German Clandestine Activities in South America in World War II

DOCID: 3525901
Johannes Siegfried Becker, codenamed
SARGO, organized Nazi espionage operations
in South America.
Chapter II
Axis Agent Operations in Latin America
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In his report on his trip to England in 1943, Colonel Alfred McCormack stated that
the Coast Guard had abdicated to the British Government Code & Cipher School
(GC&CS) its responsibility for all clandestine communications other than those
concerning the Western Hemisphere. While McCormack was certainly overstating the
case, with equal certainty the Coast Guard's primary interest was in agent
communications between Germany and Latin America. These communications were
primarily the responsibility of Operation BOLIVAR,l1 the code name for an espionage
project carried out by Department VI 0 4 ofthe SO. It was active in Brazil, Paraguay, and
Argentina, with ramifications reaching into the official circles of those countries. 12
SARGO
Johannes Siegfried Becker (SARGO) was the main figure in the project and the person
responsible for most ofthe organizing ofespionage operations in South America. Becker
was first sent to Buenos Aires by the SO in May 1940. His original mission, and that of
Heinz Lange (JANSEN) who followed him shortly after, was sabotage. In August, because
ofprotests by the German embassy, this was revised to one ofespionage only. Becker and
Lange were soon identified by the authorities as agents, and in September 1940, moved to
Brazil where Becker made contact with Gustav Albrecht Engels.
Gustav Albrecht Engels (ALFREDO)
had originally been recruited by Jobst
Raven of Abwehr I W in 1939 to provide
economic intelligence on the Western
Hemisphere to the Abwehr. He had established
an economic espionage
organization, reporting to Germany via
the radio transmitter owned by his
company, the Allgemeine Elektrizitaets
Gesellschaft (General Electric Company),
headquartered in Krefeld. Becker transformed
Engels's organization into an
espionage organization reporting on all
subjects ofinterest to German intelligence.
By mid-1941, Engels's radio station, eEL,
which was located in Sao Paulo, Brazil,
was functioning smoothly with agents
both in Brazil and the United States. It
provided information on shipping,
economic and industrial affairs, war
production and military movements in the
United States, and political and military
developments in Brazil. One of the agents
in the United States who frequently came
to Brazil to talk to Engels was Ousko
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