DID YOU KNOW Fidel Castro personally approved a plan to hire former members of the Waffen-SS and other former German military specialists to train the Cuban revolutionary army? 

According to declassified files released in 2012 by the West German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), four former Waffen-SS officers were invited to Cuba during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. 

The recruits were reportedly offered salaries four times higher than the average wage in West Germany, along with the prospect of a new life in Havana. BND reports indicated that at leasttwo of the men had arrived in Cuba and begun work there.

The Castro regime also sought to buy weapons from arms dealers connected with Germany’s ‘extreme right’, demonstrating the extent to which he was prepared to collaborate with his ideological enemies to prevent a US invasion and reduce dependence on Soviet-backed training and supplies.

Source: 

Fiona Govan, “Castro Recruited Former Nazis,” The Sydney Morning Herald, October 16, 2012,smh.com.au/world/castro…