Two
former SS officers trained Cuban troops during the Cold War.
Fidel Castro also bought arms from
weapons-traffickers linked to the German extreme-right
Fidel
Castro recruited former members of the Nazi SS to train Cuban troops during the
Cold War, newly released German secret service files have revealed.
The then
Communist President of Cuba also bought Belgian-fabricated arms from two
middle-men who had strong links to the extreme German right.
It sheds
light on the extent Castro, who in public was stringently committed to
socialism, was willing to go in order to further his grip on the island nation
and prevent an invasion from the U.S.
Bodo
Hechelhammer, historical investigations director at German foreign intelligence
agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) said: 'Evidently, the Cuban revolutionary
army did not fear contagion from personal links to Nazism, so long as it served
its objectives.'
The
documents, released by the BND and published online by German newspaper Die
Welt, show a series of plans developed in October 1962 - at the height of the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
They
reveal that two of the four former SS officers invited to La Havana had taken
up the offer - and that they would receive 'substantial wages' of more than
four times the average German salary at that time.
And
regarding the purchase of right-wing linked arms, they show how Castro had
dealt with two traffickers - Otto Ernst Remer and Ernst Wilhelm Springer - in
buying 4,000 pistols.
The
conclusion drawn by German secret service officials was that the Cuban regime
wanted to lessen its dependence on buying Soviet-produced arms.
Right-wing
weapons: Fidel Castro, seen here giving a speech in Cuba in October 1962, also
bought 4,000 pistols from men with links to the German extreme-right
Right-wing
weapons: Fidel Castro, seen here giving a speech in Cuba in October 1962, also
bought 4,000 pistols from men with links to the German extreme-right
October
1962 was the month that the U.S. and the USSR came close to going to war over
Russian missiles stationed on the Caribbean island.
The
13-day confrontation, between October 16 and 28, ended when a secret deal was
reached between U.S. President John F Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev.
Publicly,
the Soviets agreed to dismantle the weapons in Cuba and return them to the
Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification.
In turn,
the U.S. agreed to declare that it would never invade Cuba. Secretly, the U.S.
also agreed it would dismantle all U.S.-built Jupiter IRBMs deployed in Turkey
and Italy.
This
comes as thousands of documents authored by Robert F Kennedy during the years
1961-1964 were made public, including plans to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Training
for war: Fidel Castro, center, speaks with ally Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev, right, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960
as the Cold War gripped the world
Training
for war: Fidel Castro, center, speaks with ally Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev, right, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960
as the Cold War gripped the world
During
these years Robert F. Kennedy was the closest advisor to his brother John and the 2,700 pages offers an insight into
U.S. government’s decision-making during the Cold War.
One CIA
document offers a profile of Castro: It calls him intelligent but 'not very
stable' and 'touchy, impatient and rash,’ whilst another one outlines a 1964
plan to assassinate the Cuban leader using ‘the mafia’.
The mob
and 'patriotic Cuban exiles' eventually settled on a payment of $100,000 for
assassinating Castro, $20,000 for his brother Raul and $20,000 for
revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, plus $2,500 for expenses.
Another
prominent thread throughout the documents is the 13-day missile stand-off.
On one
white page from a meeting on Oct. 16, 1962, the first day of the crisis,
Kennedy wrote out two columns: proponents of a blockade against Cuba and
supporters of a military strike.
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