After twelve gruelling months surviving Polar bear attacks and being under constant threat of British Commando ambushes, they were ordered to destroy all their scientific and communications equipment.

Bolshevik Polar bears, to be exact.

Further reading: ‘The Last German Surrender’

‘The last Nazi to surrender in WW2: Incredible untold story of the final German soldier to hand over his pistol after spending the war battling polar bears in an Arctic weather station’

For the book on this subject, see Wilhem Dege’s War North of 80: The Last German Arctic Weather Station of World War II.

I figured I'd ask here since you comrades know history and are on talking terms with reality, unlike a lot of stuff that is available to read online. I am really looking for a short answer, although I know there were many factors playing out over a long long time. Just the bullet points, if you please.

Edit: Thank you for these awesome answers, a lot of exactly what I was looking for and a lot of new directions to explore. Y'all really are the dope-ass bear B-)

Along with the First Reich, the Second Reich, the British Empire, the late Ottoman Empire, and Imperial America, the Kingdom of Italy influenced the Third Reich’s colonialism. However, Patrick Bernhard takes this a step further: he argues that not only did Fascist Italy’s colonialism influence the Third Reich, but that the Third Reich consciously and directly modelled its colonialism after Italian Fascism’s:

Whatever mistrust or racial prejudice may have existed against the Italians, it did little to dampen German interest in Italian settlement efforts. And this interest went far beyond the borrowing of knowledge in relation to the urban planning of settlements. It involved an intense intellectual dialogue, the importance of which for the [Third Reich] can hardly be overestimated.

[…]

Around the world the settlement programme of the Italian Fascists stirred great interest.⁴⁴ In Great Britain, for instance, it was lauded not only for being carried out ‘on the strictest scientific lines’. As its purpose was social and political rather than ‘purely economic’, it also differed fundamentally from anything that had previously been put ‘into large‐scale operation’, the British agriculturalist and director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Edward John Russell, said in 1939.⁴⁵

The American Ruth Sterling Frost put it more bluntly: what made Fascist Italy’s colonization scheme so unique was its ‘utopian quality’ in terms of reshaping the nation, she wrote in one of the U.S.A.’s most renowned geography journals.⁴⁶ This fascination with the massive state‐run colonization project of Fascist Italy went so far that British crofters, who wanted to improve their economic situation, asked for permission to settle in Libya as colonists.⁴⁷

In Germany, the interest in Italian colonialism was even greater. From its inception the [German Fascist] movement was deeply fascinated by Italian colonial activity in North Africa. In the Weimar Republic the NSDAP dedicated numerous illustrated articles in their publications to Africa italiana, and at party rallies it presented slideshows of Italy’s achievements in Africa.⁴⁸ The [NSDAP] sang much praise for the modern and orderly planning of Italy’s new colonial cities, lauding their geometric street layout, public buildings, and excellent social facilities.⁴⁹

The ideology underlying the Italian settlement effort resonated with [NSDAP] members, who saw it as an example of how their own racial and expansionist aspirations could be realized.⁵⁰ Clearly, Africa italiana served as a prism through which the German [anticommunist]s entertained their own visions of empire.

The German [bourgeoisie] had been dreaming of a new German Reich and Lebensraum in the East since the nineteenth century, but this vision had remained a distant fantasy. The Treaty of Versailles had forced the cession of large swaths of territory in the East, and this loss had been highly traumatic.⁵¹

With their colonial policy the Italians had managed to at least partially achieve that which the German right‐wing had long sought, thus lending new momentum to German irredentism and expansionist ambitions. The drawing of parallels between Italian colonialism and a ‘German East’ was additionally facilitated by the fact that Poland had long been the object of colonial aspirations for the German [bourgeoisie], as new research has shown.⁵²

The [German Fascists] were quick to grasp the propaganda value of Italian colonial settlement. Touting Mussolini’s ‘brilliant’ successes was not only a way to stir up mass anger about an ‘inept’ Weimar Republic that had ‘acquiesced’ to the loss of German colonies under the Treaty of Versailles. The [German Fascists] also believed that Italy’s violent expansion on the African continent had helped to promote the ‘permanent mobilization’ of the Italian population, one of the key features of [Fascism].⁵³

The Völkischer Beobachter stressed in 1927 that Italy had been at war since the 1922 March on Rome.⁵⁴ In establishing dominion over North Africa, the party newspaper concluded, Italy had instilled a ‘warrior spirit’ in its people.⁵⁵

The beginning of Italy’s massive colonization programme in 1938 was keenly watched in [the Third Reich]. The degree of attention devoted to this programme in [the Reich] is particularly notable because it occurred at a time when, according to conventional interpretations, [German Fascism] no longer viewed Italy as a rôle model.⁵⁶ In this connection older studies often cite events in Austria, which was annexed by [Berlin] in 1938. These studies argue that Mussolini was presented with a fait accompli, leading to disputes between the régimes.⁵⁷

But this narrative suffers from two problems: Recent works in diplomatic history show that Mussolini had accepted Austria as a [Reich] satellite as early as 1936, and spoke of the ‘common destiny’ shared by the two régimes, which he said should trump points of dispute.⁵⁸ Furthermore, at the expert level, the primary sources corroborate the view of continued good relations between the régimes.

Not only did numerous newspapers⁵⁹ and books enthusiastically report on [Fascism’s] successes in Libya and Abyssinia; between 1938 and 1941, more than 20 large monographs were published, among them studies by renowned authors such as Louise Diel, a journalist who published extensively on women as well as on Italian Fascism.⁶⁰ More important, German offices and administrators charged with planning policy for the East started collecting and assessing information about Italy’s colonial activities in Africa.

This included Hermann Göring’s Four‐Year Plan organization, Robert Ley’s German Labour Front (DAF), the German Academy for Building Research (a research unit in the Reich Labour Ministry), the Minister of Agriculture Walter Darré, and, most important, the Planning Department in Himmler’s Reich Commissariat for the Strengthening of Germandom.

The Planning Department of the Reich Commissariat — the central [Reich] organization for planning resettlement in the eastern territories — was headed for years by the young agronomist Konrad Meyer, who became the chief architect of the infamous Generalplan Ost. Meyer also published the planning journal Neues Bauerntum, which carried several richly illustrated articles about Italy’s colonization programme when plans for the eastern territories were still in their infancy.⁶¹

Information on Africa italiana was collected in numerous ways, including the systematic analysis of Italian literature; scholarships to study Italian methods of colonization awarded by research‐funding institutions such as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (of which Meyer was vice president); diplomatic trips; and scientific fieldwork.

To learn more about Italy’s colonial settlement programme, Wolfgang Spakler, the German Labour Attaché to the German Embassy in Rome, accompanied the first 20,000 Italian settlers from Genoa to their new homes in Libya in the autumn of 1938. There, the young diplomat not only paid a visit to some of the new villages, but also had the opportunity to speak to governor Italo Balbo — a flying ace on friendly terms with Göring — about Italy’s colonial plans.

Immediately after his return to Rome, Spakler sent a report about his journey directly to Franz Seldte, the [Reich’s] Minister for Labour. As Seldte explained, he had a ‘special interest’ in the making of the [Fascist] colonial Empire.⁶² Konrad Meyer also sent staff to undertake fieldwork, particularly in Libya.⁶³ Günter Wolff, one of his closest colleagues, travelled in March 1939 with a delegation of more than 20 German scholars, journalists and Party representatives to Tripoli, where they inspected the ‘settlement work achieved last year’.⁶⁴

While in Libya, Günter Wolff came to believe that Italy’s experiment would go down in history as a model for large‐scale colonization.⁶⁵ Finally, colonialism was so important to the Reich Commissariat that it organized special training programmes for its staff; knowledge on Africa was thus spread within Himmler’s planning apparatus.⁶⁶

The available sources show clearly that the information gathered on Africa italiana was used primarily for planning activities in Eastern Europe. In 1940, Hans Thierbach, a settlement expert at the German Institute for Foreign Relations, another [Fascist] think tank,⁶⁷ wrote:

The enormous colonization tasks facing us in the Eastern territories, and perhaps one day in the African colonies, oblige us to observe closely others’ colonization methods and to investigate their successes and failures so we can provide a critical analysis of their potential. Italy’s experiments are of particular interest to us since [its] Fascist state has many features in common with [German Fascism].⁶⁸

(Emphasis added.)

From Bernhard’s ‘Borrowing from Mussolini: The Third Reich’s Colonial Aspirations in the Shadow of Fascist Italy’s Expansionism’ (mirror):

Yet the one to praise [Fascist Italy’s] war crimes the most was Rudolf von Xylander, a retired Reichswehr colonel and military historian. Von Xylander, who was an early advocate of Italo‐German reconciliation after the First World War,⁸⁵ published a book in 1937 on the Abyssinian conflict, which he called the ‘first modern war of annihilation on colonial soil’.⁸⁶ Using this phrasing, von Xylander did not mean to accuse [Fascist Italy] of genocide. Rather, he saw it as a compliment.

The term ‘war of annihilation’ (Vernichtungskrieg) referred to the complete destruction of the enemy and its erasure as a socio‐political force.⁸⁷ According to von Xylander, in this sense [Fascist] Italy’s war effort was exemplary, including its use of poison gas and forced deportations.

As an instructor von Xylander had an opportunity to propagate his knowledge of [Fascist] methods in Abyssinia; he taught not only at the Military Academy in Berlin, but also at the German Institute for Foreign Relations, where the future political élite of the [Third Reich] was being trained. There, von Xylander and other experts on Italy gave courses on ‘people and space within the Fascist Empire’.⁸⁸

Sports fact: Did you know Chauncey was an actual rat?

How many of us were already aware that Slovakian anticommunists were involved in the ‘German’ invasion of Poland? Not many, I suspect; I have almost never seen anybody even mention this. Fewer of us still must be familiar with the details.

One could justify this obscurity by claiming that the Slovakian anticommunists’ contributions to the invasion were ‘unimportant’ and therefore trivial, or that the Slovak Republic was nothing more than a de facto German state, but neither of those interpretations is convincing. Quoting James Mace Ward’s Priest, Politician, Collaborator, pages 191–2:

Tiso’s increased confidence showed in his dealings with Germany. In talks for implementing the Protection Agreement, the Slovaks grew stubborn, pushing the [Third Reich] to accept narrow interpretations of the text and dragging out negotiations. Tiso’s government, among other things, wanted [the Wehrmacht] in Slovakia withdrawn or, at the least, Slovak troops permitted into the Schutzzone.²⁰²

In one important conflict, Tiso won. The German High Command preferred a wartime Slovak army of only 50,000 men. He held out for three times more. Needing Slovakia as a staging ground for war on Poland, Hitler all but gave in, agreeing to a 125,000‐man limit. Otherwise, the High Command got almost all of their demands. In addition, Tiso’s régime was browbeaten into creating a Central Security Service.²⁰³

[…]

On 1 September, the first day of the Second World War, Slovak troops marched alongside German ones into Poland. During the campaign, Slovakia mobilized over 115,000 reservists, placing over 50,000 in operational units.

This act of war took place without the approval of the Slovak parliament, as constitutionally required. Tiso later claimed that he had not authorized the invasion, instructing Slovak soldiers instead only “to occupy” the border.²⁰⁷

General Čatloš told a different story, according to which the Germans at the last minute broke their promise to leave Slovak troops behind. Although Čatloš initiated the advance, he sought approval from Tiso, but the president left him hanging until the deed was done.²⁰⁸ Čatloš, like Tiso, was often an unreliable postwar witness. The general had actually been eager for action and gave orders to advance hours earlier than his story allowed.

But Tiso also had reasons for wanting to participate in the advance, especially his desire to strengthen the [Third Reich’s] commitment to Slovakia.²⁰⁹ Even though the testimony of both men thus must be discounted in part, Čatloš’s version fits Tiso’s pattern of shifting responsibility onto others while claiming ignorance.

The president knew that Hitler often broke promises. Yet Tiso neither sought reassurances that his troops would sit out the invasion nor devised command mechanisms to ensure that they did. Instead, he positioned himself to be surprised and ostensibly subordinated to events.²¹⁰

This, my beloved students, was the real joint invasion of Poland in 1939.

Pictured: Wehrmacht soldiers and Slovakian soldiers showing good relations.

Quoting Břetislav Nakládal & Charles K. Kliment’s Germany’s First Ally: Armed Forces of the Slovak State, 1939–1945, page 61:

War with Poland — September 1 – October 1, 1939
Poland appropriated certain Slovak territories during the Munich crisis in September 1938. This gave the Slovak government a needed pretext to take part in the planned [Reich] invasion of Poland.

On August 23, 1939 Lt. Colonel Malár was named a commander of the Polish–Slovak border area. On August 24, all units were placed on war footing and their transport to the north began. Members of the Hlinka's Guard, beginning from August 24, replaced the army units on the Hungarian border and freed them for the oncoming campaign. On August 26, three classes of reservists were called to arms, augmented by another five classes on August 30.

What you are about to read is a striking example of fascist coordination; nothing comparable to this happened under the neutrality between the German Reich and the Soviet Union. Page 62:

On September 1, 1939 the Slovak Army had 13,035 men, 88 NCOs and 228 officers. The mobilization filled the ranks to 49,782 men, 291 NCOs and 1,232 officers. The headquarters of the Slovak Field Army was set up in Spišská Nová Ves. Troops were moved up to the Polish border on August 30.

The Slovak sector was part of the German Army Group South and specifically the 14th Army of General von List with its five infantry, three mountain, two Panzer and one light divisions. The Slovak army’s task was to protect the Eastern wing of the 14th Army and prevent Polish army penetration into Slovakia. It was assigned a Wehrmacht liaison staff of 120 members, led by General Ernst von Engelbrecht.

The Slovak army group BERNOLÁK was deployed as follows:

1st Division “Jánošík” (Commander Colonel Anton Pulanich) was in the area Spišská Nová Ves ‐ Prešov, 2nd Division "Škultéty" (Commander General Alexander Cunderlík) in the area Brezno nad Hronom ‐ Poprad, and the 3rd Division “Rázus” (Commander Lt. Colonel Augustin Malár) was in the border area east of the High Tatra Mountains. At the same time, the Slovak Government gave its approval for Wehrmacht formations to use Slovak territory for the planned invasion of Poland.

The Poles were aware of the concentration of the [fascist] armies on their border, and sent parts of the 5th and 10th Corps to the border area as army “Karpaty”. These were mainly infantry units with no armor and very little artillery, as all the available armor, artillery and cavalry units have been transferred to the Sanok area.

The 2nd Division was reinforced with an armored company, consisting of a platoon of four armored cars and a platoon of three LT vz.35 tanks. Another three OA vz.30 armored cars were assigned to a cavalry reconnaissance unit.

The war began on September 1, 1939. The Slovak infantry started their attack at 5.00 and quickly retook the former Slovak villages Javorina and Podspady. The 1st Division took Zakopané and penetrated about 30 km in the direction of Nowy Targ, but already by September 9 returned to Slovakia. The 3rd Division joined the German XVIII Mountain Corps and attacked in the direction Jaslo ‐ Krosno ‐ Sanok and fought several encounters with the Polish army. Its penetration was between 60 and 90 km deep.

On September 2, the leading Slovak units were on the line Bialowodska Dolina ‐ Javorina ‐ Jurgov ‐ Niedzice. Four of the armored cars, augmented by a cavalry squadron, were sent to Tylicz, which they reached on September 3. All four cars reached the main square but had to withdraw in the face of strong resistance and lack of support from the accompanying cavalry.

Slovak Army losses (per page 64): 18 dead, 46 wounded & 11 missing.

Pictured: A platoon of LT vz.35 tanks in Poland, 1939. (The requisitioned civilian car in front is the Tatra Type 57 two‐seater with a rumble seat.)

Page 65:

The army participated in a large parade in Zakopané, and in Poprad, Spišská Nová Ves and other Slovak towns Slovak and [Reich] soldiers were decorated. Adolf Hitler decorated General Catloš and two other Slovak officers with the Iron Cross and sent a telegram of appreciation to President Tiso, who replied that the Slovak nation will never let the Führer down.

Later, on March 14, 1941, he proclaimed: “We remember that it was the German army led by Adolf Hitler which allowed the birth of our (Slovak) army. We remember that and we know if the German army will be victorious, it would form the basis of our future. Thus we hope for its victory and are willing to lend a helping hand.”

(Emphasis added in most cases.)

There is plenty more that I would like to discuss, most notably the Fascist colonization of Poland, but for the sake of brevity I chose to focus on the Slovak Army’s contributions.

The Biafra Zionist Front (BZF), formerly known as the Biafra Zionist Movement[1] and also known as the Biafra Zionists Federation,[2] is a group agitating for the restoration of Biafra and its independence from Nigeria. The movement's purpose is the actualization of the sovereign state of Biafra along precolonial lines.

The group claims to be supported by Israel and the United States and explicitly relates its cause to the Zionist movement.[3]

Anyone have socialist analysis of the history of Nigeria, because stumbling across this definitely got me wonder wtf has been going on there over the years. From my vague and brief reading, seems like another Euro-colonialist strategy of escalating ethnic tensions to maintain dominance via instability.

This is also such a weird historical moment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Benin_(1967)

The Republic of Benin was a short-lived unrecognized secessionist state in West Africa that existed for seven hours in 1967. It was established on 19 September 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War as a puppet state of Biafra, following its occupation of Nigeria's Mid-Western Region

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/35461155

(Mirror.)

Dr. Arline Geronimus, professor of Behavioral Health and Health Education at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, proposed the concept of “weathering” to explain why people of color in the United States experience deteriorating health at earlier stages of the life course and premature aging at higher rates than white Americans.

According to Geronimus, “weathering” is “a process that encompasses the physiological effects of living in marginalized communities that bear the brunt of racial, ethnic, religious, and class discrimination […]. Weathering afflicts human bodies—all the way down to the cellular level—as they grow, develop, and age in a racist, classist society […]. Weathering is about hopeful, hardworking, responsible, skilled, and resilient people dying from the physical toll of constant stress on their bodies, paying with their health because they live in a rigged, degrading, and exploitative system” (Geronimus 2023, pp. 20–21).

Human bodies naturally produce stress hormones in response to instances of oppression. Continual exposure to such instances of racial oppression results in prolonged elevated stress levels and has detrimental effects on the body, including muscle atrophy, immunosuppression, and premature aging. Geronimus’ research suggests that while the broad spectrum of coping mechanisms exact a protective function for individuals in the short term, in the long term, such strategies ultimately hasten physical senescence (Geronimus 1992).

When Geronimus first introduced her hypothesis in 1992, challenging traditionally accepted explanations for observable deterioration among marginalized populations, it was met with skepticism. However, subsequent research has produced compelling evidence in support of the theory.¹

Historical evidence from the Łódź ghetto lends further credence to the idea that prolonged exposure to a racist society and violence produces a weathering effect in individuals. Widespread individual weathering in the Łódź ghetto, particularly after 1941, culminated in a process of collective weathering that decimated the Jewish community. The historical case study presented below suggests that a broader application of weathering theory could be instructive for understanding the effects of racism on marginalized communities in contemporary contexts.

[…]

Death became a routine part of daily life. And those left behind suffered from accelerated aging and failing health no matter their age. Łódź ghetto survivor Sarah Selver‐Urbach remembered how her father’s death in the fall of 1941 hastened the decline of her paternal grandfather.

In a postwar memoir, Selver‐Urbach wrote: “Following father’s death, my tall, stately grandfather grew stooped; his hair, which had turned grey by father’s grave, became whiter and whiter till his head and long beard looked snow‐white. The permanent pain etched on his face augments further his naturally dignified appearance; it was sad to see him wasting away, he who had been so hale and so tough” (Selver‐Urbach 1984, p. 75). The cumulative effects of starvation, fear, and death were manifest in the greying of the population.

In the Łódź ghetto, physical weathering emerged as a widespread phenomenon that often occurred at a shocking pace. Among the most vulnerable to accelerated aging were the 20,000 German‐speaking Jews from cities in the Reich who were deported from their native lands and forcibly integrated into the Polish‐ and Yiddish‐speaking native Jewish community of the ghetto.

For the newcomers, the reality of occupied Poland was wholly disorienting. Still used to home‐cooked food and other creature comforts from their former lives, in the beginning, they scoffed at the meager portions of thin, watery soup that passed as food in the ghetto. The deportees from the West quickly realized that the material conditions they had left behind in Berlin, Vienna, and Prague were far superior to those they faced in the Łódź ghetto.

Fellow residents of the ghetto observed that the rate of decline among “foreign” Jews outpaced even the most vulnerable within the native Polish community. In a report for the Daily Chronicle, a collective effort to document [Fascist] injustices against the Jews of Łódź spearheaded by Rumkoswki’s administration, Jozef Klementynowski noted the speed with which Jews from Hamburg, Germany, succumbed to the process of weathering upon arrival in the ghetto.

Klementynowski reported: “Events outpaced time; people changed visibly, at first outwardly, then physically, and finally, if they had not vanished altogether, they moved through the ghetto like ghosts. […] And indeed, it was only half a year, only six months, that had proven to be an eternity for them! Some of the metamorphoses could not be imagined, even in a dream…Ghosts, skeletons with swollen faces and extremities, ragged and impoverished […]” (Dobroszycki 1984, p. 166). Mortality rates among the “foreign” population in the ghetto corroborate anecdotal evidence.

In addition to physical weathering, ghetto residents also reported psychological impacts. Oskar Rosenfeld arrived in the Łódź ghetto in the fall of 1941, a spry and healthy 57‐year‐old. Within just a few months, Rosenfeld noted disturbing changes in his mental faculties in his diary:

I am myself in the grip of the most widespread ghetto disease: dimming of the memory…not being able to remember things just heard, the names just read. There is a flicker in front of the eyes, a drying in the ears, one hits one’s forehead, racks one’s brain, and attempts to conjure up the past. To no avail. (Rosenfeld 1994, p. 93)

“Ghetto disease” became shorthand for the brain fog experienced by so many ghetto inhabitants due to severe, prolonged caloric deficit. Insufficient caloric intake was just part of the problem. Foodstuffs in the ghetto lacked the most basic nutritional value. Jewish doctors working at medical facilities in the ghetto noted with dismay the emergence of “little‐known or disregarded illnesses” in the malnourished ghetto inhabitants, including scurvy, pellagra, and famine edema, which they linked to lack of essential vitamins and minerals in ghetto rations (Ibid., 177–178).

(Emphasis added.)

Aside from showing us how Łódź’s Jews suffered under Fascism, this paper should also be useful for predicting how hundreds of thousands of their Palestinian kin must be suffering under neoimperialism right now: with food, potable water, shelter, sanitation, and healthcare in short supply, it is unfortunately reasonable to suspect that many Palestinians are suffering from the same complications as the inhabitants in the Axis’s ghetti did.

On a minor note, here in Imperial America the word ‘ghetto’ is something that we typically associate with Black communities, not Jews. I was almost surprised that the author did not explicitly mention this, but—as Herman ‘Hesh’ Rabkin crudely indicated to us in an early episode of The Sopranos—the at times eerie historic parallels between the experiences of Jews and Black gentiles are already well known.

Illustration: Postcard from 1945 sold by the Danish resistance to raise money. Text at the top: "Men to be reckoned with". Bottom text: "Thune Jacobsen: It is a priceless good that the administration of justice remains on Danish hands" and below that: "Price: 25 øre. The proceeds of the sale goes to he fight against fascism".

The Danish official most responsible for the persecution of communists during and before WWII was Eigil Thune Jacobsen, first as a senior police official and from 1941 as Minister of Justice.

This is my translation of an article from the independent media Arbejderen about Thune Jacobsen.

Thune Jacobsen – A Zealous Servant of the Nazis

First National Police Commissioner, later Minister of Justice during Denmark’s occupation. Thune Jacobsen was exceptionally diligent in his pursuit of Danish communists. As early as 1928, while heading the criminal investigation department, Jacobsen established an extensive registry of communists.

In his 2016 Constitution Day speech, then-Minister of Justice Søren Pind claimed the ban against the communists enacted on June 22, 1941, had "pushed the limits of the constitution," and thereby tried to explain that Danish politicians, under "extraordinary circumstances," might need to impose bans — that could later be reversed — if it is in the state’s interest.

Forty-two days before the law enabling the arrests took effect, Thune Jacobsen, LL.M. assumed office as Minister of Justice.

Section 2 of The Communist Law, Law No. 349, August 22, banning communist associations and activities, was repealed after the end of the occupation. But that changed nothing for the Danish communists who were murdered in the Stutthof concentration camp or who returned with scars on body and soul.

One of those killed was Harry Valdemar Kiel Jensen, who perished after a brief illness in Stutthof and who, following that day's cremations, became one of those whose ashes were used to fertilize strawberries in the Nazis’ private greenhouses. Another was Arne Sode who was beaten to death by a kapo at age 28. A third was Eske Sørensen who survived the camp and who returned to Denmark only to die from typhus a few days later. The list of victims is long.

From National Commissioner of Police To Minister

The architects behind the internments, imprisonments, and deportations to Stutthof sat in the Christiansborg Palace, where a unanimous parliament on August 22, 1941, passed the Communist Law with retroactive effect from June 22 of the same year. Unanimous because none of the three communist members of parliament were able to attend the session at that time.

One of the three, Martin Nielsen, had been arrested at his home on June 22 and was therefore already interned at the Horserød Camp. Alfred Larsen was also caught the same day but escaped at the Copenhagen Central Train Station and remained underground throughout the occupation and joined the Freedom Council later on. Communist Party chairman Aksel Larsen wasn’t caught and arrested until November 1942.

Already as chief of the criminal investigation department from 1926 Thune Jacobsen began compiling an extensive registry of communists.

At the police's – very thorough – arrest of the communists, prime minister Thorvald Stauning commented: "The things that are demanded from the German side must be done", and then-Minister of Justice, the judge Harald Petersen had no objections.

Nineteen days after the internment of the communists – and 42 days before the passing of the law that made the arrests possible – Thune Jacobsen, LL.M. takes over as Minister of Justice and his tenure had a grim impact on many of the imprisoned communists, who had done nothing illegal but who fell victim to the dirty policies of the collaboration government.

After the end of the occupation Thune Jacobsen attempted to explain his actions using the same "logic" as Søren Pind: That "extraordinary circumstances" can justify legislation and sometimes democracy must compromise with citizens' rights "if it is in the interest of the state". Thune Jacobsen would like to have been charged in an impeachment trial but that didn't happen and in return he wrote his defense "On A Uriah's Post" in 1946.

Registered Communists

Thune Jacobsen – On A Uriah's Post – 1946: "Following the liberation the Communist Law has lapsed and is thus now a thing of the past."

Thune Jacobsen was the responsible minister when the Communist Law was passed on August 22, 1941, but already as chief of the criminal investigation department in Copenhagen from 1926 he began (in 1928) to college an extensive registry of communists and their activities.

He and select employees continued their illegal registrations when he assumed office as National Police Commissioner in 1938. The various entries were based on activities ranging from putting up posters, attending meetings, contributing to Arbejderbladet, standing for local elections, trade union activity, being listed as a Spanish Civil War volunteer, participating in a DKP celebration, and more.

If the state had not put the communists under protection, the Germans would have arrested them.

• Thune Jacobsen

On February 21, 1947 the communist MPs Martin Nielsen and Robert Mikkelsen handed in evidence of 60,000 registrations of communists to the parliamentary commission set up to investigate whether ministers or others could be held responsible for their conduct in office during the war. But as expected in the post-occupation whitewash, the final conclusion was that mistakes had been made for which nobody could be held responsible.

The parliamentary commission consisted of politicians, tasked with investigating themselves or their former colleagues. The communist Martin Nielsen, himself a Stutthof survivor, resigned from the commission in1947 after a few months of participation with the words "they are pissing all over us."

As explanation of his and the government's collaboration with the occupiers, Thune Jacobsen writes: "If the state had not put the communists under protection, the Germans would have arrested them," which inevitably would have suited the elected representatives, so it had not been Danish politicians and a more than eager Danish police arresting and hunting communists for the duration of the occupation. The latter even went so far that they questioned the children of wanted communists who were playing in yards or parks or spent days staking out residences to see if a fugitive dared return to their family for a short visit.

Thune Jacobsen further states in his own explanation that "I found it hard to understand how the people reacted to the arrests with a strong shock and asked myself whether it was possible under the Constitution? Precedents always have a calming effect, and if the people had known that K. K. Steincke implemented the Internment Act of 1925, whereby individuals who, at the time the law came into effect had been sentenced to imprisonment for moral offences and who, without being criminally insane, but had psychopathic traits, could be sentenced to indefinite intermittent within a year from their release. Nobody considered that law unconstitutional."

The Families' Benefactor?

Thune Jacobsen, On A Uriah's Post, 1946: "Care was provided for the families, such that their circumstances were maintained on par with the help provided to the families of those called up for military service."

For posterity, Thune Jacobsen claimed that he cared for the interned communists and their relatives, which was an outright lie. Posterity have shown that there are hundreds and hundreds of letters and requests from worried parents, wives, children, and friends, and conversely, letters from the internees who were anxious about their families' well-being. The state's interments had deprived nearly all families of their provider.

There was not much help to be found at the welfare offices either. Many of the employees were of the opinion that "the communists had made their bed and now they had to lie in it."

Usually, the Minister of Justice took an unreasonably long time before he looked at the letters and answered them and various requests with the standard response 'cannot be complied with,' often signed by Eivind Larsen, Permanent Secretary for Police in the Ministry of Justice– appointed on June 22, 1941. The same Eivind Larsen was appointed Chief of Police in Copenhagen after the end of the occupation.

There was not much help to be found at the welfare offices either. Many of the employees were of the opinion that "the communists had made their bed and now they had to lie in it," and an absolute minimum of aid was paid out. This this did cover rent, but there was no money left for food or other necessities.

The memoirs of Agnes Nielsen, together with those of other relatives of the internees, paint a consistent picture:

Now, troubles started for those of us who were left behind, many of us alone with children. How were we supposed to survive when our provider had been taken from us? At the time, no one knew how we would be treated. It all took a very long time, and many of the women fell ill, suffered nervous breakdowns, and grew desperate. There were so many tragedies.

In The Interest Of The State

Thune Jacobsen, On A Uriah's Post, 1946: "I could not restrict myself to having the small community of the Horserød Camp in mind and not also the needs of the wider society, which I had to take care of."

On the night between August 28 and 29, 1943, the policy of collaboration collapsed, and the German occupiers took over the Horserød camp. 97 communists managed to escape whole 150, of which seven were women, were delivered to Germany captivity and subsequent stay in the Stutthof concentration camp.

It was the perception of all the internees that the Danish government – and particularly the Minister of Justice– would not allow the communists to be handed over to the Germans. Therefore, they remained in the Horserød Camp, awaiting instructions on how to act if the collaboration between the government and the occupying power were to break down.

They prepared themselves to leave the camp at a moment's notice. They waited and waited, bound by the agreement with the Danish authorities and acutely aware that if they acted on their own, reprisals, collective punishment, possibly transfer to the Vestre Prison, or restrictions on mail and visitation, would become a reality, as had happened in previous cases where others had attempted to escape with varying degrees of success. When the clock struck 11:00 p.m. — on the evening of August 28th — they went to bed fully dressed. During the night, at approximately 2:30 a.m., the Germans arrived.

After the liberation, we are faced with the returned communists' grievances over what they had to endure.

• Thune Jacobsen

A single phone call from Minister of Justice Thune Jacobsen could have prevented this. But apparently the Minister of Justice did not think he could restrict himself to having the internees in mind, and furthermore he had also promised the Germans only to release internees with German approval in each case.

At the same time he would put himself in harm's way and additionally the future administrative and legislative governance of the state would be in danger. The same governance he himself aspired to become part of, which he also became.

The paradox inherent in the government's arrest and pursuit of communists on June 22, 1941, "to protect them from German captivity and under Danish guard", was defended by the Minister of Justice a few years later with the explanation that "the purpose of the imprisonments was not only to protect the communists but also to protect the Danish state."

A Zealous Servant

Thune Jacobsen, On A Uriah's Post, 1946: "After the liberation, we are faced with the returned communists' grievances over what they had to endure, and it might be argued that their removal to Germany could not be regarded as the immediate consequence of the camp's takeover by German hands. In fact it only happened a month later. By the way, the communists were not alone in completely undeservedly being subjected to the sufferings of German captivity. I am reminding of the 2,000 policemen who were taken to Buchenwald and of which 84 perished. No one is more willing than I to admit that this law placed great hardships and sufferings on the communists and their relatives, but I object to being singled out as the target for these unreasoned hostile sentiments. The Communist Law served German, but also Danish interests."

That Thune Jacobsen collaborated extensively with the occupiers to keep an eye on the communists even before June 22 1941 goes unmentioned, just as his "defense" doesn't mention the extensive registration he had launched long before the occupation and which was used by Danish police against the communists.

To shed light on these aspects of Thune Jacobsen's activities we must turn to other sources, such as an internal police report on the Danish police's collaboration with the Gestapo dated March 14 1941. An excerpt:

"In accordance with an agreement reached between Vice Police President Kanstein and National Police Commissioner Thune Jacobsen, the National Police Commissioner directed a written inquiry to the head of the German security police, SS-Gruppenführer R. Heydrich, on February 24, 1941. In this request the National Police Commissioner inquired whether the SS-Gruppenführer would be willing to receive Police Director von Magnus and see to it that he could have the opportunity to discuss with relevant authorities that part of the potential communist activity in and outside Germany which might be known to the German police, and which it could currently be of interest for Danish police to gain knowledge of. The fact that the National Police Commissioner has currently deemed it necessary to take initiative in this matter is due, among other things, to the assumption that among the approximately 30,000 Danes currently working in Germany, there must be a number who have communist leanings. This is already evident from the criminal convictions (of Danes sentenced in Germany) concerning Danes, which are reported here by the Danish consular authorities. However, this nevertheless leaves it uncertain here whether they are isolated actions or systematically planned by Danish or other organizations and are thus only part of a greater whole. In this regard it would be valuable to have any potential German information made available."

Later, we can read in the minutes from the meeting in Germany:

"At the request of the National Police Commissioner, I (Von Magnus) undertook an official trip to Berlin from March 17-20, 1941, to discuss various matters concerning communist activity with the relevant German police authorities. In response to the letter of February 24, 1941, from the National Police Commissioner to the head of the German security police, SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, in which the National Police Commissioner had inquired whether the Gruppenführer would receive me for a discussion of the aforementioned matters, notification was given by telephone on March 12, 1941, by Dr. Fest of Der Beauftragte für Fragen der inneren Verwaltung (The Plenipotentiary for Internal Administration) that I could be given the opportunity at any time to conduct the desired negotiations in Berlin.

On the 17th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of March, I subsequently conducted the desired negotiations at the Reich Security Main Office, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin, with: SS-Obersturmführer, Criminal Commissar, Hermann Span; SS-Sturmbannführer, Criminal Director, I.M. Vogt; and Brigadeführer Müller; and on March 21, 1941, discussed with SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich the question of communist legal and illegal work, as well as what efforts could be made in this regard from the police's side. Vogt pointed out that whether the communist work in a country was legal or illegal, all information from the police had to be collected in one place. Considering the political activities transcending national borders, all the gentlemen agreed that a further developed cooperation between the German police and the police in the Scandinavian countries would be a highly desirable measure. Gruppenführer Heydrich expressed his desire to invite a large number of Danish police officers to Berlin for special training at the Reich Security Main Office and was also willing to make German officials available in Denmark, if it was found useful, so that through lectures and instruction they could contribute to the specialized training of those criminal police officers who were to operate in this particular area."

In May 1942, two months before the start of the great deportation action, [an Axis] film crew arrived in the Warsaw ghetto. Its aim was to create anti-Jewish propaganda material showing the allegedly prosperous life of the inhabitants of the gated district, and above all that rich Jews did not help the poor.

[…]

[Axis officials] forced Jews to act out scenes showing that some people in the ghetto lived well, and others starved to death. The “real” scenes from the ghetto looked like that they drove better-dressed Jews to the Szulc’s restaurant at the corner of Nowolipki and Karmelicka Streets. They ordered them to take tables and eat various dishes. Poor, badly dressed Jews were also led into the restaurant and asked those sitting at the tables for help. At the behest of German directors, the richer Jews beat and pushed the poor, [1] recalled Lucjan Gurman, whose account is kept in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute.

[…]

The following I was told about further filming in the ghetto: there is a Jewish restaurant on the corner of Żelazna and Chłodna Streets. Yesterday at 9 am, the Germans took all the waitresses, young girls out of there, put them on the street and made them make cheerful and provocative faces. At the same time, they gathered a group of begging children and ordered them to march in front of selected waitresses with outstretched hands, but these hands received nothing. This was filmed to show that the Jews live in luxury and do not share their goods with the starving.

Then they took the waitresses to the flat of the president [of the Warsaw Jewish Council] Czerniaków at 20 Chłodna Street, seated them at the table and ordered to serve tchem decanters with water, which was to imitate vodka, and other types of dishes. The waitresses had to be cheerful and noisy again. This scene was also filmed. Later, the Germans shot some more pictures in private Jewish apartments, in a house at 6 Chłodna Street and elsewhere. They only filmed nicely furnished apartments. It was supposed to show “the world” that Jews live quite well in the ghetto. And this is to be proof of it. [3]

— Lewin wrote three days later, on May 16.

Four days later, Szmuel Szajnkinder wrote:

20th of May. Tomorrow is the Feast of Shelters. The sun is shining like it does it summer, but it is still cold. People are dressed in half winter clothes. The clock shows 4 pm. The worst hour of the day, when I finish work in the office and come home, where I am waiting for two hungry household members. Neither they prepared dinner for me, nor did I leave them any money for that dinner this morning.

[…]

They also came to film at the popular Szulc’s restaurant on the corner of Nowolipki and Karmelicka, where before the war there was a ‘nice company’ nest. They called people from the street, seated them at tables, ordered them to order the best dishes and filmed… Then they lined up a row of ragged tramps in front of the entrance, and a fat, elegantly dressed Jew with a cigar stuck in his mouth had to walk through this line and… spit on them. They photographed… circumcision, a Friday evening was staged.

Yet many different versions and variants of these events could be heard in the city. Now they are filming at “Adaś”. Previously, they were in “Sztuka”, a “better” place at 2 Leszno Street, and on a brand new, luxuriously decorated beach on the ruins of 26 Leszno Street. They filmed everywhere. They walk everywhere with Jewish traitors and denunciators doing them favors…

What are they doing this for? For whom? No one knows. However, it feels like nothing good will come of it. People only ask why they are not filming the “departure point” at the corner of Karmelicka and Leszno Streets, where yesterday a gendarme smashed with a rifle the head of a 10-year-old Jewish boy who was running with 3 or 5 kilograms of potatoes.

Why do they not film Pawiak [prison], where the sounds of shots are constantly heard, or Więzienna Street [Prison Street], where they catch passing Jews, transport them at Pawiak and inflict barbaric, monstrous (really) suffering on them? Why don’t they film a car that often drives Karmelicka Street and kills innocent passersby? Why don’t they film the wall in front of the Iron Gate, where the monster shoots Jews every day for breakfast and prides himself on being the best shooter of all German pilots? He has already shot 171 Jews. Why aren’t they filming policemen who walk down the street and beat them, kicking Jewish pedestrians?

Why? This single word embodies the cry of despair of tens of thousands [of Jews], clotted blood, suffering beyond human strength and pain, hunger and poverty. Why and what for? […] Also the film, which is now being shot and edited, will not provide any answers to these questions. [4]

On June 11, Jechiel Górny wrote:

Today, around 2.30 pm, several Jewish policemen came to the bakery of Goldfarb and Frasz at 16 Pawia Street and demanded 5 loaves of bread for the Jewish Police Headquarters. According to the order of the German authorities, they explained, this bread must be delivered to 18 Pavia Street, where a film is being shot. At 18 Pawia Street, dozens of Jews were already gathered — mainly Hasidic types, with beards and sidelocks. Plates with fish, brought from the “Szulc” restaurant in Karmelicka Street, were placed on the tables. Germans with cameras were standing in the corners of the room, taking pictures. The Jewish policemen reported that the film made in the ghetto was financed entirely by the Jewish community. [5]

(Emphasis added.)

Quoting ‘The Taste of Life in the Ghetto #14. “Adaś” Restaurant – 19, Leszno Street’:

The picture depicted by Różycki was also solidified to a certain extent in the form of propaganda scenes of a film which the [Axis] made in the ghetto. The actors were usually randomly chosen people, caught in the middle of the street and forced to take part in this gruesome undertaking.

Samuel Puterman recalled it in his diary: “The guests were supposed to eat a lot, voraciously, and wash down the food with alcohol. They were filming waiters, bustling around the tables, laden with trays, on which gourmet delicacies were piled up. […] They photographed the general view of the crowded room, single ladies who were ordered to lift up their dresses high, […] Jews eating sardines from the can with their fingers, Jews playing under the table with the bare calves of the female companions of the libation, Jews throwing half-eaten goose quarters under the table. The film reel did not show fainting women and the black and blue faces of people hit with a whip.” Samuel Puterman, “The Diary”, Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) Archive, file reference no. 302/27, p. 68.).

Cheers to Zaid Jilani for showing me this.

Further reading: ‘The Warsaw Ghetto, Seen from the Screening Room: The Images That Dominate A Film Unfinished’

‘A practical gaze at the Warsaw Ghetto: revealing excess & lack in A Film Unfinished’. Quote:

As mentioned above, the Warsaw ghetto footage contains images of healthy and well-dressed individuals that are frequently contrasted with those who are emaciated and wrapped in rags and cloths. These repeated contrasts throughout the footage reinforce the [Fascist] myth that the inequality and poor conditions of the ghetto were the product of Jewish hoarding, selfishness, and indifference to their fellow man, rather than a result of [Axis] management.

Quoting Tony Greenstein’s Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of Memory in the Service of State and Nation, pages 178–181:

At the Revisionists’ New Zionist Congress in September 1935 Haʻavara was attacked for only giving 39% of German Jews’ capital back. The main beneficiaries were Zionist institutions such as the JNF [Jewish National Fund].

Kaplansky alleged that without Haʻavara it was possible for Jews with £1,000 to emigrate and that ‘the Transfer Agreement not only did not help the Jews of Germany but did a lot of harm.’ Before Haʻavara Jews could take their wealth out in the form of money, losing about two-thirds in taxes. With Haʻavara, Jews were told that their wealth could only be taken out in goods.¹²¹

In a debate between Berl Locker and Baruch Vladeck, the Bundist editor of the Yiddish Forward and Chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee, Vladeck described how ‘The whole organized labor movement and the progressive world are waging a fight against Hitler through the boycott. The Transfer Agreement scabs on that fight.’

Vladeck contended that ‘the main purpose of the Transfer is not to rescue the Jews from Germany but to strengthen various institutions in Palestine.’ Vladeck termed Palestine ‘the official scab agent against the boycott in the Near-East’.¹²²

Selig Brodetsky, a member of the ZO Executive, argued that Haʻavara wasn’t a breach of the Boycott because there was no foreign exchange transfer. Yet what mattered was not the loss of wealth so much as the need to keep [Fascism’s] economic wheels turning.¹²³

[…]

Today the Zionist justification for Haʻavara is that it was intended to save the lives of German Jews; however, at the time the JA [Jewish Agency] threatened to cut the 22% of Palestine immigration certificates allocated to German Jewry if the ‘quality’ of the immigrants didn’t improve.

The staunchest supporters of the agreement in the Yishuv did not see the saving of lives as an independent goal at that time, rather they sought to extract German Jewish property for the benefit of the Yishuv.¹²⁸

Both Tom Segev and Moshe Zimmerman, stressed ‘the cynical abandonment of German Jewry out of Palestinocentric Zionist considerations’.¹²⁹ The ZE [Zionist Executive] declared that Haʻavara was ‘the sole way of bringing into Palestine the maximum amount of German Jewish capital.’¹³⁰ Zionist activists spoke of ‘saving the wealth’ and ‘rescuing the capital from Nazi Germany.’¹³¹ Hitler boasted that [the German Reich], in contrast to Britain, was aiding Jewish emigration, letting them take the currency required for entry into Palestine.¹³²

Yehuda Bauer conceded:

No one knew then that the holocaust would happen. Nobody knew that a holocaust was even possible… the Germans had not decided on anything like it in the 1930s.¹³³

Abraham Margaliot likewise concluded that ‘none of the individuals who drew up the various proposals perceived the unprecedented danger which lay in store for the Jews under the [Third Reich].’¹³⁴

To suggest therefore that Haʻavara was agreed in order to rescue [the German Reich’s] Jews, when Palestine was not capable of taking them in and when the Zionists themselves did not foresee a future holocaust, is a post hoc rationalisation.

Weizmann was particularly disturbed by the statement of Hilfsverein, the German Jewish aid organisation, criticising Haʻavara and supporting Jewish emigration to South America, South Africa and the Far East. His concern was not saving German Jews but that Palestine might lose them. To Weizmann this was ‘a betrayal of our trust.’¹³⁵

The NYT Berlin correspondent, Frederick Birchall, reported that the World Jewish Economic Conference in Amsterdam passed a resolution warning that the [Fascist] government would proceed from annihilating the Jews economically to annihilating them physically.¹³⁶

Between 1933 and 1939 the Jewish population in Palestine, the Yishuv, increased from 234,967 to 445,457,¹³⁷ of whom 52,600 were from Germany. Only in 1939 did they make up more than half the total immigrants.¹³⁸

The number of Jews who emigrated because of Haʻavara was approximately 20,000, 37% of the total number of German Jewish immigrants.¹³⁹ They entered on A-1 certificates, which enabled unrestricted entry to those bringing in £1,000.¹⁴⁰ Most would have found refuge elsewhere, because they were relatively wealthy.

In 1937 and 1938, as a result of the Arab Revolt, Jewish emigration to Palestine slowed down and Haʻavara was no longer seen as effective.¹⁴¹ After 1937 the USA supplanted Palestine as the main destination for German Jews. 38% of all Germany’s Jewish emigrants gained admission to the USA.¹⁴²

(Emphasis added.)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8901934

August 1st marked the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Accords’ inking. The event’s golden jubilee passed without much in the way of mainstream comment, or recognition. Yet, the date is absolutely seismic, its destructive consequences reverberating today throughout Europe and beyond. The Accords not only signed the death warrants of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia years later, but created a new world, in which “human rights” - specifically, a Western-centric and enforced conception thereof - became a redoubtable weapon in the Empire’s arsenal.

The Accords were formally concerned with concretising détente between the US and the Soviet Union. Under their terms, in return for recognition of the latter’s political influence over Central and Eastern Europe, Moscow and its Warsaw Pact satellites agreed to uphold a definition of “human rights” concerned exclusively with political freedoms, such as freedom of assembly, expression, information, and movement. Protections universally enjoyed by the Eastern Bloc’s inhabitants - such as guarantees of free education, employment, housing, and more - were wholly absent from this taxonomy.

There was another catch. The Accords led to the creation of several Western organisations charged with monitoring the Eastern Bloc’s adherence to their terms - including Helsinki Watch, forerunner of Human Rights Watch. Subsequently, these entities frequently visited the region and forged intimate bonds with local political dissident factions, assisting them in their anti-government agitation. There was no question of representatives from the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, or Yugoslavia being invited to assess “human rights” compliance at home or abroad by the US or its vassals.

As legal scholar Samuel Moyn has extensively documented, the Accords played a pivotal role in decisively shifting mainstream rights discourse away from any and all economic or social considerations. More gravely, per Moyn, “the idea of human rights” was converted “into a warrant for shaming state oppressors.” Resultantly, Western imperialist brutality against purported foreign rights abusers - including sanctions, destabilisation campaigns, coups, and outright military intervention - could be justified, frequently assisted by the ostensibly neutral findings of organisations such as Amnesty International, and HRW.

Almost instantly after the Helsinki Accords were signed, a welter of organisations sprouted throughout the Eastern Bloc to document purported violations by authorities. Their findings were then fed - often surreptitiously - to overseas embassies and rights groups, for international amplification. This contributed significantly to both internal and external pressure on the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia. Mainstream accounts assert the conception of these dissident groups was entirely spontaneous and organic, in turn compelling Western support for their pioneering efforts.

US lawmaker Dante Fascell has claimed the “demands” of “intrepid” Soviet citizens “made us respond.” However, there are unambiguous indications that meddling in the Eastern Bloc was hardwired into Helsinki before inception. In late June 1975, on the eve of US President Gerald Ford signing the Accords, exiled Soviet dissident [anti-semite, fascist sympathizer and anti-communist propagandist] Alexander Solzhenitsyn addressed senior politicians in Washington, DC. He appeared at the express invitation of hardcore anti-Communist George Meany, chief of the CIA-connected American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Solzhenitsyn declared:

“We, the dissidents of the USSR don’t have any tanks, we don’t have any weapons, we have no organization. We don’t have anything...You are the allies of our liberation movement in the Communist countries…Communist leaders say, ‘Don’t interfere in our internal affairs’...But I tell you: interfere more and more. Interfere as much as you can. We beg you to come and interfere.”

In 1980, mass strikes in Gdansk, Poland, spread throughout the country, leading to the founding of Solidarity, an independent trade union and social movement. Key among its demands was that the Soviet-supported Polish government distribute 50,000 copies of Helsinki’s “human rights” protocols to the wider public. Solidarity founder-and-chief Lech Walesa subsequently referred to the Accords as a “turning point”, enabling and encouraging the union’s nationwide disruption, and growth into a serious political force. Within just a year, Solidarity’s membership exceeded over 10 million.

The movement’s inexorable rise sent shockwaves throughout the Warsaw Pact. It was the first time an independent mass organisation had formed in a Soviet-aligned state, and others would soon follow. Undisclosed at the time, and largely unknown today, Solidarity’s activities were bankrolled to the tune of millions by the US government. The same was true of most prominent Eastern Bloc dissident groups, such as Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77. In many cases, these factions not only ousted their rulers by the decade’s end, but formed governments thereafter.

Washington’s financing for these efforts became codified in a secret September 1982 National Security Directive. It stated “the primary long-term US goal in Eastern Europe” was “to loosen the Soviet hold over the region and thereby facilitate its eventual reintegration into the European community of nations.” This was to be achieved by “encouraging more liberal trends in the region…reinforcing the pro-Western orientation of their peoples…lessening their economic and political dependence on the USSR…facilitating their association with the free nations of Western Europe.”

In August 1989, mere days after Solidarity took power in Poland, marking the first post-World War II formation of a non-Communist government in the Eastern Bloc, a remarkable op-ed appeared in the Washington Post. Senior AFL-CIO figure Adrian Karatnycky wrote about his “unrestrained joy and admiration” over Solidarity’s “stunning” success in purging Soviet influence in the country throughout the 1980s. The movement was the “centerpiece” of a wider US “strategy”, and had been funded and supported by Washington with the utmost “discretion and secrecy.”

Vast sums funnelled to Solidarity via AFL-CIO and CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy “underwrote shipments of scores of printing presses, dozens of computers, hundreds of mimeograph machines, thousands of gallons of printer’s ink, hundreds of thousands of stencils, video cameras and radio broadcasting equipment.” The wellspring promoted Solidarity’s activities locally and internationally. In Poland itself, 400 “underground periodicals” - including comic books featuring “Communism as the red dragon” and Lech Walesa “as the heroic knight” - were published, read by tens of thousands of people.

Karatnycky boasted of how the Empire was intimately “drawn into the daily drama of Poland’s struggle” over the past decade, and “much of the story of that struggle and our role in it will have to be told another day.” Still, the results were extraordinary. Writers for Warsaw’s NED-funded “clandestine press” had suddenly been transformed into “editors and reporters for Poland’s new independent newspapers.” Former “radio pirates” and Solidarity activists previously “hounded” by Communist authorities were now elected lawmakers.

Signing off, Karatnycky hailed how Poland proved to be a “successful laboratory in democracy-building,” warning “democratic change” in Warsaw could not be a “a political aberration” or “lone example” in the region. Karatnycky looked ahead to further neighbourhood insurrection, noting AFL-CIO was engaged in outreach with trade unions elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc, including the Soviet Union itself. So it was, one by one, every Warsaw Pact government collapsed in the final months of 1989, often in enigmatic circumstances.

The “revolutions” of 1989 remain venerated in the mainstream today, hailed as examples of peaceful transitions from dictatorship to democracy. They have also served as a template and justification for US imperialism of every variety in the name of “human rights” in all corners of the globe since. Yet, for many at the forefront of Western-funded, Helsinki Accords-inspired Warsaw Pact dissident groups, there was an extremely bitter twist in the tale of the overthrow of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.

In 1981, Czechoslovak playwright and Charter 77 spokesperson Zdena Tominová conducted a tour of the West. In a speech in Dublin, Ireland, she spoke of how she’d witnessed first-hand how her country’s population had benefited enormously from the state’s Communist policies. Tominová made clear she sought to fully maintain all its public-wide economic and social benefits, while adopting Western-style political freedoms only. It was a shocking statement to make for a woman who’d risked imprisonment to oppose her government with foreign help so publicly:

“All of a sudden, I was not underprivileged and could do everything…I think that, if this world has a future, it is as a socialist society, which I understand to mean a society where nobody has priorities just because he happens to come from a rich family,” Tominová declared. She moreover made clear her vision was global in nature - “the world of social justice for all people has to come about.” But this was not to be.

Instead, Eastern Bloc countries suffered deeply ravaging transitions to capitalism via “shock therapy”, eradicating much of what citizens held dear about the systems under which they’d previously lived. They were thrust into a wholly new world, where hitherto unknown homelessness, hunger, inequality, unemployment, and other societal ills became commonplace, rather than prevented by basic state guarantee. After all, as decreed by the Helsinki Accords, such phenomena didn’t constitute egregious breaches of “human rights”, but instead were the unavoidable product of the very political “freedom” for which they had fought.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq685jm1qvno

Epitaph of my poor Jack. SQUIRREL.

Here are the remains of my poor little Jack Who, with a little fall, almost broke his back. And I myself was the occasion of that By letting him be, frigthen’d, by a Cat. I then picked him up, from off the floor; But he, alas never danced a hornpipe more; And many a time have I laugh’d, to see him so cunning; To sit and crack the nuts I gave him so funny; Now in remembrance of his pretty tricks I have had him stuff’d, that I might not him forget; And so he is gone; and I must go, as well as him; And pray God, send I may go, but with little sin; So here is an end, to my little dancing Jack. That will never more be, frighten’d, by a Cat.

Died Sunday Morning, July 23, 1826.

James Hadfield

Bethlem Hospital

Quoting Carroll P. Kakel’s The Holocaust as Colonial Genocide: Hitler’s ‘Indian Wars’ in the ‘Wild East’, pages 53–5:

The [Third Reich’s] long‐term vision for ‘the East’ was a radical and massive ‘depopulation’ and ‘repopulation’ scheme, which required the ‘depopulation’ and expulsion of tens of millions of Slavs (who would be forced into desolate areas, allowed to die of disease or starvation, or turned into slaves for [German Fascism’s] empire) and millions of Jews (who were to ‘disappear’ altogether), to make ‘space’ for ‘repopulation’ by ‘Aryan’ settler pioneers.⁴³

[Fascist] spatial and racial fantasies were embodied in three colonial plans: (1) Hungerpolitik (Hunger Plan or starvation policy); (2) Generalplan Ost (General Plan East); and Endlösung (Final Solution). Taken together, these colonial plans constituted a broad‐based ‘population policy’ for [another Fascist] empire, driven by a genocidal imperative to ‘cleanse’ metropolitan, colonial and conquered ‘living space’ of [Fascism’s] political and racial ‘enemies’.

[Axis] fantasies of ‘depopulation’ were reflected in the so‐called Hunger Plan (Hungerpolitik), a policy mandating the deliberate starvation of millions of Slavs in ‘the East’, in order to feed [Axis] soldiers as well as citizens of the Greater German Reich and [Fascist]‐occupied western Europe.⁴⁴ In the first weeks of 1941, a ‘starvation policy’ was tentatively agreed to by the Reich Ministry of Food and the Wehrmacht military–economic staff.

Formally agreed between the Wehrmacht, key civilian ministries and the [Reich’s] leadership, in the spring of 1941, it envisaged the death by deliberate starvation of some 20 to 30 million Soviet civilians in the western Soviet Union, within the first 12 months of [Axis] occupation. Under the plan, all industrial and urban centres of western Russia, including the region between Moscow and Leningrad, were to be deliberately cut off from their food sources.

As a result, the plan stated, ‘Many tens of millions of people in this area will become surplus to requirements and will die or will be force to emigrate to Siberia.’⁴⁵ Under this colonial‐style ‘starvation policy’, the [Axis] would use the denial of food to non‐combatants as a means of [extermination].

The [Axis] agenda for further Germanization of ‘the East’ was outlined in various wartime drafts of what was called the Generalplan Ost (General Plan East, or GPO),⁴⁶ commissioned by Himmler on 21 June 1941 (the eve of the invasion of the Soviet Union). In line with the Führer’s wish, it envisaged a ‘Germanization’ of the land (but not its inhabitants).

In the GPO, Himmler’s SS planners — drawing deeply ‘from a geographical imagination that was stimulated for decades by visions of the American frontier’,⁴⁷ — put forth far‐reaching proposals for what they called the ‘opening up of the East, aimed at ‘the building up of these [conquered] eastern areas in the shortest possible time into full‐fledged Reich Gaus’.⁴⁸ Tied to past notions of ‘space and race’, the General Plan East was ‘clearly derived from colonial precedents’.⁴⁹

Addressing itself to the non‐Jewish populations of Poland and the Soviet Union, it called for the ‘depopulation’ (by deportation and death) of some 30–40 million Slavs and a ‘repopulation’ by some 10 million German settlers, over a period of 20 to 30 years. As a SS design for a ‘blood and soil’ utopia in ‘the East’, it was a ruthless vision of a radicalized twentieth‐century settler colonialism.⁵⁰

In addition, the GPO linked, both ideologically and practically, the [Axis] drive to ‘Germanize’ eastern Europe with the evolving [Axis] goal to destroy the Jews. The murder of the Jews, moreover, provided an important precedent for the eventual displacement and destruction of other ‘unwanted’ ‘native’ populations.⁵¹ It was, to be sure, a ‘grand design for exterminatory colonization’.⁵² After consultation with Hitler, it was [officially] approved by Himmler in mid‐July 1942.

On 31 July 1941, Himmler’s deputy, SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, had been given a directive by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring to develop a plan for a ‘complete solution of the Jewish question in Europe’. In late November, Heydrich invited 15 top [Axis] civil servants, SS officials and [NSDAP] representatives to an SS guest house on the shore of Berlin’s Lake Wannsee for a ‘general discussion’ of ‘this final solution’.⁵³

At the meeting, held on 20 January 1942, he announced that, ‘with the prior permission of the Führer’, the ‘evacuation of the Jews to the East’ had replaced ‘emigration’ as a ‘further possible solution’. After time in ‘transit ghettos’, the Jews would be ‘transported further to the East’ where they would face annihilation by a combination of forced labour and mass murder.

In effect, Obergruppenführer Heydrich announced a ‘gigantic deportation programme’,⁵⁴ possibly involving some 11 million European Jews (including millions of Jews living in Poland and the Soviet Union, as well as thousands in the smaller Jewish communities in western and southern Europe). It was, to be sure, a [Fascist] fantasy of a Europe ‘cleansed of Jews’ (judenrein).

Various complications meant that the plan underwent only partial implementation, and the casualties were (thankfully) not as high as the Axis anticipated. Even so, the results were nevertheless disturbing. Quoting Professor Catherine A. Epstein’s Nazi Germany: Confronting the Myths, page 142:

In fall 1941, the [Axis] lay siege to Leningrad, eventually killing 700,000 inhabitants, mostly from starvation (today, Leningrad is known by its pre‐1914 name, St. Petersburg). [Axis] administrators also tried to starve the Ukrainian cities of Kiev and Kharkiv. They never, however, fully implemented the Hunger Plan. They worried that it would spark too much resistance. They did not want to battle the Red Army and quell uprisings behind the front lines.

As Joseph Goebbels cynically noted, Germans were “digesting” the occupied areas. Germans, mostly soldiers, consumed prodigious quantities of food produced in the east. At least nine million tons of grain and tens of millions of cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats raised there ended up in German stomachs. This, in turn, meant that German civilians never experienced hunger during wartime. Meanwhile, some 4.2 million individuals in Soviet lands starved to death under [Axis] occupation (including Soviet POWs, excluding Jews).

(Emphasis added in all cases.)