The German Speakers of Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

By the end of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, around 300,000 German- speaking people of diverse political, social, and religious extraction were living in Argentina. Adolf Hitler’s proclamation as chancellor in Germany had a strong impact on the intense social life of this motley group of individuals and modified its relationship with the different sectors of local society. This chapter analyzes the various stances taken by German-speaking residents towards the National Socialist regime, the development of the Second World War, the fall of the Third Reich and the revelation of its crimes. It aims to contribute to the debate on the impact of National Socialism and the Second World War on German-speaking communities around the world, offering a nuanced view that takes into account the influence and interaction of both the global and the local. National Socialist and anti-Nazi activities, but also a more exclusivist definition of Argentine nationality by the Argentine state in the late 1930´s and early 1940´s favoured a reconfiguration of collective identity in German speakers. For many, both National Socialist sympathizers and committed anti-Nazis, this meant a closer relationship to the Deutschtum, in what amounted to a real struggle over German identity; while for Jews it often (but not always) resulted in a “renewed” feeling of Jewishness, as a result of their exclusion from German nationality and Argentine-German institutions, and of the revelation of Nazi Germany´s war crimes. All of them, however, suffered from the anti-German environment resulting from a campaign that stressed the dangers of a “Nazi invasion” and exaggerated the Third Reich’s might and reach. This campaign, which originated within the German Argentine press, had a boomerang effect upon all German institutions and individuals, and served as a polarizing force in their definitions of identity.