For The Record  

FTR #239 Update on German Corporate Control of the American Media: Magazines

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MP3 One Seg­ment

1. This broad­cast exam­ines Ger­man cor­po­rate influ­ence in tele­vi­sion and mag­a­zines, and his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism and edi­to­r­ial reac­tion, appar­ently result­ing from that control.

2. The pro­gram begins with a thought-provoking arti­cle about “Frog­man,” the tele­vi­sion pilot star­ring O.J. Simp­son. Pro­duced by a Ger­man com­pany before the killing of Ron and Nicole, the pilot con­tains a num­ber of scenes that became sig­nif­i­cant when the killings occurred. (Los Ange­les Times, 5/8/2000.)

3. One scene has O.J. hold­ing a knife to a woman’s throat. A video­tape of the pilot was appar­ently viewed by L.A. police, although Judge Lance Ito (mar­ried to Mark Fuhrman’s for­mer watch com­man­der) would not allow the video to be intro­duced as evi­dence for the defense. Mr. Emory dis­cusses the pos­si­bil­ity that the pilot may have been part of the Nazi “psy-op” that he the­o­rized about in ear­lier pro­grams about the O.J. case.

4. The line of inquiry that led to the series on Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol over the Amer­i­can media had its gen­e­sis with the O.J. inves­ti­ga­tion, dur­ing which Mr. Emory read the book Serpent’s Walk. Mr. Emory won­ders if the pilot (like the movie The Patriot) might be a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the sup­pos­edly fic­tional plan for Nazi-SS con­trol of the United States that is described in the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk (National Van­guard Books, soft cover, copy­right 1991, ISBN # 0–937944-05-X.) Mr. Emory believes that the book, sup­pos­edly a novel, is a blue­print for the strate­gic pol­icy Nazi ele­ments are cur­rently pur­su­ing. In this regard, it would resem­ble The Turner Diaries, also pub­lished by National Vanguard—the pub­lish­ing arm of the National Alliance. This book was the role model for Tim­o­thy McVeigh & Co. in the Okla­homa City Bomb­ing, as well as the Nazi group The Order.

5. The book Blood Oath: The Con­spir­acy to Mur­der Nicole Brown Simp­son (soft­cover edi­tion, Rain­bow Books, copy­right 1996) links the Okla­homa City bomb­ing, the O.J. case and the mur­der of talk-show host Alan Berg by The Order.

6. The broad­cast high­lights sev­eral key pas­sages of Serpent’s Walk, under­scor­ing the SS post­war cap­i­tal organization’s grad­ual assim­i­la­tion of the Amer­i­can opinion-forming media. (Serpent’s Walk, pp. 44–45.)

7. After that assim­i­la­tion, they use the result­ing con­trol to indoc­tri­nate the pub­lic with a revi­sion­ist view of the Third Reich. (The sup­pos­edly fic­tional SS cap­i­tal orga­ni­za­tion described in the book is rec­og­niz­able to vet­eran lis­ten­ers as the deadly Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion.)

8. Next the broad­cast sets forth the Ber­tels­mann firm’s increase in sales dur­ing the last fis­cal year. (Wall Street Jour­nal, 6/26/2000, p. A21.)

9. The dis­cus­sion also high­lights the res­ig­na­tion of Mark Woess­ner, the CEO of Ber­tels­mann. (Wall Street Jour­nal, 5/22/2000, p. A32.)

10. Pre­vi­ous pro­grams in this series present cir­cum­stan­tial infor­ma­tion sug­gest­ing that the Ber­tels­mann firm is a crit­i­cal part of the Bor­mann group, as well as of the plan for media con­trol described in Serpent’s Walk. Run dur­ing the World War II period by “pas­sive” SS man Hein­rich Mohn, Ber­tels­mann was the lead­ing pub­lisher of books for the Wehrma­cht and the SS. Ber­tels­mann hired Dirk Baven­damm as its house his­to­rian. As described in FTR #238 (among other pro­grams), Bavendamm’s take on his­tory is fun­da­men­tally revi­sion­ist. Baven­damm was involved in approv­ing Stern magazine’s pub­li­ca­tion of draw­ings (allegedly by Hitler, but in fact forg­eries.) (Stern is a Ber­tels­mann pub­li­ca­tion.) The draw­ings present a “kinder, gen­tler” pic­ture of Hitler. (The Nation, 11/08/1999.)

11. The pro­gram then high­lights the episode of the reac­tionary his­tory of Bertelsmann’s pub­li­ca­tions, and Rein­hard Mohn’s right-wing edi­to­r­ial pol­icy. (Global Dreams, Richard Bar­net & Richard Cavanaugh, Simon & Schus­ter, copy­right 1994, ISBN# 068–4800276, p. 77.)

12. Hav­ing sti­fled pub­li­ca­tion of Rolf Hocchuth’s The Deputy (accu­rately depict­ing Pope Pius XII’s sup­port for Hitler), Mohn also dis­missed Ber­tels­mann exec­u­tives for a vari­ety of trans­gres­sions, includ­ing oppo­si­tion to reuni­fi­ca­tion. (Idem.)

13. Mohn approved pub­li­ca­tion of the Hitler diaries, forg­eries that pre­sented a rel­a­tively benign pic­ture of Hitler. (Ibid, p. 75.)

14. Obtained by a “secret Hitler freak,” the diaries’ pub­li­ca­tion led to a fur­ther right-wing slant­ing of the pre­vi­ously lib­eral, muck-raking Stern. (Ibid., pp. 75–77.)

15. The reac­tionary edi­to­r­ial pol­icy of Bertelsmann-owned peri­od­i­cals should be reflected on, against the firm’s incip­i­ent push into Amer­i­can peri­od­i­cals. Its Gruner & Jahr sub­sidiary has hired Time Inc.‘s Daniel B. Brew­ster, as part of an attempt by Ber­tels­mann to dom­i­nate the Amer­i­can mag­a­zine mar­ket. (Wall Street Jour­nal, 5/22/2000, p. B1.) One of Brewster’s first acqui­si­tions was the mag­a­zine Inc. (a small busi­ness mag­a­zine.) (Los Ange­les Times, 6/21/2000.)

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