One man's obsessive quest to uncover Brazil's buried Nazi past

IBIRUBÁ, Brazil — Looking up at the darkened edifice, the gumshoe thought he was on the cusp of his big break. For years, this house off the town square had fascinated and tormented him. He’d interviewed dozens of residents, pored over old newspaper clippings and spent every spare cent in pursuit of what he believed was a secret, shameful history buried beneath it.

But Clóvis Messerschmidt had never been inside the house. Not until that night in 2022, the night before it was to be demolished. It was his final chance to bring back definitive proof of a story he had staked his journalistic credibility on — that several prominent inhabitants of this ethnically German town in southern Brazil had been Nazi sympathizers, and that they’d hidden fugitives fleeing from Nazi hunters and the collapse of the Third Reich in a clandestine tunnel system.

Messerschmidt, 45, the publisher, editor and lead reporter of Enfoque, a local magazine with a circulation of 1,000, waited until well past midnight. Then he and two fellow sleuths made their move, the three men recalled in interviews — hopping the wall, climbing the porch and reaching for the front door. It had been left unlocked.

Washington Post