Behind the Headlines Nazi Activity Revived in Brazil

In the middle of 1942, before Brazil entered World War 11 to fight against Nazi Germany, the Brazilian security police discovered a Nazi spy ring, headed by a young German immigrant, Alfred Winkelmann. He was found guilty and convicted to two years in prison. A few weeks ago Winkelmann was again in the headlines of the Brazilian press, this time as one of the leaders of the revived Nazi movement in Brazil.

On April 22, a reporter of Rio’s "Jamal do Brasil" alarmed the police about a meeting of a Nazi group in the Tyll Hotel, in the summer resort of Itatiaia, 100 miles from Rio. Nazi meetings are not forbidden in Brazil. Nevertheless, the police searched the hotel and identified 20 German immigrants who settled here right after the war, and five Germans from overseas. One of the foreigners was Manfred Richard Kurt Roeder, the guest of another attendant of the meeting, Adolf Krall, from Sao Paulo. Roeder fled Germany in November, 1977 after a German court sentenced him to six months in prison for unlawful Nazi activity. He is considered by Hermann Weissing, the Attorney General, to be the head of the German neo-Nazi movement.

Adolf Krall, a wealthy industrialist, arrived in Brazil right after the war. Arrested for carrying a pistol without a permit, he offered to serve as an informer for the political police in Sao Paulo, the DOPS. The head of the DOPS has denied this.

The owner of the Tyll Hotel, Alfred Winkelmann, told the police that he invited his guests "just to have a good time and recall the old times." But a police search of the guests’ rooms yielded a vast collection of Nazi propaganda, including a German edition of "Mein Kampf" and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"; also pamphlets with the picture of Hitler and the slogan "Kauft Nicht Bei Juden." The police believe that the purpose of the meeting was to celebrate Hitler’s 89th birthday anniversary. Leaders of the Jewish community believe that the purpose was also to strengthen Nazi activity, especially the anti-Jewish activity, in Brazil, and possibly in other Latin American countries.

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Winkelmann told reporters that "it is not forbidden by the Brazilian law to be a Nazi. We do receive the Nazi propaganda from the U.S.A. Everyone can get it. Just write to P.O. Box 55-A, Liverpool, West Virginia, 25257…. "Answering questions about his anti-Jewish activity, he said that "the Jews must be punished, because they do not behave correctly. They are spreading the lie about six millions of Jews Killed by the Nazis. How was it possible to kill six millions, if there were only three millions of Jews in whole Europe, including Russia, before the war…"

Dr. Benno Milnitzky, president of the Jewish Confederation, the representative body of the Brazilian Jewish community, declared that: "The anti-Semitism revived after Brazil voted for the UN General Assembly resolution against Zionism in November, 1975, and the Nazis and neo-Nazis have found an adequate climate (in Brazil) for their activity. Swastikas appeared again on the walls and Jewish cemeteries were again desecrated, and Nazi propaganda, especially anti-Jewish literature, is infiltrating in to Brazil, in the Portuguese language, via Uruguay and Mexico."

Swastikas on the walls and desecration of Jewish cemeteries were reported mainly from the Brazilian provinces with a large German population. There are over a million Germans living in Brazil. In Blumenau, the second largest city in the southern province of Santa Caterina, founded by German immigrants in the 19th Century, some German owned coffee houses and restaurants refuse to serve clients if they look Jewish. Racial discrimination is punishable in Brazil with up to five years in prison. But the Nazis in Santa Caterina, and possibly in other places, ignore the law and continue to practice Nazism and anti-Semitism.