Nazi Propaganda Campaign in Latin America Proposed to Fight U.S. Influence

A concerted German propaganda campaign to combat United States influence in Latin America was proposed today by Gen. Wilhelm Faupel, president of the Berlin Ibero-American Institute and former German Ambassador to Nationalist Spain, at a meeting of the German Academy.

“The Monroe Doctrine,” Gen. Faupel asserted, “was laid down for the purpose of serving domination by the United States of the American Hemisphere. For Latin-America there is but one danger — the United States.” Of the recent Pan-American Conference at Lima he said: “This conference should be considered as an attack in the grand style against the totalitarian states in general and Germany in particular.” The very Pan-American idea, he asserted, was a “perfidious invention” of the United States. Opposing to this idea that of an Iberian-America, Gen. Faupel declared that “the countries of South America and Central America are much closer to Spain and Portugal than to the United States.”

The speaker urged that Germany send professors and scholars to South American countries “to properly fight United States propaganda.” “We wish to live in peace with the United States,” he added, “but we cannot leave attacks from America without reply. To this effect we should make full use of the radio, the cinema and the press as the United States does. Numerous Germans must go to Latin-America, but it is necessary that a numerous group of important professional men, professors, physicians, etc., should be invited by the German Academy to show how superior we are to other nations in the cultural and social fields.”

Gen. Faupel attacked “the Jewish financiers of Wall Street and the free masons,” and said that President Roosevelt was responsible for a hate campaign against Germany in the United States.