Did you know that a young German socialist woman, Monika Ertl, killed Che Guevara's brutal executioner, Bolivian Colonel Roberto Pereira, who allegedly cut off his hands? She became known as "the avenger of Che". 🧵
Monika was the daughter of a Nazi propagandist who fled to Bolivia. The family’s close friends were other Nazi fugitives such as Klaus Barbie, a Gestapo leader known as “the Butcher of Lyon.”
She rejected her father’s ideology and grew closer to the socialist cause, admiring the Cuban Revolution & especially the Argentinian commander Che Guevara. After the US-backed Bolivian army killed Guevara in La Higuera, she joined the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (ELN).
In 1971, she returned to Hamburg where Roberto Quintanilla was stationed as a Bolivian consul due to fears that the ELN could target him for his involvement in Guevara’s death. There, allegedly, she personally shot Quintanilla 3 times and was able to flee, thus avenging Guevara.
Monika was eventually killed in Bolivia by special forces on May 12, 1973. She was tortured and her body was never found. She was dubbed “the avenger of Che Guevara” for her efforts, a name that would make headlines around the world.
*Roberto Quintanilla Pereira
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