BRAZIL’S armed forces have come under fire from Jewish groups after paying tribute to a nazi army officer for his achievements during the second world war.

Major Otto Maximilian von Westernhagen was described on Monday as a “friend of the nation” by the Army Command and Staff School of Brazil.

It said he was a “brilliant officer” who “was the commander of an armoured platoon on the eastern front on World War II.”

He was “a survivor of World War II and of Soviet totalitarian prisons, whose life was shortened by a cowardly terrorist act,” a statement said.

The nazi was killed in 1968 when he was mistaken for Bolivian army captain Gary Prado, who played a leading role in the US-backed capture and murder of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

They had both studied at the military school at the same time, under Brazil’s 1964-85 military dictatorship.

Brazilian group Jews for Democracy condemnned the tribute as “incomprehensible and unacceptable,” warning of silent complicity.

The Israeli Confederation of Brazil said it was “amazed” at the army’s tribute to an officer who had “participated in the occupation of France and the Soviet Union, places where nazi troops were known to have committed crimes against humanity, including and in particular against local Jewish communities.”

Sections of the Brazilian army supported entry into the war on Germany’s side. However, attacks on Brazilian ships in the Atlantic eventually led the government to declare war on Hitler’s regime in 1942.

Around 25,000 members of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force landed in Italy in 1944 and engaged in fighting, with 443 killed and 3,000 wounded.

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro caused controversy in Israel earlier this year when he claimed that the nazis were a left-wing movement.