Resolute Square

Neo-Nazis And Neo-Fascists Found A Home In Pinochet's Chile. Today's Fascists Admire That Regime Of Terror

Ruth Ben-Ghiat explores the continuation of Fascist ideologies and terror tactics after WWII, focusing on the Chilean dictatorship of Pinochet and its lasting legacies.
Published:September 13, 2023
Share

Published with the generous permission of Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Read all of her outstanding writing in her Lucid newsletter.

By Ruth Ben-Ghiat

What happened to Fascist ideologies and terror tactics after the end of the National Socialist and Italian Fascist regimes in 1945? Where did Fascists on the run from justice take refuge? Argentina may come to mind, given it was a destination for Final Solution planner Adolf Eichmann and doctor Josef Mengele. The Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975) also harbored neo-Nazis and neo-Fascists: some of them worked for the Spanish secret police. The Italian Social Movement party (MSI), which was founded in Italy in 1946 to keep Fascism alive as a political force, had an office in Madrid.

When Franco died in 1975, the U.S.-backed Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) became the next haven for individuals such as Nazi Walter Rauff (a former SS official who supervised the development of vans that gassed Jews) and Italian neo-Fascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie. The regime's culture of violence and Chile’s prominence in transnational networks of terror designed to defeat Marxism make it a case study of the continuance of Fascist causes and methods during the Cold War.

Pinochet justified the right-wing counter-revolution unleashed by the Sept. 11, 1973 coup as a moral as well as political necessity. At his first press conference, held ten days after the coup, he used language that recalled Fascist biopolitics to justify the prolongation of the state of emergency his junta had declared. “Our aim is to normalize and heal the country. It’s like when you amputate the arm of a sick person, it’s hard to predict how long they will take to recover.”

This "healing" of Chilean society would lead to the torture of thousands of people, and soon torture became state policy. As in the Fascist regimes that preceded it, violence fueled the actions of the government and took on a logic and rationale of its own.

Cold War national security doctrines saw fighting Communism as a transnational endeavor. Operation Condor, the U.S.-assisted intelligence, policing, and terror consortium set up by Pinochet among Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile in the mid-1970s, put this credo into practice (Ecuador and Peru joined later). Victims of torture reported that Brazilians were often present to train Chilean officials, Brazil's right-wing junta having come to power by coup in 1964.

The School of the Americas also instructed military from right-wing juntas in torture and psychological warfare tactics, among them Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, a Chilean military official and agent of the Chilean secret police (DINA). In 1973, he tortured S., a 23-year-old leftist student. As S. told me when I interviewed him in Santiago in 2018, Krassnoff showed S. how “states of exception can be normalized in people,” creating individuals who see the violence they inflict as righteous and purifying.

The neo-Nazis and neo-Fascists who found a safe space in Pinochet's Chile made their own contributions to the culture of counterinsurgency violence. Pinochet hired the Italian terrorist Delle Chiaie when he came to Spain for Franco's funeral. Delle Chiaie was a member of the MSI and then founded the neo-Fascist organization Avanguardia Nazionale. He had fled to Spain to avoid arrest for bombings and other terrorist operations in Italy. In Chile, he worked on psychological warfare projects and participated in operations abroad, including the 1975 attempt to murder the exiled Chilean Christian Democrat politician and regime critic Bernardo Leighton.

Neo-Nazis supported by Pinochet integrated easily into Chile due to its long-established German community. The neo-Nazi compound Colonia Dignidad, founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, who collaborated with DINA, became a torture site during the Pinochet years and also hosted an Army chemical weapons laboratory. The long relationship between the German and Chilean militaries also helped with recruiting Germans for terror and torture activities in Chile.

So did the presences of Rauff, who moved to Chile in 1958 and became a DINA agent, and former SS officer Otto Skorzeny. These Nazi luminaries connected with sympathizers within the German Chilean community, passing on their wisdom about repression to a new generation of democracy’s enemies. Those included Ingrid Olderock, a DINA torturer born in Chile to German immigrants and an admirer of sadistic Auschwitz-Birkenau guard Irma Grese. Olderock, a Carabinera, headed DINA’s female agent division. Her victims remember her German shepherd vividly.

Today there are many with links to some aspect of this terrible history who hold up the Pinochet regime as a positive force. The German-born father of far-right Chilean presidential contender José Antonio Kast, who narrowly lost the 2021 election to progressive Gabriel Boric, was a member of the Nazi Party. Kast is an open supporter of the Pinochet regime, and his brother served as its central bank president.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who served in the Army, also admires Pinochet and supports the Brazilian dictatorship. And it is alarming that individuals formed by the same MSI that originally produced Delle Chiaie now govern Italy: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was a hard-core MSI militant for many years and head of its youth organization. 

Tusitala “Tiny” Toese at the Patriot Prayer rally, Portland, Aug. 4, 2018. Diego Diaz/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images.

Here in America, counter-revolution against leftists has become a rallying cry for the Republican Party and its extremist allies who continue to support the Jan. 6 insurrection. Coup planners with military backgrounds, such as Michael Flynn and Phil Waldron, are well versed in psychological warfare and counterinsurgency tactics. Members of the Proud Boys wear T-shirts that proclaim "Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong," and references to Pinochet death squads and helicopter rides abound at Trump rallies and in far-right chat rooms.

It is important to know the history of Pinochet’s terror, as difficult as some of it is to hear, because the legacies of Pinochet's dictatorship and the Fascists who served it continue today.

Related

  • Death By Fascism
    The Enemies List

    Rick Wilson's The Enemies List

    America is infected with a fascist streak that imperils our way of life. In today's episode Rick is joined by Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works and the upcoming book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. They delve into the troubling rise of authoritarianism in the United States, discussing how revisionist history and the manipulation of education are being used to consolidate power. The conversation explores the dangers of erasing marginalized perspectives, the role of tech and media in spreading disinformation, and the ongoing struggle to preserve democratic values in the face of rising fascist tendencies.
    August 19, 2024
  • Art Imitating Life And Life Imitating Art With Daniel Silva
    The Lincoln Project Podcast

    The Lincoln Project Podcast

    Rick Wilson talks with New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva about his latest novel, 'A Death in Cornwall,' which takes place against the backdrop of the British political scene. The book explores the use of fine art for money laundering and the global oligarchy of the super-rich. The conversation also touches on the rise of Putinism, the link between doctrinaire Christianity and hard-right authoritarian politics, and the historical context of his Gabriel Allon series.
    July 11, 2024
  • It's A Gathering For People Who Want To Overthrow Democracy
    The GOP convention next week will not be and cannot be treated as though it's a normal political convention. Mark Jacob explains.
    July 10, 2024
  • "Briefcases Full of Cash, Libyans, Guns, and Drugs"
    The Enemies List

    Rick Wilson's The Enemies List

    What happens when your PR job is to represent clients including Gaddafi, Assad, and the government of Qatar? Well, for one thing, a great many wild stories. In this episode, Rick welcomes Phil Elwood, the author of "All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians." Phil shares astonishing tales from his career in public affairs, detailing his work with notorious figures such as the Gaddafi family and Assad, and so many more. From orchestrating media strategies in high-stakes environments to confronting his own moral dilemmas, Phil's journey is both fascinating and eye-opening. Phil's book, "All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians," available now.
    June 24, 2024
  • Dominance in Politics Matters
    The Enemies List

    Rick Wilson's The Enemies List

    Dominance in politics matters, clearly, but how do we have strong leadership without authoritarianism? In this episode Rick speaks with political scientist Steven Fish, discussing his new book, "Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge." They dive into the dynamics of political dominance, the importance of strong leadership, and the failures of current Democratic messaging. Fish argues that Democrats need to reclaim patriotic symbols and adopt a more assertive and emotional approach to connect with voters. The conversation covers the need to highlight achievements confidently and ridicule opponents effectively to counter authoritarian figures like Trump. Steven's book, "Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge, available now.
    June 10, 2024