The VICE Guide To Travel: Nueva Germania, Paraguay
THE THIRD REICH GOES SOUTH
In the late 19th century, a handful of German families settled in a remote jungle of Paraguay, where they intended to create a racially pure utopian settlement called Nueva Germania.
The experiment was a colossal failure. The settlers were unprepared for the devastating diseases and other hardships of jungle life, and their descendants -- some of whom intermarried with the darker-skinned locals -- are among the poorest people in one of the poorest countries in South America.
Today, according to "the Vogue book of blondes" by Kathy Phillips, a version of the colony still exists in Paraguay. Many of the inhabitants have blonde hair and blue eyes but are predominantly poor, inbred and diseased. Hardly the race of super men and women Nietzsche and Forster first envisaged for their New Germany.
