Nazi Hideout in Argentina?

A recent topic in archaeology news is the discovery of three stone buildings in an Argentinean jungle. The buildings are not newly discovered, but there are new theories on what the buildings were originally there for. Supposedly, the buildings were built in the middle of WWII for a Nazi hideout in the case that they needed to flee after defeat; however, little evidence supports this claim. There are some indicators of such a belief, but there is also a lot of skepticism on it.

I read up on two articles, posted below, one of which reports on the findings as true and the other that is more skeptical. I am more skeptical of this idea of a “Nazi hideout” because it seems like scientists are stretching too far to claim its true. For instance, five German coins were found on the site underneath the walls of the structures. They claim that this is a tradition to show participation; in other words, Germans left their coins under the walls as a trademark. Nowhere in the evidence does it say that this was a commonly practiced tradition or a German one, for that matter. Also, Hitler’s servant was thought to have inhabited the buildings after the collapse of his regime; however, DNA tests on bone remnants shows that he was killed in Berlin.

The idea of a Nazi sanctuary doesn’t have enough strong evidence to support it. The discovery of the coins is equally debatable as the hideout itself. Argentina has many European immigrants, many of which have a German background. The probability of finding German currency in Argentina is high. It more so the fact that the coins were found in the middle of a jungle implanted in these structures that makes it plausible. Also, the idea that German officials built these to flee is hardly recognizable. After WWII, the Argentinean President welcomed German criminals with practical places to stay. Some people housed war criminals of the Holocaust and other such tragedies; thus, there is no reason that the remote buildings would serve any purpose.

Of course this idea does not have strong evidence to support it, but it is still interesting to think about. Were German Nazi leaders really going to live in a remote jungle? Were they planning for a defeat? I think that Germans may have built these buildings, but it requires more speculation on what the intended purpose was.

Article in belief: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-23/archaeologists-think-theyve-found-remote-forgotten-nazi-hideout-argentina

Article claiming fiction: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/nazi-hideout-south-america-jungle?CMP=fb_gu

2 thoughts on “Nazi Hideout in Argentina?

  1. It is smart of you to be skeptical of this assumption. While these mysteries are what keep us interested in archeology, it is all too easy to back up false claims that catch peoples’ interest. The most fascinating part of discoveries like those buildings that are speculated to be Nazi hideouts, is the people behind them. We seek to discover who built them and why? It seems that you did a good job of disproving the likelihood of them being German Nazis because you showed how there really wouldn’t have been an explainable reason for them to build them. Also the evidence that they were built by German Nazis is pretty weak. Since the beginning of excavation, people have been jumping to conclusions about archeological sites. The motives for this vary. Some place false artifacts and “discover” them for money and attention while others do it to push their religious or political agendas. If you look into some of these extreme speculations, many of them seem to lead to biblical references. I believe this is because people want hard evidence for the places in religious text so they go to extremes to find any possible archeological site that might relate. Other times the truth about who built a site is missed due to ethnocentrism.

  2. An example of ethnocentrism that affected finding the truth was the mound builders in the United States. Most Americans did not want to believe that the native American’s built the mounds. Their views of these peoples were that they were savage and not advanced enough to build them.

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