Lis­ten:
MP3 One Seg­ment

1. This broad­cast updates an inves­ti­ga­tion into Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol of Amer­i­can “opinion-forming media.”

The title of the pro­gram is derived from a key pas­sage in the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk (soft­cover, National Van­guard Books, 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, the most impor­tant Amer­i­can Nazi orga­ni­za­tion. The Turner Diaries was the model for Tim­o­thy McVeigh & Co. in the Okla­homa City Bomb­ing, as well as the Nazi group The Order. In Serpent’s Walk, the descen­dants of Hitler’s SS take over the United States in the mid-21st cen­tury, after going under­ground, build­ing up their eco­nomic strength, and gain­ing con­trol over the Amer­i­can media.

2. This process is described in one of the book’s key pas­sages. “About ten years ago, we swing a merger, a takeover, and got vot­ing con­trol of a super­corp that runs a small but sig­nif­i­cant chunk of the Amer­i­can media. Not openly, with bands and trum­pets. . . .but qui­etly, one huge cor­po­ra­tion cud­dling up to another one and gen­tly munch­ing it up, like a great, gub­bing amoeba.” (Serpent’s Walk, p. 42.)

3. This broad­cast focuses on the Ber­tels­mann corporation’s “cud­dling up” to Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions in the field of book pub­lish­ing and on-line book sales. The firm has already “gen­tly munched up” numer­ous Amer­i­can pub­lish­ers, mak­ing it the num­ber one English-language pub­lisher in the world. Begin­ning with review of Ber­tels­mann patri­arch Hein­rich Mohn’s “pas­sive” mem­ber­ship in the SS, and the fact that the firm was the largest pub­lisher of books for the SS and Wehrma­cht dur­ing World War II (The Nation, 12/28/98), the pro­gram also reviews the polit­i­cal views of the company’s offi­cial his­to­rian, Dirk Bavendamm.

4. In books pub­lished in 1983, 1993 and 1998, Baven­damm blamed World War II on Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt, “U.S. impe­ri­al­ism,” and the “Jewish-controlled” U.S. media, which, he said, gave a dis­torted view of Hitler. Baven­damm also said that Hitler’s pol­icy toward the Jews was made nec­es­sary by FDR’s war-like poli­cies toward Ger­many. Ran­dom House (the largest English-language pub­lish­ing com­pany in the world and a Ber­tels­mann prop­erty) has acquired exclu­sive rights from the Dis­ney cor­po­ra­tion to pub­lish books based on char­ac­ters in Dis­ney films. (The Wall Street Jour­nal, 5/8/2000, p. B2.)

5. Next, the pro­gram high­lights Microsoft’s arrange­ment with a num­ber of major pub­lish­ers to pub­lish books on-line. Ran­dom House is one of those firms. (The New York Times, 5/23/2000, p.C1.)

6. Microsoft also reached agree­ment with Barnes & Noble.com (half– owned by Ber­tels­mann) to make cer­tain titles avail­able for free down-loading to users of the Reader soft­ware on Pocket PC’s. (The Los Ange­les Times, 5/24/2000, p. C6.) In another exam­ple of “cud­dling up,” Ran­dom House and Audi­ble Inc. have agreed to begin sell­ing dig­i­tized audio books online. This ven­ture is the first time a pub­lisher has sold new audio mate­r­ial through the web, rather than offer­ing works already in exis­tence. (The New York Times, 5/11/2000, p. C7.)

7. Ran­dom House exec­u­tive Richard Sarnoff has recently been replaced with Stef­fen Nau­mann. (The Wall Street Jour­nal, 6/22/2000, p. B19.)

8. In Serpent’s Walk, the SS cap­i­tal orga­ni­za­tion accom­plishes the trans­for­ma­tion of the com­pa­nies it “munches up” by “replac­ing exec­u­tives, push­ing some­body out here, bring­ing some­body else in there.” (Serpent’s Walk, p. 42.)

9. The Von Holtzbrinck firm (another Third Reich-connected pub­lish­ing giant dis­cussed in this series) has recently replaced Joachim P. Rosler with Gretchen Teich­grae­ber. Ms. Teich­grae­ber replaces Mr. Rosler as head of Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Inc. (The New York Times, 5/12/2000, p. C7.)

10. Barnes & Noble.com has recently expanded its wire­less inter­net capa­bil­i­ties, “cud­dling up” to a num­ber of dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies. (The Wall Street Jour­nal, p. B8.)

11. Next, the pro­gram high­lighs Bertelsmann’s pro­posal to merge Barnes & Noble.com with its Bol.com, in order to over­take Amazon.com as the lead­ing on-line book­seller. (Finan­cial Times, 5/24/2000, p.21.)

12. Barnes & Noble.com’s stock has fared rel­a­tively well against other e-commerce firms. (Finan­cial Times, 4/29–30/2000, p. xxiv.)

13. In con­trast, Amazon’s stock has taken a beat­ing. (San Fran­cisco Exam­iner, 7/28/2000, p. B-1.)

14. As noted in past pro­grams in this sequence, Amazon’s fis­cal mis­for­tunes could open up the pos­si­bil­ity of Ber­tels­mann acquir­ing its on-line book sales busi­ness at some point in the future. Ber­tels­mann is merg­ing its e-commerce activ­i­ties into a sin­gle entity, empha­siz­ing its shift in strat­egy toward pro­vid­ing inter­net con­tent. (Finan­cial Times, 6/5/2000, p.21.)

15. The pro­gram con­cludes with a look at Barnes & Noble.com’s launch­ing of an on-line uni­ver­sity, designed to cre­ate a col­lege edu­ca­tion for stu­dents, avail­able on the inter­net. (The Wall Street Jour­nal, 5/30/2000, p. B1.)

16. As Hitler once noted, “the future belongs to the youth, and the youth belong to the future!” One won­ders what kind of future they will have with Ber­tels­mann and (appar­ently) the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion deter­min­ing that future. (Recorded on 7/30/2000.)