German coins and fragment of plate found in ruined buildings believed to be shelter for leaders in event of defeat, say University of Buenos Aires researchers

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Archaeologists believe ruins found in a remote jungle region may be the remains of a hideout built by Nazis to flee to in the event of defeat in the second world war.

Researchers are studying the remains of three buildings located in the Teyu Cuare park in northern Argentina near Paraguay, the Clarin newspaper reported.

University of Buenos Aires researchers found five German coins minted between 1938 and 1941 and a fragment of porcelain plate bearing the inscription Made in Germany.

“Apparently, halfway through the second world war, the Nazis had a secret project to build shelters for top leaders in the event of defeat – inaccessible sites in the middle of deserts, in the mountains, on a cliff or in the middle of the jungle like this,” the archaeologists’ team leader, Daniel Schavelzon, said.

'Nazi hideout' in the jungle: why the discovery is more fiction than fact Read more

In the end, though, the hideout was never needed. Thousands of Nazis, and Croatian and Italian fascists, arrived in Argentina with the blessing of president Juan Perón, who led the nation from 1946 to 1955 and again briefly in the 1970s, according to the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center in California.

In 1960 Adolf Eichmann, a key organiser of the Holocaust, was captured in Buenos Aires by an Israeli commando team and taken for trial in Israel, where he was executed. Among other senior Nazis who sought refuge in Argentina were Joseph Mengele, Walter Kutschmann, Josef Schwammberger, Eduard Roschmann and Wilfred Von Oven.

• The headline on this article was changed on 23 March to better reflect the less definitive statements of the researchers. The names of Martin Bormann and Alois Brunner were removed from the list of Nazis who fled to Argentina after the war.