A group of members of a brown-shirted Nazi youth organization will go on trial here soon on charges of attacks on synagogues in Santiago, authorities indicated today.
Franz Heinz Pfeiffer-Richter, 25, and four of his followers in the National Socialist Movement, were indicted for trying to dynamite a synagogue here on May 21, 1958. Three days later, his group allegedly tried to set a Jewish clubhouse afire and at about the same time three other synagogues were attacked.
While the five were in prison awaiting trial, police raided the movement’s head-quarters and found a large collection of flags and other Nazi and Ku Klux Klan material, as well as pictures of Hitler. The Court of Appeals freed the Nazis on grounds of insufficient evidence on some of the charges. The Nazis were held in custody, however, pending a hearing by the appellate court on the specific charges of attacks on synagogues.
A pre-war Chilean Nationalist party, which embraced Nazi ideology, faded when the Allies crushed Nazi Germany. The new movement attracted public attention when Pfeiffer-Richter said he would lead “a battle against the Jews” and that he would be a candidate in the Presidential elections in 1964. The movement claims about 6,000 members.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
