| Nueva Germania | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Paraguay | ||
| Department | San Pedro | ||
| Founded | August 23, 1887 by Bernhard Förster | ||
| Government | |||
| • Intendente Municipal | Leonardo Saiz Arce | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 20.008 km2 (7.7 sq mi) | ||
| Elevation | 132 m (433 ft) | ||
| Population (2008) | |||
| • Total | 4,335 | ||
| • Density | 15.9/km2 (41.2/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | -4 GMT | ||
| Postal code | 8470 | ||
| Area code(s) | (595) (44) | ||
Nueva Germania (New Germania) is a district of San Pedro Department in Paraguay. It was founded as a German colony on August 23, 1887 by Bernhard Förster, who was married to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, sister of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Förster's idea was to create a model community in the New World and to show German superiority.
In the town there are still many German remnants. There is a museum that exhibits memories of the town’s origin.
It is located about 297 kilometres from Asunción, capital of the Republic of Paraguay.
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Nueva Germania was founded in 1886 on the banks of the Aguaray-Guazú River, about 250 kilometers from Asunción by five - later fourteen, largely impoverished families from Saxony.[1] Led by Bernhard Förster and his wife, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the colonists emigrated to the Paraguayan rainforest to put to practice 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.
Förster, who had negotiated the town's titles of property with General Bernardino Caballero, committed suicide in 1889 in the city of San Bernardino, a local center of German population. His wife returned to Germany in 1893.
The colony's development was hampered by the harshness of the environment and those colonists that stayed soon abandoned the supremacist idea of its founders, and integrated into the Paraguayan culture. Josef Mengele, a major German war criminal, spent some time in Nueva Germania while a fugitive after World War II.[2]
Nueva Germania is now a quiet community of San Pedro dedicated to agriculture, specializing in the cultivation of yerba mate.
The evolution of the population of Nueva Germania reveals the situation of the locale, one of the poorest in the department.
One of the most important products of the district is yerba mate, along with sugarcane, cotton, manioc (cassava), tobacco, sunflower, soy, wheat, banana, sweet and sour orange, Paraguayan lemon verbena and sesame.
A branch of Route No. 3 General Elizardo Aquino, a paved road, is the main access to the town, which connects it with Asunción and other localities of the department. Also, Route No. 11 Juana Maria de Lara, an unpaved road, connects the town with Amambay Department.
Many of the roads are of sand or pebbles and they communicate with the different districts and the capital of the department.
The climate is tropical, with abundant rains, a maximum temperature of about 35°C, a minimum of 10°C and an average of 23°C, with a humidity of 80%. Precipitation exceeds 1300 millimeters, especially in summer.
The Guaraní language is predominant; about 80% of the population speak it; the rest speak a combination of Spanish and Guarani called Jopará.
The Statistics, Polls and Census General Direction shows the following numbers in regards to population:
Nowadays only 10% of the inhabitants are of mainly German origin.[1]
Nueva Germania borders:
Nueva Germania district is watered by the rivers Aguaray Guazú, Verde and the streams: Tutytí, Empalado and Aguaray mí.
Main social and demographic indicators: