On Monday evening, the Brazilian Army caused outrage when it paid tribute to Eduard Ernst Thilo Otto Maximilian von Westernhagen, a German Army major who fought for the Nazi forces in World War II and was assassinated in Rio de Janeiro, in 1968.
The salute seemed stranger than fiction. It is not a good look for an army which led a brutal dictatorship in Brazil between 1964 and 1985—but has since stressed its commitment to democracy—to then publicly honor a Nazi. But there are doubts over whether this was actually the case.
Major Eduard Ernst Thilo Otto Maximilian von Westernhagen was killed in 1968 by a left-wing paramilitary group in Rio de Janeiro. Reportedly, the gunmen mistook Maj. von Westernhagen for Gary Prado, a member of the Bolivian army who was believed to have been involved in capturing Che Guevara the previous year. Messrs. Von Westernhagen and Prado attended the same exchange course at the Brazilian Army Command and General Staff School (ECEME) and, reportedly, looked...
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