Nazi Gold Stories From Argentina
A brief look at what could be called gold stories, legends, or myths, sheds light on to the missing Nazi treasures. The biggest hoard still missing is that of Bormann’s Aktion Feuerland project. Undoubtedly, there are as many myths as there are facts surrounding Bormann’s treasure. Some have taken on the aspects of legends. Thus the reader is forewarned that what follows concerning this hoard may be partially false. What is known with certainty is up until June 1944, Bormann transferred his loot across France in trucks to Spain. In Spain the treasure was transferred to U-boats, which then made the voyage to Argentina. After D-Day with the land route closed to Spain, Bormann continued his transfer of assets to Argentina by air. Author, Ladislas Farago claims that the virtually complete record of this operation is preserved in the archives of Coordination Federal in Buenos Aires, in the FBI files, and in the archives of the British Admiralty. The later assumed the U-boats were on regular patrol. Farago claims the shipments began in 1943 and arrived on a regular basis spaced at six to eight weeks apart. He states the money and gold were deposited in the name of Eva Peron.
According to Farago, the Perons managed to gain control over much of Bormann’s treasure and in Eva Peron’s ‘Rainbow Tour of Europe’ she deposited over $800 million in numbered accounts in various Swiss banks.
Farago lists the treasure as:
187,692,400 Gold Marks
17,576,386 American Dollars
4,632,500 Pounds Sterling
24,976,442 Swiss Francs
8,370,000 Dutch Florins
17,280,009 Belgian Francs
54,968,000 French Francs
87 kilograms Platinum
2,511 kilograms of Gold
4,638 carats of Diamonds and other precious stones.
Farago’s list of Bormann’s treasure above has been partially verified by Adam Lebor, as he specifically list the same quantities of gold and diamonds. Although Farago starts the gold deliveries before the Red House meeting, the Allies first became alarmed at the Nazi gold transfers it in 1943. Allied intelligence believed that much of the first gold to arrive in Argentina was used to finance the Nazi espionage web in South America.
One legend concerning Argentina and Nazi gold claims that in the closing days of the war a fleet of Nazi U-boats containing the Nazi treasure and top Nazis, including Hitler left Germany for Argentina. In route to Argentina they encountered an allied naval task force and a battle resulted in the loss of several allied ships, which the United States continues to deny. Recently, additional evidence surfaced in “Pravda” shedding new light to the legend. It is known that ten U-boats were dispatched to Argentina in the last days of the war. “Pravda” claims that at least 5 of them reached Argentina with no less than 50 top Nazi officials. During the trip the U-boats sunk an American battleship and the Brazilian cruiser ‘Bahia’ with a death toll of more than 400, including US citizens.
“Pravda” claims the US ship was the ‘USS Eagle 56’. No US Battleship was sunk at sea in WWII. ‘USS Eagle 56’ (PE-56) was a United States Navy World War I era patrol boat that remained in service until World War II. It was sunk on 23 April 1945, off the Maine coast towing targets for dive bombing practice. Only thirteen of the 67 crew members survived. The navy maintained the ship was sunk by a boiler room explosion until recently, finally acknowledging that the ‘USS Eagle 56’ had in fact been sunk by U-boat U-853. U-853 was sunk on 6 May 1945, in the North Sea southeast of New London.
The ‘Bahia’ was sunk by U977, which surrendered at Mar del Plata, Argentina on 17 August 1945, and was turned over to the US for testing. Four US radiomen: William Joseph Eustace, Andrew Jackson Pendleton, Emmet Peper Salles, and Frank Benjamin Sparksere were aboard the “Bahia” and were killed. The US Navy still lists the men as missing in action. Brazil ascribes the sinking of the ‘Bahia’ to an onboard explosion.
The article in “Pravda” was based on information from Argentina researchers Carlos De Napoli and Juan Salinas. They claim that a fleet of almost 20 U-boats sailed from the Norwegian port of Bergen, between 1 May and 6 May. They joined another group of U-boats coming from the US coasts around Cape Verde. There they learned of the surrender. Some scuttled their boats, others surrendered, and still others set course for Germany. However, at least six of the U-boats proceeded for Argentina. Further, the article claimed that the Argentina Navy was ordered to stop attacks on German U-boats operating close to Argentina beaches, on orders from Churchill. Farago for one has confirmed that the Argentina Navy was issued such an order by Peron. He does not however, mention that the order came from Britain.
The “Pravda” article contains a serious error in the name of the US ship sunk. Due to the controversy of the sinking being listed as a boiler explosion when the survivors reported seeing a trotting horse on a red shield on the conning tower, the sinking of the “USS Eagle 56” has been thoroughly investigated. However, the article contains much information known to be true, including the listing of two of the U-boats: U-530 and U-977. U-530 surrendered in the Mar del Plata, Argentina on 10 July 1945. It was turned over to the US for testing. Other information has been partially confirmed by other investigators. It is also known initially, the US didn’t believe the report of Hitler’s suicide at first and launched a search in South America for him and other missing top Nazis. After surrendering, the commander of U-977 Heinz Schäffer was arrested and charged with smuggling war criminals to South America.
Interestingly, U-530 appeared to have been stationed around Cape Verde in 1944. On 23 June 1944, U530 rendezvoused with the Japanese sub I-52 to transfer a radar detector about 850 miles west of the islands. The Allies were aware of the transfer and Allied planes managed to sink the Japanese submarine. The I-52 was located in 1955 and still contains 2 tons of gold.
Additional information surfaced in 1997 in Argentina. The national newspaper, “Ambito Financiero”, was contacted by a man giving his full German name and his commander’s identity number. He claimed he arrived in Argentina after scuttling his U-boat. In 1970s, a different person making the same claim contacted the same paper. This U-boat commander wrote that, on Hitler’s specific orders, ten submarines, each with fifty officers and crew, were to sail to Argentina to help found the Fourth Reich. Recently, more information on this fleet of U-boats came from Norway. There, a person claiming to have allegedly worked in an archive department of the Nazi Navy, a large part of which was stationed in southern Norway during the War, discovered additional documents that collaborate the Argentina information. Other researchers have long claimed two U-boats were scuttled after unloading their cargo of documents and gold in shallow water, which would confirm the two contacts with the paper.
This brief look at the Bormann treasure transferred to Argentina readily illustrates the difficulty of sorting fact from fiction in the tales of Nazi loot. Author, Uki Goni has also presented proof of the difficulties encountered in relying on Argentina records. He has found that those records have been purged of incriminating files on at least two different occasions. The full truth of the Bormann treasure may never be revealed unless the Untied States and England declassifies all documents from WWII. The “Pravda” article was obviously inflated largely along the lines of the Soviet suspicions of the time. However, setting aside its faults, it sheds additional light on Bormann’s operation that the Untied States and England would like to see buried. Additional searches for German U-boats along the Argentina coast are already being planned. Any discoveries would only serve to confirm more of the “Pravda” article as well as the contacts made with the Argentina paper.
Documentary uncovers Nazi gold trail to Argentina
By Hilary Burke
Buenos Aires, Argentina (Reuters) – A new documentary thick with tales of spies and secretive submarine landings traces how Nazis smuggled gold and cash from Europe to Argentina, a notorious safe haven for war criminals after World War Two.
“Nazi Gold in Argentina,” directed by Argentine filmmaker Rolo Pereyra, aims to break new ground by revealing how Swiss banks, Roman Catholic bishops and Argentine politicians helped to plunder hundreds of millions of dollars in Third Reich treasures. The flight of many Nazis, including notorious Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, from war-torn Europe to South America has been extensively documented. But the trail of a fortune in gold and cash has been much less explored.
The documentary, partly financed by HBO, re-enacts stories of Nazi submarines loaded with gold landing in Argentina’s far-flung Patagonia, the mysterious deaths of Nazi conspirators, and spy-novel machinations based on 10 years of research. It received a standing ovation at Sao Paulo’s International Film Festival last month, and director Pereyra suspects the audience enjoyed the film’s dramatic flair.
The documentary will be screened at film festivals in Belgium, Spain and Cuba through December.
“My idea was to give it a bit of that spy story rhythm … with spies spying on spies … People appreciate that,” Pereyra said.
The film includes vignettes on such figures as Hermann Dörge, a powerful German banker who worked at Argentina’s Central Bank in the 1940s and died in a suspicious suicide after destroying proof of the Nazi wealth transfers, according to Argentine central bank archives and Allied intelligence.
The film — based on the book “Odessa al Sur” by Argentine writer Jorge Camarasa — connects the dots between Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Germany and Argentina to show how Nazis and their wealth were smuggled to the New World. Hundreds of Nazis flocked to Argentina after the war, drawn by the open-door policy of Gen. Juan Domingo Peron, a pragmatic politician with fascist sympathies. But Nazi ties to the political and economic elite outlasted Peron, Pereyra said. “What surprised us is that the trail of this smuggled money leads to the heirs of many families, even up to the 1980s and 90s,” Pereyra said. “These people are linked to the Argentine oligarchy and the economically powerful.”
“Nazi Gold in Argentina” includes interviews in Argentina with Wilfred von Oven, a former aide to Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Göbbels and the son of Erich Priebke, a former SS captain who was extradited to Italy and jailed for his role in the murder of 335 civilians in Rome in 1944. Camarasa said the importance of the probes is that they unearthed conspiracies and complicities hidden for decades. “Bringing this to light allowed people to confront a quite shameful episode in Argentina,” Camarasa said. |
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The Truth is the LIGHT 