Nueva Germania is a district of San Pedro Department in Paraguay. It was founded as a german settlement on August 23, 1887 by Bernhard Förster and 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 demonstrate the virtues of German culture and society.
In the town still live German remnants. Rumors say that Josef Mengele lived there after World War II. Most traces and references like the original Förster-House and the house where Mengele should have lived burnt down.
I arrive in the pitch-black of the night, which cuts out every idea of how the landscape looks alike. Nueva Germania welcomes with two sudden surreal towers out there in the nowhere, in which a vibrant density of animalssound let the night hum. "Bienvenidos a Nueva Germania" .
The roadtrip with burning fields along the road and a flat tire while the darkness set in seem to be a scenic intro for the days to follow and the search of traces of the history and the present.