SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – During this past October’s municipal elections, Wandercy Pugliesi, better known as ‘Professor Wander’, launched his candidacy for city councilmember in Pomerode, a city known for its German heritage with a population of slightly over 34,000 nestled in the Itajaí Valley, in Santa Catarina state. In addition to defending the right to bear arms, the traditional family and the 1973 coup of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the well-liked history teacher is also known for his support of neo-Nazi ideology.
At the end of October, the inauguration of Daniela Reinehr as interim governor of Santa Catarina caused a stir among Brazilian and international media, as she dodged questions from reporters about her position in regard to her father’s beliefs. The interim governor’s father, history professor Altair Reinehr, is a staunch Hitler supporter and Holocaust denialist.
These are just two of the many recent examples of anti-Semitism and fascism from Santa Catarina, one of the states where the neo-Nazi movement is most present in Brazil, according to anthropologist Adriana Dias.
The anthropologist, who has been studying these movements for the past twenty years, says that, in small towns in Santa Catarina and throughout the South of Brazil, even if authorities do not agree with Nazism, they believe it to be unnecessary to curb its dissemination.
“Santa Catarina is very rural, with many small cities, which tend to be homogeneous, with only one ethnic group. The ‘other’ is seen as an element that contaminates society. In these places, racism and eugenics have always proliferated,” Dias said in a recent interview to Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo.
Wandercy Pugliesi, for example, had declared back in 1994 he was an admirer of the Nazi philosophy after police seized several Nazi objects from his home. But no further action was taken against him, despite the fact that the defense of Nazism or the display of the swastika or gamma cross, for the purposes of spreading Nazism, is a crime under Brazilian law.
In 2014, the history teacher once again made headlines across the country after law enforcement officers spotted a swastika symbol at the bottom of his pool in the rural area of Pomerode, as a police helicopter flew over his home. At the time, however, both police and the courts saw no illegality and did not pursue it further.
Despite the scandals, Pugliesi was considered one of the most popular candidates at this year’s city council election in Pomerode. Pressured by the negative media reports, however, the Liberal Party ended up canceling Pugliesi’s candidacy and expelling him from the political party, ending his electoral pretentions.
Dias, who monitors the presence of Nazi cells in Brazil, says that there are currently over 340 of these groups, mostly in the states of São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais and the nation’s capital, Brasilia.
“One neo-Nazi is not necessarily the same as another. There are Nazis with anti-Semitic motives, those who act for religious reasons, those who are antigay. In general, the cells act in an uncoordinated way. If they all communicated, we would be lost,” she says.
Today, however, there is growing concern over the rapid proliferation of these groups.
“Since I started studying the subject, I have noticed an increase in the number and diversity of groups. Ten years ago, for example, I did not find groups in the Centerwest. Today there are six in Goiás, three in Mato Grosso and one in Mato Grosso do Sul,” she noted in an interview with German media giant Deutsche Welle late last year.
According to Dias, about 500,000 Brazilians currently consume neo-Nazi material. “Mein Kampf (written by Hitler) is a widely read book in Brazil,” she notes.
The surge of these neo-nazi groups in the past two years, say experts, coincides with the rise of the ultra-conservatives in Brazil. According to Dias, the growth rate of these movements has increased from eight percent per year to almost sixteen percent per semester.
A survey, conducted by Safernet Brasil, shows that in May 2020 alone, 204 new pages of neo-Nazi content were created by individuals or groups living in Brazil.
The current federal government has also had its share of scandals when it comes to neo-Nazi sentiment. In January, the Culture Secretary nominated by Bolsonaro, Roberto Alvim, gave a speech paraphrasing Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda minister, and used as his background music an arrangement by Richard Wagner, Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. After an avalanche of criticism, Alvim was removed from the post and the Brazilian government apologized to the Jewish Brazilian community.
According to Dagmara Spautz, columnist for Santa Catarina daily Noticias de Santa Catarina, during the years she has covered Santa Catarina state as a journalist there have been several incidents involving these groups.
“Countless times the state has made news due to some identification with Hitler’s nefarious regime. The neo-Nazism of Santa Catarina has become almost folkloric,” stated the columnist in an opinion piece in late October.
“It is a shame for Santa Catarina that such a rich and diverse state is known for such an ugly stance. We were condescending to these revisionists, whom we interpret as ‘eccentric’. We think it is natural that they are the teachers of our children; (that they) publish articles in our newspapers. We banalize what should never have been accepted,” concluded Spautz.