ARGENTINA: Hunting a Nazi

In the three months since 32-year-old Deputy Raúl Damonte Taborda began a Dies-inspired investigation of anti-Argentine activities he has stealthily and steadily crept closer to Argentina's cuckoo nest: the German Embassy. Last week Deputy Damonte thought he had his hands on the biggest cuckoo in the nest.

The bird he was after was not Ambassador Baron Edmund von Thermann, but one Gottfried Sandstede, who was officially listed as head of the Embassy's press office. Investigator Damonte had good reason to suspect that he was head of Heinrich Himmler's Gestapo in Argentina, that the Ambassador himself took orders from Gottfried Sandstede. His name was on a list of 36 Germans wanted for questioning, but Gottfried Sandstede claimed diplomatic immunity.

Last week the Argentine Foreign Ministry's legal adviser decided that Gestapo-man Sandstede was not entitled to diplomatic immunity. Reason: he was also employed by a Buenos Aires shipping company. This decision was prematurely published by La NaciÓn and Gottfried Sandstede went into a sweat.

For two days he ran about, trying to use pull to keep him out of Deputy Damonte's clutches. Then he drew all of his money from his bank and after a violent quarrel with Ambassador von Thermann, who wanted him to face the music, went into hiding. As soon as Investigator Damonte learned that Sandstede was on the run he ordered his arrest. Police were posted at his house and at the German Embassy. Pickets stood guard along the roads leading from Buenos Aires. A cordon was stretched around the airport.

Through this cordon a suspicious looking car tried to pass. The police halted it, arrested Karl Heinz Sandstede, brother of the fugitive. Thinking they had the right man, they relaxed their watch. Early the next morning Gottfried Sandstede boarded a Condor plane for Brazil. As he arrived in Rio de Janeiro Ambassador von Thermann announced blandly that Herr Sandstede had been recalled to Berlin to report on anti-German activities in Argentina.

Net effect of this escape was to make Argentines hopping mad at the German Embassy and all its works. Conservatives in the Chamber of Deputies hitherto had been leery of Investigator Damonte's work because it made political capital for the Radicals. Three days after Gottfried Sandstede's flight Raúl Damonte submitted a report signed by all members of his committee, including the Conservatives. Findings:

1) Though dissolved by Presidential decree of May 15, 1939, the Nazi Party continues to operate in Argentina; 2) It is organized on military lines and permeates the country with cells; 3) The German Embassy participates directly in Nazi activities. Promised was a fuller report on Ambassador von Thermann, containing evidence that he received money from ostensible German "welfare" agencies, that he used the money for ends "foreign to his diplomatic character." As the four most influential newspapers in Buenos Aires (La Nación, La Prensa, El Mundo, Critica) issued a simultaneous demand that Acting President RamÓn S. Castillo scrap his policy of neutrality, it looked as if Ambassador von Thermann would soon pack his trunks.

Further progress of the anti-Axis front in Latin America:

> Chile ordered 23 separate investigations of Nazi activities.