Brazil

Before Brazil gained independence, Ger­mans played only a marginal role (as mer­chants, soldiers, and technicians) in the history of this Portuguese colony. The best- known German explorer of this early pe­riod is Hans Staden.

1725), Johann Philipp Bettendorff, SJ (1627—1698), Jodokus Perret, SJ (1663— 1707), Aloys Konrad Pfeil, SJ (1638—1701), Hans Xaver Treyer, SJ (1668—1737), Anton Sepp von und zu Rechegg, SJ (1655—1733), and Richard von Pilar, OSB (1635—1700), were instru­mental in spreading the Catholic faith among the native population. Johann Heinrich Bohm (1708—1783) created the first Brazilian army. After the construction of several fortresses in the Amazon basin, Jose Sebatiao de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis de Pombal, prime minister of Portugal, ordered that settlements should be estab­lished near Macapa and the village of Viqosa da Madre de Deus. For these colonies, Azoreans and ninety-one German soldiers and settlers, including two women, were recruited.

Major German Settlement Areas in Brazil

In October 1807 the Portuguese court fled to Brazil because of the advance of Napoleon’s troops. The colony became the new center of the empire, and projects for its development were started. In December 1815 the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarve was created. The en­tourage of John VI included several Ger­man scientists, engineers, and officials, who were entrusted with fostering the de­velopment of the new kingdom. The king also issued the first instructions to increase the country’s population.

Spontaneous emigration to Brazil was practically impossible because it could not compete with the brevity of crossing from Europe to North America. The fact that a sizable migratory flow to Brazil did occur is due to the Brazilian government’s direc- tionist attitude. After Empress Leopoldine, the daughter of the emperor of Austria, Francis I, encouraged German immigra­tion, the Brazilian government sent agents to Germany to recruit immigrants. One of these agents was Major Anton Aloys von Schaeffer. Schaeffer and other agents made promises, such as freedom of religion, full civil liberties, and equal rights, as well as a ten-year tax exemption, that did not have the approval of the Brazilian government and were partly in conflict with the Brazil­ian constitution. Conservatives and planta­tion owners, however, opposed further Eu­ropean immigration and succeded in pass­ing a law that stripped the government of all financing for the promotion of immi­gration in December 1830. The govern­ment reacted by deferring the issue of im­migration to the provinces. Thus colonial legislation was passed in the province of Santa Catarina in 1836 and in Rio Grande do Sul in 1845, which was amended in 1854. In spite of that, gaps in the legisla­tion (particularly regarding the legal status of Protestant immigrants) and other incon­veniences led the Prussian state to promul­gate, from 1853 onward, laws such as the von-der-Heydt’sches Reskript (Heydt Edict) of 1859, that protected its emigrants and also restricted emigration to Brazil. The Prussian law forced the Brazilian gov­ernment to regulate the legal status of Protestant immigrants.

Lured by the propaganda of emigra­tion agents and letters written by emigrants to their relatives and friends, many Ger­mans were attracted to Brazil.

After World War II a group of Swabians from the Danube went to Brazil to start a new life.

The immigrants’ place of origin shows that they constituted a rather heteroge­neous group. Their total number must not have been higher than 300,000.

In Brazilian society German immi­grants were marginalized from the very be­ginning. The German settlements were usually located in scarcely populated areas, and for this reason their contact with al­ready established populations in the coun­try was minimal. Elements of Brazilian cul­ture were only adopted when they seemed to offer some kind of advantage. Ethnically homogeneous settlements emerged, where the German language and traditions were preserved. Over time, however, they went through such profound changes that a Ger­man culture of peculiar characteristics emerged. The fact that the white immi­grants worked on their property and tilled the land with their own hands—until then a task regarded as slave work—was incom­patible with the Brazilian mentality. Up to that time the prevailing opinion in Brazil was that manual labor was unworthy of a white man. Thus it is easy to infer that the older inhabitants of the country saw the

immigrants as second-class people. The re­ligion of many immigrants also seemed strange. The difference in religious beliefs did not make the incorporation of Protes­tant immigrants into society easier; this difference was precisely one of the factors of marginalization.

In 1889 Brazil became a republic. This political change brought two significant advantages for German immigrants: the “great naturalization,” that is, the general­ized granting of the Brazilian citizenship, and the separation of church and state. Immigrants hoped that these changes would allow for easier integration into Brazilian society. However, the opposite happened. In Brazil most descendants of German immigrants supported the Liberal Party and, additionally, were loyal sup­porters of the monarchy. When the repub­lic was proclaimed, most supporters of the Conservative Party oddly moved to the Republican camp.

With the proclamation of the republic, Brazilian Germans were once again mar­ginalized. The situation in Rio Grande do Sul was characteristic. When in 1893 the Federalist Revolution broke out, most Ger­mans sympathized with the leader of the former Liberal Party, Gaspar Silveira Mar­tins, who was at the same time the intellec­tual leader of the Federalists. The revolu­tion ended with the victory of the Republican Party and the indirect defeat of the Brazilian Germans. Their political in­volvement, which had started with Koseritz and others, was ended. They completely withdrew from politics. In the end, a tacit agreement with the winners was reached: the descendants of German origin were al­lowed to preserve their German heritage in exchange for their votes. Furthermore, under the hegemony of the Republican Party, Rio Grande do Sul adopted a posi­tivist constitution, which fully corre­sponded to the ideas of the French philoso­pher Auguste Comte and was guided by his Systeme de politique positive, according to which the state should not intervene in the intellectual life of a people. Science, art, and religion must develop independently from the state. By following the positivist motto, “Those who want may learn and those who can may teach,” an enormous development of the German community schools was made possible. From 1889 to 1930 became a golden age of German cul­ture in Brazil. The greatest progress in the struggle for the preservation of the German heritage was achieved precisely in these years. This philosophical and political change, however, turned out to be a trap.

Until the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, Germany had no great in­terest for the citizens of the various Ger­man states. Until the middle of the nine­teenth century, Germans knew almost nothing about the “Germans” in Brazil. Al­though the Hanseatic cities did have some economic interest in the colonists, it was only in the middle of the nineteenth cen­tury that private Protestant associations be­came concerned with emigrants’ living conditions. Even after 1871, Brazil did not matter in the foreign policy of Germany. With regard to Germans abroad, Otto von Bismarck remarked: “Germans who take off their fatherland like an old jacket are no longer Germans for me, and I no longer have any interest as a compatriot in them” (Brunn 1971, 127). However, some politi­cians and public opinion did not agree. Many people expected a separation of a German state from the Brazilian territory and believed that the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic would fulfill their dream of a surrogate for the colonies that Germany did not have. The revolutions that occurred in the beginning of the Re­publican era seemed to give them reasons for such hope. It was expected, for in­stance, that Brazilian Germans actively par­ticipated in the revolution and that after the separation of the southern provinces from the rest of Brazil, a German su­premacy would be established there. But these hopes ignored the political position of Brazilian Germans.

After Bismarck’s fall from power, the German Foreign Relations Ministry showed a greater interest in the fate of Brazilian Germans. The representatives of the German Empire were instructed to visit the German colonies and to participate more actively in public life. These measures were guided by economic interests. There was also an attempt to divert German em­igration to Brazil. Only after this policy failed did the German Empire develop a more active policy regarding German colonists in Brazil. It was designed to pre­serve German culture in Brazil to guaran­tee a market for German industry. German politicians encouraged Brazilian Germans to withstand assimilation. They were ready to employ the German press, German schools, German-speaking congregations and churches, and the German navy to this end.

Attempts to exert influence on the German-speaking schools through teach­ers, printed materials, and financial sup­port were very successful. Several civil and ecclesiastic organizations participated in this project and received financial support from the School Fund of the Foreign Rela­tions Ministry of Germany. In 1906 the same ministry funded the publication of a German reading-book for schools in Brazil that had a print run of 10,000 copies. By 1914 this book had already reached its fifth edition. The policy for the preservation of German culture that was developed by the German navy should not be minimized. By the turn of the century, the visits of Ger­man ships to Brazil became routine. They were seen as an evident means of preserving contacts between Germany and Brazil’s German enclaves. The crews visited Ger­man settlements in order to arouse the pride of the descendants of Germans for Germany.

The results of this policy were counter­productive, however, and contributed to the emerging fear in Brazil of a “German danger.” When Germany declared war on France in 1914, Brazilian Germans enthu­siastically celebrated the news. But this support was mainly a consequence of the political marginalization to which most of the Brazilian Germans were submitted in the first years of the Brazilian Republic rather than a sign of admiration for Ger­many’s war goals. Reservists presented themselves at the consulates and attempted to reach Germany. The course of events in Europe led to public demonstrations in favor of the entente (the military alliance between France, Russia, and Great Britain) in Brazil, which in turn provoked plunders and led to outrages and abuses of Brazilian Germans. Only the intervention of Brazil­ian authorities put an end to it. The torpe­doing of the Brazilian ship Parand on April 4, 1917, led to the rupture of diplomatic re­lations between Brazil and Germany. After the torpedoing of two more ships on Octo­ber 25, Brazil declared war on Germany. Two days later the Brazilian Ministry of the Interior sent a decree to the governors of the states with German populations. The instructions prohibited the circulation of German newspapers and ordered the clos­ing of German schools. Finally, after the torpedoing of additional Brazilian ships, a state of siege was declared on November 17 in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Parana, Sao Paulo, and the Federal District.

After the end of the war and the defeat of the Germany in 1918, the idea of a strong German state that could interfere into Brazilian domestic policy had been shattered, and it was expected that Brazil­ian Germans would distance themselves from the “old fatherland.” However, the prohibition of German-language newspa­pers and the closing of schools had unex­pected consequences. Even though the ban on the German language was lifted after the end of war, Brazilian Germans retreated into their ethnic enclaves. During the 1920s and 1930s, they faced a new chal­lenge with the advent of modernism and the new state policy of “Brazility,” which mandated the integration of all ethnic groups into mainstream Brazilian society.

This new movement had its first great ex­pression in the “Week of Modern Art” that took place in Sao Paulo in 1922. During the government of Getulio Vargas, Brazil’s ruler from 1930 to 1945, the integration of the various immigrant groups was declared the center of his social policy. Initially, a system of quotas was introduced, in which immigration was reduced to 2 percent of the total number of immigrants of each na­tionality that had arrived in the previous fifty years. Measures were adopted to create mixed settlements to prevent the emer­gence of ethnically homogeneous units. Vargas made the development of a national educational system a priority of his govern­ment. In addition, schools that were con­sidered “foreign schools” were requested to conform to state requirements. First the government demanded the teaching of all disciplines in the national language, and later the teaching of any foreign language to students below the age of twelve was prohibited. These measures were particu­larly significant for Brazilians of German descent because of the network of schools in which German was the first language of instruction in all subjects.

After 1933, Brazilian Germans became the target of Nazi propaganda. National So­cialist (NS) organizations were created in the towns, and agents infiltrated the Brazil­ian German associations. The state of Rio Grande do Sul, for instance, was organized as a Kreis (district) of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP) with a Kreisleiter (district leader). Brazilian German companies that did not sympathize with the National Socialist movement were boy­cotted, fund-raising campaigns for the Win- terhilfswerk (Winter Aid Organization) were organized, and conferences and public demonstrations on the major National So­cialist holidays were promoted. The NS movement showed a particular interest in the Brazilian German associations. The NSDAP attempted to infiltrate and influ­ence these societies by paying the fees of its members. As soon as a majority of members favored National Socialism, an assembly was called together. This assembly decided then to affiliate the association to the NSDAP and to the Verband Deutscher Vereine (Fed­eration of German Associations), which in turn was affiliated to the Verband Deutscher Vereine im Ausland (Federation of Foreign German Associations).

The Brazilian Constitution of Novem­ber 10, 1937, prohibited all political activ­ities and, in the beginning of1938, banned all foreign political parties. Since the NSDAP could no longer work officially in Brazil, it went through the German con­sulates. But the intervention of the police reduced all activities to a minimum. These measures were followed by the deportation of some Germans and the imprisonment of Brazilian German leaders. Although until 1939 the nationalization measures imple­mented by Brazilian authorities were mod­erate, during World War II repressive measures were taken, and some govern­ment officials went too far. The publication of German newspapers was prohibited. It was forbidden to speak German in public. German books and documents were con­fiscated from the homes of Brazilian Ger­mans. German libraries were destroyed, weapons were confiscated from shooting societies, and Germans were imprisoned and put in confinement. The torpedoing of ships and Brazil’s declaration of war on Germany led to outrages and abuses of the German population. Practically all Brazil­ian Germans became the target of anti­German excesses.

The experience of World War II, a time that was seen as a period of persecu­tion, continued to have consequences after the war. The Brazilian Germans felt that they were second- or third-class citizens, even after the ban on the German language was lifted, and the German press resumed its publishing activities in 1946. Only the passing of time changed this perception. Animosities decreased, and the mobility of society, the emergence of a modern media complex, and other factors led the Brazil­ian Germans to increasingly feel like an in­tegral part of Brazilian society.

Martin Norberto Dreher

See also Brazil, German Exile in; Brazil, Religion in; Brummer; Forty-Eighters; Fritz, Samuel; German Migration to Latin America (1918-1933); German-Speaking Migration to the Americas; Koseritz, Karl von; Latin America, Nazi Party in; Markgraf, Georg; Volga Germans in the United States; Von-Der-Heydt’sches Rescript

References and Further Reading

Brunn, Gerhard. Deutschland und Brasilien (1889—1914). Cologne: Bohlau, 1971.

Dietschi, Theophil. “Vom Werden und Wachsen der Riograndenser Synode.” Estudos Teologicos 1956: 6-20, 32-50; 1957: 13-32.

Dreher, Martin. Igreja e Germanidade. Sao Leopoldo: Ed. Sinodal, 2003.

Iotti, Luiza Horn, ed. Imigraςao e Colonizaugao: Legislaςao, 1747—1915. Caxias do Sul: EDUCS, 2001.

Muller, Jurgen. Nationalsozialiamus in Lateinamerika: Die Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP in Argentinien, Brasilien, Chile, und Mexiko, 1931—1945. Stuttgart: Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, 1997.

Oberacker, Carlos Henrique. A Contribuiςao Teuta d Formaςao da Naςao Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Presenςa, 1968.

Schroder, Ferdinand. A Imigraςao Alema para o Sul do Brasil ate 1859. Sao Leopoldo: Ed. UNISINOS, 2003.

Brazil, German Exile in Although Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and is built upon emigra­tion, it took in only a small number of the Germans (about 16,000 people) who had to leave Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. In 1930, when Getulio Vargas be­came president and after the suppression of a Communist insurgency in 1935, he es­tablished an authoritarian government. On November 10, 1937, Vargas declared the creation of the “Estado Novo,” dissolved parliament, banned all political parties, and abolished basic civil rights. In his for­eign policy, the new dictator initially moved closer to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy but abandoned this strategy by 1942. Brazil even declared war against the Axis powers and sent troops to participate in Italy’s liberation in 1944.

With the exception of Mexico, most Latin American countries, including Brazil, treated German refugees as normal immi­grants who had to fulfill certain criteria set by the immigration authorities. Well- educated engineers, scientists, and wealthy people were preferred over those without such qualifications. Beginning in 1937, racist and antisemitic motives influenced immigration policies as much as a general suspicion that German immigrants could include spies. However, in spite of these hurdles, many German Jews were able to enter the country, in most cases with tourist visas. Furthermore, Jews used falsi­fied documents such as faked baptism cer­tificates to circumvent the racist restric­tions of Brazilian immigration law. However, deep antisemitic feelings pre­vented the Brazilian government, when asked by the Pope, to issue 3,000 visas for non-Aryan Catholics. With 16,000 Ger­man and Austrian immigrants, Brazil was second to Argentina and closely followed by Chile.

The majority of German refugees set­tled down in Brazil’s urban centers—in its capital Rio de Janeiro, in the emerging in­dustrial center Sao Paulo, and in the cities of Curitiba and Porto Alegre. The agricul­tural settlements in Resenda, 320 kilome­ters south of Sao Paulo, and Rolandia were an exception to this pattern. Rolandia was founded well before 1933 in the middle of the jungle in the state of Parana. It became a haven for anti-Fascist Catholics and Jews and has become over time a model com­munity for the successful economic and so­cial integration of refugees.

About one-third of all German refugees came from white-collar and trading profes­sions, and a further 20 percent belonged to the academic, administrative, and service sectors. Since there was no need for these professional qualifications in Brazil, about two-thirds of all immigrants had to find employment in a new profession. Many im­migrants took two or three jobs to survive. There was no financial help from the Brazilian government, and only Jewish sup­port organizations granted material or fi­nancial help. German refugees had founded 187 small and medium-size enterprises, restaurants, bed and breakfasts, auto garages, workshops, and factories by 1940. These enterprises employed about 6,000 people, most of them refugees themselves. Physicians, lawyers, and professors had a much harder time adjusting since there were restrictions on practicing these profes­sions, and the different legal, cultural, and intellectual climate prevented quick inte­gration of newcomers. The language barrier was also a factor for these professionals.

In spite of a latent official antisemitism that limited the immigration and integra-

tion of Jewish refugees, the social, charita­ble, and cultural activities of Jewish com­munities and of Jewish charitable organiza­tions prevented the isolation and social degradation of German Jewish refugees. Some of these organizations were the Con- gregaqao Israelita Paulista (Jewish Commu­nity of Sao Paulo, or CIP) in Sao Paulo, the Associaςao Religiosa Israelita (Association of Jewish Religion, or ARI) in Rio de Janeiro, and the Sociedade Israelita Brasileira de Cultura e Beneficencia (Cul­tural and Social Society of Brazilian Jews, or SIBRA) in Porto Alegre. Since the gov­ernment had outlawed the use of languages other than Portuguese in religious cere­monies, synagogue services had to be in Portuguese only. Although this require­ment suggested a swift assimilation into Brazilian culture, the religious service still followed German and Austrian traditions very closely. German-speaking immigrants did not integrate into the existing Sephardim and Ashkenazi communities but established their own communities with their own German traditions. These Jewish communities became the center of an extensive network of organizations for women, youth, culture, and sports, as well as charitable organizations to help the poor and old. This network has survived in part to the present day.

Besides the local charitable associa­tions, a few national relief organizations for Jewish refugees also sprang up. The most important one was the Comissao de As- sistencia aos Refugiados Israelitas da Ale- manha (Committee for the Support of German Jewish Refugees, or CARIA), which handed out financial assistance to newly arrived immigrants. About 50—60 percent of its budget came from other Jew­ish relief organizations such as the Ameri­can Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and about 40—50 percent of the re­maining funds were collected among Brazilian Jews.

Political activities of German refugees were very limited but were permitted throughout the 1930s. Financial difficul­ties posed the strongest obstacles to politi­cal organization and the distribution of in­formation. The anti-Fascist newspapers TribUne (Tribune) and Freie Presse (Free Press), both printed in Sao Paulo, did not survive beyond their debuts. Fritz Heller, a former editor of the Leipziger Zeitung (Leipzig Newspaper), who attempted to found Gegenwart (Today), also failed. The Friends of the Gegenwart dissolved quickly. The only successful paper was a newsletter edited by the Liga fur Men- schenrechte (League for Civil Rights). This organization, founded by Fritz Kniestedt, published the newsletter under various names until both the organization and the paper were outlawed in 1937.

Political organizations offered a home for political refugees, ethnic Germans who lived abroad and despised the Nazi dicta­torship, and German Jewish refugees who still hung on to their homeland. In 1935, the Notgemeinschaft Deutscher An- tifaschisten (Emergency Organization of German Anti-Fascists) was founded with groups in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Cu­ritiba, Rio Negro, and Pelotas. In 1942, it became part of the Movimento dos Alemaes Antinazis (Movement of German Anti-Fascists). This movement had much in common with the committee Das Andere Deutschland (The Other Germany), which brought together German Social Demo­crats. Competing with this organization was the Movimento dos Alemaes Livres (Movement for a Free Germany), which was related to the Communist Bewegung Freies Deutschland (Movement for a Free Germany) in Mexico. However, all these or­ganizations together had no more than a few hundred members. After the ban on all political parties and the enforced prohibi­tion of political activities by foreigners in 1943, these organizations ceased all their activities. Only after the end of the war and the end of the Vargas dictatorship in 1945 did these organizations engage once again in politics. The Freie Deutschland was rein­stated and the Vereinigung deutscher Sozialdemokraten in Brasilien (Association of German Social Democrats in Brazil) was formed. The latter group engaged in col­lecting donations for the starving German population and sending care packages to their former homeland.

Besides these left-wing organizations, there were also bourgeois, Christian, con­servative, and even right-wing circles active in Brazil’s German refugee community. The former vice chancellor, minister of jus­tice, and minister of the interior Erich Koch-Weser worked on a constitution for postwar Germany from exile in Brazil. The members of the former Zentrum (Center Party), Hermann Matthias Gorgen, Jo­hannes Schauff, and Johannes Hoffmann, kept political Catholicism alive. Since Brazil was one of the few Catholic coun­tries to which German refugees could es­cape, it was especially attractive to Catholic priests who had to leave Germany and the occupied parts of Europe—among them Father Paulus Gordan, the Benedictine monk Desiderius Schmitz, the Jesuits Wal­ter Mariaux and Walter Lutterbeck, and the Austrian Cistercian monk Alois Wiesinger.

Brazil also provided a new home for the followers of Otto Strasser’s dissident Nazi organization, Schwarze Front (Black Front). They remained, however, very lim­ited in their political activities and did not achieve any significant influence among German refugees. Among Austrian exiles who began to distance themselves from German refugees’ organizations after 1943, Christian conservative circles and even monarchists had some influence.

Cultural activities engaged in by Ger­man refugees were limited because of polit­ical restrictions and because the use of the German language had been banned in public. Vargas hoped that outlawing Ger­man speaking in public would accelerate the integration into Brazilian society of Germans, both new refugees and older German settlers who had come to the country before World War I. Furthermore, forced integration would allow for better control of this part of the population. Since most refugees were busy simply surviving, there was little time left over for cultural activities. The social and cultural network of associations, clubs, restaurants, orches­tras, theaters, cabarets, newspapers, and cultural performances, so typical of the other exile and immigration centers in Latin America, did therefore not exist in Brazil.

Nevertheless, many Germans and Aus­trians left their imprints on Brazilian soci­ety. Some writers and journalists success­fully published their work in Portuguese. The journalists Fritz Heller, Ernst Feder, Anatol Rosenfeld, and Otto Maria Carpeaux (Karpfen) worked as columnists, literary critics, and experts on economic questions for Brazilian newspapers. Frank Arnauwrote poetry and detective novels in Portuguese. However, outside the world of newspapers and journals, German writers remained nearly unknown. Leopold Andrian-Werburg, Paula Ludwig, Richard Katz, Fritz Oliven, Ulrich Becker, and oth­ers were not even recognized by the Brazil­ian public. The only exception was Stefan Zweig. After he had to leave Germany in 1934, Zweig went to Great Britain. In 1936, he embarked on a lecture tour through Latin America, participated at the PEN Congress in Buenos Aires, and visited Brazil, where he was surprisingly welcomed as a guest of the state by Vargas. After some time in the United States and a second lec­ture tour through Argentina and Uruguay in 1940—1941, Zweig decided to settle down in Petropolis, near Rio de Janeiro, in September 1941. Vargas transformed Zweig’s tourist visa into a permanent visa— a rare gesture for an immigrant of Jewish origin at that time. In exchange and as a sign of his appreciation, Zweig published his book Brasilien: Ein Land der Zukunft (Brazil: A Land of the Future, 1941), which praised and romanticized Brazil. The book is seen as an homage to Getulio Vargas and even considered to be commissioned by him. However, Zweig could not feel at home in Brazil. The social and cultural iso­lation, the lack of intellectual communica­tion, the loss of “the world of yesterday” in Europe, and other motives caused him and his wife to commit suicide on February 23, 1942. Zweig’s exceptional position in Brazil was based on political protection, not on literary success. The pompous state funeral organized by the Vargas regime proved that point impressively.

German painters and actors were somewhat more successful than their fellow poets and journalists. The painter Eleonore Koch became famous in artists’ circles, and the Austrian Axel von Leskoschek influ­enced generations of Brazilian wood carv­ing artists. The actors Wolfgang Hoffmann-Harnisch, Werner Hammer, and Willy Keller became important direc­tors at Brazilian theaters. A small number of psychoanalysts, biochemists, social sci­entists, and economists received positions at Brazilian universities and introduced new academic disciplines.

There are no statistics available about how many Germans returned to Germany from Brazil and how many remained in that country. Furthermore, many German refugees migrated from poorer and politi­cally unstable countries, such as Bolivia and Paraguay, to the prosperous southern part of Brazil. Many Jewish families went to the United States, Australia, and South Africa and, after 1948, to the newly estab­lished state of Israel. The few Germans who returned to Germany after 1945 were mostly political refugees without a Jewish background. Among them were Johannes Hoffmann, who became prime minister of the Saar territory, and Hermann Matthias Goergen, who served in the West German parliament from 1957 to 1961. Johannes Schauff traveled back and forth between West Germany, Brazil, and South Tyrol and occupied an important role as inter­mediary between the governments of dif­ferent countries. Wolfgang Hoffmann- Harnisch published several books about Brazil. Some refugees who remained in Brazil became correspondents for German newspapers and used their knowledge about the country and its people to report about their new home.

Patrik von zur Muhlen

See also Brazil; Huebsch, Ben W et al., and

Viking Press; Intellectual Exile

References and Further Reading

Carneiro, Maria Luiza Tucci. O anti-semitismo na era Vargas: Fantasmas de uma geraςao (1930-1945). Sao Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988.

Furtado Kestler, Izabela. Die Exilliteratur und das Exil der deutschsprachigen Schriftsteller und Publizisten in Brasilien. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992.

Hirschberg, Alfred. “The Exonomic Adjustment of Jewish Refugees in Sao Paulo.” Jewish Social Studies 7 (1945): 31-40.

Lesser, Jeff. Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Levine, Robert. “Brazil’s Jews during the Vargas Era and After.” Luso-Brazilian Review 1 (1968): 45-58.

Pinkuss, Fritz. “Um ensaio acerca da imigraςao judaica no Brazil apos o cataclisma de 1933 e da Segunda Guerra Mundial.” Revista de Historia 50 (1974): 579-607.

Reutter, Lutz Egon. Katholische Kirche als Fluchthelfer im Dritten Reich: Die Betreuung von Auswanderern durch den St. Raphaelsverein. Recklinghausen: Paulus Verlag, 1971.

von zur Muhlen, Patrik. Fluchtziel Lateinamerika: Die deutsche Emigration 1933-1945: Politische Aktivitdten und soziokulturelle Integration. Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 1988.