Nueva Germania

Nueva Germania

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Coat of arms
Coordinates: 23°54′0″S 56°42′12″W / 23.90000°S 56.70333°W / -23.90000; -56.70333
Country  Paraguay
Department San Pedro
Founded August 23, 1887 by Bernhard Förster
Government
 • Intendente Municipal Leonardo Saiz Arce
Area
 • Total 20.008 km2 (7.725 sq mi)
Elevation 132 m (433 ft)
Population (2008)
 • Total 4,335
 • Density 15.9/km2 (41/sq mi)
Time zone -4 GMT
Postal code 8470
Area code(s) (595) (44)

Nueva Germania (New Germania) is a district of San Pedro Department in Paraguay. It was founded as a German settlement on August 23, 1887 by Bernhard Förster, who was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, sister of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Förster's idea was to create a model community in the New World and to demonstrate the virtues of German culture and society.

In the town there are still many German remnants. There is a museum that exhibits memories of the town's origin.

It is located about 297 kilometres from Asunción, capital of the Republic of Paraguay.

History

Nueva Germania was founded in 1886 on the banks of the Aguaray-Guazú River, about 250 kilometers from Asunción by five, later fourteen, largely impoverished families from Saxony.[1] Led by Bernhard Förster and his wife, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the German colonists emigrated to the Paraguayan rainforest to put to practice utopian ideas about vegetarianism, feminism[2]:345–358 and the superiority of the Aryan race. It was the declared dream of Förster to create an area of Germanic development, far from the influence of Jews, whom he reviled.

Förster, who had negotiated the town's titles of property with General Bernardino Caballero, committed suicide in 1889 in the city of San Bernardino, a local center of German population. His wife returned to Germany in 1893.

According to Gerard L. Posner, writing in Mengele: The Complete Story, Josef Mengele, a major German war criminal, spent some time in Nueva Germania (which he calls, erroneously, Nueva Bavaria) while a fugitive after World War II;[3] however, evidence that Mengele even passed through is shaky.[4]

The colony's development was hampered by the harshness of the environment and those colonists who stayed soon abandoned the supremacist idea of its founders and integrated into the Paraguayan culture. Nueva Germania became a quiet community of San Pedro, dedicated to agriculture, specializing in the cultivation of yerba mate. Beginning in 2004 the American writer David Woodard embarked on a series of expeditions to the erstwhile colony,[5] as examined in the briefwechsel—or book of correspondence—between Woodard and Swiss novelist Christian Kracht, Five Years, published in 2011.[6] As of 2013, there had been extensive intermarriage with Paraguayans, but pockets of German culture remained.[4]

Economy

Cassava plant

One of the most important products of the district is yerba mate, along with sugarcane, cotton, manioc (cassava), tobacco, sunflower, soy, wheat, banana, sweet and sour orange, Paraguayan lemon verbena and sesame.

Transportation

A branch of Route No. 3 General Elizardo Aquino, a paved road, is the main access to the town, which connects it with Asunción and other localities of the department. Also, Route No. 11 Juana Maria de Lara, an unpaved road, connects the town with the Amambay Department.

Other unimproved roads (of sand or pebbles) connect with different districts and the capital of the department.

Climate

The climate is tropical, with abundant rains, a maximum temperature of about 35 °C, a minimum of 10 °C and an average of 23 °C, with a humidity of 80%. Precipitation exceeds 1300 millimeters, especially in summer.

Language

The Guaraní language is predominant; about 80% of the population speak it; the rest speak a combination of Spanish and Guaraní called Jopará.

German is still spoken among some families descendant from the original colonists.

Population

The General Directorate of Statistics, Polls and Census reports the following numbers with regard to population:

As of 2002, about 10% of Nueva Germania's inhabitants were of mainly German origin.[1]

Borders

Nueva Germania borders:

Hydrography

Nueva Germania district is watered by the rivers Aguaray Guazú and Aguaray mí and the streams Tutytí and Empalado.

Demographics

Main social and demographic indicators:

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Evangelische Gemeinde Düren Brochure by the Protestant Parish of Düren (in German), contains pictures.
  2. ↑ Bauer, K., "The Domestication of Radical Ideas and Colonial Spaces," in M. Schulze, et al., eds., German Diasporic Experiences (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008), pp. 345–358.
  3. ↑ Posner, Gerard L. (1986). Mengele: The Complete Story. Cooper Square Press. pp. 123–124.
  4. 1 2 Simon Romero (May 5, 2013). "German Outpost Born of Racism in 1887 Blends Into Paraguay". The New York Times. Retrieved May 6, 2013.
  5. ↑ Epstein, J., "Rebuilding a Home in the Jungle", San Francisco Chronicle, Mar 13, 2005.
  6. ↑ Kracht, C., & Woodard, D., Five Years (Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2011).

Coordinates: 23°54′S 56°42′W / 23.900°S 56.700°W / -23.900; -56.700

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