Hitler's Man in Havana: Heinz Luning and Nazi Espionage in Latin America

Introduction: Pushed to the Edge of Defeat in 1942

3 introduCtion Pushed to the edge of defeat in 1942 The Lüning episode had characteristics of the contemporary “weapons of mass destruction” phenomenon. It was seized as an opportunity to manipulate opinion and to produce beneficial rewards and consequences for these manipulators. Political, military, and counterespionage leaders sought praise, prestige, and power for their institutions. It is not possible to accurately assess the significance of the Lüning episode without recalling the increasingly threatening and ultimately violent history around the world from 1931 until the U.S. entry into World War II after December 7, 1941. Rising tension and overt hostility marked East Asia, North Africa, and Europe in these years. In Asia, specifically in places where Asian and Western interests met, a brutal, long-term conflict simmered between China (with support from the United States and Britain) and Japan. After decades of competition for greater influence and access to that region’s land, resources, and labor forces, the Western nations watched in September 1931 when the Japanese army, following a series of incidents, clashed with Chinese troops in Manchuria. Despite efforts to negotiate the differences between the Chinese and the Japanese governments, the Japanese army argued for further conflict. This conflict alternated between simmering and boiling for the next fourteen years. In January 1932, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai. Hard fighting and minor clashes followed, especially near Shanghai and along the 4 Hitler’s Man in Havana Manchurian border with China, until a larger violent incident occurred between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937. In late 1938, the Chinese Nationalist leader Jiang Jie-shi (prePingying form, Chiang Kai-shek) retreated into China’s interior, one thousand miles up the Yangzi (Yangtze) River, at Chongqing (Chungking ). This confrontation sharpened in mid-1939 when Chinese soldiers trapped about three hundred Japanese troops (part of the embassy guard returning to Beijing [Peking]) in a devastating cross fire. For the next two years, the war in China became incredibly brutal and cruel. The Chinese defeats increased in 1939 and 1940. The record of defeats also spread to the future Allied powers in Europe and the Mediterranean . After the Axis powers (Germany and Italy) tested their military weapons and tactics in Spain and North Africa, Germany initiated the major conflict of the twentieth century on September 1, 1939. It overran Poland. In 1940, the German military conquered Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France before launching a massive air assault on Great Britain—the Battle of Britain. The few German submarines available for service began a devastating attack on the shipping of Britain and its allies. Italy joined in the conflict with attacks on French and British Somaliland, Egypt, and Greece. In Asia, the Japanese created a puppet Chinese government in Nanjing (Nanking) and compelled the British to close the Burma Road in order to isolate Jiang Jie-shi. The Japanese hoped to compel him to surrender or negotiate from weakness. After two years of Axis advances and Allied surrenders or retreats, matters turned worse in 1941. The German military gained control of Yugoslavia and Greece and pushed the British imperial forces in North Africa back beyond the border of Egypt, to within several hours of Cairo, the Nile, and the Suez Canal. In June 1941, the German army destroyed large parts of the Soviet Union’s land forces and drove the remainder back to the outskirts of Moscow and Leningrad and into the Ukraine. However, Moscow and Leningrad did not fall, and the German army retreated. An increased number of German submarines, aided by a few Italian ones, conducted destructive campaigns on the shipping of Britain and its allies in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean (about 4.3 million tons of Allied merchant vessels, or a quarter of all Allied losses during World introduction 5 War II [1939–1945] in all theaters to all forms of attack). In 1941, German U-boats threatened the survival of the United Kingdom. They sank more ship tonnage than the British and their allies built or acquired. Meanwhile, the Japanese military advanced south through IndoChina during 1941. It controlled the whole area by late 1941. The final major act of 1941 was the Japanese air assault on Pearl Harbor. Simultaneously , the Japanese military attacked the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The nations of the world quickly activated their respective alliance structures—the Axis powers and...