Abstracts - "Brazilian foreign policy and the dispute between the great powers"
Luís Edmundo Moraes, UFRRJ
The Political Police and the Repression of Nazis in Brazil during the Estado Novo
The presence of the Nazi Party in Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s was always accompanied by concerns on the part of local governments and Brazilian nationalist circles. The year 1938 marked the beginning of nationwide nationalization measures and laws that were decisive in interrupting the public activities of NSDAP groups in the country. This presentation aims to gather evidence that will allow us to reflect on the impact of inter-American relations on the federal government's initiatives in the repression of Nazis in Brazil in the second half of the 1930s and during the Second World War.
Fábio Koifman, UFRRJ
The "Common War Effort" and the Control of the Entry of Foreigners into Brazil in Times of War (1942-45):
At the beginning of World War II, Brazil was trying to implement new immigration legislation published the previous year. Decree-Laws 406 and 3,010 of 1938 were the result of several years of study and debates held in so-called technical committees, led by people considered experts in the subject of controlling the entry of foreigners, as well as in the "qualitative" analysis of the type of foreigner considered desirable or undesirable as an immigrant. The beginning of the war produced a significant increase in the number of foreigners seeking refuge outside Europe. Upon encountering the restrictions established for the issuance of permanent visas for Brazil, the recourse of many of them became to obtain temporary visas such as tourist or transit visas, in order to circumvent the established entry restrictions. From then on, in April 1941, a new decree law was published - number 3,175 - and new restrictions were established, and authorizations for issuing visas were removed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and handed over to the Ministry of Justice, where they remained until 1945 under the responsibility of the "Visa Service". With the severance of diplomatic relations between Brazil and the Axis in January 1942, German citizens and subjects and those born in countries allied with the Axis were prohibited from entering the country, even when they were naturalized individuals. The Brazilian government only took into account nationality and not naturalization. With the Brazilian declaration of war on Germany and Italy, citizens born in these countries, as well as those from Japan, Hungary, Romania, among others, began to have their authorization to enter Brazil refused. Even if they were naturalized American citizens. With the implementation of the "common war effort" and the need for entry and transit of troops, military officers and civilian personnel involved, the Visa Service needed to quickly establish - according to the agency's current standards - a rapid analysis of applications and agility in issuing authorizations. In this context, the country that until then had established strict control over the issuance of visas began to quickly authorize the issuances requested by the US government, which even included passage through Brazilian territory by Soviet officials, at a time when Brazil did not maintain diplomatic relations with the USSR, which had been severed since 1917.
Alexandre Moreli, USP
Brazil and Portugal in the transition between British and American hegemony over the Atlantic
“Azores, Lisbon, Natal, Rio de Janeiro, Bolama, São Tomé and Príncipe, Cape Verde Islands, Cabinda, Luanda, Lobito, Lourenço Marques, Beira, Porto Amélia, Goa, Daman, Diu, Macau and Timor”. The mention of such an alignment of possessions and ports spread across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania served, for centuries, to illustrate the global extension of the Portuguese Empire and its capacity to support global maritime exploration. Unsurprisingly, during the Second World War, these territories would have their importance renewed. However, not for the reasons that might seem more obvious, such as contributing to the war effort itself or to maritime battles. Discussed in absolute secrecy by British and American post-war planning committees between 1943 and 1945, these spaces also emerged as vital for global exploration, but then for aviation. Taking into account these interests, but above all the fact that these planning committees created a moment of reflection on the post-war period and the future precisely at the moment when the war was reaching its peak, this work aims to analyze the relationships and overlaps between the experience of the conflict and the expectation of peace that contextualized the dispute over the future of the Portuguese-speaking world, particularly the Atlantic insular world, involving Brazil and Portugal. In addition to their own dynamics, the activities of these committees took place amid a context of decline of the British Empire and the rise of the United States, which, however, were not complementary or sequential. Although existing on the same reality (illustrated, in this work, by the hegemony over the Atlantic World), these processes did not have the same rhythm, chronology or direction. Taking into account this dynamic of the fall and rise of great powers, the results of the activities of the post-war planning committees are also a way of perceiving a veiled, but intense, Anglo-American rivalry within the war alliance, which remains little studied and which found in the discussions on the Atlantic island space involving Portugal and Brazil one of its main points of discord.