Employees of the Argentine Supreme Court found dozens of boxes containing Nazi documents and propaganda materials in the court's basement during preparations for a future museum. The boxes, which date back to 1941, were found accidentally while staff were relocating archives and installing air-conditioning in the building's basement, officials said.
"When we opened one of the boxes, we found material intended to consolidate and spread Adolf Hitler's ideology in Argentina during World War II," the Supreme Court said in a statement, according to La Nación.
According to BioBioChile, the Supreme Court's President, Horacio Rosatti, led the formal opening of the boxes in an office on the fourth floor of the Palace of Tribunals, attended by Eliahu Hamra, the Chief Rabbi of the Argentine Jewish community, and representatives of the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires.
Given the historical significance of the discovery, Rosatti ordered a thorough investigation of the contents. The court established a special expert group to examine and inventory the materials, working in cooperation with the Holocaust Museum.
Among the materials found are hundreds of passports, papers, and documents linked to the Nazi regime, including membership cards of the Argentine Nazi Party and Nazi propaganda materials, according to La Nación. Officials also found thousands of membership booklets to the Organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party abroad and to the German Union of Trade Guilds, as well as postcards and photographs with Nazi propaganda.
The boxes are believed to have arrived in Argentina on June 20, 1941, sent by the German embassy in Tokyo aboard the Japanese steamship Nan-a-Maru. The shipment, declared as "personal belongings" of diplomatic employees, attracted the attention of Argentine customs authorities due to its size. Customs officials detained the 83 boxes over concerns that their contents could undermine Argentina's neutrality during World War II.
Despite claims from German diplomats that the boxes contained personal belongings, random checks conducted by customs officials uncovered Nazi propaganda materials, which led to further investigation. On September 13, 1941, Federal Judge Miguel Luciano Jantus ordered the seizure of the boxes due to their involvement with a foreign state, and the case was referred to the Supreme Court of Argentina.
The fate of the boxes remained unknown for decades, as they were stored under judicial seals and seemingly forgotten. It is only now, nearly 82 years later, that their contents have come to light. The Supreme Court transferred the boxes to a specially conditioned room with reinforced security measures to preserve the materials until a full inventory and analysis can be completed.
Argentina remained neutral for most of World War II, only severing relations with the Axis powers in 1944 and declaring war on Germany and Japan in 1945. During and after the war, Argentina became a refuge for many Nazi officials fleeing Europe.
Argentina's supreme court invited the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires to assist in the preservation and inventory of the materials. "The main objective of the inventory and investigation is to determine if the material contains crucial information about the Holocaust, including aspects still unknown about Nazism and potential funding routes for Nazi activities in Latin America," La Nación reported.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.