Abstract
Our main objective is to present a study on Heinrich Schüler, a German-Brazilian author who published a detailed book about Brazil. With his idea of “Brazil, a country of the future”, he anticipated Stefan Zweig in almost three decades. A naturalized Brazilian, Schüler was Brazil’s consular representative in Bremen and assistant consul in Hamburg, where he taught university courses on Brazilian culture. Basing on research performed in Brazilian and German-Brazilian newspapers, we could compose a portrait of a man who transitioned between Brazilian and German diplomacy. Thus, he was well-regarded by some, but regarded with suspicion by others. If he showed himself to be a faithful citizen of Brazil, he also revealed himself to be a tireless defender of Germanism in Brazil. He defended the sending of “new German blood” to Brazil, in order to avoid that “the German-speaking colonies widely dispersed in the South of Brazil” had to be mixed “with the foreign elements”. Examining Schüler’s profile, we conclude that, if Zweig had read the consul’s monography as a preparatory reading, he must have subsequently been shocked by Schüler’s political ideas, since he would flirt with the Hitlerist intention of implanting Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP - in English, National Socialist German Worker’s Party) cells in Brazilian German-speaking states.
Keywords:
Heinrich Schüler; Stefan Zweig; country of the future; antagonistic cosmovisions