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

News & Supplemental  

Biological Warfare: Did the Germans Cause the 1918 Flu Epidemic?

COMMENT: In the past, we have heard it alleged by cred­i­ble sources that Ger­many was behind the 1918 flu epi­dem­ic that killed scores of mil­lions world­wide.

From Ger­many Watch comes anoth­er wor­thy post lend­ing fur­ther sub­stance to this line of inquiry. 

After main­tain­ing that Ger­man agents were sab­o­tag­ing live­stock with anthrax, the post dis­cuss­es British intel­li­gence dis­til­late indi­cat­ing that, after dis­cov­er­ing the par­tic­u­lar strain of vir­u­lent flu, Ger­man agents began delib­er­ate­ly spread­ing it in the U.S.

Dis­cussing the Ger­man sab­o­tage of the Black Tom arse­nal, as well as the infec­tion of live­stock with anthrax, the post notes that the Unit­ed States was a neu­tral nation at the time. 

In this con­text, we have not­ed that there are indi­ca­tions that prod­ucts made by Bay­er, one of the mem­ber com­pa­nies of the I.G. Far­ben car­tel, has mar­ket­ed prod­ucts in the Unit­ed States that appear to be doing severe dam­age to Amer­i­can agri­cul­ture:

  • In FTR #591, we not­ed that Bay­er and BASF (anoth­er of the mem­ber firms of I.G. Far­ben) have maneu­vered two genet­i­cal­ly-engi­neered brand of rice into the U.S. mar­ket, dam­ag­ing U.S. rice har­vests.
  • In FTR #638, we dis­cussed the pos­si­ble role of a Bay­er pes­ti­cide in caus­ing the bee die-offs, a phe­nom­e­non that direct­ly threat­ens U.S. agri­cul­ture. The pes­ti­cide is banned in Ger­many.
  • Bay­er is get­ting ready to intro­duce a genet­i­cal­ly-engi­neered brand of soy­bean into the U.S. mar­ket, that will be par­tic­u­lar­ly hos­pitable to pes­ti­cides. As is the case with the “Pon­cho” pes­ti­cide that appears to be caus­ing bee die-offs, the pes­ti­cides are known as “sys­temic.” They are water sol­u­ble and are absorbed by the plant–the poi­son can­not be washed off by a con­sumer pri­or to eat­ing. One can but won­der to what extent the Under­ground Reich is delib­er­ate­ly poi­son­ing the Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tion and envi­ron­ment.
  • In FTR #576, we not­ed the pro­found links between the for­mer mem­ber com­pa­nies of I.G. Far­ben and the Bor­mann cap­i­tal organization–the eco­nom­ic com­po­nent of a Third Reich gone under­ground.
  • FTR #‘s 480 and 585 present infor­ma­tion about the pos­si­ble link between the spread of Lyme dis­ease and bio­log­i­cal war­fare test­ing on Plum Island. Cen­tral to the dis­cus­sion is Dr. Erich Traub, one of the Third Reich’s prin­ci­pal fig­ures in bio­log­i­cal war­fare research. Traub, who report­ed direct­ly to Hein­rich Himm­ler dur­ing the war and was deeply involved with Plum Island’s work,  was brought into the U.S. through Project Paper­clip. Did Lyme dis­ease spread acci­den­tal­ly from Plum Island? Was it delib­er­ate­ly spread by some of the Third Reich alum­ni secret­ed into the Unit­ed States?

“150 Mil­lion Deaths?”; Ger­many Watch; 9/5/2012.

TEXT: Was Ger­many behind the 1918 Flu virus that killed 50–150 mil­lion peo­ple?

Admi­ral Hall, Chief of British Naval Intel­li­gence dur­ing WW1, sup­plied infor­ma­tion to an Amer­i­can legal claim against Ger­man sab­o­tage with­in the USA.

The claim was orig­i­nal­ly meant for com­pen­sa­tion for the Ger­mans blow­ing up a chunk of Man­hat­tan in the biggest ter­ror attack in US his­to­ry pre‑9/11.

But when Major Peaslee, head­ing the US inves­ti­ga­tion, read copies of the British inter­cepts of Ger­man traf­fic and ciphers, he dis­cov­ered that the Ger­mans were not just blow­ing up US muni­tions depots (before a dec­la­ra­tion of war); they were using bio­log­i­cal war­fare on a large scale.
It is qui­et pub­lic knowl­edge that Ger­many was using Anthrax and oth­er bio­log­i­cals on cat­tle, with 1000s of ani­mals head­ing for the Allied war effort infect­ed by Ger­man agents at var­i­ous ports. But in 1916 the Ger­mans had dis­cov­ered a flu vari­ant that killed by over-stim­u­la­tion of the immune sys­tem, there­fore per­fect­ly tar­get­ing the health­i­est of men; Sol­diers.

The links will show you that a Ger­man agent was in the US releas­ing their new Bio-weapon in Jan­u­ary 1918. The same month the first record­ed case of 1918 flu turned up in Mary­land bar­racks.

Ger­many fought the legal case not in nor­mal terms, but tried bribery, pres­sure, every­thing they could, to not be found guilty of the sab­o­tage of the Man­hat­tan muni­tions depot, despite the US only ask­ing for $20m dam­ages. They could have even set­tled out­side of an off­i­cal ‘guilty’, but they did­n’t.

WHY? Because they knew the evi­dence could point to them releas­ing the 1918 flu.

They under­es­ti­mat­ed the effec­tive­ness of the weapon, as it of course even­tu­al­ly spread to Ger­mans via the bat­tle­field any­way.

But they did every­thing they could in des­per­a­tion to con­ceal it dur­ing legal pro­ceed­ings. The US even­tu­al­ly won dam­ages for the sab­o­tage after 15 years of lit­i­ga­tion, by which point it was 1939. So there were then oth­er imme­di­ate things to wor­ry about, and this has large­ly been for­got­ten. The Crim­i­nals run­ning Ger­many at this point, were so con­fi­dent they were about to win the next war, that they undoubt­ed­ly thought they could bury the evi­dence of their WW1 crimes after tak­ing out Britain and the US, as a bonus.

Discussion

11 comments for “Biological Warfare: Did the Germans Cause the 1918 Flu Epidemic?”

  1. The claim was orig­i­nally meant for “com­pen­sa­tion for the Ger­mans blow­ing up a chunk of Man­hat­tan...”

    should read: a chunk of Jer­sey City.

    Posted by anonymouse | September 9, 2012, 4:05 am
  2. You are right about Bay­er Dave. They appear to have delib­er­ate­ly let their GM prod­ucts infect large swathes of US agribusi­ness by cross-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and fail­ure to con­tain.

    This whole issue makes me very sus­pi­cious of the British Beef issues in the late 1980s and 1990s, killing off a large part of British farm­ing at a strate­gic point. It was the same time where the EEC Com­mon Agri­cul­tur­al Pol­i­cy (CAP) was com­ing into force, which makes farm­ers reliant on sub­si­dies to the ben­e­fit of Ger­man farm­ing. The French and Ger­mans imme­di­ate­ly banned Brit Beef from europe, and killed off the last of Brit farm­ing.

    This is trou­ble­some for an island nation like Britain, who Ger­many tried to starve last time via their U‑boats. With­out the capac­i­ty to feed itself, Britain is in no posi­tion to han­dle a local war.

    Posted by GW | September 10, 2012, 10:06 am
  3. @GW–

    In this con­text, check out a show I did on the foot-and-mouth out­break more than a decade ago.

    https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-287-dont-put-your-foot-in-your-mouth-when-you-are-talking-about-mad-cow-disease-and-thats-no-bull/

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | September 10, 2012, 3:47 pm
  4. Thanks Dave, inter­est­ing analy­sis on a par with our thoughts.

    How­ev­er, it start­ed dur­ing the Thatch­er era long before Blair.

    I sus­pect it was orig­i­nal­ly a win-win-win for Ger­many, where they could dam­age Brit farm­ing, dam­age the anti-Ger­man Thatch­er govt, and then use their pro­pa­gan­da chan­nels to blame Brit busi­ness. The last point worked, putting to death the last big Brit chem­i­cals firm, ICI.

    Ref Iraqi links, the dis­ease would like­ly have been plant­ed by Iraqi agents for deni­a­bil­i­ty rea­sons, but under GERMAN orders. Iraq did not ben­e­fit, Ger­many did. That is why Ger­many sup­plied them WMD in the first place.

    As you picked out with Hus­sein’s uncle, the fam­i­ly were Ger­man intel­li­gence assets, not just peo­ple who were fond of Ger­mans.

    Ger­many sup­plied their WMD for the exact rea­son they sup­ply var­i­ous regimes with U‑boats; as part of the deal, those weapons remain essen­tial­ly part of the de-fac­to Ger­man arse­nal, with Ger­many hav­ing a say when they deem it help­ful to them, over how and where these assets are used. Look at the U‑boat sale to Egypt for exam­ple, giv­ing the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood access to Ger­man tech against Israel. I would gam­ble that those subs may even have a Ger­man staff mem­ber or two when deployed in anger...

    The links between sus­pi­cions of Iraq WMD and British farm­ing attacks, were cer­tain­ly con­sid­ered by the Blair govt.

    Ger­many of course then ran the dis­in­fo cam­paign using CURVEBALL, cre­at­ing the myth that there were no WMD in Iraq. They came from Ger­many, but Ger­many pre­tends Iraq nev­er had WMD? Caught red-hand­ed I reck­on, just like 1918.

    It is wor­ry­ing how many idiots we have in intel­li­gence that can’t see it, whilst Ger­man pen­e­tra­tions of same intel­li­gence agen­cies are mak­ing sure any files point­ing at Ger­many and Mus­lim Broth­er­hood are shred­ded, and all offi­cers and ana­lysts over a cer­tain age are forcibly retired, remov­ing insti­tion­al knowl­edge and mem­o­ry.
    On top, the young idiots in intel­li­gence have received an edu­ca­tion telling them Ger­many was a vic­tim of Ver­sailles — Ger­man pro­pa­gan­da in the purest form. The vast major­i­ty think Ger­man intel­li­gence is friend­ly.

    I don’t get involved with the Blair/Bush dis­cus­sions too much, as appre­ci­ate many see them as sus­pects, includ­ing your site (ref 3rd Reich links with Bush fam­i­ly).

    How­ev­er my per­son­al feel­ing is that if Grandad Bush was real­ly work­ing for Ger­many in WW2, he was RUBBISH at hid­ing it. In which case, I think he was doing his job; he was OSS and was meant to gain the trust of the Ger­mans to learn their oper­a­tions.

    I know for a fact Bush was sus­pi­cious of Ger­many over 9/11, and that was also the rea­son he put the spot­light on Al Taqwa.
    That’s why the anti-Bush anti-Blair pro­pa­gan­da was so damn LOUD. Ger­many want­ed them out of pow­er asap before they either worked out the whole ruse (which I think is clos­er to real­i­ty; Bush had a clue but not full pic­ture of Ger­man net­work), or Bush/Blair knew the whole thing, and Ger­many want­ed them out before they made it pub­lic.

    It all links, and it all goes back to Ger­many. But I fear, their pen­e­tra­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion has become insti­tu­tion­al. We have lost con­trol and are unlike­ly to get it back with­out some seri­ous blood shed.

    So may be worth learn­ing Ger­man instead, fac­ing the fact that they have very near­ly won on all fronts, and our own mil­i­tary orgs are doing the bid­ding and reshap­ing the world lead­er­ship, to how Ger­many always want­ed them to be organ­ised. Racial statelets in Balka­ns, MB in mid-east and Africa, region­al Gauleit­ers in Europe.

    Posted by GW | September 11, 2012, 6:50 am
  5. Accord­ing to a report released last month by a group at the Univ. of Mass­a­chus­sets Amherst of the top 100 cor­po­rate air pol­luters in the Unit­ed States, the top air pol­luter in the U.S. is Bay­er Group. The amount of pol­lu­tion released by Bay­er is near­ly twice that of the sec­ond on the list, Gen­er­al Elec­tric. The tox­ic score (pounds released x tox­i­c­i­ty x pop­u­la­tion exposure)of Bay­er Group is over 10 times greater than GE!

    http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxicair2012/

    Posted by JohnT | September 14, 2012, 6:48 am
  6. @John T–

    Fits right in, unfor­tu­nate­ly, does­n’t it?

    Good Show,

    Dave Emory

    Posted by Dave Emory | September 14, 2012, 4:35 pm
  7. Dave,
    It is my under­stand­ing that cor­po­ra­tions in Ger­many are struc­tured dif­fer­ent­ly than they are in the U.S.. I recall hear­ing in one of your pro­grams that cor­po­ra­tions in Ger­many are legal­ly part of the gov­ern­ment.
    If this is the case, then Ger­many is the biggest air pol­luter in the Unit­ed States.

    Many thanks for all your excel­lent research and pro­grams.

    Posted by JohnT | September 15, 2012, 7:22 am
  8. That was then. This is now.


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nih-superbug-claims-7th-victim/2012/09/14/09b3742e-fe9b-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_print.html

    NIH super­bug claims 7th vic­tim
    By Bri­an Vastag and Lena H. Sun, Pub­lished: Sep­tem­ber 14

    A dead­ly, drug-resis­tant super­bug out­break that began last sum­mer at the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health Clin­i­cal Cen­ter claimed its sev­enth vic­tim Sept. 7, when a seri­ous­ly ill boy from Min­neso­ta suc­cumbed to a blood­stream infec­tion, offi­cials said Fri­day.

    The boy was the 19th patient at the research hos­pi­tal to con­tract an antibi­ot­ic-resis­tant strain of the bac­teri­um Kleb­siel­la pneu­mo­ni­ae that arrived in August 2011 with a New York woman who need­ed a lung trans­plant. But his case marked the first new infec­tion of this super­bug at NIH since Jan­u­ary — a wor­ri­some sig­nal that the bug per­sists inside the huge brick-and-glass fed­er­al facil­i­ty in Bethes­da....

    Longer arti­cle at the link.

    Posted by Vanfield | September 15, 2012, 8:21 pm
  9. New wave of anti-Semi­tism in Berlin, DW 9/29/12
    “After an attack on a Berlin rab­bi on month ago, the Ger­man cap­i­tal has been rocked by two new anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents. The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty says soci­ety as a whole needs to com­bat anti-Semi­tism.
    On Wednes­day (26.09.2012), the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Cen­tral Coun­cil of Jews in Ger­many, Stephan Kramer, was threat­ened with an attack. On the same day, a taxi dri­ver in Berlin refused to dri­ve a fam­i­ly to a syn­a­gogue. Both cas­es have been picked up by the police for inves­ti­ga­tion.

    Rab­bi Daniel Alter said his attack­ers were of Arab ori­gin
    The two inci­dents took place only about a month after an attack on a rab­bi that made the head­lines across Ger­many — 53-year-old Daniel Alter was beat­en up by a group of teenagers and ver­bal­ly abused for being Jew­ish. The vic­tim said the attacks were of Arab ori­gin.
    But Levi Salomon, spokesman for Berlin’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, does not think that Berlin has become more anti-Semit­ic. “This city is a mir­ror of soci­ety in gen­er­al,” he said. “I believe that anti-Semi­tism is sim­ply deeply root­ed in Ger­many.”

    Posted by Kando | September 29, 2012, 9:58 am
  10. Some more dots for you Dave.

    Hope you are feel­ing bet­ter.

    http://germanywatch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/german-economic-imperialism-social.html

    Posted by GW | October 30, 2012, 4:50 am
  11. Google Max Planck!! Won 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for ener­gy quan­ta ( ther­mal elec­tro­mag­net­ic radi­a­tion). Known for many oth­er things.

    Posted by John Lewis | April 3, 2020, 6:25 pm

Post a comment