Original article: Los Kast nazis: Archivos desclasificados sobre la huella histórica que han dejado en la ultraderecha
The Nazi Shadow in Chile: Declassified Files
A recent investigation by Democracia UDP, titled «Nazis in Chile», uncovers a revealing article from the newspaper La Nación dated June 11, 1942, translated from the American magazine Free World. The piece detailed the extent of Nazi networks in South America and explicitly named a certain «Arturo Kast» as the Nazi party’s propaganda chief in Chile, alongside agents tied to the German agency Transocean.
The original note cited by the investigation indicated that «the supreme command of the Nazi party in Chile is headquartered in Santiago» and that «the propaganda of the general headquarters is managed by Arturo Kast.»
The figure of Arturo Kast emerges from the archives as a historically impactful lead, though not yet fully verified. While the coincidence of the last name and the pivotal role associated with him—the direction of the propaganda machinery—are indeed striking, there has yet to be a second independent source to confirm his identity or direct link to the known Kast family, highlights El Clarín Chile.
Currently, this finding serves as a significant point in the ongoing debate about the penetration of Nazism in the country, but should be viewed with the caution typical of historical research.
The Other Nazi Kast
While the figure of Arturo Kast remains shrouded in ambiguity, the Nazi affiliation of José Antonio Kast’s father is an incontrovertible and documented fact. German government archives, cited by outlets such as The Washington Post, El País, The Guardian, New York Times, DW, among others, confirm that Michael Martín Kast Schindele, born in Bavaria in 1924, «became a member of the NSDAP in 1942 when he was 18 years old,» as reported by DW Español in 2021. After the war, he emigrated to Chile in 1950, founded the company Cecinas Bavaria in Buin, and formed a family that integrated deeply into Chilean public life.
Wikipedia depicts him as follows: “He was a German immigrant in Chile, a soldier in the Wehrmacht until 1945, a businessman in the meat-processing industry since 1962, and a collaborator of Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, as well as being the patriarch of the Kast family in Chile.”
Watch video from DW
Also, see video from France 24
The historical context of Chile in the 1930s and 1940s created fertile ground for such ideologies. Southern Chile housed a cohesive and active German colony. The article from La Nación in 1942, highlighted by the UDP publication, warned of the magnitude of the Nazi infrastructure, stating that there were «35,000 party members, of which 8,000 were militarily organized». The German Embassy in Santiago and agencies like Transocean served as centers for propaganda dissemination and coordination, creating an ecosystem that allowed these networks to operate, even openly.
Eight decades later, the Kast surname continues to carry significant symbolic weight in national politics. José Antonio Kast, son of Michael, has emerged as a far-right alternative, defining himself as Catholic, anti-communist, and publicly embracing the «legacy of Pinochet.» His political project, as highlighted by El Clarín Chile, advocates for an authoritarian order, discipline, and a strong nation, resonating with values that, while not drawn as direct causal lines, allude to the ideological traditions his family experienced first-hand.
The inquiry into Arturo Kast thus opens a new avenue of interpretation regarding the genealogy of these ideas in Chile.
Also, see the Press Room publication (Who was ARTURO KAST? Revealing the story of the Nazis in southern Chile)
