ABSTRACT
Soon after the annexation of Austria as Hitler’s Germany was checking out its Austrian loot, Otto Quelle, scientific head of the “Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv” in the Berlin Iberoamerikanisches Institut, went to Vienna to investigate Austria’s relationship with Latin America. Latin America was regarded as a kind of “daughter of Europe”, which, if not cared for, might be lost to the USA. During the First Republic of Austria, people thought along more pragmatic lines. With the “Anschluss” of Austria in March 1938, Latin America assumed a considerably more important role as a life-saver for Austrian opponents of the Nazi regime: Jews, socialists, communists, liberals and monarchists took refuge on the subcontinent, provided they could get hold of a visa for one of the Latin American countries. Latin America was thus only barely touched by the upheavals that shook Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
