Juan Perón wins the 1946 Argentine presidential election

Juan Perón’s victory in the 1946 Argentine presidential election followed his removal from office, arrest, and return to the centre of national politics through mass mobilization. The election established the Peróns as Argentina’s rulers and brought to power a coalition spanning the church, military, nationalists, and proletariat. In the book’s account, the result marks the start of a project that promised national renewal while also helping create the political environment in which Nazi fugitives would later find Argentina comparatively accommodating.

From Removal to Return

Before the election, Perón had risen to become secretary of war and vice president. His political ascent included sharply increased military spending, the creation of an air force, and a radio warning of a Brazilian attack that never took place. Under pressure from the United States to hold democratic elections at the end of the war, Argentina’s military leadership became divided. In September 1945, renewed conservative opposition and conflict between officers culminated in Perón’s forced resignation and arrest.

His opponents’ success proved temporary. Workers, unionists, and other underprivileged supporters mobilized under the leadership of the General Confederation of Labour. They marched to May Square in Buenos Aires and called for Perón’s release and restoration to power in front of the presidential palace. Perón married Eva Perón, and a few months later he won the presidential election. The sequence joins street mobilization to electoral victory: the arrest that was meant to remove him instead became the immediate prelude to his return.

A Coalition and a Political Project

By 1946, the Peróns had become the masters of Argentina, backed by the church, military, nationalists, and proletariat. Their victory rested on a broad alliance rather than a single constituency, and the account presents the election as the point at which that alliance became national power. Perón’s appeal drew on promises to end humiliation and dependency and to offer a new beginning to the masses he addressed by radio.

The government announced an aesthetic and industrial revolution and a proletarian regime. Perón’s public rhetoric cast him as a saviour and promised Argentina a place in history through Peronist Justicialism. The scale of the promise matters to the election’s significance: victory was framed not simply as a change of officeholders, but as the beginning of a transformation of the country’s political and social order.

The Election’s Later Consequences

The book connects the Peronist period to the later flight and concealment of Nazi fugitives without reducing those events to the election alone. When Josef Mengele faced an arrest warrant and possible extradition, he feared that Argentina’s newly elected liberal government might prove less lenient toward Nazis than its Peronist and military predecessors. That concern helped prompt his flight to Paraguay. The contrast makes the election’s aftermath visible in retrospect: a change of government altered the fugitive’s calculation of where he could remain safe.

After Adolf Eichmann’s kidnapping, Argentina faced international pressure to demonstrate that it was not a sanctuary for Nazis. The book describes that crisis as a humiliation for the country and a turning point in the pursuit of war criminals. The 1946 victory is therefore situated within a longer political arc: it inaugurated Perónist rule, while later shifts in government and mounting international scrutiny changed the conditions under which fugitives and their protectors operated.