MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

German WWII sunken submarine found off Necochea

There were no records of the vessel's voyage to the South Atlantic, which points to a journey helping Nazis escape justice.

Researchers from the “Eslabón Perdido” (Missing Link) team have come across a German Reichsmarine submarine off the coast of Necochea in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires near Arenas Verdes and Costa Bonita, it was reported Tuesday.

Expert assessments agreed that the structure found 28 meters under the sea stemmed from a submarine, “possibly German,” naval engineers Juan Martin Canevaro and Andrés Miguel Cuidet said in a statement. Among the items found was a periscope, which unequivocally signals it was a submarine.

The 80-meter-long vessel poses a mystery since there is no record indicating her voyage. Hence, the most plausible theory links her to Nazi leaders fleeing Germany into Argentina after the war.

“For me, it was a pending matter to find a German submarine, because the story is well known by the versions, by documents of the time of the landing of Germans who arrived in submarines to the Argentine beaches,” expedition leader Ariel Basti said in a radio interview.

But “never had a conclusive element of proof as in this case been found,” he added. ”I have been working on the subject [of post-war Nazis] for years, particularly in that area, because there was a well-documented record of disembarkation there, specifically on those beaches (Arenas Verdes and Costa Bonita),“ he added.

A journalist by trade, Basti explained that in 1945 a police party of five officers went to that area because local residents claimed they had seen movement and lights at night and found traces of a landing: footprints and truck tracks in a rather isolated part of the beach.

Then they followed the tracks and 4 km away they arrived at the most important ranch in the area: Estancia Moromar. Upon crossing the gate they encountered a group of blond men armed with machine guns who asked them to leave. The police party went to Necochea to call for backup but eventually, they were told to drop the issue.

The submarines reportedly approached the coast. Crew members and passengers went ashore, along with their cargo. ”A small part of the crew would take the submarine out to sea in order to sink it, but far enough to a place not too shallow so that it could not be spotted if the tide went down.

The investigation group deepened the search in that area for two years. First in the beach area to verify if there were any traces or remains.

Using radar scanners, the team canvassed the area for two years starting from the beach. “We found this hull, which is very large and was not on the nautical charts,” Basti explained. It did not appear either in a navigation book reporting every hull known to be in that part of the South Atlantic.

Basti also pointed out that the monumental scheme to help Nazis escape justice was “an international” within a larger agreement between the US and French forces. “It is a very big evasion plan, much bigger than what was not supposed to be possible without such an agreement.”

Although many countries welcomed Nazis after World War II, mainly the United States, this arrival in Argentina was consented to by the military government of then-dictator General Edelmiro Farrell (1944-1946), during which Labor Secretary Juan Perón gained popularity.

Read also: Suddenly out of the deep sea gloom emerged the mighty Scharnhorst with her great guns poking in every direction