonderful
opportunities about to blossom in Argentina.
Recently released Swiss archival documents explained what
was behind the enthusiasm. Peron's ambassador to Switzerland,
Benito Llambi, had undertaken a secret mission to create a sort
of emigration service to coordinate the escape of the Nazis,
particularly those with scientific skills.
Already, Llambi had conducted secret talks with Henry Guisan
Jr., a Swiss agent whose clients included a German engineer who
had worked for Wernher von Braun's missile team. Guisan offered
Llambi the blueprints of German "V2" and "V3" rockets.
Guisan himself emigrated to Argentina, where he established
several firms that specialized in the procurement of war
materiel.
His ex-wife later told investigators, "I had to attend
business associates of my former husband I'd rather not shake
hands with. When they started to talk business I had to leave the
room. I only remember that millions were at stake."
Intelligence files of the Bern Police Department show that
the secret Nazi emigration office was located at Marktgasse 49 in
downtown Bern, the Swiss capital. The operation was directed by
three Argentines -- Carlos Fuldner, Herbert Helfferich and Dr.
Georg Weiss. A police report described them as "110 percent
Nazis."
The leader of the team, Carlos Fuldner, was the son of
German immigrants to Argentina who had returned to Germany to
study. In 1931, Fuldner joined the SS and later was recruited
into German foreign intelligence.
At war's end, Fuldner fled to Madrid with a planeload of
stolen art, according to a U.S. State Department report. He then
moved to Bern where he posed as a representative of the
Argentinean Civil Air Transport Authority. Fuldner was in place
to assist the first wave of Nazi emigres.
One of the first Nazis to reach Buenos Aires via the
"ratlines" was Erich Priebke, an SS officer accused of a mass
execution of Italian civilians. Another was Croat Ustashi leader
Ante Pavelic. They were followed by concentration camp commander
Joseph Schwamberger and the sadistic Auschwitz doctor, Joseph
Mengele.
Later, on June 14, 1951, the emigrant ship, Giovanna C,
carried Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann to Argentina where he
posed as a technician under a false name. Fuldner found Eichmann
a job at Mercedes-Benz.
(Israel intelligence agents captured Eichmann in May 1960
and spirited him to Israel to stand trial for mass murder. He was
convicted, sentenced to death and hanged in 1962.)
Though Evita's precise role in organizing the Nazi
"ratlines" remains a bit fuzzy, her European tour connected the
dots of the key figures in the escape network. She also helped
clear the way for more formal arrangements in the Swiss-
Argentine-Nazi collaboration.
Additional evidence is contained in postwar diplomatic
correspondence between Switzerland and Argentina. The documents
reveal that the head of the Swiss Federal Police, Heinrich
Rothmund, and the former Swiss intelligence officer Paul
Schaufelberger participated in the activities of the illegal
Argentine emigration service in Bern.
For instance, one urgent telegram from Bern to the Swiss
Legation in Rome stated:
"The (Swiss) Police Department wants to send 16 refugees to
Argentina with the emigration ship that leaves Genoa March 26
[1948]. Stop. All of them carry Swiss ID cards and have return
visa. Stop."
Besides political sympathies, the Peron government saw an
economic pay-off in smuggling German scientists to work in
Argentine factories and armaments plants.
The first combat jet introduced into South America -- the
"Pulque" -- was built in Argentina by the German aircraft
designer Kurt Tank of the firm, Focke-Wulf. His engineers and
test pilots arrived via the illegal emigration service in Bern.
But other Nazi scientists who reached the protected shores
of Argentina were simply sadists. One physician, Dr. Carl
Vaernet, had conducted surgical experiments on homosexuals at the
Buchenwald concentration camp. Vaernet castrated the men and then
inserted metal sex glands that inflicted agonizing deaths on some
of his patients. [See Lee's The Beast Reawakens.]
For the Swiss, the motives for their cozy Nazi-Argentine
relationships were political and financial, both during and after
the war.
Ignacio Klich, spokesman for a new independent commission
investigating Nazi-Argentine collaboration, said he believes the
wartime business between Nazi Germany and Argentina was handled
routinely by Swiss fiduciares.
That suspicion was confirmed by Swiss files released to the
U.S. Senate as well as papers from the Swiss Office of
Compensation and correspondence between the Swiss Foreign
Ministry and the Swiss legation in Buenos Aires.
One target of the commission's investigation is Johann
Wehrli, a private banker from Zurich. During World War II, one of
Wehrli's sons opened a branch office in Buenos Aires which,
investigators suspect, was used to funnel Nazi assets into
Argentina.
The money allegedly included loot from Jews and other Nazi
victims. (Later, the giant Union Bank of Switzerland absorbed the
Wehrli bank.)
Swiss defenders argue that tiny Switzerland had little
choice but to work with the powerful fascist governments on its
borders during the war. But the post-war assistance appears
harder to justify, when the most obvious motive was money.
According to a secret report written by a U.S. Army major in
1948, the Swiss government made a hefty profit by providing
Germans with the phony documents needed to flee to Argentina.
The one-page memo quoted a confidential informant with
contacts in the Swiss and Dutch governments as saying, "The Swiss
government was not only anxious to get rid of German nationals,
legally or illegally within their borders, but further that they
made a considerable profit in getting rid of them."
The informant said German nationals paid Swiss officials as
much as 200,000 Swiss francs for temporary residence documents
necessary to board flights out of Switzerland. (The sum was worth
about $50,000 at the time.)
Moreover, that memo and other documents suggest that KLM
Royal Dutch Airlines may have illegally flown suspected Nazis to
safety in Argentina, while Swissair acted as a booking agent.
Back in Argentina, the rave reviews for Evita's European
trip cemented her reputation as a superstar.
It also brought her immense wealth lavished on her by
grateful Nazis. Her husband was re-elected president in 1951, by
which time large numbers of Nazis were firmly ensconced in
Argentina's military-industrial apparatus.
Evita Peron died of cancer in 1953, touching off despair
among her followers. The fearful military buried her secretly in
an unannounced location to prevent her grave from becoming a
national shrine.
Meanwhile, a feverish hunt began for her personal fortune.
Evita's brother and guardian of her image, Juan Duarte, traveled
to Switzerland in search of her hidden assets.
After his return to Argentina, Duarte was found dead in his
apartment. Despite her husband's control of the police -- or
maybe because of it -- the authorities never established whether
Duarte was murdered or had committed suicide.
In 1955, Juan Peron was overthrown and fled to exile in
Spain where he lived as a guest of Franco. Peron apparently
accessed some of Evita's secret Swiss accounts because he
sustained a luxurious lifestyle.
The money also may have greased Peron's brief return to
power in 1973. Peron died in 1974, leaving behind the mystery of
Evita's Nazi fortune. In 1976, the army overthrew Peron's vice
president, his last wife, Isabel.
Paradoxically, the cult of Evita flourished still. The
idolatry blinded her followers to the consequences of her
flirtation with the Nazis.
Those aging fascists accomplished much of what the ODESSA
strategists had hoped. The Nazis in Argentina kept Hitler's torch
burning, won new converts in the region's militaries and passed
on the advanced science of torture and death squad operations.
Hundreds of left-wing Peronist students and unionists were
among the victims of the neo-fascist Argentine junta that
launched the Dirty War in 1976.
When the junta started its "war without borders" against the
left elsewhere in Latin America, it used Nazis as stormtroopers.
Among them was Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo's Butcher of Lyon who
had settled in Bolivia with the help of the "ratline" network.
In 1980, Barbie helped organize a brutal putsch against the
democratically elected government in Bolivia. Drug lords and an
international coalition of neo-fascists bankrolled the putsch.
A key supporting role was played by the World Anti-Communist
League, led by World War II fascist war criminal Ryoichi Sasakawa
of Japan and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Barbie sought assistance from Argentine intelligence. One of
the first Argentine officers to arrive, Lt. Alfred Mario
Mingolla, later described Barbie's role to German journalist Kai
Hermann.
"Before our departure, we received a dossier on [Barbie],"
Mingolla said. There it stated that "he was of great use to
Argentina because he played an important role in all of Latin
America in the fight against communism."
Just like in the good old days, the Butcher of Lyon worked
with a younger generation of Italian neo-fascists. Barbie started
a secret lodge called "Thule," where he lectured his followers
underneath swastikas by candlelight.
On July 17, 1980, Barbie, his neo-fascists and rightist
officers from the Bolivian army ousted the center-left
government. Barbie's team hunted down and slaughtered government
officials and labor leaders, while Argentine specialists flew in
to demonstrate the latest torture techniques.
Because the putsch gave Bolivian drug lords free reign of
the country, the operation became known as the Cocaine Coup. With
the assistance of Barbie and his neo-fascists, Bolivia became a
protected source of cocaine for the emerging Medellin cartel.
Two years later, Barbie was captured and extradited to
France where he died in prison. [For details, see Covert Action
Information Bulletin, Winter 1986; or iF Magazine, Nov.-Dec.
1997.]
Most of the other old Nazis are dead, too. But the violent
extremism that the Perons transplanted into South America in the
1940s still haunts the region.
In the 1980s, the Argentine military extended its operations
to Central America where it collaborated with Ronald Reagan's CIA
in organizing paramilitary forces, such as the Nicaraguan contras
and Honduran "death squads."
Even today, as right-wing dictators in Latin America are
called to account for past atrocities, fledgling democracies must
move cautiously and keep a wary eye on rightists in the region's
potent militaries.
The ghosts of Evita's Nazis are never far away.
Copyright 1999 The Consortium.
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