Part 1a 45:32 | Part 1b 44:53 | Part 1c 25:39

Part 2a 28:35 | Part 2b 45:26 | Part 2c 30:15 | Part 2d 45:56 | Part 2e 19:14 | Part 2f 25:26

Part 3a 27:35 | Part 3b 43:19 | Part 3c 45:11 | Part 3d 45:23 | Part 3e 16:43

Part 4a 21:25 | Part 4b 46:07 | Part 4c 21:10 | Part 4d 46:41 | Part 4e 41:50

Part 5a 43:44 | Part 5b 44:06 | Part 5c 44:38 | Part 5d 33:41

Part 6a 31:03 | Part 6b 17:11 | Part 6c 44:38 | Part 6d 44:13 | Part 6e 43:59 | Part 6f 32:19 | Part 6g 32:15

Part 7a 45:12 | Part 7b 41:32 | Part 7c 42:52 | Part 7d 44:59 | Part 7e 38:02 | Part 7f 31:40

Part 8a 40:25 | Part 8b 44:17 | Part 8c 9:13

Part 9a 46:26 | Part 9b 41:43 | Part 9c 45:47 | Part 9d 19:56

Part 10a 14:03 | Part 10b 45:57 | Part 10c 30:32 | Part 10d 45:51 | Part 10e 21:25

Part 11a 44:10 | Part 11b 43:38 | Part 11c 30:33 | Part 11d 45:18 | Part 11e 32:02 | Part 11f 44:24

Part 12a 13:24 | Part 12b 44:57 | Part 12c 42:52 | Part 12d 46:40 | Part 12e 46:22 | Part 12f 32:59

Part 13a 17:29 | Part 13b 45:18 | Part 13c 25:13 | Part 13d 45:18

Part 14a 45:36 | Part 14b 33:37 | Part 14c 46:31 | Part 14d 45:54 | Part 14e 17:45

(Orig­i­nal broad­cast 1991–92)

This mas­sive archive pro­gram mer­its seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion as a most reveal­ing exam­i­na­tion and expla­na­tion of the Cold War. The his­to­ry of intel­lec­tu­al endeav­or teach­es that pre­vail­ing the­o­ries in the aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines may be dis­proved and sup­plant­ed in time. Tak­en in com­bi­na­tion with AFA 36, this work doc­u­ments the work­ing hypoth­e­sis that dur­ing the Cold War, Ger­man fas­cism and the Third Reich did not dis­ap­pear as is com­mon­ly believed but rather sur­vived under­ground and achieved a very real polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic vic­to­ry over the Allies.

In the after­math of World War I, the Ger­man Nazis learned that anti-com­mu­nism could be used to achieve strate­gic lever­age over Ger­many’s prospec­tive ene­mies such as Great Britain and the Unit­ed States. The Third Reich uti­lized this strat­a­gem to estab­lish Fifth Col­umn move­ments in coun­tries they had tar­get­ed for con­quest. Those move­ments were com­posed large­ly of sym­pa­thiz­ers who viewed the Third Reich as a bul­wark against com­mu­nism. The Third Reich sought to escape the full con­se­quences of mil­i­tary defeat in World War II by play­ing the anti-com­mu­nist card again.

When it became clear that the armies of the Third Reich were going to be defeat­ed, it opened secret nego­ti­a­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the West­ern Allies. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on both sides belonged to the transat­lantic finan­cial and indus­tri­al fra­ter­ni­ty that had active­ly sup­port­ed fas­cism. The thrust of these nego­ti­a­tions was the estab­lish­ment of The Chris­t­ian West. Viewed by the Nazis as a vehi­cle for sur­viv­ing mil­i­tary defeat, “The Chris­t­ian West” involved a Hitler-less Reich join­ing with the U.S., Britain, France and oth­er Euro­pean nations in a transat­lantic, pan-Euro­pean anti-Sovi­et alliance. In fact, The Chris­t­ian West became a real­i­ty only after the ces­sa­tion of hos­til­i­ties.

The de-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion of Ger­many was abort­ed. Although a few of the more obvi­ous and obnox­ious ele­ments of Nazism were removed, Nazis were returned to pow­er at vir­tu­al­ly every lev­el and in almost every capac­i­ty in the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many. A Hilter-less Reich then was incor­po­rat­ed into the anti-Sovi­et alliance the Third Reich’s lead­ers had envi­sioned: NATO.

One of the cen­tral ele­ments in AFA 37, the Rein­hard Gehlen spy orga­ni­za­tion func­tioned as a Tro­jan Horse vis-a-vis the Unit­ed States. By delib­er­ate­ly exag­ger­at­ing Sovi­et inten­tions and capa­bil­i­ties in order to alarm the Unit­ed States, the Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion great­ly exac­er­bat­ed cold-war ten­sions and manip­u­lat­ed them to Ger­many’s advan­tage.

Per­haps the most impor­tant effect of the Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion was to intro­duce “roll­back” or “lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry” into Amer­i­can strate­gic think­ing. Roll­back was a polit­i­cal wafare and covert oper­a­tion strat­e­gy which had its gen­e­sis in the Third Reich Ost­min­is­teri­um head­ed by Alfred Rosen­berg. This strat­e­gy entailed enlist­ing the aid of dis­si­dent Sovi­et eth­nic minori­ties to over­throw the Sovi­et Union. In return, these minori­ties and their respec­tive republics were to be grant­ed nom­i­nal inde­pen­dence while serv­ing as satel­lite states of “Greater Ger­many.”

In its Amer­i­can incar­na­tion, lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry called for “rolling back” com­mu­nism out of East­ern Europe and the break-up of the Sovi­et Union into its con­stituent eth­nic Republics. Lip-ser­vice was giv­en to ini­ti­at­ing democ­ra­cy in the “lib­er­at­ed” coun­tries. Lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry was pro­ject­ed into main­stream Amer­i­can polit­i­cal con­scious­ness through the Cru­sade for Free­dom. This enor­mous CIA domes­tic media cam­paign not only estab­lished lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry as a dom­i­nant ele­ment in Amer­i­can strate­gic think­ing but also pro­ject­ed Euro­pean fas­cists asso­ci­at­ed with the Gehlen milieu into posi­tions of promi­nence with­in the pow­er­ful eth­nic vot­ing blocks in Amer­i­ca.

The Gehlen imports com­bined with domes­tic reac­tionary ele­ments to form a pow­er­ful fascis­tic and ulti­mate­ly tri­umphant polit­i­cal engine referred to in AFA 37, as the “roll­back” or “lib­er­a­tion milieu.”

AFA 37 traces the evo­lu­tion of this milieu and its influ­ence on inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic polit­i­cal affairs. The lib­er­a­tion milieu cement­ed its tri­umph in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics through the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. The pro­gram high­lights the roles of Gehlen-relat­ed ele­ments and intel­li­gence agents asso­ci­at­ed with the petro­le­um indus­try in the JFK assas­si­na­tion. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is on George Bush’s con­nec­tions to this milieu as well as the milieu’s rela­tion­ship to the defense indus­try, mil­i­tary intel­li­gence and cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca.

AFA 37 ana­lyzes the Rea­gan and Bush admin­is­tra­tions as the real­iza­tion of the goals of lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry as well as the ful­fill­ment of Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­sel Num­ber 68. NSC 68 was the blue­print for U.S. strat­e­gy dur­ing the Cold War. Heav­i­ly influ­enced by the work of the Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion, NSC 68 called for the desta­bi­liza­tion of the U.S.S.R. through a mas­sive mil­i­tary buildup by the U.S. The strat­e­gy sought to bank­rupt the Sovi­et econ­o­my through an arms race and to pro­mote agi­ta­tion among the dis­si­dent Sovi­et eth­nic groups by Gehlen-relat­ed intel­li­gence ele­ments. In addi­tion, the doc­u­ment called for an accom­pa­ny­ing pro­pa­gan­da blitz in the Unit­ed States to con­vince the Amer­i­can peo­ple to sup­port the mil­i­tary buildup as well as the sup­pres­sion of polit­i­cal dis­si­dents.

The Rea­gan and Bush admin­is­tra­tions insti­tut­ed the prin­ci­ples of NSC 68 and accom­plished the aims of lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry. The real­iza­tion of those goals also did enor­mous dam­age to the Unit­ed States. The cost of bank­rupt­ing the Sovi­et Union, turned the Unit­ed States into the world’s biggest debtor nation, severe­ly dam­aged its infra­struc­ture and crip­pled its com­pet­i­tive eco­nom­ic advan­tage inter­na­tion­al­ly. In addi­tion, the Unit­ed States bad­ly com­pro­mised its demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions dur­ing the Cold War, pos­si­bly beyond repair.

AFA 37 hypoth­e­sizes that the real­iza­tion of lib­er­a­tion the­o­ry pri­mar­i­ly ben­e­fit­ed Ger­many rather than the Unit­ed States. Indeed, the recov­ery of Ger­many’s “lost ter­ri­to­ries” was the goal of Gehlen’s alliance with the west­ern pow­ers and was the rai­son d’e­tre for the Vertviebene groups. Found­ed by the SS and fund­ed by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment, the Ver­triebene groups were part of the lib­er­a­tion milieu described above. Their activ­i­ty has increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the end of the Cold War. The BND, the cur­rent Ger­man gov­ern­ment intel­li­gence ser­vice and the final incar­na­tion of the Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion, has been extreme­ly active in the new­ly “lib­er­at­ed” ter­ri­to­ries where it has worked hand in glove with major Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions and the var­i­ous Nazi par­ties of Ger­many to real­ize Hitler’s goal of a “greater Ger­many.”