How Castro recruited former members of the Nazi SS to train troops during Cuban Missile Crisis
Two former SS officers trained Cuban troops during the Cold War
Fidel Castro also bought arms from weapons-traffickers linked to the German extreme-rightFidel 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 had strong links 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 grip on the island nation and prevent an invasion from the U.S.
Bodo Hechelhammer, historical investigations director at German 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' of 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 close to going to war over Russian missiles stationed on the Caribbean island.
The 13-day confrontation, between October 16 and 28, 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.
This comes as thousands of documents authored by Robert F Kennedy during the years 1961-1964 were made public, including plans to assassinate Fidel Castro.
During these years Robert F. Kennedy was the closest advisor to his brother John and the 2,700 pages offers an insight into U.S. government’s decision-making during the Cold War.
One CIA document offers a profile of Castro: It calls him intelligent but 'not very stable' and 'touchy, impatient and rash,’ whilst another one outlines a 1964 plan to assassinate the Cuban leader using ‘the mafia’.
The mob and 'patriotic Cuban exiles' eventually settled on a payment of $100,000 for assassinating Castro, $20,000 for his brother Raul and $20,000 for revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, plus $2,500 for expenses.
Another prominent thread throughout the documents is the 13-day missile stand-off.
On one white page from a meeting on Oct. 16, 1962, the first day of the crisis, Kennedy wrote out two columns: proponents of a blockade against Cuba and supporters of a military strike.
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