Sunday, March 20, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Quote Of The Week
"Thanks to the terrible power of our International Banks, we have forced the Christians into wars without number. Wars have a special value for Jews, since Christians massacre each other and make more room for us Jews. Wars are the Jews' Harvest: The Jew banks grow fat on Christian wars. Over 100-million Christians have been swept off the face of the earth by wars, and the end is not yet." —Rabbi Reichorn, speaking at the funeral of Grand Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iudah, 1869
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Truth About The Reichstag Fire
SOURCE
By FRED BLAHUT
If the burning of the German Reichstag brought the National Socialists to power in 1933, were the Nazis responsible for the arson? If not, who was?
By 1933, Germany was ripe for another revolution. The Moscow-backed communist revolutions of 1919 had been put down at awful cost. And then the Allies imposed "reparations" that stripped the country of its ability to employ its workers and feed its people, including a British-engineered blockade that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Germans by starvation.
The worldwide depression of 1929 hit the country, still staggering under the yoke of the Treaty of Versailles, in the gut. Food was scarce. Jobs were disappearing. Those who had jobs earned money that was close to worthless.
It was clear that the centrist government of President Paul von Hindenburg and Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, under extreme pressure from both the left and the right, could not hold. Fearing civil war, Hindenburg dismissed Bruning and in January of 1933 appointed Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialists, as chancellor, even though Hitler had no absolute majority in the lower chamber of the German Parliament-the Reichstag.
And then, on the night of February 27, the Reichstag building burned.
It is important to note that, following the armistice of 1918, British Prime Minister lloyd George had promised the British voters "to squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeaked." Germany had been stripped of its industry, its coal reserves in the Saar and the manufacturing capacities of Alsace-Lorraine.
The German Navy and merchant fleet had been seized; export barriers had been established for German products while free trade was imposed on imports produced by the Allies.
According to Leon Degrelle: "Germany was experiencing near-famine conditions. It was at this moment the Allies decided to confiscate a substantial part of what was left of Germany's livestock." (Hitler: Born at Versailles; Institute for Historical Review, 1987.)
Thomas Lamont, the American representative of the Allied powers "overseeing" Germany, was quoted: "The Germans were made to deliver cattle, horses, sheep, goats etc .... A strong protest came from Germany when dairy cows were taken to France and Belgium, thus depriving German children of milk."
According to Degrelle, "The question was now: Who was going to break the chains?
"Germany looked for an avenger to smash the Treaty of Vengeance. The avenger could not belong to the conventional right and left wings of German politics or any other Establishment entities, whether financial, military or religious."
In 1925, following the death of German President Friedrich Ebert, Hindenburg, a hero of World War I, was persuaded to run for president. He won easily. But, aging and ill, Hindenburg was not the national leader to bring Germany back from the abyss.
Prior to Hitler's appointment, the Reichstag had been suspended several times with rule by presidential decree. Neither the left nor the right believed it was Hindenburg himself who was running the country, which staggered on ineffectually. By 1933, Hindenburg had become senile.
On this point, European newsman Alec de Montmorency tells a story that was making the rounds in the Paris clubs frequented by journalists. Hindenburg, the story goes, asked one of his close aides in early 1933: "Who is that young man with a mustache who keeps bringing me papers to sign?"
Immediately after Hitler's appointment, the Reichstag was dissolved and new elections set for March 5. A violent election campaign ensued.
On February 24, the police raided Communist Party headquarters. It was announced that they had discovered plans for a new communist revolution. But they either didn't discover what they said that they had, or the evidence, for unknown reasons, was suppressed, because such documentation was never made public.
Then came the Reichstag fire. Hitler immediately blamed the communists. Hindenburg proclaimed a state of emergency and issued decrees suspending freedom of speech and assembly. Thanks to the "Red scare," the National Socialists and their allies, the German Nationalists, won a bare majority in the general election of March 5.
Shortly thereafter, first the Communist Party, and then all other parties except the National Socialist,were made illegal. The burning of the Reichstag was the spark that set the country ablaze. If, then, the fire was what catapulted Hitler to power, is it not reasonable to assume that the National Socialists had a hand in it? That was the consensus of propaganda in the United States, France and Great Britain.
The National Socialists blamed the communists, and tried to establish the guilt of Communist Party leaders in a trial at the High Court at Leipzig. They failed.
That led to the generally accepted theory that the National Socialists themselves torched the building. This version has been generally accepted. It appears in most textbooks and many reputable historians repeat it. According to A.J.P. Taylor in History Today, "I myself accepted it unquestioningly, without looking at the evidence."
But someone did look at the evidence: A retired civil servant-and anti-Nazi named Fritz Tobias. He began his project, it is reported, with the idea of settling once and for all the fact that the Nazis had been responsible for the fire. But that's not what he discovered. The results of his investigation were serialized in the German weekly Der Spiegel in 1950.
Here's the story as detailed by Tobias.
At just about 9 pm on February 27, a theology student -later a lecturer at Bremen-named Hans Floter was on his way home after a day of research and study at the library. As he crossed the open space in front of the Reichstag, he heard the sound of breaking glass. He looked up and saw someone climbing into the building through a window on the first floor. The building was otherwise deserted except for a night watchman who apparently did not hear the breaking glass.
Floter ran to the comer and found a policeman. "Someone is breaking into the Reichstag," he reported. The two men ran back to the building. Through the window they saw a shadowy, unidentifiable figure and something more ominous-flames. It was 9:03 pm. Floter, having done his duty, went home. He had not yet had supper and was hungry.
At this point, another passer-by joined the policeman, a young printer called Thaler, who was, incidentally, a Social Democrat, and definitely no supporter of the National Socialists. Thaler shouted: "Shoot, man, shoot." The policeman fired his revolver into the building and the shadowy figure disappeared.
The policeman ran to the nearest police post and gave the alarm. The time recorded was 9:15 pm. Within minutes police backup arrived at the Reichstag, At 9:22, a police officer tried to enter the Debating Chamber. He was driven back by the flames. At 9:27, the police discovered and arrested a half-naked young man. He was a Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe.
Meanwhile, the fire brigade had also been alerted. The first report is recorded at 9:13. The first engine reached the Reichstag at 9:18. But the firemen had problems entering the building to fight the blaze. Only one side door was kept unlocked after 8 pm. The firemen, not knowing this, went to the wrong door.
Gaining entrance, the firemen fought the first fires they came to-small blazes in the corridors, it turns out, and not the main fire. Eventually, the full strength of the Berlin fire brigade was mobilized, a force of some 60 engines. The time was 9:42. But by then, the building was beyond help.
Seen as evidence of Nazi involvement in the blaze was the fact that across the street from the Reichstag building was the residence-sometimes called a palace-of its president. The National Socialists being in charge of the legislative body, the president of the Reichstag on February 27, 1933 was Nazi leader Hermann Goering. But Goering had not yet moved in.
The building was unoccupied except for an apartment on the top floor which Goering had lent to "Putzi" Hanftstaengl, Hitler's foreign press chief. Hearing a commotion, Hanftstaengl looked out the window and saw the Reichstag burning. He knew that Hitler and Josef Goebbels were at a party nearby. He phoned Goebbels, who thought Hanftstaengel was playing some sort of practical joke and hung up. Hanftstaengel called back. Goebbels checked with the police and found the report was true.
Within a few minutes he, Hitler and a large group of National Socialists who had been at the party arrived at the Reichstag. An English journalist, Sefton Delmer, managed to join the crowd. Hitler, he reported, was very upset certainly not the demeanor of a man responsible for the action. "This is a communist plot, the signal for an uprising," Delmer reported Hitler yelling to his supporters. "Every communist official must be shot. The communist members [of the Reichstag] must be hanged."
Van der Lubbe, meanwhile, had been taken to the nearest police station. He was interrogated until 3 am of February 28. He was allowed to sleep for a few hours, awakened, given breakfast and, at 8 am, the questioning resumed. He gave clear, coherent answers. He described how he had entered the Reichstag and started a series of fires, even using some of his clothing to help the blazes get going.
The police, thoroughly and methodically, checked his story. They retraced his route through the Reichstag with a stopwatch and determined that the timing was correct for his entrance through a window to the time of his arrest. Van der Lubbe was clear about his motive. He had hoped that the entire German people would protest against the Nazi government. When this did not happen, he determined that he would protest individually.
Although the burning of the Reichstag was certainly a signal for revolt-he called it a "beacon" -he had given the signal alone, he insisted. He denied that he had any associates or fellow plotters. He said he knew no Nazis. He was not a member of the Communist Party. He was a socialist, more politically in tune with the left wing of the centrist government.
Van der Lubbe proved a willing witness against himself. He traced his movement for police during the weeks prior to the arson. He had drifted across Germany, apparently searching for anti-Nazi sentiment and finding nothing approaching the mass revolt he had hoped for. He even told police where he had purchased "fire-starter," a petroleum-based liquid used, as its name implies, to start fires, and matches. The police checked his story. Everything he said proved to be correct.
The police officials conducting the investigation concluded that van der Lubbe was deranged-but above average in intelligence, with an exceptionally accurate sense of place and direction. He knew where he had been and what he had been doing and remembered even small details of his wanderings, purchases and arson.
His interrogators were experienced men, professionals with no political connections. They became convinced that he was telling the truth and that he had set the fire at the Reichstag all by himself, with no outside help or even encouragement. Firemen who had been at the scene agreed that the sequence of arson events detailed by van der Lubbe matched their investigation results.
That conclusion didn't sit well with Hitler and the upper cadre of the National Socialists,locked in a bitter battle with the communists to gain control of the Reichstag. They had committed themselves to the proposition that the fire was a communist plot. Whether or not they believed this, it was the story that had to be sold to the German public if they were to defeat the communists at the polls.
Van der Lubbe and four others were tried for the arson; a man named Torgler, the leader of the communist bloc in the Reichstag, and three Bulgarian communists including Georgi Dimitrov.
Van der Lubbe's guilt was beyond question. He had been found in the Reichstag and he admitted starting the fires. But that wasn't what was worrying the Nazis. Everyone accepted van der Lubbe's guilt. It was the communists the Nazis wanted convicted.
A number of "expert" witnesses were produced-with Nazi help-by the prosecution with the intention of proving that the fire could not have been started by one man. But van der Lubbe proved to be the best witness for the other defendants. Testifying for hours, he told the judges that it was he, and he alone, who was responsible. He was quoted: "I was there and they [the other four defendants] were not. 1know how it was done because 1did it."
The High Court arrived at a complex verdict. First, van der Lubbe was found guilty. He was subsequently executed. (Arson was not a crime punishable by death. But Hitler managed to shove through a law to that effect and make its ramifications retroactive, a decision that would come back to haunt him.)
The other four defendants were found innocent. But, the court agreed with the Nazi-provided "expert" witnesses that the Dutchman could not have done it alone and that, therefore, the Reichstag had been torched by van der Lubbe and "persons unknown."
The Nazis had been hoist by their own petard. If van der Lubbe had accomplices, and the accomplices were not communists, who were they? The implication was that the accomplices must have been National Socialists, a point made repeatedly in court by Dimitrov, and echoed by the Establishment media throughout the Western world.
(Dimitrov, incidentally, fled Germany following the trial to the USSR where he rose in the ranks of Soviet officialdom and later returned to Bulgaria to take over leadership of the communist government there.)
The propaganda possibilities of the High Court decision were not lost on the communists. Enter a man named Willi Munzenberg, a German expatriate communist popular with the media and the pro-communists in the West, particularly Great Britain. The communists published what was called the Brown Book about the fire, filled with alleged evidence of National Socialist complicity in the arson. That the communist evidence of Nazi involvement was no more convincing than the Nazis' evidence of communist complicity was lost on the popular press.
Subsequently, the communists staged a counter-trial in London that, not unexpectedly, brought in a guilty verdict against the Nazis. Considered vital evidence in the counter-trial was the existence of a tunnel between Goering's residence and the Reichstag which carried electric and telephone cables and pipes for central heating.
According to the communists, a group of Brown Shirts had used the tunnel to enter the Reichstag and soaked the curtains and woodwork with a flammable liquid which caught fire when 'van der Lubbe struck the match or, alternately, they set the fire themselves. According to the latter version, when all was ready, van der Lubbe was pushed through the window into the Reichstag by an unnamed accomplice of the Brown Shirts, there to be found and arrested.
The Brown Book also alleged that, far from being an intelligent Socialist, Van der Lubbe was a degenerate half-wit and a homosexual prostitute, kept by Brown Shirt leader Ernst Roehm. This was the story accepted by the Western press in 1933 and, subsequently, historians. It became something "everyone knows," without anyone actually examining the facts.
There were allegations that the fire brigades were deliberately delayed by the Nazis. But the record books of the aforementioned brigades disprove this. And, almost all history books say the records of van der Lubbe's interrogation by the police had mysteriously disappeared. But again, that isn't true. Tobias found them where they were supposed to be-in the office where they had always been-in eight copies.
Van der Lubbe, having been characterized by the Nazis as a communist dupe, was treated even more harshly by the communists. Included in the Brown Book is a statement by a Dutch friend of the arsonist. One sentence reads: "I often spent a night in the same bed with him." This was used by the communists as proof of his homosexuality. But, according to Taylor, the sentence originally went on: " ... without observing any homosexual tendencies in him."
Taylor goes on to point out that all the stories about van der Lubbe's bad upbringing, about his disreputable family and his lack of friends "were in fact lies; communist forgeries."
The most vital evidence produced by the communists was the tunnel and the allegation that it had been used by the Brown Shirts. This, the communists alleged, had been revealed by repentant Brown Shirts to communists in Paris. One alleged Brown Shirt appeared at the counter-trial with a muffler wrapped around his face to conceal his identity. It was a wise precaution, according to Taylor, because the witness "was, in fact, a well-known communist and unmistakably Jewish."
Another confession supposedly came from one Karl Ernst, Brown Shirt leader in Berlin. Conveniently, the "confession" turned up after Ernst was dead, killed in the purge of June 30, 1934. Even more convenient, Ernst cleared up any items in the earlier communist versions of the arson where inaccuracies had been proven. But one point Ernst got wrong.
His post-mortem "confession" agreed with other "confessions" that the Brown Shirts entered the Reichstag at 8:49 pm. This had to be the time if they were to do their work before van der Lubbe was "pushed through the window" at 9:03. Unfortunately, Ernst (or the communist forgers) were unaware of one item in the Reichstag routine. At 8:45 pm, a postman came through the side door to collect the deputies' mail.
On February 27, he entered as usual, walked through the deserted building and left at 8:55 pm. He found nothing out of the ordinary-no shadowy figures, no smell of flammable liquid. In fact, the postman disproves the "accomplices" theory, no matter who those accomplices were alleged to have been, because of the time sequences.
And then there is the small fact overlooked by historians-that when Goering arrived at the Reichstag at 9:35 pm, having been alerted by his friend, he immediately thought entrance might have been gained through the tunnel. He was quoted: "They [the arsonists] must have come through the tunnel." He immediately went off with several policemen-not Nazis-to examine it. They found the doors at either end securely locked.
Would Goering have called for a search of the tunnel if he or his compatriots had been responsible for the fire? Hardly likely. He and the police might have caught the conspirators exiting on the Goering residence side.
In non-ideological retrospect, the same lack of evidence that exonerates the communists serves to also exonerate the National Socialists. If the Nazis had set fire to the Reichstag they would have manufactured evidence against the communists, just as the communists manufactured evidence against the Nazis in the Brown Book and the counter-trial.
The Brown Book was not intended to be closely examined. If it achieved its propaganda purpose-which it did, in the UK and the United States, at least- Munzenberg and his associates were satisfied.
Here is what can be determined from the facts that can be proved. No one came through the tunnel. There was no other way to enter the Reichstag, except past the night watchman or by breaking the window. Only van der Lubbe broke a window. Those who want to stick to the communist version, although they admit they can't prove how the Nazis got into the Reichstag, point to the trial testimony that van der Lubbe had to have had help.
But this evidence is the most unreliable of all. The most emphatic "expert" was, according to Taylor, "a crank distrusted by his colleagues." He claimed to be an authority on a strange "fluid" which, he said, was necessary for starting fires, He alleged that this "fluid" had a distinctive smell. But no policeman or fireman at the scene noticed any smell except smoke-no "fluid"; not even gasoline.
How could van der Lubbe have set the fire himself? These old, grandiose buildings were fires waiting to happen. There were heavy, dusty curtains everywhere; wooden paneling, high ceilings, drafts under the doors; everything capable of supporting a fire.
In 1834, the Houses of Parliament at Westminster in the UK were entirely destroyed by fire, Simply by a stove pipe becoming too hot. If this is too "historical" for today's reader, in 1956, the Vienna Stock Exchange was gutted by fire as the result of one smoldering cigarette in a wastepaper basket. Van der Lubbe had over 20 minutes to start fires; more than enough time.
One point: the postman left the building at 8:55 pm. How did van der Lubbe know it was safe to break in? He couldn't have; it was a lucky break, a coincidence. In any event, Hitler was well known for his penchant to improvise and it is obvious that is what he did while watching the Reichstag burn. Here was his chance to demonize the communists to his own advantage. He couldn't have known the outcome of that decision.
That van der Lubbe was guilty is beyond question. There is more evidence to acquit both the communists and the National Socialists of complicity than evidence to convict either group. But Germany lost the war and the communists won; and the winners write the history books.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davidson, Michael worth, MA, Editor. "Hitler Soars to Power." When, Where, Why & How It Happened. Readers Digest Association limited, London, New York, Sydney, Cape Town, Montreal, 1995.
Degrelle, Gen. Leon. Hitler: Born at Versailles: lnstitute for Historical Review, Torrance, California, 1987.
Degrelle, Gen. Leon. Hitler: Democrat. Unpublished manuscript.
Montmorency, Alec de. Interview by the author, November, 1995.
Taylor, A.J.P. "Who Burned the Reichstag?" History Today, London, June, 1956.
Fred Blahut has been a writer and editor for more than 30 years and currently is managing editor of The SPOTLIGHT and assistant editor of TBR.
By FRED BLAHUT
If the burning of the German Reichstag brought the National Socialists to power in 1933, were the Nazis responsible for the arson? If not, who was?
By 1933, Germany was ripe for another revolution. The Moscow-backed communist revolutions of 1919 had been put down at awful cost. And then the Allies imposed "reparations" that stripped the country of its ability to employ its workers and feed its people, including a British-engineered blockade that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Germans by starvation.
The worldwide depression of 1929 hit the country, still staggering under the yoke of the Treaty of Versailles, in the gut. Food was scarce. Jobs were disappearing. Those who had jobs earned money that was close to worthless.
It was clear that the centrist government of President Paul von Hindenburg and Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, under extreme pressure from both the left and the right, could not hold. Fearing civil war, Hindenburg dismissed Bruning and in January of 1933 appointed Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialists, as chancellor, even though Hitler had no absolute majority in the lower chamber of the German Parliament-the Reichstag.
And then, on the night of February 27, the Reichstag building burned.
It is important to note that, following the armistice of 1918, British Prime Minister lloyd George had promised the British voters "to squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeaked." Germany had been stripped of its industry, its coal reserves in the Saar and the manufacturing capacities of Alsace-Lorraine.
The German Navy and merchant fleet had been seized; export barriers had been established for German products while free trade was imposed on imports produced by the Allies.
According to Leon Degrelle: "Germany was experiencing near-famine conditions. It was at this moment the Allies decided to confiscate a substantial part of what was left of Germany's livestock." (Hitler: Born at Versailles; Institute for Historical Review, 1987.)
Thomas Lamont, the American representative of the Allied powers "overseeing" Germany, was quoted: "The Germans were made to deliver cattle, horses, sheep, goats etc .... A strong protest came from Germany when dairy cows were taken to France and Belgium, thus depriving German children of milk."
According to Degrelle, "The question was now: Who was going to break the chains?
"Germany looked for an avenger to smash the Treaty of Vengeance. The avenger could not belong to the conventional right and left wings of German politics or any other Establishment entities, whether financial, military or religious."
In 1925, following the death of German President Friedrich Ebert, Hindenburg, a hero of World War I, was persuaded to run for president. He won easily. But, aging and ill, Hindenburg was not the national leader to bring Germany back from the abyss.
Prior to Hitler's appointment, the Reichstag had been suspended several times with rule by presidential decree. Neither the left nor the right believed it was Hindenburg himself who was running the country, which staggered on ineffectually. By 1933, Hindenburg had become senile.
On this point, European newsman Alec de Montmorency tells a story that was making the rounds in the Paris clubs frequented by journalists. Hindenburg, the story goes, asked one of his close aides in early 1933: "Who is that young man with a mustache who keeps bringing me papers to sign?"
Immediately after Hitler's appointment, the Reichstag was dissolved and new elections set for March 5. A violent election campaign ensued.
On February 24, the police raided Communist Party headquarters. It was announced that they had discovered plans for a new communist revolution. But they either didn't discover what they said that they had, or the evidence, for unknown reasons, was suppressed, because such documentation was never made public.
Then came the Reichstag fire. Hitler immediately blamed the communists. Hindenburg proclaimed a state of emergency and issued decrees suspending freedom of speech and assembly. Thanks to the "Red scare," the National Socialists and their allies, the German Nationalists, won a bare majority in the general election of March 5.
Shortly thereafter, first the Communist Party, and then all other parties except the National Socialist,were made illegal. The burning of the Reichstag was the spark that set the country ablaze. If, then, the fire was what catapulted Hitler to power, is it not reasonable to assume that the National Socialists had a hand in it? That was the consensus of propaganda in the United States, France and Great Britain.
The National Socialists blamed the communists, and tried to establish the guilt of Communist Party leaders in a trial at the High Court at Leipzig. They failed.
That led to the generally accepted theory that the National Socialists themselves torched the building. This version has been generally accepted. It appears in most textbooks and many reputable historians repeat it. According to A.J.P. Taylor in History Today, "I myself accepted it unquestioningly, without looking at the evidence."
But someone did look at the evidence: A retired civil servant-and anti-Nazi named Fritz Tobias. He began his project, it is reported, with the idea of settling once and for all the fact that the Nazis had been responsible for the fire. But that's not what he discovered. The results of his investigation were serialized in the German weekly Der Spiegel in 1950.
Here's the story as detailed by Tobias.
At just about 9 pm on February 27, a theology student -later a lecturer at Bremen-named Hans Floter was on his way home after a day of research and study at the library. As he crossed the open space in front of the Reichstag, he heard the sound of breaking glass. He looked up and saw someone climbing into the building through a window on the first floor. The building was otherwise deserted except for a night watchman who apparently did not hear the breaking glass.
Floter ran to the comer and found a policeman. "Someone is breaking into the Reichstag," he reported. The two men ran back to the building. Through the window they saw a shadowy, unidentifiable figure and something more ominous-flames. It was 9:03 pm. Floter, having done his duty, went home. He had not yet had supper and was hungry.
At this point, another passer-by joined the policeman, a young printer called Thaler, who was, incidentally, a Social Democrat, and definitely no supporter of the National Socialists. Thaler shouted: "Shoot, man, shoot." The policeman fired his revolver into the building and the shadowy figure disappeared.
The policeman ran to the nearest police post and gave the alarm. The time recorded was 9:15 pm. Within minutes police backup arrived at the Reichstag, At 9:22, a police officer tried to enter the Debating Chamber. He was driven back by the flames. At 9:27, the police discovered and arrested a half-naked young man. He was a Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe.
Meanwhile, the fire brigade had also been alerted. The first report is recorded at 9:13. The first engine reached the Reichstag at 9:18. But the firemen had problems entering the building to fight the blaze. Only one side door was kept unlocked after 8 pm. The firemen, not knowing this, went to the wrong door.
Gaining entrance, the firemen fought the first fires they came to-small blazes in the corridors, it turns out, and not the main fire. Eventually, the full strength of the Berlin fire brigade was mobilized, a force of some 60 engines. The time was 9:42. But by then, the building was beyond help.
Seen as evidence of Nazi involvement in the blaze was the fact that across the street from the Reichstag building was the residence-sometimes called a palace-of its president. The National Socialists being in charge of the legislative body, the president of the Reichstag on February 27, 1933 was Nazi leader Hermann Goering. But Goering had not yet moved in.
The building was unoccupied except for an apartment on the top floor which Goering had lent to "Putzi" Hanftstaengl, Hitler's foreign press chief. Hearing a commotion, Hanftstaengl looked out the window and saw the Reichstag burning. He knew that Hitler and Josef Goebbels were at a party nearby. He phoned Goebbels, who thought Hanftstaengel was playing some sort of practical joke and hung up. Hanftstaengel called back. Goebbels checked with the police and found the report was true.
Within a few minutes he, Hitler and a large group of National Socialists who had been at the party arrived at the Reichstag. An English journalist, Sefton Delmer, managed to join the crowd. Hitler, he reported, was very upset certainly not the demeanor of a man responsible for the action. "This is a communist plot, the signal for an uprising," Delmer reported Hitler yelling to his supporters. "Every communist official must be shot. The communist members [of the Reichstag] must be hanged."
Van der Lubbe, meanwhile, had been taken to the nearest police station. He was interrogated until 3 am of February 28. He was allowed to sleep for a few hours, awakened, given breakfast and, at 8 am, the questioning resumed. He gave clear, coherent answers. He described how he had entered the Reichstag and started a series of fires, even using some of his clothing to help the blazes get going.
The police, thoroughly and methodically, checked his story. They retraced his route through the Reichstag with a stopwatch and determined that the timing was correct for his entrance through a window to the time of his arrest. Van der Lubbe was clear about his motive. He had hoped that the entire German people would protest against the Nazi government. When this did not happen, he determined that he would protest individually.
Although the burning of the Reichstag was certainly a signal for revolt-he called it a "beacon" -he had given the signal alone, he insisted. He denied that he had any associates or fellow plotters. He said he knew no Nazis. He was not a member of the Communist Party. He was a socialist, more politically in tune with the left wing of the centrist government.
Van der Lubbe proved a willing witness against himself. He traced his movement for police during the weeks prior to the arson. He had drifted across Germany, apparently searching for anti-Nazi sentiment and finding nothing approaching the mass revolt he had hoped for. He even told police where he had purchased "fire-starter," a petroleum-based liquid used, as its name implies, to start fires, and matches. The police checked his story. Everything he said proved to be correct.
The police officials conducting the investigation concluded that van der Lubbe was deranged-but above average in intelligence, with an exceptionally accurate sense of place and direction. He knew where he had been and what he had been doing and remembered even small details of his wanderings, purchases and arson.
His interrogators were experienced men, professionals with no political connections. They became convinced that he was telling the truth and that he had set the fire at the Reichstag all by himself, with no outside help or even encouragement. Firemen who had been at the scene agreed that the sequence of arson events detailed by van der Lubbe matched their investigation results.
That conclusion didn't sit well with Hitler and the upper cadre of the National Socialists,locked in a bitter battle with the communists to gain control of the Reichstag. They had committed themselves to the proposition that the fire was a communist plot. Whether or not they believed this, it was the story that had to be sold to the German public if they were to defeat the communists at the polls.
Van der Lubbe and four others were tried for the arson; a man named Torgler, the leader of the communist bloc in the Reichstag, and three Bulgarian communists including Georgi Dimitrov.
Van der Lubbe's guilt was beyond question. He had been found in the Reichstag and he admitted starting the fires. But that wasn't what was worrying the Nazis. Everyone accepted van der Lubbe's guilt. It was the communists the Nazis wanted convicted.
A number of "expert" witnesses were produced-with Nazi help-by the prosecution with the intention of proving that the fire could not have been started by one man. But van der Lubbe proved to be the best witness for the other defendants. Testifying for hours, he told the judges that it was he, and he alone, who was responsible. He was quoted: "I was there and they [the other four defendants] were not. 1know how it was done because 1did it."
The High Court arrived at a complex verdict. First, van der Lubbe was found guilty. He was subsequently executed. (Arson was not a crime punishable by death. But Hitler managed to shove through a law to that effect and make its ramifications retroactive, a decision that would come back to haunt him.)
The other four defendants were found innocent. But, the court agreed with the Nazi-provided "expert" witnesses that the Dutchman could not have done it alone and that, therefore, the Reichstag had been torched by van der Lubbe and "persons unknown."
The Nazis had been hoist by their own petard. If van der Lubbe had accomplices, and the accomplices were not communists, who were they? The implication was that the accomplices must have been National Socialists, a point made repeatedly in court by Dimitrov, and echoed by the Establishment media throughout the Western world.
(Dimitrov, incidentally, fled Germany following the trial to the USSR where he rose in the ranks of Soviet officialdom and later returned to Bulgaria to take over leadership of the communist government there.)
The propaganda possibilities of the High Court decision were not lost on the communists. Enter a man named Willi Munzenberg, a German expatriate communist popular with the media and the pro-communists in the West, particularly Great Britain. The communists published what was called the Brown Book about the fire, filled with alleged evidence of National Socialist complicity in the arson. That the communist evidence of Nazi involvement was no more convincing than the Nazis' evidence of communist complicity was lost on the popular press.
Subsequently, the communists staged a counter-trial in London that, not unexpectedly, brought in a guilty verdict against the Nazis. Considered vital evidence in the counter-trial was the existence of a tunnel between Goering's residence and the Reichstag which carried electric and telephone cables and pipes for central heating.
According to the communists, a group of Brown Shirts had used the tunnel to enter the Reichstag and soaked the curtains and woodwork with a flammable liquid which caught fire when 'van der Lubbe struck the match or, alternately, they set the fire themselves. According to the latter version, when all was ready, van der Lubbe was pushed through the window into the Reichstag by an unnamed accomplice of the Brown Shirts, there to be found and arrested.
The Brown Book also alleged that, far from being an intelligent Socialist, Van der Lubbe was a degenerate half-wit and a homosexual prostitute, kept by Brown Shirt leader Ernst Roehm. This was the story accepted by the Western press in 1933 and, subsequently, historians. It became something "everyone knows," without anyone actually examining the facts.
There were allegations that the fire brigades were deliberately delayed by the Nazis. But the record books of the aforementioned brigades disprove this. And, almost all history books say the records of van der Lubbe's interrogation by the police had mysteriously disappeared. But again, that isn't true. Tobias found them where they were supposed to be-in the office where they had always been-in eight copies.
Van der Lubbe, having been characterized by the Nazis as a communist dupe, was treated even more harshly by the communists. Included in the Brown Book is a statement by a Dutch friend of the arsonist. One sentence reads: "I often spent a night in the same bed with him." This was used by the communists as proof of his homosexuality. But, according to Taylor, the sentence originally went on: " ... without observing any homosexual tendencies in him."
Taylor goes on to point out that all the stories about van der Lubbe's bad upbringing, about his disreputable family and his lack of friends "were in fact lies; communist forgeries."
The most vital evidence produced by the communists was the tunnel and the allegation that it had been used by the Brown Shirts. This, the communists alleged, had been revealed by repentant Brown Shirts to communists in Paris. One alleged Brown Shirt appeared at the counter-trial with a muffler wrapped around his face to conceal his identity. It was a wise precaution, according to Taylor, because the witness "was, in fact, a well-known communist and unmistakably Jewish."
Another confession supposedly came from one Karl Ernst, Brown Shirt leader in Berlin. Conveniently, the "confession" turned up after Ernst was dead, killed in the purge of June 30, 1934. Even more convenient, Ernst cleared up any items in the earlier communist versions of the arson where inaccuracies had been proven. But one point Ernst got wrong.
His post-mortem "confession" agreed with other "confessions" that the Brown Shirts entered the Reichstag at 8:49 pm. This had to be the time if they were to do their work before van der Lubbe was "pushed through the window" at 9:03. Unfortunately, Ernst (or the communist forgers) were unaware of one item in the Reichstag routine. At 8:45 pm, a postman came through the side door to collect the deputies' mail.
On February 27, he entered as usual, walked through the deserted building and left at 8:55 pm. He found nothing out of the ordinary-no shadowy figures, no smell of flammable liquid. In fact, the postman disproves the "accomplices" theory, no matter who those accomplices were alleged to have been, because of the time sequences.
And then there is the small fact overlooked by historians-that when Goering arrived at the Reichstag at 9:35 pm, having been alerted by his friend, he immediately thought entrance might have been gained through the tunnel. He was quoted: "They [the arsonists] must have come through the tunnel." He immediately went off with several policemen-not Nazis-to examine it. They found the doors at either end securely locked.
Would Goering have called for a search of the tunnel if he or his compatriots had been responsible for the fire? Hardly likely. He and the police might have caught the conspirators exiting on the Goering residence side.
In non-ideological retrospect, the same lack of evidence that exonerates the communists serves to also exonerate the National Socialists. If the Nazis had set fire to the Reichstag they would have manufactured evidence against the communists, just as the communists manufactured evidence against the Nazis in the Brown Book and the counter-trial.
The Brown Book was not intended to be closely examined. If it achieved its propaganda purpose-which it did, in the UK and the United States, at least- Munzenberg and his associates were satisfied.
Here is what can be determined from the facts that can be proved. No one came through the tunnel. There was no other way to enter the Reichstag, except past the night watchman or by breaking the window. Only van der Lubbe broke a window. Those who want to stick to the communist version, although they admit they can't prove how the Nazis got into the Reichstag, point to the trial testimony that van der Lubbe had to have had help.
But this evidence is the most unreliable of all. The most emphatic "expert" was, according to Taylor, "a crank distrusted by his colleagues." He claimed to be an authority on a strange "fluid" which, he said, was necessary for starting fires, He alleged that this "fluid" had a distinctive smell. But no policeman or fireman at the scene noticed any smell except smoke-no "fluid"; not even gasoline.
How could van der Lubbe have set the fire himself? These old, grandiose buildings were fires waiting to happen. There were heavy, dusty curtains everywhere; wooden paneling, high ceilings, drafts under the doors; everything capable of supporting a fire.
In 1834, the Houses of Parliament at Westminster in the UK were entirely destroyed by fire, Simply by a stove pipe becoming too hot. If this is too "historical" for today's reader, in 1956, the Vienna Stock Exchange was gutted by fire as the result of one smoldering cigarette in a wastepaper basket. Van der Lubbe had over 20 minutes to start fires; more than enough time.
One point: the postman left the building at 8:55 pm. How did van der Lubbe know it was safe to break in? He couldn't have; it was a lucky break, a coincidence. In any event, Hitler was well known for his penchant to improvise and it is obvious that is what he did while watching the Reichstag burn. Here was his chance to demonize the communists to his own advantage. He couldn't have known the outcome of that decision.
That van der Lubbe was guilty is beyond question. There is more evidence to acquit both the communists and the National Socialists of complicity than evidence to convict either group. But Germany lost the war and the communists won; and the winners write the history books.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davidson, Michael worth, MA, Editor. "Hitler Soars to Power." When, Where, Why & How It Happened. Readers Digest Association limited, London, New York, Sydney, Cape Town, Montreal, 1995.
Degrelle, Gen. Leon. Hitler: Born at Versailles: lnstitute for Historical Review, Torrance, California, 1987.
Degrelle, Gen. Leon. Hitler: Democrat. Unpublished manuscript.
Montmorency, Alec de. Interview by the author, November, 1995.
Taylor, A.J.P. "Who Burned the Reichstag?" History Today, London, June, 1956.
Fred Blahut has been a writer and editor for more than 30 years and currently is managing editor of The SPOTLIGHT and assistant editor of TBR.
Think For God's Sake
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it" - Henry Ford
I was listening to a podcast, somewhat of a newstalk/comdey show when the host was talking about a recent trip to South America. She was describing a scene where the group was on a jungle hike and saw some pregnant tribal woman with 6 or 7 kids and 5 pigs trying to cross a river that was 2-3 feet deep.
The host said the woman led the children across one by one, ranging in age for 8-mere months old, once the kids were across she took the pigs upstream and threw them one by one into the river where they would swim/float down until the oldest kid would grab the string around the pigs neck and pull it to shore.
After she described this story the host was just clearly amazed by this woman, how tough she was, how much ingenuity she possessed how clever to have been able to accomplish this feat on her own.
Really?
You're amazed by this?
This womans people have probably been crossing this damn river in the same manner for thousands of years, do any of them build a bridge? Even some makeshift crossing? Apparently not. In hundreds if not thousands of years these people much like the blacks in Africa are literally no more advanced than they were at the dawn of time.
Certainly these non Whites lack the capacity to learn, invent and build. I'm not downing them for it, that is how they are made but for a host to be awe struck by what amounts to raw stupidity is ignorant on the hosts part.
Here she lives in a society where in the palm of her hand she can hold a computer so amazing that she can video chat with someone in the far corners of the earth in real time, she can get in a car and drive 700 miles in a single day, or jump in an airplane and fly literally to any location in the world in 24 hours, hell if she had the money she could hitch a ride to outer freaking space. Is she amazed by that? Is she just constantly thankful and PROUD that her race has made it possible to live both in the coldest and hottest climate on earth with equal comfort?
Apparently not, and why?
Because people don't think, if they even try they so often miss the forest for the trees.
Until people actually use their brains, anything else is futile.
I was listening to a podcast, somewhat of a newstalk/comdey show when the host was talking about a recent trip to South America. She was describing a scene where the group was on a jungle hike and saw some pregnant tribal woman with 6 or 7 kids and 5 pigs trying to cross a river that was 2-3 feet deep.
The host said the woman led the children across one by one, ranging in age for 8-mere months old, once the kids were across she took the pigs upstream and threw them one by one into the river where they would swim/float down until the oldest kid would grab the string around the pigs neck and pull it to shore.
After she described this story the host was just clearly amazed by this woman, how tough she was, how much ingenuity she possessed how clever to have been able to accomplish this feat on her own.
Really?
You're amazed by this?
This womans people have probably been crossing this damn river in the same manner for thousands of years, do any of them build a bridge? Even some makeshift crossing? Apparently not. In hundreds if not thousands of years these people much like the blacks in Africa are literally no more advanced than they were at the dawn of time.
Certainly these non Whites lack the capacity to learn, invent and build. I'm not downing them for it, that is how they are made but for a host to be awe struck by what amounts to raw stupidity is ignorant on the hosts part.
Here she lives in a society where in the palm of her hand she can hold a computer so amazing that she can video chat with someone in the far corners of the earth in real time, she can get in a car and drive 700 miles in a single day, or jump in an airplane and fly literally to any location in the world in 24 hours, hell if she had the money she could hitch a ride to outer freaking space. Is she amazed by that? Is she just constantly thankful and PROUD that her race has made it possible to live both in the coldest and hottest climate on earth with equal comfort?
Apparently not, and why?
Because people don't think, if they even try they so often miss the forest for the trees.
Until people actually use their brains, anything else is futile.
Understanding Negro Worship
There are few things which I find more frustrating then watching White males and women worship blacks. Obviously I have issue with this on multiple levels but casting the jewish push for White women to bed down with blacks thus destroying the White race aside, I would like to focus on the purely superficial level.
Take for example the typical American male today, a beer drinking, at least slightly overweight male who enjoys sports. You see this male often extremely angry to the point of physical violence when his sports team is losing, yet his nation which his forefathers forged by blood and sweat turning a barren land into the most powerful country in the history of the earth, doesn't even warrant a pause for concern or even a passing thought. This is the epitome of decadence, stupidity and laziness. I have no time nor tolerance for such utter spineless, brainless, cowardice fools.
But these morons don't stop at just ignoring their country rotting from the inside out, it's much much sadder than that. In any sport where blacks take part they are constantly glorified by the jewish controlled media. They are as large as the game they play, White girls rush out to bed down with these degenerate thugs, White males rush out and buy their jerseys and sing their praises. Why?
Why are these negroes worshipped? What exactly do they do? They are talented at putting a ball through a hoop? They can run fast? That is literally the extent of their contributions to society at large. They hone these skills on the basketball courts of their section 8 housing complex, and who needs a job when the government amply provides for their family?
The fact that Whites worship these blacks is pathetic enough, but it gets exponentially moreso when you consider the talents, and contributions of Whites to the entire world. Here you have a race of people whose ancestors have sent people to outer space, conquered the earth, tamed any wilderness they attempted, cured nearly all diseases, built skyscrapers, bridges, ships the size of cities, submarines which people can live underwater for months at a time, the internet where people can communicate across the entire planet for just pennies per day I mean the list is so long I'd be an old man before I finished listing the myriad of achievements.
This is like a great inventor, say Nikola Tesla worshipping and being awe struck by animals in a zoo whose only achievement is throwing shit around and making people laugh. It's so utterly asinine that if it weren't a reality I wouldn't be able to believe it.
Of course we know why the jews push us to worship the blacks,
"We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tension. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by the whites, we can mould them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to install in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negroes. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause"
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program For The 20th Century (1912) quoted by Congressman
Abernathy, Congressional Record (1957), p. 8559
It's time to stop, to throw off the years of brainwashing, to hell with the Negro Football League and the Negro Basketball Association, they are all pure rot, a gigantic waste of time, money, and a giant slap in the face to the great men who have come before us and toiled in the sun so that we might not have to.
Take for example the typical American male today, a beer drinking, at least slightly overweight male who enjoys sports. You see this male often extremely angry to the point of physical violence when his sports team is losing, yet his nation which his forefathers forged by blood and sweat turning a barren land into the most powerful country in the history of the earth, doesn't even warrant a pause for concern or even a passing thought. This is the epitome of decadence, stupidity and laziness. I have no time nor tolerance for such utter spineless, brainless, cowardice fools.
But these morons don't stop at just ignoring their country rotting from the inside out, it's much much sadder than that. In any sport where blacks take part they are constantly glorified by the jewish controlled media. They are as large as the game they play, White girls rush out to bed down with these degenerate thugs, White males rush out and buy their jerseys and sing their praises. Why?
Why are these negroes worshipped? What exactly do they do? They are talented at putting a ball through a hoop? They can run fast? That is literally the extent of their contributions to society at large. They hone these skills on the basketball courts of their section 8 housing complex, and who needs a job when the government amply provides for their family?
The fact that Whites worship these blacks is pathetic enough, but it gets exponentially moreso when you consider the talents, and contributions of Whites to the entire world. Here you have a race of people whose ancestors have sent people to outer space, conquered the earth, tamed any wilderness they attempted, cured nearly all diseases, built skyscrapers, bridges, ships the size of cities, submarines which people can live underwater for months at a time, the internet where people can communicate across the entire planet for just pennies per day I mean the list is so long I'd be an old man before I finished listing the myriad of achievements.
This is like a great inventor, say Nikola Tesla worshipping and being awe struck by animals in a zoo whose only achievement is throwing shit around and making people laugh. It's so utterly asinine that if it weren't a reality I wouldn't be able to believe it.
Of course we know why the jews push us to worship the blacks,
"We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tension. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by the whites, we can mould them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to install in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negroes. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause"
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program For The 20th Century (1912) quoted by Congressman
Abernathy, Congressional Record (1957), p. 8559
It's time to stop, to throw off the years of brainwashing, to hell with the Negro Football League and the Negro Basketball Association, they are all pure rot, a gigantic waste of time, money, and a giant slap in the face to the great men who have come before us and toiled in the sun so that we might not have to.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Will Abe Foxman Apologize To Charlie Sheen?
By Rev. Ted Pike 3 Mar 11
In 1918 Vladimir Lenin recorded and sent throughout Russia a phonograph record threatening death to any Russian who revealed the Jewish name of a Bolshevik leader. [1] A photo of the first People's Commissariat at that time reveals the nearly total dominion of Jews over Bolshevism: All five were Jewish. (See Jewish Activists Created Communism)On February 24, actor Charlie Sheen committed an offense that would have sentenced him to death in Jewish-controlled Bolshevik Russia. In an internet radio interview he used the Jewish name (Chaim Levine) of Chuck Lorre, producer of his sitcom. Instantly, "Amerika's" thought crime commissar, ADL head Abe Foxman, sprang into action.
Unlike other public figures attacked with Foxman’s highly nuanced objections, Sheen demands an apology. His attorney Marty Singer says that Lorre referred to himself as Chaim on a vanity card in February and that Sheen's statement was not anti-Semitic. Sheen says he was referring to Lorre's real name "because I wanted to address the man, not the bulls**t TV persona." Sheen himself was given another name at birth. "So you're telling me, anytime someone calls me Carlos Estevez, I can claim they are anti-Latino?"By invoking television producer Chuck Lorre’s Jewish name in the context of an angry tirade against him, Charlie Sheen left the impression that another reason for his dislike of Mr. Lorre is his Jewishness. This fact has no relevance to Mr. Sheen’s complaint or disagreement, and his words are at best bizarre, and at worst, borderline anti-Semitism.
Foxman would be well advised to apologize. In 2001 ADL smeared as anti-Semitic a Colorado filmmaker, William Quigley, whose career depended on good relations with Hollywood. Quigley sued and the court agreed that, since Hollywood was in fact Jewish-dominated, ADL had severely damaged his economic future. ADL was fined $10.5 million, a sum whose interest accrued to nearly $14 million after several years of appeals. (See Jews Confirm Big Media Is Jewish)
On February 25, CBS canceled the final four tapings of Sheen’s sitcom. It could be argued that ADL’s accusations—not Sheen’s attention-getting behavior—is to blame. The smear of “anti-Semitism” could even lead to a boycott by entertainment media for the rest of Sheen's life. The actor may be in an excellent position to sue ADL, perhaps demanding hundreds of millions. If the court agrees that Sheen has been maliciously stereotyped, ADL could suffer financially to a much greater degree than under the Quigley judgment. If Sheen decides to sue ADL, it will be a well-deserved legal whack on the snout. Even if Foxman realizes he has overstepped and apologizes, it will significantly tarnish his authority as speech crimes commissar.
Nuancing Thought Crime
With world criticism raging against Israel's entrenched brutality to the people of Gaza, Foxman and other Jewish leaders are becoming much more extreme and nuanced in their demands that matters Jewish remain a "no free speech zone." They fear that Europe’s anti-Israel mood will spread to conservative leaders like Glenn Beck.
Like Foxman, liberal Jewish religious leaders have denounced Beck for what they consider borderline anti-Semitic inferences. Some 600 primarily Reform (secular) rabbis want Beck fired from FOX. His only crime is calling his enemies "Nazis" or describing abortion deaths as a "Holocaust." Liberal
Jewish propagandists claim that no genocide in history can compare to the evil that Nazis inflicted on the Jews. Beck’s use of "Holocaust" terms thus trivializes the near-deified memory of Jewish dead.
Joseph Stalin authorized the assassination of countless opponents as he climbed the ladder of political power in Russia. The more he purged his enemies, the more sensitive he became to the smallest hint of disloyalty. At the end, a comrade who merely failed to look him straight in the eye was doomed as an enemy of the state. This is the paranoid destiny of America under Foxman, the new high executioner of thought correctness. Many American political and religious leaders are beginning to realize they are in the crosshairs of ADL, vulnerable to the slightest slip of tongue about Judaism or Israel.
What should they do? The opposite of groveling Glenn Beck, who apologized for his true statement that Reform (secular) Jews are primarily political, not spiritual, in emphasis. They should follow the lead of fighters like Helen
Thomas and even the train wreck that is Charlie Sheen. His demand for ADL’s apology may be fueled by “crack courage,” but it is courage nonetheless. It is outrageous that this degenerate addict is virtually the only public figure in modern times to fight back at ADL.
Footnote:
1. Encyclopedia Judaica . “Communism,” p. 798.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Interlocking Directors
Wikipedia has a decent article on the subject, this is just a small sampling of how intertwined the elite are. How tight and cohesive a group they form. Don't delude yourself it is US vs them.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
CLICK TO ENLARGE
US Government Wants Software That Will Create "Fake People" On Social Networks In Order To Spread Propaganda
We know people are sheep, and this would be an effective tool in order to make people go along with what is perceived to be popular opinion. The dirty tricks of this dying empire know no bounds.
The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online.
The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.
Click here to view the government contract (PDF)
According to the contract, the software would "protect the identity of government agencies" by employing a number of false signals to convince users that the poster is in fact a real person. A single user could manage unique background information and status updates for up to 10 fake people from a single computer.
The software enables the government to shield its identity through a number of different methods including the ability to assign unique IP addresses to each persona and the ability to make it appear as though the user is posting from other locations around the world.
Included in HBGary's leaked emails was a government proposal for the government contract. The document describes how they would 'friend' real people on Facebook as a way to convey government messages. The document reads:
Other documents in the leaked emails include quotes from HBGary CEO Aaron Barr saying, "There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas... Using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example."
Additional emails between HBGary employees, usually originating from Barr,
discuss the vulnerability social networking causes.
One employee wrote, "and now social networks are closing the gap between attacker and victim, to the point I just found (via linked-in) 112 females, wives of service men, all stationed at Hurlbert Field FL - in case you don't know this is where the CIA flies all their "private" airlines out of. What a damn joke - the U.S. is no longer the super power in cyber, and probably won't be in other areas soon."
Barr also predicted a steady rise in clandestine or secret government operations to stem the flow of sensitive information. "I would say there is going to be a resurgence of black ops in the coming year as decision makers settle with our inadequacies... Critical infrastructure, finance, defense industrial base, and government have rivers of unauthorized communications flowing from them and there are no real efforts to stop it."
The creation of internet propoganda software is only one of HBGary's controversial activities. According to Wikileaks competetor and occasional collaborator Cryptome.org, several other progressive organizations were intended to be targeted including anti-war activist, anti-torture organizations and groups opposed to the US Chamber of Commerce.
The emails also include a number of other embarrasing entries including the purchase of the book "The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know" from Amazon for $6.76.
The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.
The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online.
The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.
Click here to view the government contract (PDF)
According to the contract, the software would "protect the identity of government agencies" by employing a number of false signals to convince users that the poster is in fact a real person. A single user could manage unique background information and status updates for up to 10 fake people from a single computer.
The software enables the government to shield its identity through a number of different methods including the ability to assign unique IP addresses to each persona and the ability to make it appear as though the user is posting from other locations around the world.
Included in HBGary's leaked emails was a government proposal for the government contract. The document describes how they would 'friend' real people on Facebook as a way to convey government messages. The document reads:
- "Those names can be cross-referenced across Facebook, twitter, MySpace, and other social media services to collect information on each individual. Once enough information is collected this information can be used to gain access to these individuals social circles.
- Even the most restrictive and security conscious of persons can be exploited. Through the targeting and information reconnaissance phase, a person’s hometown and high school will be revealed. An adversary can create a classmates.com account at the same high school and year and find out people you went to high school with that do not have Facebook accounts, then create the account and send a friend request. Under the mutual friend decision, which is where most people can be exploited, an adversary can look at a targets friend list if it is exposed and find a targets most socially promiscuous friends, the ones that have over 300-500 friends, friend them to develop mutual friends before sending a friend request to the target. To that end friend’s accounts can be compromised and used to post malicious material to a targets wall. When choosing to participate in social media an individual is only as protected as his/her weakest friend."
Other documents in the leaked emails include quotes from HBGary CEO Aaron Barr saying, "There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas... Using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example."
Additional emails between HBGary employees, usually originating from Barr,
discuss the vulnerability social networking causes.
One employee wrote, "and now social networks are closing the gap between attacker and victim, to the point I just found (via linked-in) 112 females, wives of service men, all stationed at Hurlbert Field FL - in case you don't know this is where the CIA flies all their "private" airlines out of. What a damn joke - the U.S. is no longer the super power in cyber, and probably won't be in other areas soon."
Barr also predicted a steady rise in clandestine or secret government operations to stem the flow of sensitive information. "I would say there is going to be a resurgence of black ops in the coming year as decision makers settle with our inadequacies... Critical infrastructure, finance, defense industrial base, and government have rivers of unauthorized communications flowing from them and there are no real efforts to stop it."
The creation of internet propoganda software is only one of HBGary's controversial activities. According to Wikileaks competetor and occasional collaborator Cryptome.org, several other progressive organizations were intended to be targeted including anti-war activist, anti-torture organizations and groups opposed to the US Chamber of Commerce.
The emails also include a number of other embarrasing entries including the purchase of the book "The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know" from Amazon for $6.76.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Great Source Of Information On WWII, Hitler and the Third Reich
I don't think any subject exists where more misinformation exists than that of Hitler and Nazi Germany. It is a topic where everyone has an opinion which they think is infallible. These are the people who regurgitate propaganda, have strong views on Hitler yet have never even read the first page of Mein Kampf.
For those of us who enjoy historical study and want to read accounts and speeches from that era straight from the source I don't think you can do better than the following link. I plan on reposting stories and speeches here as time goes on in order to set the record straight and shine light on the Truth. Until then enjoy
The Mein Kampf Project
For those of us who enjoy historical study and want to read accounts and speeches from that era straight from the source I don't think you can do better than the following link. I plan on reposting stories and speeches here as time goes on in order to set the record straight and shine light on the Truth. Until then enjoy
The Mein Kampf Project
Some Very Exciting New Partnerships!
I enjoy doing this site, I've said it many times before. All things being equal though I would rather make money at something I enjoy than not and if I can make money while saving you money it seems like a win win.
Up until this point Amazon is the only advertiser on the site, the banner and the store are commission only and I make a small percentage of anything you purchase when you click on a link from this site to theirs. These new programs work in the exact same way.
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I hope that this can save you money, and I hope that this can help me earn some as well. Here is the best part, you don't even have to see these banner ads! If you are using Firefox or some other major browsers you can (and should) install an addon called Ad Block Plus, it works great and unclutters webpages so you focus only on the content not the ads. If you have any questions on how to install this addon in a browser just email me and I will walk you through it truthinourtime@yandex.ru Once you install Ad Block Plus you can put different websites on a whitelist where if for some reason you want to see their adds you can.
These partnerships are all new and I am still largely unfamiliar with the process, some affiliates will give me coupon codes which if they are good I can pass on to you, but if you are looking for some deals from some of our known affiliates let me know and I may be able to send you some.
Up until this point Amazon is the only advertiser on the site, the banner and the store are commission only and I make a small percentage of anything you purchase when you click on a link from this site to theirs. These new programs work in the exact same way.
Honestly though in many respects these new partnerships with companies such as Advanced Auto Parts and WOOT are more beneficial to you the reader. For example with Advanced I am given coupon codes which are for affiliates only, they won't be printed or advertised anywhere else. I don't know how many of you work on your own vehicles like I do but these codes for 15% off total orders and $30 of $100 dollar orders will be fantastic.
Take $10 off $30, $20 off $50 and $30 off $100 orders at AdvanceAutoParts.com with code A123 (exp. 3/31/11)
Save 15% Off Your AdvanceAutoParts.com purchase with code AAP15OFF (exp. 3/31/11)
I hope that this can save you money, and I hope that this can help me earn some as well. Here is the best part, you don't even have to see these banner ads! If you are using Firefox or some other major browsers you can (and should) install an addon called Ad Block Plus, it works great and unclutters webpages so you focus only on the content not the ads. If you have any questions on how to install this addon in a browser just email me and I will walk you through it truthinourtime@yandex.ru Once you install Ad Block Plus you can put different websites on a whitelist where if for some reason you want to see their adds you can.
These partnerships are all new and I am still largely unfamiliar with the process, some affiliates will give me coupon codes which if they are good I can pass on to you, but if you are looking for some deals from some of our known affiliates let me know and I may be able to send you some.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Julian Assange: "Jewish Conspiracy" To Stop Wikileaks
SOURCE
Julian Assange has blamed a number of journalists for a "Jewish" conspiracy against his whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks, according to the editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop.
In the latest issue of the satirical magazine, Hislop writes that Assange called him on 16 February to complain about an article on Israel Shamir, a WikiLeaks associate in Russia who has denied the Holocaust and has published a string of antisemitic articles.
"He said that I and Private Eye should be ashamed of ourselves for joining in the international conspiracy to smear WikiLeaks," Hislop writes. "The piece was an obvious attempt to deprive him and his organisation of Jewish support and donations, he said angrily, and he knew perfectly well who had written it. He then named a Fleet Street hack who had nothing to do with it."
Hislop adds that Assange went on to claim that Private Eye was "part of a conspiracy led by the Guardian which included journalist David Leigh, editor Alan Rusbridger and John Kampfner from Index on Censorship – all of whom 'are Jewish'".
"I pointed out that Rusbridger is not actually Jewish, but Assange insisted that he was 'sort of Jewish' because he was related to David Leigh (they are brothers-in-law)," writes Hislop.
"When I doubted whether his Jewish conspiracy would stand up against the facts, Assange suddenly conceded the point. 'Forget the Jewish thing'."
Assange denied the allegations in a statement , saying: "Hislop has distorted, invented or misremembered almost every significant claim and phrase. In particular, 'Jewish conspiracy' is completely false, in spirit and in word.
"It is serious and upsetting. Rather than correct a smear, Mr Hislop has attempted, perhaps not surprisingly, to justify one smear with another in the same direction.
"WikiLeaks promotes the ideal of "scientific journalism" – where the underlaying evidence of all articles is available to the reader precisely in order to avoid these type of distortions. We treasure our strong Jewish support and staff, just as we treasure the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share our hope for a just world."
A judge ruled last week that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to answer accusations of rape and sexual assault, bringing to an close the first stage of what is still likely to be a lengthy legal battle.
Assange, who has been fighting extradition since being arrested in Britain in December, must face interrogation in Sweden on the sex assault claims, ruled chief magistrate Howard Riddle, rejecting arguments that the prosecutor seeking his extradition had behaved illegally and was unqualified to issue a warrant, and that he would not receive a fair trial.
His solicitor, Mark Stephens has insisted that he was "still hopeful that the matter will be resolved in this country. We still remain very optimistic about our opportunities on appeal."
Julian Assange has blamed a number of journalists for a "Jewish" conspiracy against his whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks, according to the editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop.
In the latest issue of the satirical magazine, Hislop writes that Assange called him on 16 February to complain about an article on Israel Shamir, a WikiLeaks associate in Russia who has denied the Holocaust and has published a string of antisemitic articles.
"He said that I and Private Eye should be ashamed of ourselves for joining in the international conspiracy to smear WikiLeaks," Hislop writes. "The piece was an obvious attempt to deprive him and his organisation of Jewish support and donations, he said angrily, and he knew perfectly well who had written it. He then named a Fleet Street hack who had nothing to do with it."
Hislop adds that Assange went on to claim that Private Eye was "part of a conspiracy led by the Guardian which included journalist David Leigh, editor Alan Rusbridger and John Kampfner from Index on Censorship – all of whom 'are Jewish'".
"I pointed out that Rusbridger is not actually Jewish, but Assange insisted that he was 'sort of Jewish' because he was related to David Leigh (they are brothers-in-law)," writes Hislop.
"When I doubted whether his Jewish conspiracy would stand up against the facts, Assange suddenly conceded the point. 'Forget the Jewish thing'."
Assange denied the allegations in a statement , saying: "Hislop has distorted, invented or misremembered almost every significant claim and phrase. In particular, 'Jewish conspiracy' is completely false, in spirit and in word.
"It is serious and upsetting. Rather than correct a smear, Mr Hislop has attempted, perhaps not surprisingly, to justify one smear with another in the same direction.
"WikiLeaks promotes the ideal of "scientific journalism" – where the underlaying evidence of all articles is available to the reader precisely in order to avoid these type of distortions. We treasure our strong Jewish support and staff, just as we treasure the support from pan-Arab democracy activists and others who share our hope for a just world."
A judge ruled last week that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to answer accusations of rape and sexual assault, bringing to an close the first stage of what is still likely to be a lengthy legal battle.
Assange, who has been fighting extradition since being arrested in Britain in December, must face interrogation in Sweden on the sex assault claims, ruled chief magistrate Howard Riddle, rejecting arguments that the prosecutor seeking his extradition had behaved illegally and was unqualified to issue a warrant, and that he would not receive a fair trial.
His solicitor, Mark Stephens has insisted that he was "still hopeful that the matter will be resolved in this country. We still remain very optimistic about our opportunities on appeal."
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