Nazis in Argentina

Nazi rally in Buenos Aires, April 10, 1938.

Nazi rally in Buenos Aires 1938.

Before the start of World War II Argentina hosted a strong well-organized pro-Nazi element that was controlled by the German ambassador. In the spring of 1938, some 20,000 Nazi supporters attended a “Day of Unity” rally held at the Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires to celebrate the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria into the Third Reich.

Nazi propaganda of a rally held in Luna Park Stadium Buenos, Aires 1938

Nazi rally Buenos Aires 1938

 20,000 Nazi supporters attended a “Day of Unity” rally held at the Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires.

Nazi rally Buenos Aires 1938

Nazi storm troopers ringed the entire auditorium.

Due to the hundreds of thousands of German immigrants who lived in the country, Argentina maintained close ties with Germany and remained neutral for much of World War II.  Outside Luna Park, the Federacion Universitaria Argentina (FUA) and socialist youth groups held a counter demonstration in nearby Plaza San Martín.  German flags were burned; German banks and the Instituto Cultural Germano-Argentino were stoned. Two elderly bystanders uninvolved in the demonstration were trampled to death by police horses. A few days later, Manuel Alvarado, interim chancellor of the Foreign Ministry, apologized publicly to Chargé d’Affaires, deploring a “certain press” offensive to German nationality that failed to “take into account the cordial relations between the two nations”.

Nazi rally Buenos Aires 1938

Argentine fascist youth, "Alianza de Juventud Nacionalista", were conspicuous in their gray shirts and Sam Browne belts.

The swastika in a gear seen in some of the flags is the badge of the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF), the National Socialist trade union organization which replaced the various trade unions of the Weimar Republic after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.