Nueva Germania was founded in 1886 on the banks of the
Aguaray-Guazú River, about 250 kilometres from Asunción by five, later fourteen, largely impoverished families from
Saxony. the German colonists emigrated to the Paraguayan rainforest to put to practice
utopian ideas about the superiority of the
Aryan race. It was the declared dream of Förster to create an area of Germanic development, far from the influence of
Jews, whom he reviled. It was one of several closed
German communities in Paraguay. The colony's development was hampered by the harshness of the environment, a lack of proper supplies, and an overconfidence of the colonist's own supposed
Aryan supremacy. Förster, who had negotiated the town's titles of property with General
Bernardino Caballero, committed suicide only 3 years later in 1889 in the city of
San Bernardino after abandoning the settlement.
20th century According to Gerard Posner,
Josef Mengele, a
German war criminal, spent some time in Nueva Germania while he was a fugitive after
World War II. While Mengele did indeed briefly live in
Hohenau, Paraguay (from 1959 to 1960), there is little evidence that Mengele ever lived in Nueva Germania.
21st century Today, Nueva Germania is a quiet and relatively poor agricultural community dedicated to the cultivation of
yerba mate and soy beans and the raising of cattle, as well as the production of bricks. The three main languages spoken in the community are Spanish,
Guaraní, and German. The two most common religions practiced are Catholicism and Lutheranism (the latter being practiced mostly by German descendants). The history of the town's foundation has led to the celebration of the mixture of German and Paraguayan cultures as a joint heritage of the town, with inhabitants often referring to themselves as
Germanino. Depending on the situation, people identify as either, German, Paraguayan, or Germanino. About 80% of the population speak the
Guaraní language. The rest speak a combination of German and Spanish. ==Population==