Winston Churchill and the death of Prince George, Duke of Kent

[Peter McKenna]

How did it go? Hmmmmmmm...

You are very welcome to promulgate your post war leftist mythos but it seems fairly apparent that you have done very little research or reading in support of your opinion.

The goal, I believe, was for Germany and Russia to pummel each other into the ground, thereby rendering them economically and militarily impotent as a force for the next x number of years decades. Don't get to fixated on the "baddie" communist threat in this respect. The west financed the Bolsheviks too.

I would argue that absense of evidence is not evidence of absense and in sensitive matters such as these we can be pretty damn sure that an awful lot of evidence is designedly absent.

But even so, there is ample evidence for the west funding Hitler (not to mention the Bolsheviks earlier too) and no one seriously doubts it either. Nor was it "dark forces" but was done quite openly by some of the most well known banks, companies and well known individuals in the USA and UK. Look at the Bush family's involvement in Hitler financing, for example.

Also check out Prof. Antony Sutton's books ("Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler" and also "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" and ""The Best Enemy Money Can Buy" to name just three). Tony sadly died a few years ago but earlier in his life, back during WWII, he was an NCO in the British Intelligence Corp hunting Bormann at Wars end. His four thin volumes on the Skull and Bones were seminal and revealed, for the first time, so far as I am aware anyway, the use of the Hegelian dialectic as a means of covertly manipulating a desired outcome. He also was able to demonstrate that Skull and Bones were linked to the Oxford All Souls set of Milner, Rhodes and co as well as with a German secret society. Meanwhile, it is well established that the Rhodes-Milner Chatham House, are the originating sister organisation of your Council of Foreign Relations, which Tony states has a secret inner core group in exactly the same manner that the Rhodes-Milner was set up. Especially revelavnt to this discussion is his book "How the Order Creates War and Revolution".

Other exceptional authors on the subject are Charles Higham and his books "Trading with the Enemy". He has some other corkers too. For a background on the Rhodes-Milner Group the best beginning source is Carroll Quigley's "Tragedy & Hope" and the "Anglo-American Establishment", but there are a number of books on Milner and the Round Table. What made Quigley's contribution significant was that he was permitted unfettered access to the secret archives of the "Group" and was honest enough (unusually for an insider) to publish some of what he discovered, for which he was thereafter punished -- his publisher refused to publish more than the original print run (2,000 I think it was) despite a high demand, and even went so far as to destroy the printing plates.

There are any number of other books and articles that relate to these subjects.

David

PS, in regard to leaning towards either what is politically "left" or "right" it is as well to remember that both are extremes and their manipulation - individually or collectively - form part of the technical formulae of the mysteries of the occult. You would need to read some of the more obscure books on this subject and they are by no means easily explicated. The best bet, in my view, would be to read Carl Jung's Collected Works with an emphasis on what he has written about the Collective Unconscious. It is heady and difficult stuff but may be of benefit to marshalling greater clarity. That post war US military and intelligence circles undertook such an examination - in all its ramifications it seems - should be cause for the very greatest alarm.

David

I don't want to divert this thread - any further - from its primary purpose. It was set up by John to outline his new theory about the death of the Duke of Kent. The origins of and responsibility for the Second World War - and the hidden agenda (if any) behind the war - are somewhat relevant, but should probably be debated on another thread.

Suffice it to say that while I don't purport to be an expert in this area of history. I do not believe the case has ever been made for propositions made with remarkable frequency on this forum, such as (1) the real agenda behind WW2 was to destroy Russia (not Nazi Germany or independent Imperial Japan); or that (2) Nazi Germany was really a tool (gone wrong?) of sinister western interests; or that (3) Hitler's agenda was 'obviously' to destroy Britain and its Empire and take over the entire world; or that (4) Hitler's economic policy was suicidal.

When Peter makes claims such as "It seems obvious that Hitler and the Nazi 'Elite' believed that war with the West was inevitable. Their financial policies would have been suicidal if not ultimately leading to war", without adducing a shred of evidence, I play the annoying role of asking for the evidence.

It's a role which, on this thread, we should perhaps more appropriately direct to John's serialized exposition.

Regarding which, I tend to agree with Len.

How about bringing on the punchline?

Well, sorry to digress, but I cannot let this one item go...

Sid, are you really saying that the inflationary tactics of the Third Reich which lead to the predictable sacking of countries, such as Poland, Chechoslovakia, and France, et al, as well as its own 'population' (I won't go into who in the population) did not lead ultimately and unavoidably to War with the West?

Where isn't this documented? Try the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Hitler's Volkstaad, etc., I'm sure any of the books referenced above would provide suitable evidence. As far as written documentation where Hitler had cozied up to the West to allay the West's abhorrance at the Third Reich's political practices while preparing for the inevitable war with the West, as there have been many sources for this (try the Unauthorized Biography of Prescott Bush or americanheritage.com, amoung many locations). This seemed to me to be common knowledge.

As Len asked ... all of the above.

Anyway I qualified the statement with the verbiage "It seems obvious" meaning that I drew a conclusion based upon information readily available. To provide a quote to support the "seemingly obvious" conclusion, would be redundant.

Well, re-assured by John that's he's not annoyed at what might have been perceived as a diversion from the thread's main topic, I'll respond in brief.

In general, Peter, you have a very curious way of providing references.

Why not find exact quotations that back your points and cite them, with sufficient detail about where they come from so an interested reader can follow up the original source?

You take a different approach, something like: "it's all in "The Rise & Fall..." or it's all at the americanheritage.com website... go find it yourself!"

I am disinclined to do that, Peter. If you wish to back up points that you claim are 'obvious' or 'well-known', it should be very easy for you to provide specific references.

It is unhelpful not to do so - and can give rise to the suspicion that they may not exist at all. I've been on enough wild goose chases seeking out non-existent source information to be wary of investing too much time on someone else's vague say-so.

What is "Hitler's Volkstaad", by the way? (excuse my ignorance)

You wrote: "Sid, are you really saying that the inflationary tactics of the Third Reich which lead to the predictable sacking of countries, such as Poland, Chechoslovakia, and France, et al, as well as its own 'population' (I won't go into who in the population) did not lead ultimately and unavoidably to War with the West? "

It's an odd question, Peter. I'm, not entirely sure I understand it - or that it really makes sense.

I'll turn it round to try to clarify your claim.

Are you really saying that the 'inflationary' tactics of the Third Reich led to the predictable sacking of countries, such as Poland, Chechoslovakia, and France, et al, - as well the predictable sacking (?) of groups within its own population - and in turn led unavoidably to War with the West?

What do you mean by 'inflationary' in this context?

The following is taken from Hitler’s Volkstaad, published in Germany, note that this was most immediate of items I have read on this topic. There have been many, identifying that Hitler had oversold bonds to raise capitol, which, when called in, could not have been paid, however as Hitler was planning for inevitable war, the overselling of bonds was not an issue. If I'm not mistaken, this was part of Goering's (Schaap's) four year plan. Also Germany was printing money at an hyper-inflationary rate, which means that, unchecked, with too much money floating around, prices would rise at an hyperinflationary rate. Market pricing was controlled by heavy handed oppression, as were the trade union labor rates. I remember reading this information in several sources, although it would take days to cursorily re-read the tremendous volume of materials to find this particular piece of information. I understood it to be common knowledge. Why do you think that Germany sacked Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, the netherlands, scandinavia, etc.? Do you really think that germany had a self sufficient economy capable of funding their own rearmament after the treaty of Versailles and the Great depression, and the sanctions preventing overt arming of their populace?

"When Götz Aly's book Hitlers Volksstaat (Hitler's Volksstaat) was published in Germany a year ago, it apparently struck a nerve among German historians as well as the general reading public. But unlike movies such as Der Untergang (The Downfall) or television features about Albert Speer which were enjoying popularity at the time, Aly's research does not concentrate on the personalities of individual perpetrators during the Nazi dictatorship. Instead, it focuses on the benefits that an average, non-Jewish German wage-earner reaped owing to the policies of the National Socialist regime. Aly's study touches only marginally upon the extent to which the beneficiaries realized the source of their relative prosperity, namely, the rapacious looting of the occupied countries and of Jews who had been deported and murdered. The author leaves it to his readers to draw their own conclusions from the material he presents.

With painstaking diligence the author perused archives and sifted through the records on tax and financial legislation. What were the details of taxation policy during the various phases of Nazi rule? Which income groups were increasingly enlisted to foot the bill for social policies on the one hand and war policies on the other, and at which junctures? How did Hitler's financial policy-makers manage to keep domestic inflation at bay and offload it to the occupied countries?

Aly develops a highly suspenseful approach to examining such supposedly dry questions as financial policy. He scrutinizes the populistic social reforms during the first years of Nazi rule and provides documentation that the broad social safety net for the population exceeded by far the regime's financial resources and therefore soon resulted in excessive debt. The search for new sources of revenue within the country itself led to increased financial repression of the Jewish population, culminating initially in a one billion Reichsmark surcharge, an "atonement payment," that was imposed on Jewish citizens (following the pogrom night of November 9, 1938). As early as December of the same year, however, Göring formulated very concrete steps for converting the assets of German Jews - calculated at some eight billion Reichsmarks - into German State Bonds. The sweep of the plan becomes clear when one considers that even one billion Reichsmarks would already have increased the Reich's revenues by 6 percent.

The author shows how the occupied countries, with the help of well-contrived systems, were saddled with the costs of the occupation and in part also with providing for the German population "within the Reich," thereby wrecking their national economies. Soldiers were issued a type of artificial currency that they could use as tender, for example, in French or Belgian shops. These credit notes were then submitted to the respective national central banks for the ultimate purpose of being redeemed in Germany. Special clearing houses were set up in Berlin which would issue credits for these costs to the occupied countries after the Germans had been victorious. Even young soldiers whose morals were relatively intact found their sense of justice undermined and were corrupted by this system of obfuscation, as Aly demonstrates using the letters that a young Heinrich Böll sent home to his family from France, telling of his hoarding purchases.

Aly researches the various means of financing the national budget that were employed over the entire Nazi period. In addition to the taxation policies mentioned above, he examines the gradually proceeding expropriation and subsequent deportation and annihilation of the Jews, as well as the ransacking of the occupied countries. He proves that the well-known figures such as Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and Himmler were not the only ones to plot and implement the destruction of European Jewry; the regime's financial policy-makers were equally cold-blooded and calculating, as they not only took millions of deaths into account but viewed them as a legitimate means of acquiring additional revenue.

If growing numbers of Jews were deported to Poland shortly after heavy bombing runs on Hamburg, then a clear connection emerges between bombed out non-Jewish citizens and the fully furnished apartments of Jews which now became "vacancies." It is hardly conceivable that no one asked where all the beautiful things came from. It appears more readily believable, however, that average citizens didn't question where the money for expanding social services might have originated. After all, there was no concurrent rise in their tax burden.

Aly's book has been criticized for its central proposition, namely, that the vast majority of average German citizens profited in a personal sense from the crimes of the Nazis. It is said that the author overrates greed as the driving force behind the genocide and thereby assigns too minor a role to the motive of racial hatred. Still, this is not the historian's first book on the National Socialist regime, and he enjoys honing provocative arguments. Since the early nineties he has been publishing works on many different aspects of the Nazi regime, the annihilation of European Jews, and the continuity of certain social elites in German history.

It is no longer necessary to declare that historical explanations must never be one-dimensional. But the ability to portray history, and financial history in particular, in such a suspenseful manner is immeasurably valuable."

[John Dolva]

"...historical explanations must never be one-dimensional."

Apart from all the other considerations, such as the general focus on the rulingclass in this topic, and some references to the working class who are controlled by a declaration of war, one must remember that the progress to WWII was a series of steps not only in what the rulers did but also in how people are subtly manipulated.

There are many stories that relate individal experiences of a before and after period in interpersonal relations between people in the period leading up to the Nazi Dictatorship. This is applicable in all studies of bigotry.

Jane Elliott explores this process in workshops and a number of videos are available whereby one can view the process. TV occasionally air some of these.

http://www.newsreel.org/guides/blueeyed.htm

2. BACKGROUND: JANE ELLIOTT AND THE "BLUE-EYED/ BROWN-EYED" EXERCISE

"Jane Elliott, a pioneer in racism awareness training, was first inspired to action by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. As a third grade teacher in an all-white, all-Christian community, she struggled for ways to help her students understand racism and discrimination. She adopted the "Blue-Eyed/brown eyed" exercise, (in which participants are treated as inferior or superior based solely on the color of their eyes) as a result of reading about the techniques the Nazis used on those they designated undesirable during what is now called the Holocaust."

Edited June 10, 2007 by John Dolva

[Sid Walker]

you[/i] really saying that the 'inflationary' tactics of the Third Reich led to the predictable sacking of countries, such as Poland, Chechoslovakia, and France, et al, - as well the predictable sacking (?) of groups within its own population - and in turn led unavoidably to War with the West?

What do you mean by 'inflationary' in this context?

The following is taken from Hitler’s Volkstaad, published in Germany, note that this was most immediate of items I have read on this topic. There have been many, identifying that Hitler had oversold bonds to raise capitol, which, when called in, could not have been paid, however as Hitler was planning for inevitable war, the overselling of bonds was not an issue. If I'm not mistaken, this was part of Goering's (Schaap's) four year plan. Also Germany was printing money at an hyper-inflationary rate, which means that, unchecked, with too much money floating around, prices would rise at an hyperinflationary rate. Market pricing was controlled by heavy handed oppression, as were the trade union labor rates. I remember reading this information in several sources, although it would take days to cursorily re-read the tremendous volume of materials to find this particular piece of information. I understood it to be common knowledge. Why do you think that Germany sacked Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, the netherlands, scandinavia, etc.? Do you really think that germany had a self sufficient economy capable of funding their own rearmament after the treaty of Versailles and the Great depression, and the sanctions preventing overt arming of their populace?

"When Götz Aly's book Hitlers Volksstaat (Hitler's Volksstaat) was published in Germany a year ago, it apparently struck a nerve among German historians as well as the general reading public. But unlike movies such as Der Untergang (The Downfall) or television features about Albert Speer which were enjoying popularity at the time, Aly's research does not concentrate on the personalities of individual perpetrators during the Nazi dictatorship. Instead, it focuses on the benefits that an average, non-Jewish German wage-earner reaped owing to the policies of the National Socialist regime. Aly's study touches only marginally upon the extent to which the beneficiaries realized the source of their relative prosperity, namely, the rapacious looting of the occupied countries and of Jews who had been deported and murdered. The author leaves it to his readers to draw their own conclusions from the material he presents.

With painstaking diligence the author perused archives and sifted through the records on tax and financial legislation. What were the details of taxation policy during the various phases of Nazi rule? Which income groups were increasingly enlisted to foot the bill for social policies on the one hand and war policies on the other, and at which junctures? How did Hitler's financial policy-makers manage to keep domestic inflation at bay and offload it to the occupied countries?

Aly develops a highly suspenseful approach to examining such supposedly dry questions as financial policy. He scrutinizes the populistic social reforms during the first years of Nazi rule and provides documentation that the broad social safety net for the population exceeded by far the regime's financial resources and therefore soon resulted in excessive debt. The search for new sources of revenue within the country itself led to increased financial repression of the Jewish population, culminating initially in a one billion Reichsmark surcharge, an "atonement payment," that was imposed on Jewish citizens (following the pogrom night of November 9, 1938). As early as December of the same year, however, Göring formulated very concrete steps for converting the assets of German Jews - calculated at some eight billion Reichsmarks - into German State Bonds. The sweep of the plan becomes clear when one considers that even one billion Reichsmarks would already have increased the Reich's revenues by 6 percent.

The author shows how the occupied countries, with the help of well-contrived systems, were saddled with the costs of the occupation and in part also with providing for the German population "within the Reich," thereby wrecking their national economies. Soldiers were issued a type of artificial currency that they could use as tender, for example, in French or Belgian shops. These credit notes were then submitted to the respective national central banks for the ultimate purpose of being redeemed in Germany. Special clearing houses were set up in Berlin which would issue credits for these costs to the occupied countries after the Germans had been victorious. Even young soldiers whose morals were relatively intact found their sense of justice undermined and were corrupted by this system of obfuscation, as Aly demonstrates using the letters that a young Heinrich Böll sent home to his family from France, telling of his hoarding purchases.

Aly researches the various means of financing the national budget that were employed over the entire Nazi period. In addition to the taxation policies mentioned above, he examines the gradually proceeding expropriation and subsequent deportation and annihilation of the Jews, as well as the ransacking of the occupied countries. He proves that the well-known figures such as Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and Himmler were not the only ones to plot and implement the destruction of European Jewry; the regime's financial policy-makers were equally cold-blooded and calculating, as they not only took millions of deaths into account but viewed them as a legitimate means of acquiring additional revenue.

If growing numbers of Jews were deported to Poland shortly after heavy bombing runs on Hamburg, then a clear connection emerges between bombed out non-Jewish citizens and the fully furnished apartments of Jews which now became "vacancies." It is hardly conceivable that no one asked where all the beautiful things came from. It appears more readily believable, however, that average citizens didn't question where the money for expanding social services might have originated. After all, there was no concurrent rise in their tax burden.

Aly's book has been criticized for its central proposition, namely, that the vast majority of average German citizens profited in a personal sense from the crimes of the Nazis. It is said that the author overrates greed as the driving force behind the genocide and thereby assigns too minor a role to the motive of racial hatred. Still, this is not the historian's first book on the National Socialist regime, and he enjoys honing provocative arguments. Since the early nineties he has been publishing works on many different aspects of the Nazi regime, the annihilation of European Jews, and the continuity of certain social elites in German history.

It is no longer necessary to declare that historical explanations must never be one-dimensional. But the ability to portray history, and financial history in particular, in such a suspenseful manner is immeasurably valuable."

Ah, you meant Volksstaat (not Volksstaad).

Thanks for clarifying that.

I guess a spell-checker doesn't help with typos of that kind?

I imagine, Peter, that you are not be fluent in German? It's a disadvantage when researching this field, isn't it? I find it so.

However, this first-order disadvantage does not appear to faze some ‘scholars’, such as Debeorah Lipstadt, who purport to be experts in an area of historical knowledge where quite clearly lack of German language skills is a crucial disadvantage. Without it, people like myself and Deborah Lipstadt are forced to rely entirely on secondary sources.

Yet she is an ‘expert’ and I'm not. She makes categorical statements and I don't. How come? Chutzpah? Careerism? Connections? Dishonesty? All of the above? Who knows?

Now, which are you to be? Peter?

A non-expert like me who’s trying to find out the truth? Or a non-expert like Ms Lipstadt who not only purports to know the truth, but proclaims it with a latter day bugle?

If the latter, I fear we may continue to cross swords.

If the former, then let's work together to try to find out what really did happen in that important yet poorly understood historical period (the 1930s and 40s).

If finding out the truth is indeed our common goal, then I suggest fewer definitive statements about what's 'obvious' and 'well known' - and more willingness to consider different ideas and demand documentation for ALL claims about the period (not only claims that are controversial in mainstream discourse).

In your last post, you indicated that you have used, as a key reference for your position, Hitler’s Volkstaad by Götz Aly

Now, Götz's book is an interesting contribution to a historical debate that's now more than half a century old. But I'm not aware it's a consensus view of the period, as you seem to imply.

Actually, I'm not sure really what you are implying when you say: "I qualified the statement with the verbiage "It seems obvious" meaning that I drew a conclusion based upon information readily available. To provide a quote to support the "seemingly obvious" conclusion, would be redundant."

What does that mean, Peter? Plain English please.

If Hitler’s Volkstaad IS a consensus view, I imagine that will come as a surprise to Adam Tooze, who wrote a very clear and well referenced critique of this book in late 2005.

These are complex matters, IMO. It is unhelpful to real analysis when people make strident claims and assert them as "obvious", then shy away when asked for detailed documentation. Part of the reason we know the period so poorly, IMO, is because the very act of discussing it has been so politically loaded to an unprecedented extent from the outset.

In that regard, I return to the point I made elsewhere. WW2 is, arguably, a war that’s still in progress - in the sense that we are still at pains to discuss it rationally. Apparently interests that won out in WW2 still have a lot to gain from trying to enforce their view of that period. That's the main reason, IMO, why we are still so hazy about what really took place. No-one goes to jail - or loses their job - for taking an unpopular view about WW1.

I look forward to the time - very soon - when the same applies to WW2 and we all can approach the task of discovering what happened without fear or favour.

The continued persecution – including incarceration - of people over their historical views is so unacceptable in a civilized society that I shall not miss this opportunity to highlight my utter disgust with those who carry out this abuse.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Peter McKenna]

you[/i] really saying that the 'inflationary' tactics of the Third Reich led to the predictable sacking of countries, such as Poland, Chechoslovakia, and France, et al, - as well the predictable sacking (?) of groups within its own population - and in turn led unavoidably to War with the West?

What do you mean by 'inflationary' in this context?

The following is taken from Hitler’s Volkstaad, published in Germany, note that this was most immediate of items I have read on this topic. There have been many, identifying that Hitler had oversold bonds to raise capitol, which, when called in, could not have been paid, however as Hitler was planning for inevitable war, the overselling of bonds was not an issue. If I'm not mistaken, this was part of Goering's (Schaap's) four year plan. Also Germany was printing money at an hyper-inflationary rate, which means that, unchecked, with too much money floating around, prices would rise at an hyperinflationary rate. Market pricing was controlled by heavy handed oppression, as were the trade union labor rates. I remember reading this information in several sources, although it would take days to cursorily re-read the tremendous volume of materials to find this particular piece of information. I understood it to be common knowledge. Why do you think that Germany sacked Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, the netherlands, scandinavia, etc.? Do you really think that germany had a self sufficient economy capable of funding their own rearmament after the treaty of Versailles and the Great depression, and the sanctions preventing overt arming of their populace?

"When Götz Aly's book Hitlers Volksstaat (Hitler's Volksstaat) was published in Germany a year ago, it apparently struck a nerve among German historians as well as the general reading public. But unlike movies such as Der Untergang (The Downfall) or television features about Albert Speer which were enjoying popularity at the time, Aly's research does not concentrate on the personalities of individual perpetrators during the Nazi dictatorship. Instead, it focuses on the benefits that an average, non-Jewish German wage-earner reaped owing to the policies of the National Socialist regime. Aly's study touches only marginally upon the extent to which the beneficiaries realized the source of their relative prosperity, namely, the rapacious looting of the occupied countries and of Jews who had been deported and murdered. The author leaves it to his readers to draw their own conclusions from the material he presents.

With painstaking diligence the author perused archives and sifted through the records on tax and financial legislation. What were the details of taxation policy during the various phases of Nazi rule? Which income groups were increasingly enlisted to foot the bill for social policies on the one hand and war policies on the other, and at which junctures? How did Hitler's financial policy-makers manage to keep domestic inflation at bay and offload it to the occupied countries?

Aly develops a highly suspenseful approach to examining such supposedly dry questions as financial policy. He scrutinizes the populistic social reforms during the first years of Nazi rule and provides documentation that the broad social safety net for the population exceeded by far the regime's financial resources and therefore soon resulted in excessive debt. The search for new sources of revenue within the country itself led to increased financial repression of the Jewish population, culminating initially in a one billion Reichsmark surcharge, an "atonement payment," that was imposed on Jewish citizens (following the pogrom night of November 9, 1938). As early as December of the same year, however, Göring formulated very concrete steps for converting the assets of German Jews - calculated at some eight billion Reichsmarks - into German State Bonds. The sweep of the plan becomes clear when one considers that even one billion Reichsmarks would already have increased the Reich's revenues by 6 percent.

The author shows how the occupied countries, with the help of well-contrived systems, were saddled with the costs of the occupation and in part also with providing for the German population "within the Reich," thereby wrecking their national economies. Soldiers were issued a type of artificial currency that they could use as tender, for example, in French or Belgian shops. These credit notes were then submitted to the respective national central banks for the ultimate purpose of being redeemed in Germany. Special clearing houses were set up in Berlin which would issue credits for these costs to the occupied countries after the Germans had been victorious. Even young soldiers whose morals were relatively intact found their sense of justice undermined and were corrupted by this system of obfuscation, as Aly demonstrates using the letters that a young Heinrich Böll sent home to his family from France, telling of his hoarding purchases.

Aly researches the various means of financing the national budget that were employed over the entire Nazi period. In addition to the taxation policies mentioned above, he examines the gradually proceeding expropriation and subsequent deportation and annihilation of the Jews, as well as the ransacking of the occupied countries. He proves that the well-known figures such as Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and Himmler were not the only ones to plot and implement the destruction of European Jewry; the regime's financial policy-makers were equally cold-blooded and calculating, as they not only took millions of deaths into account but viewed them as a legitimate means of acquiring additional revenue.

If growing numbers of Jews were deported to Poland shortly after heavy bombing runs on Hamburg, then a clear connection emerges between bombed out non-Jewish citizens and the fully furnished apartments of Jews which now became "vacancies." It is hardly conceivable that no one asked where all the beautiful things came from. It appears more readily believable, however, that average citizens didn't question where the money for expanding social services might have originated. After all, there was no concurrent rise in their tax burden.

Aly's book has been criticized for its central proposition, namely, that the vast majority of average German citizens profited in a personal sense from the crimes of the Nazis. It is said that the author overrates greed as the driving force behind the genocide and thereby assigns too minor a role to the motive of racial hatred. Still, this is not the historian's first book on the National Socialist regime, and he enjoys honing provocative arguments. Since the early nineties he has been publishing works on many different aspects of the Nazi regime, the annihilation of European Jews, and the continuity of certain social elites in German history.

It is no longer necessary to declare that historical explanations must never be one-dimensional. But the ability to portray history, and financial history in particular, in such a suspenseful manner is immeasurably valuable."

Ah, you meant Volksstaat (not Volksstaad).

Thanks for clarifying that.

I guess a spell-checker doesn't help with typos of that kind?

I imagine, Peter, that you are not be fluent in German? It's a disadvantage when researching this field, isn't it? I find it so.

However, this first-order disadvantage does not appear to faze some ‘scholars’, such as Debeorah Lipstadt, who purport to be experts in an area of historical knowledge where quite clearly lack of German language skills is a crucial disadvantage. Without it, people like myself and Deborah Lipstadt are forced to rely entirely on secondary sources.

Yet she is an ‘expert’ and I'm not. She makes categorical statements and I don't. How come? Chutzpah? Careerism? Connections? Dishonesty? All of the above? Who knows?

Now, which are you to be? Peter?

A non-expert like me who’s trying to find out the truth? Or a non-expert like Ms Lipstadt who not only purports to know the truth, but proclaims it with a latter day bugle?

If the latter, I fear we may continue to cross swords.

If the former, then let's work together to try to find out what really did happen in that important yet poorly understood historical period (the 1930s and 40s).

If finding out the truth is indeed our common goal, then I suggest fewer definitive statements about what's 'obvious' and 'well known' - and more willingness to consider different ideas and demand documentation for ALL claims about the period (not only claims that are controversial in mainstream discourse).

In your last post, you indicated that you have used, as a key reference for your position, Hitler’s Volkstaad by Götz Aly

Now, Götz's book is an interesting contribution to a historical debate that's now more than half a century old. But I'm not aware it's a consensus view of the period, as you seem to imply.

Actually, I'm not sure really what you are implying when you say: "I qualified the statement with the verbiage "It seems obvious" meaning that I drew a conclusion based upon information readily available. To provide a quote to support the "seemingly obvious" conclusion, would be redundant."

What does that mean, Peter? Plain English please.

If Hitler’s Volkstaad IS a consensus view, I imagine that will come as a surprise to Adam Tooze, who wrote a very clear and well referenced critique of this book in late 2005.

These are complex matters, IMO. It is unhelpful to real analysis when people make strident claims and assert them as "obvious", then shy away when asked for detailed documentation. Part of the reason we know the period so poorly, IMO, is because the very act of discussing it has been so politically loaded to an unprecedented extent from the outset.

In that regard, I return to the point I made elsewhere. WW2 is, arguably, a war that’s still in progress - in the sense that we are still at pains to discuss it rationally. Apparently interests that won out in WW2 still have a lot to gain from trying to enforce their view of that period. That's the main reason, IMO, why we are still so hazy about what really took place. No-one goes to jail - or loses their job - for taking an unpopular view about WW1.

I look forward to the time - very soon - when the same applies to WW2 and we all can approach the task of discovering what happened without fear or favour.

The continued persecution – including incarceration - of people over their historical views is so unacceptable in a civilized society that I shall not miss this opportunity to highlight my utter disgust with those who carry out this abuse.

The simple fact that I do not speak German (I had three years of German, am half German, and unfortunately I cannot speak or read the language fluently). However, this is irrelevant. The book, Hitler’s Volkstaat, was quoted in articles that I had read in the past and discusses the economics of WW II, unfortunately, when I attempted to Google for passages that I had read, I could not find much, and I am not going to spend days searching or rereading books I read years ago to find them.

This information (that Germany overextended their finances preparing for war, fully expecting to gain via the spoils of war) is, I’m sure, contained in several books. This information is contained in the four year plan of 1936 (have you read it? It outlines Germany’s preparation for war) and expanded upon in books such as the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and the book Hitler’s Volkstaat (if I got the spelling right), whether or not I have directly read this book is irrelevant, I have read translated quotes and pertinent critical articles.

Germany went into deep into debt between 1936 and 1939. Do you dispute this? The purpose of the four year plan and the indebtedness that Germany wrought to finance it seem obvious. This has been documented. Has it not? The reason for this is documented in the four year plan, to prepare for war. Do you contend this? This seems obvious to me, maybe you have a different opinion of what 1936 Nazi four year plan did. If so than we will have to agree to disagree.

I won’t be sucked into discussion over ancillary issues, such as Hitler’s morality, the Holocaust, or any Nazi apologist positions. Those topics have nothing to do with what I said.

[Guest Gary Loughran]

bumping as none of the later posts have registered in my browser despite a cache refresh

FYI - The last post according to my view is JD's around 12.00 today

[Sid Walker]

The simple fact that I do not speak German (I had three years of German, am half German, and unfortunately I cannot speak or read the language fluently). However, this is irrelevant. The book, Hitler’s Volkstaat, was quoted in articles that I had read in the past and discusses the economics of WW II, unfortunately, when I attempted to Google for passages that I had read, I could not find much, and I am not going to spend days searching or rereading books I read years ago to find them.

This information (that Germany overextended their finances preparing for war, fully expecting to gain via the spoils of war) is, I’m sure, contained in several books. This information is contained in the four year plan of 1936 (have you read it? It outlines Germany’s preparation for war) and expanded upon in books such as the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and the book Hitler’s Volkstaat (if I got the spelling right), whether or not I have directly read this book is irrelevant, I have read translated quotes and pertinent critical articles.

Germany went into deep into debt between 1936 and 1939. Do you dispute this? The purpose of the four year plan and the indebtedness that Germany wrought to finance it seem obvious. This has been documented. Has it not? The reason for this is documented in the four year plan, to prepare for war. Do you contend this? This seems obvious to me, maybe you have a different opinion of what 1936 Nazi four year plan did. If so than we will have to agree to disagree.

I won’t be sucked into discussion over ancillary issues, such as Hitler’s morality, the Holocaust, or any Nazi apologist positions. Those topics have nothing to do with what I said.

This is a new way of arguing a case, Peter.

I asked you to document claims that you'd made previously.

You reply with statements such as "when I attempted to Google for passages that I had read, I could not find much, and I am not going to spend days searching or rereading books I read years ago to find them" and "This information... is, I’m sure, contained in several books" and "This has been documented. Has it not?".

They sound to me like very poorly undocumented assertions.

Sorry to be so harsh, but I think you deserve it in this instance Peter... so far.

Why not provide accurate citations and references?

Edited June 11, 2007 by Sid Walker

[John Simkin]

Part 10

I now want to look in more detail at the evidence that suggests that Churchill and Hitler were carrying out peace negotiations in 1940 and 1941. So far I have provided the following information that suggests peace talks were taking place:

(1) On 10th September 1940, Karl Haushofer sent a letter to his son Albrecht. The letter discussed secret peace talks going on with Britain. Karl talked about “middlemen” such as Ian Hamilton (head of the British Legion), the Duke of Hamilton and Violet Roberts, the widow of Walter Roberts. The Roberts were very close to Stewart Menzies (Walter and Stewart had gone to school together). Violet Roberts was living in Lisbon in 1940. Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland were the four main places where these secret negotiations were taking place. Karl and Albrecht Haushofer were close friends of both Rudolf Hess and the Duke of Hamilton.

(2) Karl Haushofer was arrested and interrogated by the Allies in October 1945. The British government has never released the documents that include details of these interviews. However, these interviews are in the OSS archive. Karl told his interviewers that Germany was involved in peace negotiations with Britain in 1940-41. In 1941 Albrecht was sent to Switzerland to meet Lord Templewood (Samuel Hoare) the British ambassador to Spain. This peace proposal included a willingness to “relinquish Norway, Denmark and France”. Karl goes onto say: “A larger meeting was to be held in Madrid. When my son returned, he was immediately called to Augsburg by Hess. A few days later Hess flew to England.”

(3) Goebbels recorded in his diary in June 1940 that Hitler told him that peace talks with Britain were taking place in Sweden. The intermediary was Marcus Wallenberg, a Swedish banker.

(4) According to Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm Scott, Hess had told one of his guards that “members of the government” had known about his proposed trip to Scotland. Hess also asked to see George VI as he had been assured before he left Germany that he had the “King’s protection”.

(5) In 1959, Heinrich Stahmer, Albrecht Haushofer’s agent in Spain, claimed that meetings between Samuel Hoare, Lord Halifax and Rudolf Hess took place in Spain and Portugal between February and April 1941. The Vichy press reported that Hess was in Spain on the weekend of 20/22 of April 1941. The correspondence between British Embassies and the Foreign Office are routinely released to the Public Record Office. However, all documents relating to the weekend of 20/22 April, 1941 at the Madrid Embassy are being held back and will not be released until 2017.

(6) Kim Philby, a KGB agent working for the SOE, sent a report to the Soviets in 1941 that Hess had arrived in the UK “to confirm a compromise peace”. This makes it clear that these negotiations had been going on for sometime and suggests that the visit of Hess signals the last move in the peace plan rather than the first.

(7) Colonel Frantisek Moravec, chief of the Czech military intelligence based in London, was also a KGB spy. In October 1942 Moravec sent a detailed report on the Hess affair to the NKVD. Moravec claimed that the Duke of Hamilton had been negotiating with Hitler via Hess for some time before May 1941.

(8) According to Philby, soon after arriving in Scotland, Hess was visited by both Anthony Eden and Lord Beaverbrook. We also know from official sources that on the 12th May 1941, Churchill had meetings with the Duke of Hamilton, Sir Stewart Menzies and Lord Beaverbrook. These three men were three of the most important figures in the appeasement movement.

(9) Sergeant Daniel McBride, one of the soldiers who detained Hess, claimed in an interview in the Hongkong Telegraph (6th March, 1947). “The purpose of the former Deputy Fuhrer’s visit to Britain is still a mystery to the general public, but I can say, and with confidence too, that high-ranking Government officials were aware of his coming.” The reason that McBride gives for this opinion is that: “No air-raid warning was given that night, although the plane must have been distinguished during his flight over the city of Glasgow. Nor was the plane plotted at the anti-aircraft control room for the west of Scotland.” McBride concludes from this evidence that someone with great power ordered that Hess should be allowed to land in Scotland. The fact that attempts were made to silence McBride as late as 1974 suggests that he had information that was deeply worrying to the establishment.

(10) Evidence that the Duke of Kent was with the Duke of Hamilton at Dungavel House on the day Hess arrived in Scotland. If Hamilton and Kent were traitors, surely Churchill would not have been promoted by Churchill. In July 1941 Hamilton became a Group Captain and Kent became an Air Commodore. After the war the Duke of Hamilton told his son that he was forced to take the blame for Hess arriving in Scotland in order to protect people who were more powerful than him.

I have also argued that there were signs in the summer of 1940 that Hitler made a gesture of good will to get negotiations underway. On 22nd May 1940 some 250 German tanks were advancing along the French coast towards Dunkirk, threatening to seal off the British escape route. Then, just six miles from the town, at around 11.30 a.m., they abruptly stopped. Hitler had personally ordered all German forces to hold their positions for three days. This order was uncoded and was picked up by the British. They therefore knew they were going to get away. German generals begged to be able to move forward in order to destroy the British army but Hitler insisted that they held back so that the British troops could leave mainland Europe. After the war, General Gunther Blumentritt, the Army Chief of Staff, told military historian Basil Liddell Hart that Hitler had decided that Germany would make peace with Britain. Another German general told Liddell Hart that Hitler aimed to make peace with Britain “on a basis that was compatible with her honour to accept”. (Basil Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 1948, pages 139-41)

It is therefore important to examine if there were other signs of Hitler’s good will in the summer of 1941. On the very night that Rudolf Hess arrived in Scotland, London experienced its heaviest German bomb attack: 1,436 people were killed and some 12,000 made homeless. (Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, page 182) Many historic landmarks including the Houses of Parliament were hit. The Commons debating chamber – the main symbol of British democracy – was destroyed. American war correspondents based in London such as Walter Lippmann and Vincent Sheean, suggested that Britain was on the verge of surrender. (Walter Lippman, US War Aims, 1944, page 12) and (Vincent Sheean, Between the Thunder and the Sun, 1943, page 245)

Yet, the 10th May marked the end of the London Blitz. It was the last time the Nazis would attempt a major raid on the capital. Foreign journalist based in London at the time wrote articles that highlighted this strange fact. James Murphy even suggested that there might be a connection between the arrival of Hess and the last major bombing raid on London. (James Murphy, Who Sent Rudolf Hess, 1941 page 7)

This becomes even more interesting when one realizes at the same time as Hitler ordered the cessation of the Blitz, Churchill was instructing Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, to reduce bombing attacks on Germany. Portal was surprised and wrote a memorandum to Churchill asking why the strategy had changed: “Since the Fall of France the bombing offensive had been a fundamental principle of our strategy.” Churchill replied that he had changed his mind and now believed “it is very disputable whether bombing by itself will be a decisive factor in the present war”. (John Terraine, The Right Line: The RAF in the European War 1939-45, 1985 page 295)

Is it possible that Hitler and Churchill had called off these air attacks as part of their peace negotiations? Is this the reason why Hess decided to come to the UK on 10th May, 1941? The date of this arrival is of prime importance. Hitler was no doubt concerned about the length of time these negotiations were taking. We now know that he was desperate to order the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) in early Spring. According to Richard Sorge of the Red Orchestra spy network, Hitler planned to launch this attack in May 1941. (Leopold Trepper, The Great Game, 1977, page 126)

However, for some reason the invasion was delayed. I suspect that Hitler was desperate to conclude a peace with Churchill before heading East. It was hoped that the arrival in the UK by Hess would force Churchill to sign an agreement. After all, Churchill would have difficulty explaining what Hess was doing in Scotland. In fact, later, Anthony Eden was to admit that Hess had indeed arrived with peace proposals. (Anthony Eden, statement in the House of Commons, 5th September, 1943) By this time the British people had been convinced that Hess had a mental breakdown and that he had not arrived in the UK with the prior approval of the British government. That of course is the story that is commonly believed today.

Hitler eventually ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22nd June, 1941. It would therefore seem that peace negotiations between Germany and Britain had come to an end. However, is this true? One would have expected Churchill to order to resume mass bombing of Germany. This was definitely the advice he was getting from Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris also took a similar view. In June 1943, Harris was briefing American journalists about his disagreement with Churchill’s policy. ((John Terraine, The Right Line: The RAF in the European War 1939-45, 1985 page 295)

Douglas Reed, a British journalist with a good relationship with Portal and Churchill, wrote in 1943: “The long delay in bombing Germany is already chief among the causes of the undue prolongation of the war.” (Douglas Reed, Lest we Regret, 1943, page 331). One senior army figure told a journalist after the war that Hess’s arrival brought about a “virtual armistice” between Germany and Britain. (Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior, Double Standards, 2001, page 324)

Is it possible that Churchill did not order the bombing of Germany because he had arranged with Hitler not to do anything that would hinder the defeat of the Soviet Union? That Churchill had resurrected the British foreign objective of the 1930s – the destruction of communism in Europe.

What we do know is that Churchill changed his mind completely about the wisdom of carpet bombing when the Soviet Union had successfully halted the German invasion. It was now Churchill who was urging the complete destruction of German cities, even those like Dresden that posed no threat to the British. Churchill realized that he could longer rely on Nazi Germany to destroy communism in Europe. In fact, the position had been reversed. The Red Army was now in a position to impose communism on Eastern Europe. The policy had to change. It was now vitally important that Allied forces arrived in mainland Europe in order to “liberate” German occupied countries in Western Europe.

[Len Colby]

John can you provide citations for the above claims? Are ever going to get around to what Sid called “the punch line*”?

* i.e. your theory as to why Churchill would have bumped the Duke off

[Guest David Guyatt]

John Simkin wrote…

Quote:

Is it possible that Churchill did not order the bombing of Germany because he had arranged with Hitler not to do anything that would hinder the defeat of the Soviet Union? That Churchill had resurrected the British foreign objective of the 1930s – the destruction of communism in Europe.

What we do know is that Churchill changed his mind completely about the wisdom of carpet bombing when the Soviet Union had successfully halted the German invasion. It was now Churchill who was urging the complete destruction of German cities, even those like Dresden that posed no threat to the British. Churchill realized that he could longer rely on Nazi Germany to destroy communism in Europe. In fact, the position had been reversed. The Red Army was now in a position to impose communism on Eastern Europe. The policy had to change. It was now vitally important that Allied forces arrived in mainland Europe in order to “liberate” German occupied countries in Western Europe.

Unquote

Since the British were largely instrumental for ensuring the success of the Bolshevik Revolution, it’s fairly clear that they saw the opportunity after WWI for it to become the bitter enemy of a later resurgent Germany and nothing could have been better, from a British perspective, than to set the two at loggerheads, thus dividing Europe to the advantage of Britain.

I think Churchill would’ve used any strategy available to have Hitler turn on the Soviet Union and thereafter get mired down and his forces bled to death, just as had happened to Bonaparte. Paraphrasing the song of Joseph’s coat, “any deceit would do”.

And it worked. Stalingrad changed the shape of the war. After that it was realised inside Germany that the war was lost and as a consequence increasingly large amounts of assets began moving to safe havens – as the rats began preparing their comfy post war boltholes - Including Wallenberg’s native Sweden.

On Wallenberg, Chapter 7 - “Globes of Steel” – of Higham’s book “Trading With the Enemy” is suggested. This clearly reveals the attitude to war and how to profit from it. It also has an interesting para on Lord Selborne (Minister of Economic Warfare and btw, the successor to Lord Milner as head of the Rhodes-Milner “Group”) who, even during the war, was at great pains not to punish the Wallenbergs for aiding the nazis with the provision of essential war materiel (ball bearings) throughout the entire war. Without a regular supply of ball bearings Germany would’ve shuddered to an early halt. Instead Selborne wanted Wallenberg and friends at SKF - the ball-bearing manufacturer - to be financially rewarded. Way to go…

It might also be worth noting that Marcus Wallenberg was a Knight of the Order of Seraphim, Sweden’s highest royal order of chivalry. Seraphim are an order of Angles that appear as fiery serpents (watch out David Icke!). Another Swedish royal distinction is the Order of the Polar Star. Both have tremendous occult significance (sorry …yawn…) see: http://hjem.get2net.dk/333/qabalah/sephiroth.html

[John Simkin]

John can you provide citations for the above claims? Are ever going to get around to what Sid called “the punch line*”?

* i.e. your theory as to why Churchill would have bumped the Duke off

I have already provided the sources for the first ten points as they were a summary of previous postings. I have now edited the rest of the post in order that you can check page references.

This background information is all evidence to why Churchill needed to kill the Duke of Kent. What I would like readers to do is to question the logic of what I have posted so far.

[Guest David Guyatt]

Memory. Grrrr. Good point about citing references.

Occult references relating to the Order of the Polar Star google “The Polaires Brotherhood” also “Otto Rahn + Polaires”. On the Order of the Seraphim, simply google the words “seraphim + occult”.

Rahn was an SS officer involved in all sorts of WWII curiosity. He is said to have died during WWII in a skiing accident. I have been assured, however, that he survived the war in the best of health and went about his business in Rome. Principally in the Vatican. The Polaire Brotherhood was a secret occult society that was heavily influenced by Rosicrucian and Martinist-Synarchist teaching. Rahn was believed to have been a member – although he denied this at the time. Never-the-less he did travel with a group of Polaire initiates in France seeking the Grail.

This entire occult Northern European/Scandinavian mythology circles the story of Hyperborea and the “old” pole star – Draco in the Constellation Ursa Major. The star is regarded as a dragon or serpent and thus fits very well with the Swedish royal Order of the Seraphim (i.e., fiery serpent angels).

There is an awful lot of nonsense written on the internet on these subjects and caution is necessary to sift the wheat from the chaff – the latter being in abundance.

[John Dolva]

John, I don't question the logic. There are issues I'm ignorant of and have learnt about here that largely support my repeatedly, though nowhere as coherent, contention that things were as you write. At the same time 'history is not one dimensional' as someoone else (David?) said, and for me this means a consideration of the British working class as well. By the very early declaring a 'phony war' certain control mechanisms are put in place that essentially disarms the working class in a global political consciousness sense.

David. The areas you refer to are researchable, but appear as a murky slop bucket of non-sense to the casual eye. One needs to separate whether one believes or propagates these mythologies from the fact that there are those who do believe them, and that it exists as a body of work, and also that they serve as a 'don't go there for sake of ridicule' marker or gate. Beyond this gate there are quite likely those who also do not believe in it but see the effective role they play in warding off anyone without the stamina to dispassionately explore these areas. There the fog serves as a strategy, or tactic.

One example: "Orion, the star configuation, was part of the Kennedy assassination."

Google or whatever ORION in this context and one comes across a number of occult type sites that seem designed to appeal to a deranged mind. Hence most people avoid it like the plague.

A step past this non-sense, closer to the real connection is the realisation that ORION is a white supremacy code word meaning Our Race Is Our Nation. Thus anyone suggested to research ORION as related to the Kennedy assassination will recoil from the pervasive widespread superficial, and that will be the point of discussion which essentially for a clear thinking person will mean that a ORION and the Kennedy assassination connection is rubbish.

Maintining focus takes one past this into the world of the KKK and the Invisible Empire. And then again up against and through layers that has a core dissimilar to the superficial. Which, I contend, is its purpose.

[John Simkin]

John, I don't question the logic. There are issues I'm ignorant of and have learnt about here that largely support my repeatedly, though nowhere as coherent, contention that things were as you write. At the same time 'history is not one dimensional' as someoone else (David?) said, and for me this means a consideration of the British working class as well. By the very early declaring a 'phony war' certain control mechanisms are put in place that essentially disarms the working class in a global political consciousness sense.

I share your views about the class aspects of this story. It is not well known but both Churchill and the royal family received hostile receptions when they toured working class areas during the Blitz. It was well-known that if the Germans had ever invaded, the ruling class would have been flown to Canada before they had to suffer the experience of occupation.

[Denis Pointing]

Part 10

I now want to look in more detail at the evidence that suggests that Churchill and Hitler were carrying out peace negotiations in 1940 and 1941. So far I have provided the following information that suggests peace talks were taking place:

(1) On 10th September 1940, Karl Haushofer sent a letter to his son Albrecht. The letter discussed secret peace talks going on with Britain. Karl talked about “middlemen” such as Ian Hamilton (head of the British Legion), the Duke of Hamilton and Violet Roberts, the widow of Walter Roberts. The Roberts were very close to Stewart Menzies (Walter and Stewart had gone to school together). Violet Roberts was living in Lisbon in 1940. Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland were the four main places where these secret negotiations were taking place. Karl and Albrecht Haushofer were close friends of both Rudolf Hess and the Duke of Hamilton.

(2) Karl Haushofer was arrested and interrogated by the Allies in October 1945. The British government has never released the documents that include details of these interviews. However, these interviews are in the OSS archive. Karl told his interviewers that Germany was involved in peace negotiations with Britain in 1940-41. In 1941 Albrecht was sent to Switzerland to meet Lord Templewood (Samuel Hoare) the British ambassador to Spain. This peace proposal included a willingness to “relinquish Norway, Denmark and France”. Karl goes onto say: “A larger meeting was to be held in Madrid. When my son returned, he was immediately called to Augsburg by Hess. A few days later Hess flew to England.”

(3) Goebbels recorded in his diary in June 1940 that Hitler told him that peace talks with Britain were taking place in Sweden. The intermediary was Marcus Wallenberg, a Swedish banker.

(4) According to Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm Scott, Hess had told one of his guards that “members of the government” had known about his proposed trip to Scotland. Hess also asked to see George VI as he had been assured before he left Germany that he had the “King’s protection”.

(5) In 1959, Heinrich Stahmer, Albrecht Haushofer’s agent in Spain, claimed that meetings between Samuel Hoare, Lord Halifax and Rudolf Hess took place in Spain and Portugal between February and April 1941. The Vichy press reported that Hess was in Spain on the weekend of 20/22 of April 1941. The correspondence between British Embassies and the Foreign Office are routinely released to the Public Record Office. However, all documents relating to the weekend of 20/22 April, 1941 at the Madrid Embassy are being held back and will not be released until 2017.

(6) Kim Philby, a KGB agent working for the SOE, sent a report to the Soviets in 1941 that Hess had arrived in the UK “to confirm a compromise peace”. This makes it clear that these negotiations had been going on for sometime and suggests that the visit of Hess signals the last move in the peace plan rather than the first.

(7) Colonel Frantisek Moravec, chief of the Czech military intelligence based in London, was also a KGB spy. In October 1942 Moravec sent a detailed report on the Hess affair to the NKVD. Moravec claimed that the Duke of Hamilton had been negotiating with Hitler via Hess for some time before May 1941.

(8) According to Philby, soon after arriving in Scotland, Hess was visited by both Anthony Eden and Lord Beaverbrook. We also know from official sources that on the 12th May 1941, Churchill had meetings with the Duke of Hamilton, Sir Stewart Menzies and Lord Beaverbrook. These three men were three of the most important figures in the appeasement movement.

(9) Sergeant Daniel McBride, one of the soldiers who detained Hess, claimed in an interview in the Hongkong Telegraph (6th March, 1947). “The purpose of the former Deputy Fuhrer’s visit to Britain is still a mystery to the general public, but I can say, and with confidence too, that high-ranking Government officials were aware of his coming.” The reason that McBride gives for this opinion is that: “No air-raid warning was given that night, although the plane must have been distinguished during his flight over the city of Glasgow. Nor was the plane plotted at the anti-aircraft control room for the west of Scotland.” McBride concludes from this evidence that someone with great power ordered that Hess should be allowed to land in Scotland. The fact that attempts were made to silence McBride as late as 1974 suggests that he had information that was deeply worrying to the establishment.

(10) Evidence that the Duke of Kent was with the Duke of Hamilton at Dungavel House on the day Hess arrived in Scotland. If Hamilton and Kent were traitors, surely Churchill would not have been promoted by Churchill. In July 1941 Hamilton became a Group Captain and Kent became an Air Commodore. After the war the Duke of Hamilton told his son that he was forced to take the blame for Hess arriving in Scotland in order to protect people who were more powerful than him.

I have also argued that there were signs in the summer of 1940 that Hitler made a gesture of good will to get negotiations underway. On 22nd May 1940 some 250 German tanks were advancing along the French coast towards Dunkirk, threatening to seal off the British escape route. Then, just six miles from the town, at around 11.30 a.m., they abruptly stopped. Hitler had personally ordered all German forces to hold their positions for three days. This order was uncoded and was picked up by the British. They therefore knew they were going to get away. German generals begged to be able to move forward in order to destroy the British army but Hitler insisted that they held back so that the British troops could leave mainland Europe. After the war, General Gunther Blumentritt, the Army Chief of Staff, told military historian Basil Liddell Hart that Hitler had decided that Germany would make peace with Britain. Another German general told Liddell Hart that Hitler aimed to make peace with Britain “on a basis that was compatible with her honour to accept”. (Basil Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 1948, pages 139-41)

It is therefore important to examine if there were other signs of Hitler’s good will in the summer of 1941. On the very night that Rudolf Hess arrived in Scotland, London experienced its heaviest German bomb attack: 1,436 people were killed and some 12,000 made homeless. (Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, page 182) Many historic landmarks including the Houses of Parliament were hit. The Commons debating chamber – the main symbol of British democracy – was destroyed. American war correspondents based in London such as Walter Lippmann and Vincent Sheean, suggested that Britain was on the verge of surrender. (Walter Lippman, US War Aims, 1944, page 12) and (Vincent Sheean, Between the Thunder and the Sun, 1943, page 245)

Yet, the 10th May marked the end of the London Blitz. It was the last time the Nazis would attempt a major raid on the capital. Foreign journalist based in London at the time wrote articles that highlighted this strange fact. James Murphy even suggested that there might be a connection between the arrival of Hess and the last major bombing raid on London. (James Murphy, Who Sent Rudolf Hess, 1941 page 7)

This becomes even more interesting when one realizes at the same time as Hitler ordered the cessation of the Blitz, Churchill was instructing Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, to reduce bombing attacks on Germany. Portal was surprised and wrote a memorandum to Churchill asking why the strategy had changed: “Since the Fall of France the bombing offensive had been a fundamental principle of our strategy.” Churchill replied that he had changed his mind and now believed “it is very disputable whether bombing by itself will be a decisive factor in the present war”. (John Terraine, The Right Line: The RAF in the European War 1939-45, 1985 page 295)

Is it possible that Hitler and Churchill had called off these air attacks as part of their peace negotiations? Is this the reason why Hess decided to come to the UK on 10th May, 1941? The date of this arrival is of prime importance. Hitler was no doubt concerned about the length of time these negotiations were taking. We now know that he was desperate to order the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) in early Spring. According to Richard Sorge of the Red Orchestra spy network, Hitler planned to launch this attack in May 1941. (Leopold Trepper, The Great Game, 1977, page 126)

However, for some reason the invasion was delayed. I suspect that Hitler was desperate to conclude a peace with Churchill before heading East. It was hoped that the arrival in the UK by Hess would force Churchill to sign an agreement. After all, Churchill would have difficulty explaining what Hess was doing in Scotland. In fact, later, Anthony Eden was to admit that Hess had indeed arrived with peace proposals. (Anthony Eden, statement in the House of Commons, 5th September, 1943) By this time the British people had been convinced that Hess had a mental breakdown and that he had not arrived in the UK with the prior approval of the British government. That of course is the story that is commonly believed today.

Hitler eventually ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22nd June, 1941. It would therefore seem that peace negotiations between Germany and Britain had come to an end. However, is this true? One would have expected Churchill to order to resume mass bombing of Germany. This was definitely the advice he was getting from Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris also took a similar view. In June 1943, Harris was briefing American journalists about his disagreement with Churchill’s policy. ((John Terraine, The Right Line: The RAF in the European War 1939-45, 1985 page 295)

Douglas Reed, a British journalist with a good relationship with Portal and Churchill, wrote in 1943: “The long delay in bombing Germany is already chief among the causes of the undue prolongation of the war.” (Douglas Reed, Lest we Regret, 1943, page 331). One senior army figure told a journalist after the war that Hess’s arrival brought about a “virtual armistice” between Germany and Britain. (Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior, Double Standards, 2001, page 324)

Is it possible that Churchill did not order the bombing of Germany because he had arranged with Hitler not to do anything that would hinder the defeat of the Soviet Union? That Churchill had resurrected the British foreign objective of the 1930s – the destruction of communism in Europe.

What we do know is that Churchill changed his mind completely about the wisdom of carpet bombing when the Soviet Union had successfully halted the German invasion. It was now Churchill who was urging the complete destruction of German cities, even those like Dresden that posed no threat to the British. Churchill realized that he could longer rely on Nazi Germany to destroy communism in Europe. In fact, the position had been reversed. The Red Army was now in a position to impose communism on Eastern Europe. The policy had to change. It was now vitally important that Allied forces arrived in mainland Europe in order to “liberate” German occupied countries in Western Europe.

I dont doubt for one moment Churchill was carrying out peace negotiations with Hitler, especially after Dunkirk, the "well fight them on the beaches" etc, etc nonsence was just for the benefit of the plebs. What needs to be established is how serious Churchill was about that peace, was it A) A genuine attempt to stop the war, Putting some feelers out, to see if the worse happened peace with honorer was indeed possible, C) An attempt to confuse and give disinformation too the enemy, D) Just a stall for time, E) A combination of all the above. What ever the reason's the negotiations would still need to be top secret. There could be no hint of peace talks as far as the masses were concerned. As for the bombing of enemy cities easing off, that may well be true but the rest of the war theater still carried on, arguably, at a even harder pace. I would have imagined that of all the ways to ease off on Germany, whilst they fought the Russians, the bombing of civilian cities would have been the least helpful.

Edited June 13, 2007 by Denis Pointing

[Denis Pointing]

John Simkin wrote…

Quote:

Is it possible that Churchill did not order the bombing of Germany because he had arranged with Hitler not to do anything that would hinder the defeat of the Soviet Union? That Churchill had resurrected the British foreign objective of the 1930s – the destruction of communism in Europe.

What we do know is that Churchill changed his mind completely about the wisdom of carpet bombing when the Soviet Union had successfully halted the German invasion. It was now Churchill who was urging the complete destruction of German cities, even those like Dresden that posed no threat to the British. Churchill realized that he could longer rely on Nazi Germany to destroy communism in Europe. In fact, the position had been reversed. The Red Army was now in a position to impose communism on Eastern Europe. The policy had to change. It was now vitally important that Allied forces arrived in mainland Europe in order to “liberate” German occupied countries in Western Europe.

Unquote

Since the British were largely instrumental for ensuring the success of the Bolshevik Revolution, it’s fairly clear that they saw the opportunity after WWI for it to become the bitter enemy of a later resurgent Germany and nothing could have been better, from a British perspective, than to set the two at loggerheads, thus dividing Europe to the advantage of Britain.

I think Churchill would’ve used any strategy available to have Hitler turn on the Soviet Union and thereafter get mired down and his forces bled to death, just as had happened to Bonaparte. Paraphrasing the song of Joseph’s coat, “any deceit would do”.

And it worked. Stalingrad changed the shape of the war. After that it was realised inside Germany that the war was lost and as a consequence increasingly large amounts of assets began moving to safe havens – as the rats began preparing their comfy post war boltholes - Including Wallenberg’s native Sweden.

On Wallenberg, Chapter 7 - “Globes of Steel” – of Higham’s book “Trading With the Enemy” is suggested. This clearly reveals the attitude to war and how to profit from it. It also has an interesting para on Lord Selborne (Minister of Economic Warfare and btw, the successor to Lord Milner as head of the Rhodes-Milner “Group”) who, even during the war, was at great pains not to punish the Wallenbergs for aiding the nazis with the provision of essential war materiel (ball bearings) throughout the entire war. Without a regular supply of ball bearings Germany would’ve shuddered to an early halt. Instead Selborne wanted Wallenberg and friends at SKF - the ball-bearing manufacturer - to be financially rewarded. Way to go…

It might also be worth noting that Marcus Wallenberg was a Knight of the Order of Seraphim, Sweden’s highest royal order of chivalry. Seraphim are an order of Angles that appear as fiery serpents (watch out David Icke!). Another Swedish royal distinction is the Order of the Polar Star. Both have tremendous occult significance (sorry …yawn…) see: http://hjem.get2net.dk/333/qabalah/sephiroth.html

David, I too share your interest in the occult, not on a practical level you understand, although my knowledge of the subject is far inferior to yours. But do you not agree, that it is all to easy to find key figures in almost any subject, that have links too some weired occult group, after all, the occult has always been the playground of the so called 'intelligentsia'. I'm not convinced there's really any significance. Or are you suggesting that WW2 et al was really all the doing of the Illuminati or something?

P.S. I've linked to some of your sites/articles, fascinating stuff.