MP3 Side 1 | Side 2
Recorded April 24, 2005
REALAUDIO
This program analyzes the circumstances surrounding the elevation to the papacy of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—dubbed “Panzerkardinal” by wags because of his reactionary views. A former member of the Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, Ratzinger is an arch-reactionary and was very close to the late John Paul II. (A picture of Ratzinger as a young priest is at right. Another picture of Ratzinger as a Hitler Youth is at left.) The program advances the hypothesis that Ratzinger’s elevation may well have been conducted in order to institute damage control because of the emergence of two Vatican scandals at the same time as the new pope was being chosen. As the cardinals were convening to choose a new pope, four people were indicted for the murder of Roberto Calvi, a former Vatican financial adviser and member of the infamous P-2 lodge. This placed the Vatican banking scandals of the ’70’s and ’80’s onto the investigative front burner. In addition, a U.S. court re-instated a lawsuit against the Vatican Bank for harboring Nazi loot from World War II and using it to aid the flight of Nazi fugitives. This suit also placed the longtime Vatican collaboration with the Third Reich into the foreground. It is Mr. Emory’s opinion that Ratzinger had to be elevated to Pope for damage control purposes. Ratzinger’s background suggests the possibility that he may have been complicit in the Vatican Nazi assistance networks. Two of the church figures involved in Ratzinger’s rise through the Vatican ranks were Cardinal Joseph Frings and Pope Paul VI. Pope Paul VI elevated Ratzinger to Cardinal and bishop of Munich as he approached death. Frings fronted for an organization that assisted Nazi war criminals. Ratzinger assisted Frings at the Second Vatican Council.
Program Highlights Include: Discussion of the Nazis’ plans to give anti-Nazi credentials for operatives chosen for postwar underground work; review of the Vatican’s longstanding connections to fascism—the Third Reich in particular; review of Cardinal Montini’s role in developing the Vatican’s Nazi escape networks; review of the relationship between the Vatican’s collaboration with fascism and the genesis of the Vatican banking scandals; discussion of father Draganovic—architect of the Vatican “Ratlines”; the role of Archbishop Stepinac in elevating Draganovic to a position to assist Nazi fugitives; the use of Croatian fascist war loot to finance postwar anti-communist activities; documentation of the Vatican Bank’s role in harboring the Nazi war loot; John Paul II’s beatification of fascist collaborators; the ultra-reactionary Opus Dei’s role in electing Ratzinger; Ratzinger’s relationship with Neil Bush—the President’s brother; Ratzinger’s interference in the 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign.
1. Beginning with discussion of Ratzinger’s close relationship with his papal predecessor, the broadcast notes their strong affinity through reactionary theological principles. Note the nickname “Panzerkardinal’ bestowed on Ratzinger by fellow priests. ” . . . The Pole and the German have been called intellectual bedfellows. For almost 20 years, the two met at least once a week, usually Fridays, for a 90-minute discussion of doctrine and discipline. A working lunch followed, lasting often until late in the afternoon. A theological liberal of sorts in his youth, Ratzinger was later nicknamed the ‘Panzerkardinal’ for his iron hand in bringing Marxist priests in Latin America and clerics with mushy views on sexual ethics to heel. . .“
(“Analysis: Ratzinger in the Ascendance” by Uwe Siemon-Netto; [United Press International]; The Washington Times; p. 2.)
2. In the numerous hagiographies of Cardinal Ratzinger, it has been noted that he was in the Hitler Youth and served in a Wehrmacht unit late in the war. (See “Papal Hopeful Is a Former Hitler Youth” from the Sunday Times [London].) The journalistic spin on these events has cast them as things thrust upon an unwilling Ratzinger, who (along with his family) has been portrayed as anti-Nazi. As will be seen later in the program, Ratzinger’s history in the Vatican suggests the distinct possibility that he is complicit in the Vatican’s long history of aiding Nazi war criminals. The program notes that, as the Third Reich was preparing its underground structure for the postwar years, great care was given to give “anti-Nazi” credentials to those who were tabbed for key, postwar underground positions. Was that the case with the young Ratzinger? “Bormann and Himmler have stated their hope of getting 200,000 to 300,000 men underground. Compared to the large size of the party this is a small number indeed. But an underground movement of 200,000 to 300,000 trained men, who know exactly what they have to do, who will make few mistakes and can profit by all the mistakes the other side makes, can achieve a great deal.“
(The Nazis Go Underground; by Curt Riess; Doubleday, Doran and Co. [HC]; Copyright 1944 by Curt Riess; p. 96.)
3. “While everything has been done and is being done to denounce the Nazis whom the underground wants to throw overboard, no effort is being spared to make the lives of the prospective underground Nazis as secure as possible.” (Idem.)
4. “A great deal has been written lately about certain Nazis who have fallen out with Hitler. Rumors have suggested that there have been at least a hundred of them. We have heard that Baldur von Schirach, for instance, former Youth Führer and later chief Nazi of Vienna, has escaped abroad. Similar rumors have been spread about a number of officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, of course, many ambassadors and ministers. In some cases these men may really have decided to leave the sinking ship. But in many cases all they wanted was to create such an impression. . . .” (Idem.)
5. ” . . . This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Several intelligence services have commented on the sudden disappearance of important personalities from political and party life. And it has become quite the accepted thing to everybody in Germany.” (Ibid.; p. 97.)
6. “But what has not yet become known is that all this also applies to a much greater number of anonymous persons all over Germany, those on the second and third levels of the Nazi strata. These unknown personalities may be used later by the underground. Party functionaries who may be known locally, but certainly not nationally, can easily be transferred to another city or town, where they will suddenly appear as anti-Nazis.” (Idem.)
7. “The party helps in their masquerades. These men get new documents which ‘prove’ that they have always been anti-Nazi. Notes are inserted in their personal files saying they must be watched on account of their anti-Hitler attitudes and ‘unworthy’ behavior. Some of them will undoubtedly be sent to concentration camps for crimes which they have never committed, but which will make them look dependable in the eyes of the Allies; some have perhaps already succeeded in joining anti-Nazi circles and are pretending to conspire against Hitler. Later on they will be able to use such activities as alibis.” (Idem.)
8. Does this apply to Ratzinger?–” . . . Among the ‘peaceful collaborators,’ the most prominent group numerically will be formed by those who, to all outward appearances, were never Nazis at heart, but who had to go along with the party for reasons of bread and butter or because otherwise they might have been thrown into a concentration camp. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 176–177.)
9. Next, the program reprises a section of FTR#504. The broadcast recounts the history of the Vatican Nazi escape networks begins by chronicling the deep political history of the relationships that spawned the Vatican banking scandals that emerged into public view in the early 1980’s. “Hugh Angleton’s rise to power was, in part, an accident of geography. He lived in Milan for many years and made more than a few friends there before the war. It was Hugh Angleton who allegedly introduced Giovanni Battista Montini to Michele Sindona, a prewar banker in Milan. Sindona was the corrupt financier who later became the adviser to the Vatican Bank. Montini, who was Vatican Undersecretary of State during the war, later became Pope Paul VI.“
(The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [HC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0–312-11057-X; pp. 83–84.)
10. At the core of the genesis of the Vatican banking scandals is a fascist nexus that saw Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI) develop a relationship with Mafioso Michele Sindona who, along with fellow P-2 member Roberto Calvi, became a financial adviser to the Vatican. The relationship between Montini and Sindona came after an introduction by Hugh Angleton—an American fascist and father of CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. Both Montini and Sindona were introduced to OSS and CIA chief Allen Dulles by Angleton. (Dulles was the attorney who masked the Bush family’s investments in Nazi Germany.) As will be seen, Montini (later Pope Paul VI) played a key role in the rise of Ratzinger. Ratzinger’s elevation to Cardinal took place as Paul VI’s health was failing. More about this later in the description. “There is some circumstantial evidence that Hugh Angleton also introduced both of these friends to Dulles. Both Sindona and Montini allegedly became sources for the CIA after the war, with Hugh’s son, James Jesus Angleton, as their case handler. Several historians agree with our sources on this point, although, as we shall see, the Vatican has gone to considerable lengths to deny the allegations.” (Ibid.; p. 84.)
11. Reviewing some of the history of the Vatican’s association with fascism, the show notes the Vatican’s financial investments in Nazi Germany and highlights the financial support that the Church gave to Hitler in the immediate aftermath of World War II. “One of James Angleton’s enemies, of whom he had many, insists that his father served as a minor point of contact and occasional courier for secret financial transactions between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. That the Vatican encouraged such investments and even donated money to Hitler himself cannot be denied. A German nun, Sister Pascalina, was present at the creation. In the early 1920’s, she was the housekeeper for the Archbishop of the Vatican-Nazi connection, Eugenio Pacelli, then the papal nuncio in Munich. Sister Pascalina vividly recalls receiving Adolf Hitler late one night and watching the archbishop give Hitler a large amount of Church money.” (Idem.)
12. Having received Church money after the First World War, Pacelli convinced the Vatican to invest large sums of money in Nazi Germany. (For more about Pacelli and the Vatican/fascist political and economic connections, see RFA#17, available from Spitfire.) “Sister Pascalina had absolutely no motive to discredit Archbishop Pacelli. She was his greatest admirer and remained his faithful servant all her life, even after he became Pope Pius XII. Her story has the ring of truth, all the more powerful because it admits the worst blunder of Pacelli’s career. It was Pacelli who later convinced the Vatican to invest millions of dollars in the rising German economy, money from the Vatican’s land settlement with Mussolini that ended the Pope’s claim of sovereignty over territory outside the walls of Vatican City. It was Pacelli who negotiated the Concordat with Hitler’s Germany and then had to deal with the consequences of his own mistakes when he became Pope on the eve of World War II. . . .” (Idem.)
13. Next, the broadcast reviews the combined efforts of Allen Dulles and the Vatican to move Nazi money (and Nazi war criminals) to Argentina after the war. (Operation Safehaven is the code-name of the Treasury Department operation to interdict the Nazi flight capital program. That program, of course, was the Bormann flight capital program. For more about the neutralization of Safehaven, see—among other programs—FTR#353.) ” . . . Soon after the Safehaven inquiry into his own Nazi money smuggling was buried, Allen Dulles resigned from the OSS and returned to New York to do what he did best: move money illegally for his clients. One of the first names on his client list was a ‘personal matter’ for Thomas McKittrick, the head of the previously Nazi-dominated Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland. The BIS had overseen the transfer of Nazi assets to Switzerland. After the war, the Nazis moved the money via the Vatican to Argentina.” (Ibid.; pp. 109–110.)
14. “Dulles represented a staggering array of Argentine corporate and political entities before and after the war. President Juan Peron and his family were ardent Catholics and violently anti-Communist, as were many Argentines. In fact, Peron was decidedly pro-Fascist and Argentina was the only South American country that continued relations with the Third Reich well into the war. The Argentine economy boomed with the massive postwar transfer of Nazi flight capital. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 110.)
15. William Donovan, who collaborated with British intelligence ace William Stephenson in a Nazi front group called the World Commerce Corporation, assisted Dulles in his money-laundering efforts. This organization helped to cycle Nazi money back into Germany in order to pump up the postwar German economy. ” . . . The ‘old spies’ say that Dulles did not have to try very hard to convince Donovan that Truman was an idiot and that the only hope for the revival of an American intelligence service was to end the Democratic party’s stranglehold on the White House in the 1948 election.” (Idem.)
16. “In the meantime, Dulles and Donovan agreed that every effort must be made to sabotage the Truman liberals and quietly prepare for the Cold War. To this end, Dulles convinced Donovan to serve on the board of a company that would help rebuild the German economy as a bulwark against communism. Dulles assured his old boss that there were a large number of wealthy South American investors, especially in Argentina, who were willing to help rebuild Germany.” (Idem.)
17. It was the recycled Nazi war plunder that fueled the economic “miracle” of postwar Germany. “Although Donovan did not know it, Dulles had conned him into serving as the front man for the Nazi money launderers. He and Sir William Stephenson from British intelligence joined the board of directors of the World Commerce Corporation, with Allen Dulles, naturally, as their lawyer. The Nazi money flowed in a great circle—out of the Third Reich, through the Vatican, to Argentina, and back to ‘democratic’ West Germany. The source of the miraculous West German economic revival in the 1950’s was the same money that had been stolen in the 1940’s.” (Idem.)
18. More about the Nazi money laundering: “One of our sources, Daniel Harkins, stumbled across part of the money laundering in 1945. Harkins had volunteered to work as a double agent for Naval Intelligence before World War II. He posed as a Nazi ringleader in Detroit and even had his picture published in a newspaper giving the Nazi salute. He was promptly invited to Berlin to meet the leading members of Hitler’s cabinet. Hitler did not know it, but Harkins’s work helped close down the Nazi Bund operation in the United States.” (Ibid.; pp. 110–111.)
19. “After wartime service as a naval officer, Harkins was posted to the Allied occupation government in Germany. Although he was genuinely anti-Nazi, Harkins loved and the respected the German people who had to survive in the ashes of the bombed-out Third Reich. To Harkins’s horror, his German sources revealed that the big Nazis had gotten their money out before the war was over.” (Ibid.; p. 111.)
20. “Through Switzerland, the SS had purchased stock in American corporations and laundered their money through the unknowing Chase and Corn Exchange Bank. Even worse, the W.R. Grace Corporation was using its Pan Am clippers to fly Nazi gems, currency, and bonds to South America. Harkins had discovered a small part of the Dulles money-laundering machine. Before he could find out any more, however, he was suddenly transferred to the State Department, where the Dulles clique could keep an eye on him. To his surprise, he was then reassigned to the outposts of Southeast Asia.” (Idem.)
21. Next, the program highlights the Vatican role in the Bormann money-go-round. “State Department records for South America confirm that the Ustashi Minister for Finance and the French Under Secretary of State of the Vichy Government, went to Argentina via the Vatican Ratline. According to Paul Manning, there were rumors of others. He cites the FBI’s copy of a surveillance file forwarded by the Central de Intelligencia of Argentina’s Ministry of the Interior: ‘In 1948, Martin Bormann received the bulk of the treasure that had made up the financial reserve of the Deutsche Bank. . . Like other fugitives, he entered Argentina in 1948, coming from Genoa on a second-class ticket, with forged Vatican documentation.’”
(Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin’s Press [SC]; Copyright 1991, 1998 by Mark Aarons and John Loftus; ISBN 0–312-18199; p. 277.)
22. One of Dulles’s collaborators in his Nazi money-laundering efforts was Hans Bernd Gisevius, a former Gestapo agent and an early Dulles intelligence contact. In FTR#445, we looked at Gisevius’ close association with Prescott Bush, Jr. (the current President’s grandfather.) ” . . . In 1945, the US Treasury Department accused Allen Dulles of laundering funds from the Nazi Bank of Hungary into Switzerland. Similar charges were made against Dulles’s agent, Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had worked for Dulles as an OSS agent while serving at the Reichsbank. The State Department quickly took over the Treasury Department’s money laundering allegations, and the Dulles-Gisevius investigation was quietly dropped.” (Idem.)
23. Gisevius worked for the front group for the American portal of the Vatican escape networks that operated on behalf of Nazi war criminals. Many of those war criminals wound up working for U.S. intelligence. (For more about this, see—among other programs—RFA#17, available from Spitfire.) “Gisevius may have had some involvement with the Ratlines. He was a senior member of the Black Orchestra during World War II and was considered to be ‘Allen Dulles’s pipeline to Admiral Canaris.’ After the war, Gisevius personally briefed the Australian government on American efforts to resettle the surplus population of Europe in other countries, citing the support of the ‘Committee for a Free Europe’, later acknowledged as a clandestine front for Dulles’s Cold War programs. This was also the organization which served as the American end of the Vatican Ratlines.” (Ibid.; pp. 277–278.)
24. More about the World Commerce Corporation: “The most important front group was an entity called the World Commerce Corporation established after World War II to rebuild German—South American trade networks. The directors of this corporation were Sir William Stephenson, formerly of British intelligence and General William Donovan, formerly of the OSS. One of the attorneys for World Commerce was Allen Dulles, whose assistant, Frank Wisner, was the State Department’s deputy for currency and economic reform in the American zone of West Germany. Many of the staff members for the economic reconstruction of occupied Germany came from the same international financial firms which had invested heavily in the pre-war German economy.” (Ibid.; p. 278.)
25. One of the major players in the Dulles/Bormann money-go-round was Hermann Abs of the Deutschebank—one of the most important Nazi bankers before, during and after World War II. “According to sworn testimony before the US Senate by a representative of the German banking industry, an organization did exist in 1950 which was ‘formed by Lord Shawcross of England and Mr. Hermann Abs of Germany to bring about a Magna Carta for the protection of foreign investments of World War II.’ This is the same Lord Shawcross who led the recent campaign in the British House of Lords to prevent the re-opening of war crimes investigations in Britain. Despite allegations by Manning, it is difficult to believe that Shawcross would have lent his good name to Abs’s organization if he had known its real purpose. In a 1966 hearing before the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct of the US Senate, Abs was identified as the common denominator of a group seeking return of vested enemy properties of World War II.” (Idem.)
26. “When the United States entered the war in 1941, all of the branches of American banks in France under German control were closed, except two which had ties to Abs: Morgan et Cie and Chase of New York: ‘both received this special treatment through the intercession of Dr. Hermann Josef Abs of Deutsche Bank, financial adviser to the German government. According to US Treasury agent reports, the favorable treatment was due to . . . an ‘old school tie,’ an unspoken understanding among international bankers that wars may come and may go but the flux of wealth goes on forever.’” (Ibid.; pp. 278–279.)
27. Abs was very close to Martin Bormann, with whom he worked. Abs became a financial adviser to the Vatican. In RFA#‘s 17, 21, we examined Abs’ close collaboration with the late John Paul II after the breaking of the Vatican banking scandals. Whereas John Paul I was moving to clean out the P-2 crowd around the late Paul VI, John Paul II (who succeeded JP I after he precipitously—and conveniently—died after 28 days in office) brought Abs in to straighten out the Vatican banking mess after the collapse of Roberto Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano. “According to Nuremberg records, Abs’s Deutsche Bank was the principal conduit for laundering Nazi money into Argentina during the war under the supervision of Martin Bormann. The American war crimes investigation of Abs, former head of the Deutsche Bank, was quietly dropped and Abs was appointed economic adviser for the British zone of Germany. It should also be noted that Abs became a financial adviser to the Vatican.” (Ibid.; p. 279.)
28. The passages that follow set forth the Dulles/Abs/Bormann financial network’s connections to the principals in the Vatican banking scandals. Again, these scandals broke in the early 1980’s, and the Pope (John Paul II) brought in Herman Abs to straighten things out. In RFA#18, we examined the untimely death of Pope John Paul I, who appears to have been murdered for moving to neutralize the Montini/Sindona/Calvi networks inside of the Vatican. That show is available from Spitfire. “According to Penny Lernoux, the financial collapse of Vatican-supported banks during the 1970’s involved the same group of people connected to Dulles’s and Angleton’s network of money launderers. Prior to World War II, Angleton’s father had financial interests in Milan, and may have met both Montini and a Sicilian banker named Michele Sindona at this earlier time.” (Idem.)
29. “According to Lernoux, Sindona ‘wangled an introduction to the powerful Giovanni Montini in Milan, who would later become Pope Paul VI.’ Montini introduced Sindona to the leader of the Christian Democrats. Sindona served the younger Angleton for many years as a CIA ‘funnel for supporting funds’ to friendly Italian politicians. In 1969, Sindona became the financial adviser to the Vatican while Montini was the Pope. Sindona and his cohort, Roberto Calvi, created a financial scandal that cost the Vatican Bank hundreds of millions of dollars.” (Idem.)
30. Note the role of the aforementioned Montini (Pope Paul VI) in the rise of Joseph Ratzinger in the Vatican. In 1977, Paul VI was in failing health and a year from the grave. It was at this point that Ratzinger was promoted to Cardinal and (three months later) to bishop of Munich. It was also at this point that Ratzinger met his eventual close collaborator Karol Wojtyla. Note again, that the succession to the papacy hung in the balance at this period. As discussed in RFA#18, John Paul I was moving to eliminate the P-2 milieu, which had wrapped itself around the Vatican. It is Mr. Emory’s considered opinion that John Paul I was murdered so that a suitable successor—Karol Wojtyla—could preserve the status quo in the Vatican. As will be seen below, this series of events was projected onto the “front burner” precisely as John Paul II’s successor was being chosen. ” . . . He was ordained in 1951, at age 24. Pope Paul VI appointed him bishop of Munich in 1977, and elevated him to cardinal in just three months. He met Karol Wojtyla at a bishops’ synod that year. . . .” (“German Cardinal Has a Major Voice at the Funeral” by Daniel J. Wakin and Mark Landler; The New York Times; 4/8/2005; p. 2.)
31. At the same time that Ratzinger was being elected Pope, the tangle of Vatican banking scandals was once again in the news, with the indictment of four men for the murder of Roberto Calvi, former P-2 member and Vatican financial adviser. Was Ratzinger elected (at least in part) as part of a damage control effort? “Four people were ordered to stand trial in the death of an Italian financier with close ties to the Vatican who was found 23 years ago hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. Roberto Calvi had been president of Banco Ambrosiano. He was found with a falsified passport and thousands of dollars in various currencies. Indicted were businessman Flavio Carboni; his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig; a man with alleged ties to the Mafia, Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Calo; and businessman Ernesto Diotallevi.” (“4 Charged in 1982 Death of Banker” [Times Wire Service Reports]; Los Angeles Times; 4/19/2005; p. 1.)
32. Another key Church figure in Ratzinger’s rise to power was Cardinal Joseph Frings. ” . . . Already in 1962, at 35, he achieved prominence at the highest levels of the church. A mutual acquaintance introduced him to Cardinal Joseph Frings, archbishop of Cologne. Cardinal Frings asked him to serve as his expert assistant at the Second Vatican Council. . .” (“A Theological Visionary with Roots in Wartime Germany” by Daniel J. Wakin; The New York Times; 4/20/2005; p. 3 {of 4}.)
33. Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, Frings reportedly served as a front man for a network that actively aided Nazi war criminals. ” . . . But what exactly was the larger organization mentioned by Kluf that both Princess Isenburg and Countess Faber-Castell were said to be involved with? In June1958, three years after Germany had regained its full sovereignty, some answers were provided by the rightist journal Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung. It was here that Major General Hans Korte published a lengthy article describing an underground ‘resistance’ network that had the active support of both women.“
(Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International; by Kevin Coogan; Autonomedia [HC]; Copyright 1999 by Kevin Coogan; ISBN 1–57027-39–2; p. 403.)
34. “Korte reported that in 1948, a group of jurists who had served in Nuremberg as defense counsels for major war criminals created a steering committee in Munich to attack the legality of the war crimes process. Two of the lawyers were Rudolf Aschenauer and Ernst Achenbach. A number of fronts or subagencies were then created, including Die Andere Seite and the Committee for Christian Aid to War Prisoners, whose sponsors included Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne and Bishop Johann Neuhaeusler of Munich. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The Roman Catholic Caritas organization and the Protestant Evangelisches Hilfswerk became involved as well.” (Idem.)
35. Note that key German industrialists financed the organization with which Frings was closely associated. As discussed in FTR#305, one of the provisions made in August of 1944 was for the German industrialists to provide aid to Nazi war criminals. Was Ratzinger complicit in Frings’ efforts on behalf of Nazi war criminals? “Cardinal Frings and a Stuttgart Protestant cleric named Theophil Wurm ran an organization called the Committee for Justice and Trade that had a mysterious bank account (‘Konto Gustav’) into which over 60 unidentified leaders of German big business had deposited large sums. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] According to the Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung, the Committee for Justice and Trade was closely affiliated with a propaganda center in Switzerland called Centro Europa that carried out a worldwide campaign for the early release of jailed German war criminals. Another branch of the operation, Princess Isenburg’s Stille Hilfe, directed its propaganda and fundraising to members of high society and the old aristocracy, as did Helfende Haende (Helping Hands), a similar charity directed by Princess Stephany zu Schaumberg-Lippe. More support came from Otto Skorzeny’s Kameraden Hilfe, the Rudel Club, and various German ‘relief,’ propaganda, and fundraising circles inside the United States.” (Idem.)
36. In addition to the murder trial for the alleged slayers of Roberto Calvi, another legal case projected the Nazi/Vatican historical axis onto the political and journalistic “front burner.” A U.S. court reinstated a lawsuit against the Vatican Bank for secreting Nazi loot taken from the victims of the Ustachi, the brutal Croatian allies of the Third Reich. The lawsuit also contended—accurately—that the loot was used to aid Nazi fugitives using the Vatican escape networks. Was this emerging scandal another reason for Ratzinger’s elevation to the papacy? Was this another reason for “damage control”? (For more about the Ustachi, see—among other programs—RFA#17 [available from Spitfire] and FTR#48. A link to the audio file for FTR#48 is at the top of this description.) “A federal appeals court stepped into the controversy over the Catholic Church’s relations with Nazi regimes during World War II on Monday, reinstating a lawsuit by Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank for allegedly profiting from property looted by the Ustasha puppet government in Croatia. . . .” (“Court Revives Suit Against Vatican Bank” by Bob Egelko; San Francisco Chronicle; 4/19/2005; p. A6.)
37. ” . . . The Ustasha took power in Croatia after the German invasion in 1941 and established death camps in which as many as 700,000 people, mostly Serbs, were killed, according to a U.S. government report cited by the court. A separate State Department report said Ustasha leaders found sanctuary in a papal institution in Rome after the war, with a treasury of over $80 million. The suit claims much of the money had been stolen from Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Ukrainians and others under Ustasha domination and was kept in the Vatican Bank, where it was used in part to finance the relocation of Nazi fugitives. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The plaintiffs—who seek class-action status on behalf of all those affected—want restitution of their losses and any profits gained by the bank. . . .” (Idem.)
38. Next, the program sets forth documentation of the veracity of the plaintiffs’ charges in the aforementioned lawsuit against the Vatican Bank. The Vatican “ratlines”—the Church’s Nazi escape networks—were presided over by Bishop Alois Hudal and Father Draganovic (the “Golden Priest”). Draganovic helped to spirit the Ustachi plunder out of Yugoslavia as well. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Ustachi loot was used, in part, to finance a guerilla war against the Yugoslavian regime. These reconstructed Ustachis were termed “Krizari”—Crusaders. The Krizari campaign was administered by British intelligence, which assisted the Vatican with the exodus of the Ustachi plunder. The “Pavelic” referred to in the following passage was Ante Pavelic, the Fuhrer of the Ustacha regime, who became a trusted adviser to Argentine dictator Juan Peron after the war. ” . . . With the help of Catholic priests, Pavelic had begun to transfer large quantities of gold and currency to Switzerland in early 1944. Some of the treasure had been taken to Italy by British Lieutenant Colonel Jonson to finance the Krizari forces. Another portion went to Rome with Draganovic and also ended up financing the terrorist network.“
(Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin’s Press [SC]; Copyright 1991, 1998 by Mark Aarons and John Loftus; ISBN 0–312-18199; p. 132.)
39. “But over 2,400 kilos of gold and other valuables still remained secreted in Berne. It was supposed to be used to ‘aid refugees of the Catholic religion’, but was really earmarked for the Ustashi’s clandestine operations. Although the Allies had temporarily prevented them from gaining access to these funds, by early 1948 the time had come to use the Church to retrieve the loot.” (Idem.)
40. “In Berne, Rozman’s Ustashi friends were engaged in wholesale fraud, using the black market to convert the gold into dollars, and later, into Austrian schillings. ‘Aid to the refugees is accounted for at the official rate of exchange for dollars,’ the American officers noted, adding that ‘malpractices have been carried on (officially, the dollar is worth 10 schillings; on the black market, 100 to 150). According to reliable information: ‘Rozman is going to Berne to take care of these finances. The money is in a Swiss bank, and he plans to have most of it sent through to Italy and from there to the Ustashis in [the] Argentine.’” (Ibid.; pp. 132–133.)
41. ” A short time later Rozman duly arrived in Berne, accompanied by Bishop Ivan Saric, the ‘hangman’ of Sarajevo. By the end of May 1948, Rozman had apparently carried out this money laundering operation for the Ustashi, for the visited the U.S. Consulate in Zurich and was given a ‘non-quota immigration visa as a minister of religion.’ He then traveled to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Ohio. The circle was now almost complete. Pavelic’s stolen ‘treasure’ had been tracked down through close monitoring of the movements and activities of the quisling Bishop of Ljubljana. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 133.)
42. “William Gowen and his CIC colleagues had started to unravel Britain’s role in the Krizari’s operations during their hunt for Ante Pavelic in 1947. As already discussed, they soon discovered that the Vatican was sheltering Pavelic, with the connivance of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In the course of establishing this, Gowen also confirmed sensational claims made by Ferenc Vajta. It will be recalled that the American’s Hungarian Nazi contact had told him that SIS was behind the military and political revival of the Ustashi.” (Ibid.; p. 122.)
43. “Gowen investigated the Krizari’s finances and soon uncovered the unsavory truth: their money came partly from the ‘treasure’ which ‘Pavelic’s henchmen’ had carried out of Croatia. According to Gowen, the Ustashi had fled with a large number of truckloads of this stolen booty. When the British SIS apprehended Pavelic in Austria in may 1945, they also picked up some of his loot. Gowen believed that the following story of what really happened was ‘closest to the truth’: ‘British Lt. Colonel Jonson was placed in charge of two (2) trucks laden with the supposed property of the Catholic Church in the British Zone of Austria. These two (2) trucks, accompanied by a number of priests and the British officer, then entered Italy and went to an unknown destination.’” (Ibid.; p. 123.)
44. “Major Stephen Clissold confirmed that two such Ustashi ‘treasure trucks’ had indeed reached Austria. Not surprisingly, Clissold did not mention the British role in removing them to Italy, claiming instead that they ‘were deposited in the safe-keeping of a monastery,’ but Gowen was certain that the British were now using it to finance ‘the Croat resistance movement in Yugoslavia. The resistance forces . . . go by the name of Krizari (Crusaders) . . . Radio contact is maintained by means of a field radio operated by Vrancic, a former Pavelic minister located in the British Zone of Austria. The Ustachia courier service within the Austrian Zones is believed aided by the Roman Catholic Church in Austria. The Cardinal of Graz is known to be on close terms with . . . Professor Draganovic, Krunoslav, known Pavelic contact in Rome.’” (Idem.)
45. “Yet again, Western intelligence found that Father Draganovic was at the center of the Ustashi’s clandestine activities. Indeed, he was widely known in Western intelligence and émigré circles as ‘the golden priest’ because he controlled a large part of the stolen treasure. Although Colonel Jonson had taken away two truckloads in 1945, this was only a fraction of Pavelic’s loot.” (Idem.)
46. “Four hundred kilos of gold, worth millions of dollars, and a considerable amount of foreign currency had been secreted at Wolfsberg, where it was under the control of former Ustashi Minister, Lovro Susic. Draganovic discovered this from senior Ustashi officials during his visit to Austria in mid-1945. They were apparently determined to maintain some independence from the British, who they feared would seize the gold, so they asked Draganovic to save it. The priest was only too willing to oblige, for he contacted Susic and with his agreement took forty kilos of gold bars to Rome, concealed in two packing cases. There is no doubt about Draganovic’s close connections with the Ustashi hierarchy in this money laundering scheme. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 123–124.)
47. One of the key Church officials involved with promoting Draganovic to the position from which he could operate the ratlines was Archbishop Aloyius Stepinac, a member of the Ustachi parliament. ” . . . Dragonovic had returned to Rome in August 1943, representing the Ustashi and the Croatian Red Cross. This allowed him to build his escape routes for Nazi war criminals. He was supported by Croatia’s Archbishop, Aloyius Stepinac, who had provided Draganovic with introductions to influential Vatican contacts. As a result, he could move in the highest circles, meeting regularly with Secretary of State Maglione, and even with Pope Pius XII. He also had close contacts with Axis diplomats at the Vatican which would later prove invaluable.” (Ibid.; p. 57.)
48. More about Stepinac’s role in promoting Draganovic into position to form and administer the Ratlines: “In another striking parallel with Cecelja’s career, Draganovic also worked on Croatian Red Cross matters. In August 1943 Pavelic and Archbishop Stepinac dispatched him to Rome. American intelligence observed that it was ‘a classic example of kicking a man upstairs’ inasmuch as it is fairly well established that the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia expected the prelate, through his good connections in the Vatican, to be instrumental in working out the orientation of Croatia towards the West rather then the East.’” (Ibid.; p. 97.)
49. One of the indications that the late Pope John Paul II’s alleged anti-Nazi sentiments are mythological is the fact that he beatified Stepinac, as well as Father Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of the Opus Dei sect. (For more about the fascist connections of Opus Dei, see—among other programs—FTR#422.) As discussed in FTR#422, Opus Dei was involved with the aforementioned Banco Ambrosiano scandal as well. “Pope John Paul II has created a record number of saints during the 22 years he has reigned as head of the Catholic Church. He has bestowed sainthood on almost 300 respected figures from the Church’s long history who displayed ‘heroic virtue’ during their lives. He has beatified about 800 more, putting them on the road to becoming saints.“
(“Removing the Politics from Sainthood” by David Lloyd; Vision: Foundation for a New World; 3/9/2000; p. 1.)
50. “Often his choices have been controversial and viewed as political statements. In 1998, his decision to beatify the Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac received much criticism from Orthodox Serbs and Jews. Stepinac was archbishop for Zagreb during World War II and afterwards was accused of collaborating with the Nazis in their massacre of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in Croatia. In 1992, he beatified Josemaria Escriva, the Spanish founder of the ultra-conservative Opus Dei—a movement widely viewed with suspicion as a secret society. . . .” (Idem.)
51. Opus Dei, whose founder, Father Escriva de Balaguer, praised Hitler and was an ardent admirer of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, appears to have been a major player in the election of Ratzinger. ” . . . Several European cardinals are sympathetic to Opus Dei, among the Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Italian prelate who runs the Diocese of Rome on behalf of the pope, and a contender to succeed John Paul. Ruini last year opened proceedings to declare Opus Dei’s Del Portillo a saint. But recently, several Italian newspapers breathlessly reported that the two Opus Dei cardinals were throwing their support behind the candidacy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German-born traditionalist who has served as chief enforcer of church doctrine for two decades.” (“Controversial Opus Dei Has Stake in Papal Vote” by Larry B. Stammer and Tracy Wilkinson; The Los Angeles Times; 4/19/2005; p. 2.)
52. Ratzinger/Benedict’s friend and predecessor John Paul II elevated opus Dei. “Opus Dei flourished during John Paul’s pontificate. In 1982, he took the unprecedented step of making Opus Dei a personal prelature of the church, answerable not to local bishops in the dioceses where it operated, but to the pope alone. In another sign of the group’s influence, the pope placed Opus Dei’s founder, the Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, on the fast track to sainthood in 1992, leapfrogging over Pope John XXIII. In 2002, Escriva was canonized before a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter’s Square, becoming St. Josemaria a mere 27 years after he died. . . .” (Idem.)
53. Ratzinger was also involved in an “ecumenical” organization with that great exponent of ecumenism—Neil Bush, brother of the seated President. Another of these great ecumenical figures was Jamal Daniel, a close friend and business partner of Neil Bush. As discussed in FTR#438, Daniel’s family was among the founders of the Baath Party in both Syria and Iraq! “Neil Bush, the president’s controversial younger brother, six years ago joined the cardinal who this week became Pope Benedict XVI as a founding board member of a little known Swiss ecumenical foundation. The charter members of the board were all well-known international religious figures, except for Bush and his close friend and business partner, Jamal Daniel, whose family has extensive holdings in the United States and Switzerland, public records show. The Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue was founded in Geneva Switzerland, in 1999 to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts, said a foundation official. . . .” (“Neil Bush, Ratzinger Co-Founders” by Knut Royce and Tom Brune; New York Newsday; 4/21/2005; p. 1.)
54. It was Ratzinger who issued the order to deny communion to John Kerry, because of his stance on abortion. “German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry. In a June 2004 letter to US bishops enunciating principles of worthiness for communion recipients, Ratzinger specified that strong and open supporters of abortion should be denied the Catholic sacrament, for being guilty of a ‘grave sin.’ (“New Pope Intervened against Kerry in US 2004 Election Campaign” [Agence France Presse]; 4/19/2005; p. 1.)
Uncle Sam and The Swastika
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