Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Skorzeny' is associated with 37 posts.

FTR # 914 and FTR #915; Interviews with Gerrard Williams (#‘s 1 and 2), Co-Author of “Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler”

FTR #‘s 914 and 915 fea­ture for­mer BBC and Reuters jour­nal­ist Ger­rard Williams, devel­op­ing mate­r­i­al he pre­sent­ed in his book (co-authored with mil­i­tary his­to­ri­an Simon Dun­stan) “Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler.”

An appar­ent deal between Sul­li­van & Cromwell attor­ney turned spy Allen Dulles and Mar­tin Bor­mann lies at the core of the Hitler escape, code-named “Aktion Feuer­land” (Oper­a­tion Land of Fire). In exchange for spar­ing the art loot­ed by the Reich and grant­i­ng the West­ern Allies access to Nazi mil­i­tary tech­nol­o­gy, Hitler’s escape along with those of Eva Braun, Mar­tin Bor­mann and Gestapo chief Hein­rich Muller were arranged. In addi­tion, the SS and Gestapo-staffed Rein­hard Gehlen spy out­fit was also one of the “car­rots” made avail­able to the West in this deal.

The poten­tial “sticks” were the full acti­va­tion of the Nazi Were­wolf gueril­las to make life mis­er­able for occu­pa­tion forces, the destruc­tion of the creme of West­ern art and a dis­in­for­ma­tion gam­bit pre­sent­ing a Nazi oper­a­tion to use U‑boat launched V‑1 mis­siles filled with nerve gas against New York. (The lat­ter drew U.S. Navy anti-sub­ma­rine forces away from the planned south­ern Atlantic route for Hitler’s U‑boat escape.)

Because Allen Dulles faced pros­e­cu­tion for his oper­a­tions on behalf of Third Reich indus­tri­al con­cerns, Dulles joined forces with Bor­mann. Using the exten­sive Nazi pres­ence in Argenti­na, Bor­mann and Muller suc­cess­ful­ly spir­it­ed Hitler and Eva Braun out of Ger­many.

Much of FTR #915 deals with the re-estab­lish­ment of Nazis in pow­er in the “new” Fed­er­al Repub­lic and the role of Mar­tin Bor­mann direct­ing that gov­ern­ment from afar. The role of the Nazis and the Gehlen spy out­fit in par­tic­u­lar in the Cold War is a pri­ma­ry focus of FTR #915.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: the foun­da­tion­al role of the German/American cor­po­rate links in the real­iza­tion of “Aktion Feuer­land;” the role of Eva Per­on (“Evi­ta”) as a Nazi spy pri­or to, and dur­ing, World War II; Evi­ta’s role as a func­tionary of the post­war Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work; the revenge tak­en by Muller on mem­bers of Juan and Eva Per­on’s con­tin­gent for extort­ing mon­ey from the Bor­mann net­work; famed espi­onage nov­el­ist Ian Flem­ing’s role as a British com­man­do secur­ing both art and Nazi mil­i­tary tech­nol­o­gy as the Nazi armies retreat­ed; main­stream press accounts of Hitler’s escape and post­war activ­i­ties; the con­tin­ued redac­tion and with­hold­ing of doc­u­ments about Hitler’s post­war pres­ence; death threats direct­ed against some of the authors’ sources; review of the Vat­i­can-linked “Rat­lines” in the escape of Nazi lumi­nar­ies; details of the fak­ing of the death of Mar­tin Bor­mann; the use of dou­bles for Hitler and Eva Braun in Aktion Feuer­land; pres­sure from right-wing Ger­man sources on the authors, attempt­ing to sup­press the inves­ti­ga­tion; the fak­ing of the “DNA test” on Bor­man­n’s “corpse”; the role of Nazis in man­ag­ing the Cold War.


FTR #900 The Panama Papers and the Underground Reich

Analy­sis of the Pana­ma-based Mos­sack Fon­se­ca law firm sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the firm is an intel­li­gence front of some kind. Beyond that, there are indi­ca­tions that the out­fit and/or key peo­ple involved with its gen­er­a­tive milieu are linked to the Under­ground Reich. Erhard Mos­sack, father of Mos­sack Fon­se­ca co-founder Juer­gen, not only served in the SS, but appears to have been recruit­ed by U.S. after the war. Erhard Mos­sack was in pos­ses­sion of lists of Were­wolf gueril­la unit mem­bers. Orig­i­nal­ly assem­bled to con­duct gueril­la war­fare against Allied armies occu­py­ing Ger­many, the Were­wolves were a key ele­ment of post-war Nazi escape routes and the Otto Sko­rzeny-man­aged ODESSA net­work. The Were­wolves were also the tem­plate for the ear­ly CIA/Gehlen Org “stay behind” units, the gen­e­sis of what became pop­u­lar­ly known as Oper­a­tion Glad­io. Mos­sack Fon­se­ca has helped “off­shore” mon­ey for many inter­ests, includ­ing the Mar­cos fam­i­ly’s Gold­en Lily-derived for­tune and the Thyssen-Borne­misza fam­i­ly’s art deal­ings. One of the most inter­est­ing of Mos­sack Fon­se­ca’s oper­a­tions is its piv­otal­ly impor­tant Neva­da sub­sidiary, head­ed by a Chilean woman named Patri­cia Amu­nategui, an admir­er of Augus­to Pinochet, Sara Palin, Mitt Rom­ney, the Koch broth­ers, the Dalai Lama and the cult built around Swa­mi Yoganan­da. A well-known and sem­i­nal “guru,” Yoganan­da was an admir­er of Hitler and Mus­soli­ni in the 1930’s. Pro­gram High­lights Include: Mos­sack Fon­se­ca’s use of bear­er bonds for some of its sub­sidiary oper­a­tions; Erhard Mos­sack­’s prob­a­ble work spy­ing for the CIA on Cuba in Pana­ma; Juer­gen’s broth­er Peter’s work as Pana­ma’s Hon­orary Con­sul in Frank­furt, seat of the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank; review of the use of stolen art as a key cap­i­tal resource by the Nazis; the BND’s refusal to release infor­ma­tion about Erhard, although they had a file on him; review of the BND’s prac­tice of recruit­ing from among the fam­i­lies of exist­ing BND mem­bers; Pierre Omid­yar’s refusal to pub­lish Ken Sil­ver­stein’s sto­ry on Mos­sack Fon­se­ca and sub­se­quent demand for pay­ment by “Vice News,” which did pub­lish the arti­cle.


FTR #869 The Assassination of Olof Palme, Part 2

Con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sion and analy­sis from FTR #868, this pro­gram under­scores the pos­si­ble role of Swedish and Scan­di­na­vian fas­cists over­lap­ping both WACL and Sapo, the Swedish intel­li­gence ser­vice. Involved with escape net­works forged to aid the inter­na­tion­al flight from jus­tice of fas­cists and Nazis, the prin­ci­pals in these net­works exhib­it­ed behav­ior around the time of the Palme killing that is sug­ges­tive. Worth not­ing in this regard is the late Stieg Larsson’s inves­ti­ga­tion of the Palme killing, which point­ed in the direc­tion of some of the same fig­ures exam­ined in the Kruger essay. The pro­gram con­cludes with an exam­i­na­tion of the Bofors muni­tions firm and its cor­po­rate links to Third Reich indus­try and the post­war Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work, with which it may well be affil­i­at­ed.


FTR #868: The Assassination of Olof Palme, Part 1

The first of two pro­grams high­light­ing the unsolved 1986 assas­si­na­tion of Swedish Prime Min­is­ter Olof Palme, the broad­cast fea­tures a 1988 arti­cle by the bril­liant free­lance Dan­ish jour­nal­ist Hen­rik Kruger, author of “The Great Hero­in Coup: Drugs, Intel­li­gence and Inter­na­tion­al Fas­cism.” Through this exam­i­na­tion of the inter­sect­ed net­works that Kruger has termed (in “The Great Hero­in Coup”) “The Inter­na­tion­al Fascista,” we are able to observe the ele­ments of Oper­a­tion Con­dor, key indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions com­pris­ing the for­mer World Anti-Com­mu­nist League, indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions under­ly­ing “the Strat­e­gy of Ten­sion” in Italy, as well as the cast of char­ac­ters that man­aged the Iran-Con­tra machi­na­tions. Long the focal point of death threats and assas­si­na­tion attempts, Palme had earned the lethal ire of fas­cists in North and South Amer­i­ca, as well as Europe. The fail­ure to solve the killing, despite the pas­sage of almost 30 years and some very strong evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries, under­scores the grav­i­tas of the forces that destroyed Palme. Kruger’s arti­cle also serves as some­thing of an “in vit­ro” win­dow into many of the polit­i­cal net­works we have exam­ined over the years.


FTR #865 Interview with Peter Levenda about “Ratline” and “Unholy Alliance”

Rat­line high­lights the flight of a mys­te­ri­ous Nazi using the alias Georg Anton Poch. Iden­ti­fied as Hitler in a book pub­lished in Indone­sia, Poch was cer­tain­ly some­one of great impor­tance, though not nec­es­sar­i­ly Hitler. His odyssey sheds light on the Vat­i­can escape net­works known col­lec­tive­ly as “The Rat­line.” Who­ev­er he was, “Poch,” like so many Nazis, found suc­cor in the Vat­i­can. A Croa­t­ian priest–Father Draganovic–was one the prime movers of the Rat­line The sto­ry of the Rat­line and the Vat­i­can’s oper­a­tional sanc­tion­ing of the butch­ers of the Vat­i­can-backed Croa­t­ian Ustachi casts a dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal light on recent events. Pope Fran­cis’s vis­it to the Unit­ed States has dom­i­nat­ed the news cycle, with some cov­er­age going to the con­tro­ver­sy over his can­on­iza­tion of Father Juniper Ser­ra, regard­ed as a bru­tal oppres­sor by Native Amer­i­can archivists. What has received no sub­stan­tive cov­er­age is the pend­ing beat­i­fi­ca­tion of Arch­bish­op Stepinac, a mem­ber of the Ustachi par­lia­ment dur­ing World War II. Pro­gram High­lights Include: the stew­ard­ship of the main Ustachi con­cen­tra­tion camp Jasen­o­vac by Father Fil­ipovic, a Fran­cis­can priest; Fr. Fil­ipovic’s mur­der­ing of Ser­bian chil­dren with his bare hands; Oper­a­tion Bern­hard, a key Nazi coun­ter­feit­ing oper­a­tion; the many his­tor­i­cal out­growths of Bern­hard, includ­ing the oper­a­tions of the Rat­line; the use of Stepinac’s church to stash Nazi war loot; Ger­ald Pos­ner’s “point” role in lead­ing the Bor­mann-inspired dis­cred­i­ta­tion of Ladis­las Fara­go.


FTR #864 Interview with Peter Levenda about “Ratline” and Other Books

Immi­gra­tion has dom­i­nat­ed the news recent­ly, with the flood of refugees from the wars in the Mid­dle East over­whelm­ing Euro­pean infra­struc­ture as the phe­nom­e­non dom­i­nates polit­i­cal debate. Don­ald Trump cap­i­tal­izes on anti-immi­grant xeno­pho­bia to lead the field of pre­sump­tive GOP Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. In The Hitler Lega­cy, Peter not­ed anti-immi­grant sen­ti­ment and xeno­pho­bia as part of “The Hitler Lega­cy.” Turn­ing to what might be described as the “pre­quel” to The Hitler Lega­cy, we high­light “Rat­line.” Deal­ing with the sto­ry of the mys­te­ri­ous Dr. Anton Poch, we ana­lyze the dis­ap­pear­ance of Adolf Hitler. One of the main focal points of dis­cus­sion con­cerns the “offi­cial” ver­sion of Hitler’s death is The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Rop­er. Trevor-Rop­er was an agent for MI6 (British intel­li­gence) at the time and the writ­ing and pub­li­ca­tion of his book was, in and of itself, an intel­li­gence operation–a “psy-op” called Oper­a­tion Nurs­ery. Pro­gram High­lights Include: a com­par­i­son of Oper­a­tion Nurs­ery to the War­ren Com­mis­sion and its report; dis­cus­sion of Paul Lev­erkuhn, a Nazi spy who was the head of the Euro­pean Union when he attend­ed the first Bilder­berg meet­ing.


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

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. Peter notes that the post­war Nazi Under­ground con­sti­tut­ed a “gov­ern­ment-in-exile” and “an army in exile.” “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 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. Pro­gram high­lights include: ter­ror­ists’ abuse of the ancient hawala sys­tem of mon­ey trans­fer; dis­cus­sion of the Bank Al-Taqwa; the use of Islamists against Chi­na; analy­sis of the “Tri-Bor­der” area in Latin Amer­i­ca; Ger­many’s return to pow­er in Europe.


FTR #846 Interview (#9) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

This ninth inter­view fills in the details con­cern­ing a mys­te­ri­ous cast of char­ac­ters in Indone­sia who were inves­ti­gat­ing the late pres­i­dent Sukarno’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fund. That fund appears to have derived from large amounts of World War II wealth stolen by Japan and Ger­many. Dr. Sos­ro Huso­do alleged in a book that a mys­te­ri­ous Nazi named Dr. Anton Poch was actu­al­ly Hitler. That alle­ga­tion has nev­er been proved, how­ev­er the sto­ries of Poch, Huso­do, Dr. Edi­son Damanik and an Indone­sian arms deal­er named Soeryo Goer­it­no are indica­tive of a mas­sive, ongo­ing cov­er-up of the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic dynam­ics under­ly­ing their sit­u­a­tions. Expand­ing the scope of the inquiry to the cap­i­tal flows ass­so­ci­at­ed with the Third Reich, its post­war under­ground phase and insti­tu­tions asso­ci­at­ed with and/or evolv­ing from Nazism, the pro­grams sets forth a num­ber of con­sid­er­a­tions: the financ­ing of the post­war Ger­man eco­nom­ic mir­a­cle by Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions; the frus­tra­tion of the de-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion of cor­po­rate Ger­many by the Third Reich’s promi­nent Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic back­ers; the enor­mous scale of the Nazi eco­nom­ic dias­po­ra; the role of Klaus Bar­bie and his “Fiancees of Death” in ODESSA-relat­ed oper­a­tions; Colo­nia Dig­nidad and its role in laun­der­ing ODESSA mon­ey.


FTR #844 Interview (#7) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

Peter Lev­en­da’s “The Hitler Lega­cy” is, in Mr. Emory’s opin­ion, one of the most impor­tant polit­i­cal books ever writ­ten. This sev­enth inter­view with Peter about the book sets forth the pow­er­ful Nazi pres­ence in Indone­sia pri­or to, dur­ing, and after World War II. In addi­tion to the sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence of the Dutch Nazi par­ty in Indone­sia, the NSDAP also had a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence in this for­mer colony of the Nether­lands. The most pop­u­lous Mus­lim coun­try in the world, Indone­sia was seen as the key ele­ment in an Islamist bul­wark against Com­mu­nist Chi­na. This strat­a­gem was envi­sioned by Charles Willough­by, Gen­er­al Dou­glas MacArthur’s intel­li­gence chief and a doc­tri­naire fas­cist. Although sup­port­ive of Axis con­quest of the Nether­lands and Indone­sia, which he saw as free­ing the arch­i­pel­ago from colo­nial dom­i­na­tion, Sukarno espoused a “Third Way” at the con­fer­ence of Non-Aligned nations in Ban­dung in 1955. This led the US to see him as a Com­mu­nist and begin attempts to depose him. In order to pro­vide financ­ing for Indone­sia and oth­er Third World coun­tries, Sukarno appears to have turned to Hjal­mar Schacht, Hitler’s finance min­is­ter, who uti­lized Nazi gold ship­ments to Asia to “prime the eco­nom­ic pump” for this abortive project.


FTR #842 Interview (#5) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

This next install­ment of our dis­cus­sions with Peter Lev­en­da about “The Hitler Lega­cy” begins with dis­cus­sion of indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions that com­prised the post­war Nazi under­ground. Focused large­ly on the SS, these orga­ni­za­tions were vehi­cles for the per­pet­u­a­tion of the Nazi strug­gle against the Allies (includ­ing the U.S. and Britain) at the same time as they inter­faced with pow­er­ful ele­ments of West­ern intel­li­gence, who used them as Cold War­riors. Part of the Cold War strat­e­gy pur­sued by the U.S. was to resuci­tate (for a third time) the “glob­al jihadist” strat­e­gy devised by Max von Oppen­heim dur­ing the First World War. Seek­ing the “believ­ing” Mus­lims as proxy war­riors against the athe­is­tic com­mu­nists, pow­er­ful ele­ments of CIA and the State Depart­ment enlist­ed the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in this strug­gle. “Weaponized reli­gion” was also used in Asia, where the Third Reich had already estab­lished a work­ing rela­tion­ship with the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Bud­dhists, with SS offi­cers of pri­ma­ry sig­nif­i­cance in the Nazis’ deal­ings with “His Holi­ness.” Key points of dis­cus­sion include: the career of Otto Ernst Remer; the remark­able career of Fran­cois Genoud; the Dalai Lama’s SS asso­ciate Bruno Beger’s atroc­i­ties war crimes; the Dalai Lama’s SS tutor–Heinrich Harrer–and his work for ele­ments of U.S. and West­ern intel­li­gence after the war.