page_title: German Chileans
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: German Chileans / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Español: Colonos alemanes en Aysén (1951)
context_page_description: German Chileans are Chilean citizens who derive their German ancestry from one or both parents. They are chiefly descendants of about 30,000 immigrants who arrived between 1846–1914, most following the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
  From the middle of the 19th century to the present, they have played a significant role in the economic, political and cultural development of the Chilean nation. The 19th-century immigrants settled chiefly in Chile’s Araucanía, Los Ríos and Los Lagos regions in the so-called Zona Sur of Chile, including the Chilean lake district.
context_section_description: By the mid-1930s, most of the farming land around the towns of Valdivia and Osorno had been claimed. Some German immigrants moved further south to places such as Puyuhuapi in the Aysén region.
  Subsequently, a new wave of German immigrants arrived in Chile, with many settling in Temuco, and Santiago. Many founded businesses; for example, Horst Paulmann's small store in the capital of the Araucanía Region grew into Cencosud, one of the largest businesses in the region.
  Even before the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, a German Chilean youth organization was established with strong Nazi influence. Nazi Germany pursued a policy of Nazification of the German Chilean community. These communities and their organizations were considered a cornerstone to extend the Nazi ideology across the world by Nazi Germany. Most German Chileans were passive supporters of Nazi Germany. Nazism was widespread among the German Lutheran Church hierarchy in Chile. A local chapter of the Nazi Party was started in Chile.
  During World War II, many German Jews fled to Chile before and during the Holocaust. For example, the families of Mario Kreutzberger and Tomás Hirsch came to Chile during this time.
  Shortly after World War II, former members of Nazi Germany tried to take refuge in South America, including Chile, fleeing trials against them in Europe and elsewhere. Among these was SS Standartenführer and war criminal Walter Rauff. Paul Schäfer, a former army medic, founded Colonia Dignidad, a German enclave in the Maule Region, in which abuses against human rights were allegedly carried out. The precise number of Nazi refugees hidden in Chile after WWII remains unknown.
caption: German settlers in Aysén Region in 1951.
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