Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #847 Interview (#10) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. The new dri­ve is a 32-giga­byte dri­ve that is cur­rent as of the pro­grams and arti­cles post­ed by 12/19/2014. The new dri­ve (avail­able for a tax-deductible con­tri­bu­tion of $65.00 or more) con­tains FTR #827.  (The pre­vi­ous flash dri­ve was cur­rent through the end of May of 2012 and con­tained FTR #748.)

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Lis­ten: MP3  This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment. NB: Mr. Emory mis­s­peaks him­self in the intro­duc­tion, mis-iden­ti­fy­ing the pro­gram as “#547.” 

Intro­duc­tion: The tenth (and final) inter­view with Peter Lev­en­da, this pro­gram sets forth the his­tor­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal foun­da­tion for the post­war per­pet­u­a­tion and oper­a­tion of Nazism–“The Hitler Lega­cy.” Mr. Emory views this book as one of the most impor­tant polit­i­cal vol­umes ever writ­ten. Lis­ten­ers are emphat­i­cal­ly encour­aged to pur­chase it, read it and tell oth­ers about it.

The essence of Peter’s the­sis is pre­sent­ed on pages 307–308: “. . . . With the Nazi dias­po­ra, the lead­ers of the Third Reich who had survived—who were either liv­ing under­ground, or were “denaz­i­fied” and liv­ing freely above ground—constituted a gov­ern­ment-in-exileThey remained in con­tact, rein­forced each other’s beliefs, pro­vid­ed logis­ti­cal sup­port where pos­si­ble, and kept the faith alive. They became involved in polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary intrigues around the globe, always with the goal of caus­ing an imbal­ance in glob­al pow­er struc­tures. Moti­vat­ed by anti-Semi­tism, they col­lab­o­rat­ed with Arab lead­ers and guer­ril­la orga­ni­za­tions in attacks against Israel, even going so far as to devel­op weapons sys­tems in Egypt. They wrote pro­pa­gan­da against Israel and against Jews in gen­er­al, repeat­ing the same libels as before. They formed “neo-Nazi” groups in Europe, Latin Amer­i­ca, North Amer­i­ca, and else­where, cul­ti­vat­ing a fawn­ing new gen­er­a­tion of fol­low­ers on every con­ti­nent. They sup­port Holo­caust deniers and right-wing extrem­ists every­where, even when they do not agree on all points. They found offi­cial posi­tions with­in extrem­ist gov­ern­ments in the Mid­dle East and Latin Amer­i­ca.

They also con­sti­tute an army-in-exile. They trained troops, instruct­ed secu­ri­ty forces in inter­ro­ga­tion and tor­ture, ran guns. They con­spired to assas­si­nate objec­tion­able lead­ers in var­i­ous coun­tries, as well as those who betrayed their own net­work. They devel­oped weapons of mass destruc­tion long before the iden­ti­cal claim was laid at the door of Sad­dam Hus­sein. . . .”

The Third Reich and its post­war under­ground man­i­fes­ta­tion direct­ly impact­ed, inter­sect­ed with, and formed the oper­a­tional tem­plate for many of the world’s ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions. Recap­ping pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion of the Third Reich as a “cult” or spir­i­tu­al move­ment, Peter notes that this “Under­ground Reich” not only is a par­al­lel enti­ty to con­tem­po­rary Islamist ter­ror groups, but has active­ly dove­tailed with them.Fol­low­ing the mon­ey” moved by what Mr. Emory calls The Under­ground Reich inevitably leads to Fran­cois Genoud, Hjal­mar Schacht and the exten­sive post­war Nazi con­nec­tions to Mid­dle East­ern anti-colo­nial, anti-Israel and ter­ror­ist milieux.In this broad­cast, we con­tin­ue to “Fol­low the Mon­ey” and ana­lyze its pri­ma­ry role in the per­pet­u­a­tion of Nazism and its atten­dant method­olo­gies and resul­tant ills.

Pre­sent­ing a syn­op­tic account of the Bank Al-Taqwa, Peter high­lights this Al-Qae­da fund­ing insti­tu­tion and its numer­ous links to peo­ple and insti­tu­tions con­nect­ed to the Third Reich and the post­war Nazi under­ground.

Next, Peter fur­ther reviews the influ­ence of the Nazi under­ground on the devel­op­ment of the con­cept of non-aligned nations as a foil to both the Unit­ed States and the for­mer Sovi­et Union. This was lat­er adopt­ed by Sukarno. In addi­tion, Peter notes the devel­op­ment of an Islamist under­ground work­ing against Chi­na.

We con­clude by not­ing that a cru­cial ele­ment of the Hitler Lega­cy is the re-emer­gence of Ger­many as the dom­i­nant force in Europe.

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

  • Dis­cus­sion of the Tri-Bor­der area of Latin Amer­i­ca.
  • Analy­sis of the ancient hawala mon­ey trans­fer sys­tem of the Islam­ic world and its recent per­ver­sion by ter­ror­ist groups, who use it as a clan­des­tine fund­ing source.
  • Aus­tri­an “Yup­pie fas­cist” Jurg Haider’s finan­cial deal­ings with Mohamar Khadafy and Sad­dam Hus­sein.

1. “Fol­low­ing the mon­ey” moved by what Mr. Emory calls “The Under­ground Reich” inevitably leads to Fran­cois Genoud, Hjal­mar Schacht and the exten­sive post­war Nazi con­nec­tions to Mid­dle East­ern anti-colo­nial, anti-Israel and ter­ror­ist milieux.

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; p. 299.

 . . . . We have already seen that Nazi financiers such as Genoud and Schacht had their plans in place, and were active in mov­ing among Nazi sym­pa­thiz­ers in var­i­ous coun­tries and con­ti­nents after the war. They were experts in set­ting up for­eign banks, and in arrang­ing wire trans­fers and oth­er instru­ments, that would move mon­ey across inter­na­tion­al bor­ders. Genoud was open­ly sup­port­ing anti-colo­nial regimes in North Africa as well as the Pales­tin­ian move­ment; sup­port that was made pos­si­ble by the Nazi gold he con­trolled in num­bered in num­bered Swiss accounts.

As the post-war years became the post-war decades, how­ev­er, did that for­tune dry up? How was the mon­ey invest­ed? Who was man­ag­ing it? Who was dis­trib­ut­ing it? . . . .

2a. Next, Peter high­lights the inter­sec­tion of many of the ele­ments and dynam­ics fig­ur­ing in his analy­sis in the Tri-Bor­der area of Latin Amer­i­ca.

3b. The ancient hawala sys­tem of Islam­ic trans­fer has been abused by jihadist ele­ments to help finance their activ­i­ties. Peter details the hawala sys­tem, how it works and why ter­ror­ists have seized upon it as a vehi­cle for under­writ­ing their activ­i­ties. This should NOT be mis­un­der­stood as char­ac­ter­iz­ing the sys­tem asas a whole as “ter­ror­ist’ or “Nazi.”

4. More about the abuse of the ancient hawala sys­tem and the myr­i­ad of ille­gal activ­i­ties in the tri-bor­der area:

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; p. 304.

. . . . While I have no evi­dence that ODESSA is using the hawala sys­tem, it is clear that its col­leagues and part­ners do: from drug-run­ning in the Argenti­na-Brazil-Paraguay tri­an­gle to arms deal­ing in North Africa and the Lev­ant. It pro­vides anoth­er lev­el of secu­ri­ty at a time when the move­ment of mon­ey comes under increas­ing scruti­ny by the world’s gov­ern­ments. The wire trans­fer sys­tem that relies on an exten­sive paper trail, incor­po­rat­ing a great deal of per­son­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and ver­i­fi­ca­tion at both ends is thus sup­plant­ed by a method where mem­bers of a spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ty use an hon­or sys­tem to move mon­ey with­out offi­cial paper, and often even with­out actu­al­ly mov­ing the mon­ey itself. In a sys­tem such as this, “fol­low the mon­ey” becomes less a tac­ti­cal process of inves­ti­ga­tion than a quaint mem­o­ry of a sim­pler time. Nev­er­the­less, the much-tout­ed war on drugs (had it actu­al­ly ever been under­tak­en in a seri­ous way) would have revealed the extent of this and oth­er finan­cial method­olo­gies. . . .

5. The Third Reich and its post­war under­ground man­i­fes­ta­tion direct­ly impact­ed, inter­sect­ed with and formed the oper­a­tional tem­plate for many of the world’s ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions.

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; p. 305.

. . . . Mod­ern ter­ror orga­ni­za­tions have learned much from the lessons pro­vid­ed by Nazi lead­ers, com­man­dos and ide­o­logues. In many cas­es, the ter­ror­ists of the 1980s and 1990s were trained direct­ly by Nazi secu­ri­ty per­son­nel and SS offi­cers, with whom they found com­mon cause. As we have seen, not only did the West­ern intel­li­gence agen­cies and politi­cians turn a blind eye to this phe­nom­e­non, in many cas­es they open­ly sup­port­ed and encour­aged its devel­op­ment. It is because we refused to take the Nazi threat seri­ous­ly after the war (or because many of our lead­ers in the mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence agen­cies, and at the high­est lev­els of our gov­ern­ments wel­comed the col­lab­o­ra­tion for their own agen­das) that we now face the great­est threat to glob­al secu­ri­ty since the rise of the Third Reich. . . .

6. Peter notes that Jurg Haider, the so-called “Yup­pie fas­cist,” had sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial rela­tion­ships with Sad­dam Hus­sein and Mohm­mar Khadafy. Haider was deposit­ing large amounts of mon­ey in blind accounts in Liecht­en­stein, which we have termed “a lean, mean mon­ey-laun­der­ing machine.”

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; p. 13.

. . . . Soon there­after news of Haider’s finan­cial rela­tion­ships with Sad­dam Hus­sein and Muam­mar Gaddafi became pub­lic knowl­edge. Mil­lions of dol­lars had passed through Haider’s hands to a series of blind accounts in Liecht­en­stein. Hand­writ­ten note­books were dis­cov­ered. Files accessed. Sus­pects ques­tioned. The dar­ling the New Right in Aus­tria, the man some called the “Yup­pie Fas­cist,” had been deal­ing with Arab dic­ta­tors and pro­vid­ing some kind of ser­vice for them which has yet to be iden­ti­fied. . . .

7. Pre­sent­ing a syn­op­tic account of the Bank Al-Taqwa, Peter high­lights this Al-Qae­da fund­ing insti­tu­tion and its numer­ous links to peo­ple and insti­tu­tions con­nect­ed to the Third Reich and the post­war Nazi under­ground.

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; p. 301.

. . . . As the Sovi­et Union began to crum­ble, some of the same per­son­nel we first encoun­tered dur­ing the Cold War began to focus their atten­tions on a dif­fer­ent ene­my. Said Ramadan, who was instru­men­tal in the oper­a­tion of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe, became involved with the Al-Taqwa Bank of Switzer­land. One of the founders of Al-Taqwa was none oth­er than the Swiss Nazi and Islamist Ahmed Huber, who met with Muam­mar Gaddafi, Sad­dam Hus­sein, the Aya­tol­lah Khome­i­ni, and many oth­er Mid­dle East­ern despots. It should be remem­bered that Jorg Haider–the Aus­tri­an politi­cian and fas­cist we met in the open­ing of this book–had been receiv­ing financ­ing from Gaddafi and Hus­sein as well. Thus, the Nazi-Islamist net­works were run­ning as late as the year 2008, more than six­ty years after the end of World War II, and almost one hun­dred years since the idea of glob­al jihad first occurred to the ama­teur archae­ol­o­gist Max von Oppen­heim. . . .

8. The focus of this book is summed up by Peter on page 307. This quote also frames “The Sko­rzeny Syn­drome”–a fun­da­men­tal part of the “Hitler Lega­cy.”

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; p. 307.

. . . . After World War II, the Amer­i­can peo­ple thought that Nazi Ger­many had been defeat­ed and the “war” was over; this book demon­strates that it nev­er was. Instead, we were told that Com­mu­nism was the new threat and we had to pull out all the stops to pre­vent a Com­mu­nist takeover of the coun­try. And so our mil­i­tary and our intel­li­gence agen­cies col­lab­o­rat­ed with sur­viv­ing Nazis to go after Com­mu­nists. We refused to pur­sue world­wide right wing ter­ror groups and assas­sins. After all, they were killing Com­mu­nists and left­ists; they were doing us a ser­vice. Like Hoover and the Mafia, the CIA refused to believe a Nazi Under­ground exist­ed even as they col­lab­o­rat­ed with it (via the Gehlen Orga­ni­za­tion and the like).

The whole thrust of this book has been that Amer­i­can lead­ers in busi­ness, finance, media, and pol­i­tics col­lab­o­rat­ed with Nazis before, dur­ing, and after the war. The West­’s share in the ‘blame” for Al-Qae­da, et al, goes back a long way–before Eisenhower–to a cabal of extrem­ist US Army gen­er­als and emi­gre East­ern Euro­peans who did­n’t have much of a prob­lem with Nazism since they feared Com­mu­nism more. The Church, the Tibetans, the Japan­ese, the Ger­mans, the Croatians–and the Americans–all felt that Com­mu­nism was the greater dan­ger, long before WWII. We enlist­ed war crim­i­nals to fight on our side. We appro­pri­at­ed the idea of glob­al jihad from the Nazis and their WW I pre­de­ces­sors. We amped up their plan to weaponize reli­gion and con­vinced Mus­lims, who hat­ed each oth­er, to band togeth­er to fight Com­mu­nism. And when Afghanistan was lib­er­at­ed and the Sovi­et Union was defeat­ed?

Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. . . .

9. Fur­ther devel­op­ing the Hitler Lega­cy, Peter encap­su­laes what is, in effect, a Third Reich gone under­ground and its ongo­ing effect on our world:

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; pp. 307–308.

. . . . With the Nazi dias­po­ra, the lead­ers of the Third Reich who had survived—who were either liv­ing under­ground, or were “denaz­i­fied” and liv­ing freely above ground—constituted a gov­ern­ment-in-exile. They remained in con­tact, rein­forced each other’s beliefs, pro­vid­ed logis­ti­cal sup­port where pos­si­ble, and kept the faith alive. They became involved in polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary intrigues around the globe, always with the goal of caus­ing an imbal­ance in glob­al pow­er struc­tures. Moti­vat­ed by anti-Semi­tism, they col­lab­o­rat­ed with Arab lead­ers and guer­ril­la orga­ni­za­tions in attacks against Israel, even going so far as to devel­op weapons sys­tems in Egypt. They wrote pro­pa­gan­da against Israel and against Jews in gen­er­al, repeat­ing the same libels as before. They formed “neo-Nazi” groups in Europe, Latin Amer­i­ca, North Amer­i­ca, and else­where, cul­ti­vat­ing a fawn­ing new gen­er­a­tion of fol­low­ers on every con­ti­nent. They sup­port Holo­caust deniers and right-wing extrem­ists every­where, even when they do not agree on all points. They found offi­cial posi­tions with­in extrem­ist gov­ern­ments in the Mid­dle East and Latin Amer­i­ca.

They also con­sti­tute an army-in-exile. They trained troops, instruct­ed secu­ri­ty forces in inter­ro­ga­tion and tor­ture, ran guns. They con­spired to assas­si­nate objec­tion­able lead­ers in var­i­ous coun­tries, as well as those who betrayed their own net­work. They devel­oped weapons of mass destruc­tion long before the iden­ti­cal claim was laid at the door of Sad­dam Hus­sein.

They are “non-state actors” like Al-Qae­da, with the dif­fer­ence that they recent­ly had a state. They con­duct “asym­met­ric war­fare” because they can no longer field bat­tal­ions made of tanks and planes and submarines—and no longer real­ly need to do so. Using ter­ror as a weapon has proven to be far more effec­tive.They move mon­ey silent­ly and unseen through the world’s finan­cial insti­tu­tions. Peo­ple like Schacht and Genoud wrote the book.

And they are loose­ly orga­nized. Indi­vid­ual units pos­sess a cer­tain degree of deni­a­bil­i­ty, some­thing that new­er ter­ror groups have copied.

Al-Qae­da, Hamas, Hizbol­lah, Fatah, Jemaah Islamiyyah, Lashkar- e‑Taiba, etc. are all chil­dren of ODESSA. The pact between Nazi anti-Semi­tism and Arab anti-Semi­tism was made with Hajj Amin al-Hus­sei­ni all those years ago—and has been renewed every decade since with refine­ments as nec­es­sary to reflect emerg­ing polit­i­cal real­i­ties in the after­math of the fall of the Sovi­et Union. Sko­rzeny, al-Hus­sei­niGenoud: one big hap­py fam­i­ly. . . .

10. Recap­ping pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion of the Third Reich as a “cult” or spir­i­tu­al move­ment, Peter notes that this “Under­ground Reich” not only is a par­al­lel enti­ty to con­tem­po­rary Islamist ter­ror groups, but has active­ly dove­tailed with them:

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; pp. 310–311.

. . . . What many fail to real­ize is that the ide­ol­o­gy of the Nazi Par­ty— par­tic­u­lar­ly as refined by the SS—was essen­tial­ly a spir­i­tu­al ide­ol­o­gy. I have made the point else­where that the Nazi Par­ty was a cult. To try to under­stand it as a pure­ly polit­i­cal enti­ty (in a mod­ern, Amer­i­can con­text) is to make a grave mis­take.

The Nazi net­work that was formed in the last days of the war and which has exist­ed, in one form or anoth­er in the sev­en­ty years since then, is com­prised of both a nation­al­ist and a reli­gious agen­da. The Nazi Par­ty has its ori­gins in eso­teric Aryanism, such as rep­re­sent­ed by the writ­ings of Gui­do von List and Lanz von Lieben­fels, as well as occultist groups such as the Arma­nen­schaft, the Ger­ma­nenor­den, and the Thule Gesellschaft. These groups com­bined racist ide­ol­o­gy with spir­i­tu­al, mys­ti­cal ideas and prac­tices, some of which were adapt­ed from more main­stream eso­teric groups such as the Theo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety and the writ­ings of its founder, Hele­na Blavatsky. The Social Dar­win­ism that is one of the hall­marks of the Nazi regime is the “out­er court” of the spir­i­tu­al Dar­win­ism that is clear­ly elu­ci­dat­ed in Blavatsky’s works. What this means is that Nazism is just as much a spir­i­tu­al phi­los­o­phy as it is a polit­i­cal one.

Thus the basic com­po­nents of the non-state actor in asym­met­ric war­fare are present in the Nazi Under­ground (what we have been call­ing ODESSA). The ter­ror­ist acts per­pe­trat­ed by this Under­ground are pre­cise­ly those of the mod­ern non-state actors with which we have all become famil­iar. The moti­va­tion for ODESSA runs par­al­lel to that of “Islamist” ter­ror orga­ni­za­tions: a spir­i­tu­al view­point that both orga­ni­za­tions wish to impose on the world through the medi­um of ter­ror­ism, assas­si­na­tions, and the like. Both ide­olo­gies are exclu­sive rather than inclu­sive; both are anti-Semit­ic; both are anti-Amer­i­can and deplore what they see as West­ern “deca­dence.” (One could make a very good case that Hitler’s objec­tion to mod­ern art, mod­ern music and mod­ern cul­ture in gen­er­al is vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal to the point of view of Islamist crit­ics con­cern­ing the same.)

In addition—and this may be more impor­tant than it seems at first glance—many mem­bers of the SS and the Wehrma­cht con­vert­ed to Islam after the war, and found employ­ment and res­i­dence in Mus­lim coun­tries. In some cas­es, they active­ly sup­port­ed Arab regimes in their oppo­si­tion to the State of Israel by pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal exper­tise, engi­neers, and train­ing in inter­ro­ga­tion, espi­onage, and relat­ed arts of war.

I believe this pro­vides an impor­tant per­spec­tive into the cur­rent ter­ror­ist phe­nom­e­non, as it shows a con­ti­nu­ity of pur­pose com­bined with tac­ti­cal and oper­a­tional meth­ods that have their ori­gin in the murky world of the first days of the Cold War—when a cyn­i­cal manip­u­la­tion of reli­gion using non-state actors took place under the aegis of a decades-long and often poor­ly thought-out cam­paign of state-spon­sored anti-Com­mu­nism. . . . .

11. Next, Peter fur­ther reviews the influ­ence of the Nazi under­ground on the devel­op­ment of the con­cept of non-aligned nations as a foil to both the Unit­ed States and the for­mer Sovi­et Union. This was lat­er adopt­ed by Sukarno.

In addi­tion, Peter notes the devel­op­ment of an Islamist under­ground work­ing against Chi­na.

A cru­cial ele­ment of the Hitler Lega­cy is the re-emer­gence of Ger­many as the dom­i­nant force in Europe.

The Hitler Lega­cy by Peter Lev­en­da; IBIS Press [HC]; Copy­right 2014 by Peter Lev­en­da; ISBN 978–0‑89254–210‑9; pp. 312–313.

It was Sko­rzeny and his col­leagues in ODESSA who, as ear­ly as 1950 and the out­break of the Kore­an War, pro­posed form­ing a bloc of non-aligned nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin Amer­i­ca to stand up to Amer­i­ca and Rus­sia: exact­ly the same posi­tion tak­en by Sukarno five years lat­er. The posi­tion of the Islamist the­o­reti­cians of today is not dis­sim­i­lar: the dif­fer­ence is that the Sovi­et Union has already fall­en.

While Chi­na may devel­op into a threat, Uzbek and oth­er activists in west­ern Chi­na are cre­at­ing anoth­er Mus­lim front with the inten­tion of desta­bi­liz­ing that regime. Seen as both Com­mu­nist and Cap­i­tal­ist, Chi­na could be an inter­est­ing adver­sary for the Third Way posi­tion of con­tem­po­rary Nazism. Chi­na is at least as nation­al­ist as its for­mer ene­my, Japan. . . .

. . . . As for Ger­many, it has devel­oped exact­ly as planned so long ago. It is reunit­ed and the leader of the Euro­pean Union, eas­i­ly its most pow­er­ful and influ­en­tial mem­ber. It is true that grow­ing num­bers of immi­grants from East­ern Europe and espe­cial­ly Mus­lim immi­grants from Turkey, the Balka­ns, and North Africa, are pro­vid­ing an envi­ron­ment where ques­tions con­cern­ing Ger­man iden­ti­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty are being raised. But as Ger­man cities have been rebuilt, indus­tri­al growth is strong, and mem­o­ries of the war are fad­ing with each new gen­er­a­tion, it is doubt­ful whether any seri­ous soul-search­ing will occur. With ten­sions ris­ing in Europe over the fate of Ukraine and the Russ­ian annex­a­tion of Crimea, it may be that the world will look to Ger­many again to pro­vide the buffer between a new­ly-aroused Rus­sia and the much more vul­ner­a­ble nations of East­ern and South­ern Europe.

It is doubt­ful whether the world will once again be con­front­ed with jack-boot­ed storm troop­ers wear­ing swasti­ka arm­bands, singing the Horst Wes­sel song; but that does not mean that Nazism has dis­ap­peared. It has mere­ly changed uni­forms and moved to a dif­fer­ent the­ater of oper­a­tions. I do not wish to deprive the Islam­ic groups of agency in their present con­flict with the West, but it is impor­tant to empha­size that they were as manip­u­lat­ed and exploit­ed by the Ger­mans in two World Wars as they had been by the colo­nial pow­ers.

The con­cept of glob­al jihad was for­eign to Islam until cre­at­ed by a Ger­man spy—of Jew­ish ances­try, no less—with a view towards using Mus­lims as proxy sol­diers in Germany’s fight with the Allied forces of Eng­land, France, and Rus­sia. And when the Cold War began, they were manip­u­lat­ed once again: this time by Amer­i­can intel­li­gence efforts to weaponize Islam against the Sovi­et Union. . . . .

 

Discussion

2 comments for “FTR #847 Interview (#10) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy””

  1. Here’s a reminder that, while many who use the term “Islam­o­fas­cism” use it with the intent of sug­ges­tion that mil­i­tant Islamists resem­ble the Nazis in a num­ber of ways, here’s an arti­cle that’s a remind that the actu­al phe­nom­e­na of “Islam­o­fas­cism” involves Islamists and fas­cists actu­al­ly help­ing each oth­er. Some­times it might involve direct assis­tance and coor­di­na­tion like we saw with folks like Achmed Huber and Fran­cois Genoud, but we can’t for­get all the indi­rect mutu­al assis­tance that, inten­tion­al­ly or unin­ten­tion­al­ly, is still very real:

    The Huff­in­g­ton Post

    ISIS Push­es France Fur­ther Towards the Right

    Post­ed: 12/07/2015 9:46 am EST Updat­ed: 12/07/2015 9:59 am EST

    Lucia Annun­zi­a­ta, L’Huff­in­g­ton Post Edi­to­r­i­al Direc­tor

    It is pos­si­ble that Al Bagh­da­di shares Bin Laden’s habit of con­stant­ly fol­low­ing the news from the West on all of the big inter­na­tion­al tele­vi­sion sta­tions. If he does, the caliph must be fol­low­ing the results of the French elec­tions from his Spar­tan retreat, per­haps on France 24 itself.

    The caliph would cer­tain­ly not have cause to cel­e­brate, but would be award­ed at least some sat­is­fac­tion: the rise of right-wing polit­i­cal par­ties in Euro­pean elec­tions was one of the results Al Bagh­da­di pre­dict­ed and hoped for in his plans for the desta­bi­liza­tion and con­quest of Europe. As Mau­r­izio Moli­nari recount­ed in his last book Jihad, the “Lord of ISIS” repeat­ed­ly described the rise of extreme-right par­ties in elec­tions as one of the pos­i­tive con­se­quences of the attacks on Europe in his recent speech­es. A rise which, accord­ing to the pre­dic­tions of the ter­ror­ist group, would cre­ate con­di­tions of intol­er­ance in the West which would serve to rad­i­cal­ize an ever-grow­ing num­ber of young Mus­lims.

    Whether the Caliph is an expert in Euro­pean pol­i­tics or not, the region­al French elec­tions have cer­tain­ly showed a marked shift towards the right. Between the vic­to­ry of the Nation­al Front, which has sud­den­ly become the lead­ing par­ty in France with 29.5 per­cent of the vote, and that of Sarkozy’s Repub­li­cans with 27 per­cent, the right has accu­mu­lat­ed more than half of the elec­torate, with a con­sis­tent vot­er turnout. It has not been a total dis­as­ter for the social­ist par­ty, whose 23 per­cent of the vote was slight­ly high­er than antic­i­pat­ed; but this small shift is send­ing a faint but clear sig­nal in view of the ter­ror­ist attacks that have shak­en up the whole coun­try. These results do not war­rant any fur­ther com­ment. Yes, fine: La Pen and Sarkozy will be com­pared. Ok, sure: now it will be nec­es­sary to dis­cuss how the right is not exact­ly racist and xeno­pho­bic but rather “iden­ti­tar­i­an,” a patri­ot­ic, reas­sur­ing response to dis­ap­point­ed vot­ers on both the right and the left, who no longer feel reas­sured by their leader. Et cetera. All of this and more will be talked about.

    But beneath of all of this jar­gon, the French vote, which was the first to take place post-attack, indi­cates a swing in the polit­i­cal pen­du­lum towards the right. It also shows the direc­tion the next elec­toral sea­son could take in Europe and Amer­i­ca: in Spain there will be elec­tions in two weeks, in Italy there will be admin­is­tra­tive elec­tions in six months, and in the US and France there will be pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in 2016 and 2017 respec­tive­ly, just to name a few.

    ...

    “The caliph would cer­tain­ly not have cause to cel­e­brate, but would be award­ed at least some sat­is­fac­tion: the rise of right-wing polit­i­cal par­ties in Euro­pean elec­tions was one of the results Al Bagh­da­di pre­dict­ed and hoped for in his plans for the desta­bi­liza­tion and con­quest of Europe. As Mau­r­izio Moli­nari recount­ed in his last book Jihad, the “Lord of ISIS” repeat­ed­ly described the rise of extreme-right par­ties in elec­tions as one of the pos­i­tive con­se­quences of the attacks on Europe in his recent speech­es. A rise which, accord­ing to the pre­dic­tions of the ter­ror­ist group, would cre­ate con­di­tions of intol­er­ance in the West which would serve to rad­i­cal­ize an ever-grow­ing num­ber of young Mus­lims.
    So exact­ly thing thing that Al Bagh­da­di pre­dict­ed and hoped for is com­ing to pass, in large part due to ISIS’s ter­ror attacks. While the above piece sug­gests that the Nation­al Fron­t’s vic­to­ry in France isn’t some­thing ISIS would have cause to cel­e­brate, that actu­al­ly sounds like a pret­ty big achieve­ment for ISIS to cel­e­brate! One of many.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 8, 2015, 2:48 pm
  2. The Fourth Reich is the lat­est in a grand series of works that Rosen­feld has devot­ed to the after­life of Nazism. But towards the end of the book he makes one small assump­tion that strikes me as open­ing up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fur­ther vol­ume, about the Nazi after­life in Asia. “Germany’s pop­u­lar­i­ty”, he writes, “did not last” after the finan­cial cri­sis of 2008. This may be true for Europe, but it is hard­ly the case glob­al­ly, where, espe­cial­ly in south and south-east Asia, Ger­many is reg­u­lar­ly ranked as the favourite coun­try.

    What is dis­con­cert­ing for any Euro­pean trav­eller to Indone­sia, for instance, is not mere­ly that peo­ple equate Ger­many with per­fec­tion – auto­mo­biles, appli­ances and foot­ball – but that Nazi prowess is also admired as an exam­ple of Ger­man excel­lence. That there was a geno­cide is not par­tic­u­lar­ly notable for peo­ple who have lived through one of their own, but Ger­man nation­al­ism cou­pled with indus­tri­al­ism and the appar­ent boun­ty of its social­ism draws admir­ers. The news-stands of Jakar­ta are full of mag­a­zines devot­ed to U‑boats alone. At the Sol­datenkaf­fee in Ban­dung, cou­ples order “Nazi goreng”, below the Ger­man heraldic eagle and a wall dec­o­rat­ed with a slo­gan that reads: “We are Social­ists, we are ene­mies of the cap­i­tal­ist eco­nom­ic sys­tem…” In a coun­try where to be on the left is still for­bid­den, it’s at least cool to quote to Hitler.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2019/03/fourthreich-specter-nazism-world-war-gavriel-rosenfeld-review

    Posted by mark | April 25, 2019, 12:34 am

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