Kutschmann

Kutschmann, referred to in Buenos Aires as Walter, is one of the German contacts around whom Manuel Arroyo must organize his covert work. His meetings and invitations keep Manuel connected to the Nazi escape network even as Manuel tries to establish a separate life and report on the organization from a safer distance.

Place in the network

Before his Buenos Aires assignment, Manuel had already spent years among German and other Nazi representatives through his diplomatic work in Geneva and London. After reaching Argentina, he made contact with Fred Goodwin and established a route between Madrid and Burnham, then chose a teaching job in a central, middle-class neighborhood partly to avoid the residential districts where Nazis lived. That caution did not allow him simply to disappear from the network: Walter continued to draw him toward Recoleta, where the Germans’ social world was concentrated.

Meetings and surveillance

In the early months of 1949, Manuel spent most of his free time preparing classes and assembling notes for a report on the Stauffer network. His contact with Walter was limited but regular: he attended meetings at Walter’s home every other Wednesday and sometimes joined the tours Walter repeatedly proposed. As winter approached and work at the academy intensified, Manuel began spacing out his visits. Walter did not appear to notice his absence, giving Manuel room to continue his investigation without an immediate confrontation.

Pressure on Manuel’s new life

Walter’s invitations remained an obligation Manuel had to manage, not a relationship he could openly sever. On October 2, when Clara Stauffer invited Manuel to accompany her to Peru and Bolivia from a country house in Olivos, he refused in part because of Simona and the home he had found at the Café de los Angelitos. The gathering that followed was hosted by Walter, who was pleased to stay late; Manuel, by contrast, needed to get back to Buenos Aires. After another guest agreed to drive him, Manuel gave a false reason for his destination, then arrived at the café after eleven, where he found Simona being pressed by a drunken man. The contrast between Walter’s leisurely hospitality and Manuel’s urgency marks the distance between the social world he must enter for his work and the attachments that have begun to make Buenos Aires feel like home.