Luis S. Luti

Luis Santiago Luti was born in Malagueño, Córdoba, in 1897. His diplomatic career included embassy service in Mexico and Peru before he became a counsellor in Berlin and, in 1942, Argentina’s acting chief there. His reports from Nazi Germany described persecution while Argentina still maintained diplomatic relations with the regime. ¹

According to diplomat and historian José R. Sanchis Muñoz, Luti reported deportations and forced labor in 1942. In March 1943 he described the suppression of Polish universities and cultural institutions and the imprisonment of professors. His report of 25 June discussed the Warsaw ghetto’s destruction and information about gas chambers at Treblinka. He distinguished information received from what could be checked, while making clear the scale and violence of the persecution. ²

Luti also reported negotiations over the treatment of Jewish Argentine citizens. A later account drawing on his correspondence describes his September 1943 announcement that Germany had agreed to issue them ordinary food and clothing ration cards in the Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. That November, he survived the bombing of Argentina’s embassy and reported that its archives, codes, and seals had been saved. Argentina broke relations with Germany in January 1944. ^{3, 1}

Back in the Americas, Luti headed the Washington embassy as chargé in 1945–46. On 20 April 1946 he led a delegation to Franklin Roosevelt’s grave at Hyde Park and deposited a chest of Argentine soil. Schoolchildren in Mendoza had collected it at El Plumerillo, where San Martín’s army prepared for its independence campaign. Speaking for the Argentine government and people, he presented the tribute as a connection between that history and Roosevelt’s memory. ^{4, 1}

Luti’s later assignments included national director of protocol, ambassador to South Africa, head of the North American department, and ambassador to Ireland. As protocol director in 1960, he delivered the travel document to Israeli ambassador Arieh Levavi following his expulsion during the Eichmann dispute. Luti died in Buenos Aires in 1977. ^{1, 3, 2}