22. The Germans conducted espionage activities in South America
Nazi espionage activities in Latin America found greater levels of success than their North American counterparts, operating for most of the war. German agents in Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and elsewhere connected with each other through mail drops and embassies, and with agents in the United States, obtaining information of value to the German Secret Service and the Abwehr in Berlin. Frequently the clandestine German services were spying on each other in South America. Hidden radio receivers and transmitters littered the landscape. Information, particularly regarding American industry and shipping, was collected by agents and sent to Berlin.
The German activity in Latin America was called Operation Bolivar, and it included extensive operations in Mexico and Cuba. In 1942 J. Edgar Hoover and Fulgencio Batista announced the arrest of a “master spy” in Cuba named Heinz Luning. They claimed Luning had been coordinating U-Boat activities on the American east coast, contributing to their success in attacking American shipping. In truth, little evidence linking Luning to spying for the Germans or providing shipping information to the U-Boats has ever been found, but he was executed in Cuba as a spy in 1942. Changes in American tactics in 1943 curtailed the number of sinkings by German submarines, but Hoover attributed much of the change to FBI suppression of espionage.