Brazil’s air travel industry is rooted in World War II disputes

By Amanda Audi

It is hard to overstate the impact that World War II had on Brazil. The country joined the Allies in 1942, in an effort that secured the country’s first fully-integrated steel manufacturer, refurbished railroads, left new modern airfields from North to South, elevated Brazil to a new standing in world politics, and set the groundwork for decades of economic development.

Brazilians know that the country owes the creation of its largest fully-integrated steel producer, CSN, to World War II. 

With the country coveted by both the Allies and the Axis due to its strategic position for the war in the Atlantic, former dictator Getúlio Vargas leveraged both sides to secure a USD 20 million deal that would finance the construction of CSN, a landmark in Brazil’s industrialization process, before joining the Allies.

Unbeknownst to many, however, is the fact that Brazil’s air travel industry is also rooted in World War II. The first airlines in the country — Condor, Varig (Viação Riograndense), and Panair — were set up with money from both the U.S. and Germany.

In the lead-up to Brazil joining the war, both the Axis and Allied forces aimed to expand their zone of influence and control strategic airspaces.

The story is part of a chapter of a book, to be released in 2023, on the impact of the war in Latin America. Its author is Alexandre Fortes, a history professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Fortes came across documents showing the links between the main powers of the time and Brazilian airlines almost by chance in the late 1990s, when researching the actions of the political police in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The first report he found cited an episode in November 1939, shortly after Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. The Brazilian police had found boxes with parts of a radio transmitter that had been transported by a Varig plane and was going to be taken to a German ship being held by the government.

The radio was going to be used by the Nazis to spy on enemy movements off the coast of Latin America. Varig’s founder and...