The U. S. cruiser Quincy streaked for Montevideo several months ago. Herr Fuhrmann, Hitlers deputy in Uruguay, was plotting to seize the mouth of the Rio Plata as a base for a revolution of the 2,500,000 Germans in Argentina and southern Brazil, The scheme blew up before the Quincy arrived, but it was an ominous portent, asserts a contributor ty the "Reader's Digest."
In Washington a high official pointed on a map to Brazil and French West Africa. "The French colony will "soon be a German-Italian base. Brazil is a hotbed of Nazi activity. They're eight hours apart by air."
"Do you seriously expect an invasion?" I asked.
The tired-looking official shook his head. "Not now," he answered. "For the present they are just stirring up a war of nerves to keep us running between fires in Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, Chile."
"Can't those countries take care of themselves?" I suggested. He smiled. "They're ripe for Hitler's sowing. It's going to take lots of cruisers from now on—and much wisdom."
German penetration of Latin-America' began in the last century, with shopkeepers and craftsmen. Unlike their fellow emigrants in North America, they clung to their language and customs, and of 5,000,000 first, second and third generation Alemanes today, most are as German as their forefathers. Three whole provinces of Brazil and stretches of Uruguay, Peru, Chile and Colombia are so predominantly German that many of the natives speak the language.
The approach of Herr Bohle and his assistants was shrewd and methodical. Eloquent emissaries were sent to the highly-respected German-Latin-American institutions and their ce-ordination under one banner began. Berlin distributed subsidies to German schools, sent teachers and Nazi textbooks, Latin-American Germans flocked to the party. A Reich reborn would give them back the prestige and power they enjoyed under the Hohenzollerns.
Once discipline had been established under Gauleiter regional commanders sent from Berlin, Nazi methods became sharper. German merchants were forced to contribute to local war chests on pain of boycott or stoppage of goods from the Reich; teachers who refused to give Nazi lessons were ousted from German schools and replaced with "politically reliable" colleagues. In each German legation, Bohle set up a "supervising service" in the Gestapo manner, which kept track of party members who did not report for drills and meetings. Disobedience was punished by reprisals, financial and physical.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.