Castro recruited former Nazis to train Cuban troops during the Cold War

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 belonged 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 power and prevent an invasion by the U.S.

Bodo Hechelhammer, historical investigations director at the 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' 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.

October 1962 was the month that the U.S. and the USSR came perilously close to going to war over Russian missiles stationed on the Caribbean island.

The 13-day confrontation, between October 16th and 28th, 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.

Source: http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/nydnrss/news/~3/B4meIr7ZTyE/story01.htm

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