Sunday, January 5, 2025
Grand Ballroom (New York Hilton)
In 1945, when Germany was defeated and the atrocities of the Holocaust were discovered, the Allied Powers endeavored to bring the perpetrators to justice. This task, however, proved difficult, as many high-ranking Nazi war criminals evaded justice through a system of escape routes called “ratlines.” These escape routes varied, but the most common destination was Argentina, where a large German population and strong international ties were already established. In the decades leading up to the war, German military officials had traveled to Latin America to share their advanced military tactics. One of them was General Wilhelm Faupel, who served under General Uriburu of the Argentine Army and was the Inspector General of the Peruvian Army. By the time Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Faupel’s military career spanned four continents over four decades. With his particular expertise in Latin America, Faupel became a valuable asset to Hitler and was instrumental in developing the ratlines.
My transatlantic project investigates Wilhelm Faupel’s crucial yet under-researched role in establishing the groundwork for an intricate web of spies and informants in Europe and Latin America for the purpose of protecting former Nazis from Allied prosecution after World War II. Faupel’s collaborators ranged from high-ranking members of the Spanish Falange, such as Pilar Primo de Rivera, to Latin American heads of state, such as Juan Péron in Argentina. In Spain, Faupel found sympathizers interested in supporting Hitler, especially among the Spanish Falange “Women’s Section,” a far-right branch of the party led by Pilar Primo de Rivera. She, along with other Spanish women, collaborated heavily with Faupel—and even Hitler himself—in promoting Nazi ideologies in Spain and working to align the country more closely with Nazi Germany.
I further reveal that Faupel was connected to numerous Latin American politicians and leaders across the Atlantic who were interested in Nazism. In particular, I show how the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin—an organization nominally dedicated to academic and cultural exchange—acted as a vessel for espionage in Latin America, where Hitler aimed to establish German ascendancy. As Director of the Ibero-American Institute, Faupel expressly helped Hitler in developing a plan to infiltrate and conquer Latin America. He and his collaborators drew an official secret Nazi map of Latin America, which FDR later discovered, divided into five future German “economic regions” spanning the entire continent.
My poster will display images of the primary sources I used for this project, alongside contextual information about Faupel and the history of Nazi Germany’s ties to Spain and Latin America. This includes archival documents that I accessed in person at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, including American intelligence reports from the 1930s and 1940s. The poster will also contain news articles tracing Faupel’s whereabouts during his time at the Ibero-American Institute, photographs of Faupel with high-ranking foreign officials from Latin America and Spain, excerpts from a biography on Faupel published by an American during World War II, and the secret map of Latin America that Faupel created for Hitler.
My transatlantic project investigates Wilhelm Faupel’s crucial yet under-researched role in establishing the groundwork for an intricate web of spies and informants in Europe and Latin America for the purpose of protecting former Nazis from Allied prosecution after World War II. Faupel’s collaborators ranged from high-ranking members of the Spanish Falange, such as Pilar Primo de Rivera, to Latin American heads of state, such as Juan Péron in Argentina. In Spain, Faupel found sympathizers interested in supporting Hitler, especially among the Spanish Falange “Women’s Section,” a far-right branch of the party led by Pilar Primo de Rivera. She, along with other Spanish women, collaborated heavily with Faupel—and even Hitler himself—in promoting Nazi ideologies in Spain and working to align the country more closely with Nazi Germany.
I further reveal that Faupel was connected to numerous Latin American politicians and leaders across the Atlantic who were interested in Nazism. In particular, I show how the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin—an organization nominally dedicated to academic and cultural exchange—acted as a vessel for espionage in Latin America, where Hitler aimed to establish German ascendancy. As Director of the Ibero-American Institute, Faupel expressly helped Hitler in developing a plan to infiltrate and conquer Latin America. He and his collaborators drew an official secret Nazi map of Latin America, which FDR later discovered, divided into five future German “economic regions” spanning the entire continent.
My poster will display images of the primary sources I used for this project, alongside contextual information about Faupel and the history of Nazi Germany’s ties to Spain and Latin America. This includes archival documents that I accessed in person at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, including American intelligence reports from the 1930s and 1940s. The poster will also contain news articles tracing Faupel’s whereabouts during his time at the Ibero-American Institute, photographs of Faupel with high-ranking foreign officials from Latin America and Spain, excerpts from a biography on Faupel published by an American during World War II, and the secret map of Latin America that Faupel created for Hitler.