ARGENTINA: Nazi Bungle

There is scarcely a stranger spot for Nazi expansion than Argentina’s windy, frigid Patagonia, which stretches 1,000 miles down the Atlantic coast almost to Cape Horn. Seeing how their Führer grabs off huge bites of Europe, Nazi agents on other continents are prone to have big ideas over the possibilities of getting some Lebensraum (“living room”) in less populated areas of the world. Last week Argentines had a case of Hitler jitters when it was asserted by Noticias Gráficas, sensational Buenos Aires newspaper, that ambitious Nazi agents had presented their Government with a plan for annexing Patagonia.

Herr Heinrich Jurges, who claims once to have been Dr. Joseph Goebbels’ secretary, exposed the scheme “to avenge the death of his wife and her mother at the hands of the Gestapo.” He produced a letter addressed to the Reich’s Colonial Organization which declared that Patagonia is “nobody’s land and we can annex it,” and which told exactly how it could done. The signatures on the letter were identified as those of a German Embassy secretary and Nazi Leader Alfred Müller. Result: police arrested Leader Müller, raided Nazi Party offices. The German Chargė d’Affaires protested that the letter was a “gross forgery,” and Argentine Foreign Minister José Maria Cantilo made a conciliatory reply, although continuing to investigate. Most delighted were British and American traders who believed that the German genius for losing friends would weaken the Nazis’ position in the tight, three-cornered fight for Argentine business.