The name Bariloche comes from the Mapudungun word Vuriloche meaning "people from behind the mountain" (vuri = behind, che = people). The Poya people used the Vuriloche pass to cross the Andes, keeping it secret from the Spanish priests for a long time.[citation needed]

There is evidence of the existence of indigenous settlements on banks of Lake Nahuel Huapi, in the area now occupied by the city of Bariloche, prior to arrival of expeditionaries and white settlers. During the Neolithic, the arrival of human beings to Nahuel Huapi region occurs. The archaeological and historical record speaks of tehuelches and puelches presence in the area. With the process of araucanization and mainly since the 17th century, the culture of these groups is strongly affected by Mapuches, who increased their presence from the settlement of Spaniards in Chile, and their continued push east.[1]

At 19th century end, in the vicinity of Nahuel Huapi, only a few scattered indigenous families were there: People of Inacayal had been stripped of their lands, and transferred to Tecka (Chubut) when the cacique was taken prisoner.[citation needed] Curruhinca had made an act of submission to Argentine government with his own. Some Nguillatun was still being celebrated.[citation needed]

But the region was beginning a new stage in its history. Although incorporated into national sovereignty, the Nahuel Huapi area began to develop fundamentally linked to Chile. Before 19th century end, when the border was still in dispute, people from the south of the neighboring country were gradually arriving to settle in surroundings of the lake. Small farmers were most of them from the island of Chiloe, but German immigrants living in Chile also arrived.[2]

Spanish explorations and missions  Bariloche, 1916 The Civic Centre opened in 1940 and was declared a national monument in 1987 The Neo-Gothic Cathedral of San Carlos de Bariloche had its structure completed in 1947.

Nahuel Huapi lake was known to Spaniards since the times of the Conquest of Chile. Following the trails of the Mapuche people across the Andes, in the summer of 1552–1553, the Spanish Governor of the Captaincy of Chile Pedro de Valdivia sent Francisco de Villagra to explore the area east of the Andes at the latitudes of the city of Valdivia. Francisco de Villagra crossed the Andes through Mamuil Malal Pass and headed south until reaching Limay River in the vicinity of Nahuel Huapi Lake.[3]

Another early Spaniard to visit the zone of Nahuel Huapi Lake was the Jesuit priest Diego de Rosales. He had been ordered to the area by the Governor of Chile Antonio de Acuña Cabrera, who was concerned about the unrest of the native Puelche and Poya after the slave-hunting expeditions carried out by Luis Ponce de León in 1649, who captured Indians and sold them into slavery. Diego de Rosales started his journey at the ruins of Villarica in Chile, crossed the Andes through Mamuil Malal Pass, and traveled further south along the eastern Andean valleys, reaching Nahuel Huapi Lake in 1650.[4]

In 1670, Jesuit priest Nicolás Mascardi, based in Chiloé Archipelago, entered the area through the Reloncaví Estuary and Todos los Santos Lake to found a mission at the Nahuel Huapi Lake, which lasted until 1673.[3] A new mission at the shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake was established in 1703, backed financially from Potosí, thanks to orders from the viceroy of Peru.[3] Historians disagree if the mission belonged to the jurisdiction of Valdivia or Chiloé.[3] According to historic documents, the Poya of Nahuelhuapi requested the mission to be reestablished, apparently to forge an alliance with the Spaniards against the Puelche.[3] Following the 1712 Huilliche rebellion in Chiloé Archipelago some insurgents sought refuge with Father Manuel del Hoyo in the mission.[5]

The mission was destroyed in 1717 by Poyas following a disagreement with the missionaries; the superior of the mission had refused to give them a cow.[3] Soon thereafter authorities learned that four or five people travelling to Concepción had been killed by the Poya. The colonists assembled a punitive expedition in Calbuco and Chiloé.[3] Composed of both Spaniards and indios reyunos, the expedition did not find any Poya.[3]

In 1766 the head of the Mission of Ralún tried to reestablish the mission at Nahuel Huapi, but the following year, the Crown suppressed the Society of Jesus, ordering them out of the colonies in the Americas.[3]

19th century to 1895  View of the city

The area had stronger connections to Chile than to the distant city of Buenos Aires during most of the 19th century, but the explorations of Francisco Moreno and the Argentine campaigns of the Conquest of the Desert established the legitimacy of the Argentine government. It thought the area was a natural expansion of the Viedma colony and the Andes were the natural frontier to Chile. In the 1881 border treaty between Chile and Argentina, the Nahuel Huapi area was recognized as part of Argentina.

German settlers begun to arrive in neighboring southern Chile from the 1840s. Some of these settlers and their descendants begun a lucrative leather industry obtaining leather from indigenous communities across the Andes.[6] In the 1880s, the Argentine Army displaced indigenous communities, disrupting this trade and forcing leather merchants in Chile to cross the Andes to obtain supplies. This way numerous entrepreneurs from Chile, many with a German background, established cattle and trade business in the area of Nahuel Huapi and Lácar lakes.[6]

Modern settlement

In the summer of 1894-1895 Carlos Wiederhold, a German-Chilean from Osorno, Chile,[6] crossed the poorly known mountain passes of the Andes from Chile into Nahual Huapi Lake. He was aided by the guide Antonio Millaqueo and Daniel Márquez from Chiloé helped them in navigating the lake. Back in Chile Wiederhold bought provisions in Puerto Montt and brought them across the Andes to sell these in the Nahuel Huapi area.[7] Wiederhold established then a little shop called La Alemana (The German) in 1895, and it is from this shop the modern settlement of Bariloche developed from.[6] As Wiederhold was named consul of the German Empire in Chile he left Bariloche for Puerto Montt in the 1900s.[6] In Puerto Montt Wiederhold continued to run the business while in Bariloche Wiederhold's business partner Federico Hube, also a German-Chilean from Osorno, was left in charge of local affairs.[6] By 1900 Chilean merchants dominated trade in the area of Nahuel Huapi Lake by their control of nearby mountain passes.[6] Hube & Achelis controlled Paso Pérez Rosales and Camino y Lacoste did so in Paso Puyehue.[6] A war scare between Chile and Argentina in the 1900s meant some difficulties for these earlier entrepreneurs who later came to benefit from the 1902 boundary arbitration between Chile and Argentina which increased trust along the international boundary.[6] The trade route established by Wiederhold connecting the Pacific port of Puerto Montt with Nahuel Huapi Lake in the inland was well into the 1910s among the most important ones in northern Patagonia.[7]

The Chilean entrepreneurs expanded beyond trade and established husbandry operations around Nahuel Huapi Lake. These enterprises exported meat to Central Chile and imported labour from southern Chile, mainly Chiloé Archipelago, to run the business.[6] Argentine authorities encouraged at first the immigration of Chileans offering land properties if they renounced the Chilean citizenship becoming Argentines.[6] Chilean authorities responded by offering land to those that returned from Argentina.[6] As spontaneous migration from Chiloé Archipelago begun to replace those brought in by enterprises the Argentine authorities came to distrust these migrants. Many independent settlers from Chiloé Archipelago established themselves in Valle Manso south of Bariloche.[6] In the words of historian Jorge Muñoz Sougarett, Argentine authorities viewed these Chileans settlers as "illiterate nomads, vicious and unruly".[6]

In the 1930s, the centre of the city was redesigned to have the appearance of a traditional European central alpine town (it was called "Little Switzerland.") Many buildings were made of wood and stone. In 1909 there were 1,250 inhabitants; a telegraph, post office, and a road connected the city with Neuquén. Commerce continued to depend on Chile until the arrival of the railroad in 1934, which connected the city with Argentine markets.

Architectural development and tourism  Glacier Castaño Overo spilling water and ice over the cliff on Cerro Tronador

Between 1935 and 1940, the Argentine Directorate of National Parks carried out a number of urban public works, giving the city a distinctive architectural style. Among them, perhaps the best-known is the Civic Centre.

Bariloche grew from being a centre of cattle trade that relied on commerce with Chile, to becoming a tourism centre for the Argentine elite. It took on a cosmopolitan architectural and urban profile. Growth in the city's tourist trade began in the 1930s, when local hotel occupancy grew from 1550 tourists in 1934 to 4000 in 1940.[8] In 1934 Ezequiel Bustillo, then director of the National Parks Direction, contracted his brother Alejandro Bustillo to build several buildings in Iguazú and Nahuel Huapi National Park (Bariloche was the main settlement inside the park). In contrast to subtropical Iguazú National Park, planners and developers thought that Nahuel Huapi National Park, because of its temperate climate, could compete with the tourism of Europe. Together with Bariloche, it was established for priority projects by national tourism development planners.[8]

 Chairlifts in the Cerro Catedral

Alejandro Bustillo designed the Edificio Movilidad, Plaza Perito Moreno, the Neo-Gothic San Carlos de Bariloche Cathedral, and the Llao Llao Hotel. Architect Ernesto de Estrada designed the Civic Centre of Bariloche, which opened in 1940. The Civic Centre's tuff stone, slate and Fitzroya structures include the Domingo Sarmiento Library, the Francisco Moreno Museum of Patagonia, City Hall, the Post Office, the Police Station, and the Customs.

U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower visited Bariloche as a guest of President Arturo Frondizi in 1960. Classical violinist Alberto Lysy established the string quartet Camerata Bariloche in 1967.

Huemul Project

During the 1950s, on the small island of Huemul, not far into lake Nahuel Huapi, former president Juan Domingo Perón tried to have the world's first fusion reactor built secretly. The project cost the equivalent of about $300 million modern US dollars, and it was never finished, due to the lack of the highly advanced technology that was needed. The Austrian Ronald Richter was in charge of the project. The facilities can still be visited, and are visible from certain locations on the coast.

Nazis in Bariloche

In 1995, Bariloche made headlines in the international press when it became known as a place for Nazi war criminals, such as the former SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke and SS officer Reinhard Kopps, known in Argentina as Juan Maler. Priebke had been the director of the German School of Bariloche for many years.

The narrative that Adolf Hitler did not commit suicide, but instead escaped Berlin, was first presented to the general public by Marshal Georgy Zhukov at a press conference on 9 June 1945 on orders from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.[9]: 22, 23  That month, 68% of Americans polled thought Hitler was still alive.[10] When asked at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 how Hitler had died, Stalin said he was either living "in Spain or Argentina."[11]

In his 2004 book Bariloche nazi-guía turística, Argentine author Abel Basti claims that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun lived in the surroundings of Bariloche for many years after World War II.[12][13] Basti said that the Argentine Nazis chose the estate of Inalco as Hitler's refuge.[12]

Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler, a 2011 book by British authors Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, proposed that Hitler and Eva Braun escaped from Berlin in 1945 and flew to Denmark, then on to Spain and from there to the Canary Islands, where they boarded a U-Boat and crossed the Atlantic to Argentina, where thousands of Nazis were provided sanctuary by president Juan Perón, who, with his wife Eva Perón, had been receiving money from the Nazis for some time. As claims received by the FBI stated, Hitler allegedly arrived in Argentina, first staying at Hacienda San Ramón, a rural property 10 kilometres (6 mi) east of Bariloche owned by Stephan von Schaumburg-Lippe, a relative of Prince Bernhard,[14] then moved to a Bavarian-style mansion at Inalco, a remote and barely accessible spot at the northwest end of Nahuel Huapi Lake, close to the Chilean border. Supposedly, Eva Braun left Hitler around 1954 and moved to Neuquén with their daughter Ursula ('Uschi'). Adolf Hitler died in February 1962 at age 73, and Eva Braun was alleged to be alive in the 2000s.[15]

These accounts are disputed by most historians, who generally believe that Hitler and Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker during last days of World War II.