The Underground Reich: Tracing the Resurgence of Fascism
We are currently experiencing a massive resurgence of fascism. How could an ideology that was so thoroughly defeated and discredited at the end of World War II not only survive but continue to thrive down through the decades? Dave Emory has spent decades researching this question and his work has been invaluable in my research on fascism. I have relied on three of his favorite books to write this article: “The Hitler Legacy” by Peter Levenda, “The Beast Reawakens” by Martin A. Lee and “Dreamer of the Day” by Kevin Coogan.
One key factor guaranteeing the survival of fascism was the role the American empire played in saving fascist war criminals, then hiring them to wage covert wars across the planet. In past articles I have dealt with the role of the Gehlen Organization, the GLADIO "stay behind" networks, and WACL(The World Anti-Communist League) an international fascist alliance brought together by the CIA. Nazis were not content with this subservient role. They wanted a Fourth Reich. In pursuit of this agenda, and after splintering following their their defeat in World War II, they pursued surprising strategies. They forged an alliance with the non-aligned movement. To weaponize religion, they allied with Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. A few formed alliances with the communist world. They both battled and secretly served the West German government. They also found friends among the American extreme right. A global network of fascists operating on the fringes of society proved to be surprisingly effective in shaping Western politics. While their agenda became mainstream, this history has been widely ignored. Reading about Europe during the 1990’s in Martin A. Lee’s “The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right Wing Extremists,” I was shocked at how similar the situation in the 1990’s was to events of today, as well as how quickly the world forgets. Then too, there was a massive anti-immigrant hysteria accompanied by escalating fascist hate crimes.
The Nazis were online long before their was an Internet and have been shockingly effective at spreading their ideology. It is imperative that we begin an offensive against this trend. One of the keys to the success of fascism has been its ability to constantly mutate, to disguise itself, to infiltrate and corrupt efforts to battle imperialism, Zionism and even fascism. Some of the people reading this have been infected with this spirit of hatred. Many are fascists without realizing it. The world is heading for an extremely dark period that the human race may not survive. A war of all against all, balkanization, mass murder, millions of refugees - as has happened in Rwanda, DRCongo, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. This is the inevitable consequence of stoking tribal, ethnic, national, racial and religious hatreds. Is this the future you want? This is precisely what the elite desire - for everyone to be be too busy fighting each other to notice their criminal destruction and looting of the planet. The strive to create a world broken up into tiny statelets unable to resist the power of multinational corporations. Their is a war for our minds. The fascists are winning. Only by uniting do we have any hope of defeating them.
There is a reason why the Nazis were so successful in their ability to go underground. As Peter Levenda points out in “The Hitler Legacy: The Nazi Cult in Diaspora,” the movement had grown up after the defeat of Germany in World War I. They emerged from the original precursors of the GLADIO stay behind armies, the Freikorps death squads comprised of German veterans mobilized as a covert army to destroy the attempted German revolution. These groups were controlled by German intelligence. They deployed Adolf Hitler to infiltrate what would later morph into the Nazi Party. As I discussed in my articles on The World Ant-Communist League (WACL) , the white Russian emigres were highly influential in the birth of fascism. Another influence was the occult, secret Thule Society. Peter Levenda observed that the SS resembled a cult more than a political party, but this cult aspect was present from the beginning. Founded by defeated soldiers, proto-fascist exiles, intelligence agencies, secret societies, the Nazis were prepared to survive defeat and all of these elements would play a vital role in their survival.
Even more significant was their financial strategy; moving money in secret, buying into western corporations, hiding assets and their re-armaments industry. German corporations were so interlinked with American corporations that even during the war, it was impossible to separate them. The British were also deeply involved in funding the Nazis. Henry Ford not only funded but helped inspire Hitler and was backing Hitler before his failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. German money was active in America during the war, managed by men like the Dulles brothers, who would later assume the offices of the secretary of state and director of the CIA, as would Prescott Bush, father of future President George H.W. Bush, grandfather of President George W. Bush. American capitalists built the German war machine in the hope it would crush the Soviet Union. Even after the US entered the war, American corporations in Germany were churning out weapons to arm the Nazis. On the German side, these efforts were masterminded by Hjalmar Schact. After the war he escaped serious punishment and managed the Underground Reich finances, ensuring that the Nazi's massive stolen fortunes were hidden safely abroad. This investment plan led to the seemingly miraculous recovery of the German and Japanese economies. Schact was aided by the mysterious Martin Bormann who created a corporate empire of front companies during his exile in Argentina, while most believed he was dead. This vast fortune would fund and sustain the fascist revival.
The Underground Reich had become a global phenomenon before the war. Throughout the world, Nazi parties were formed - South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, and the United States. Everywhere there was a German embassy attempts were made to spread the Nazi ideology. Their impact would be felt for decades after the war. I have dealt with the horrors of fascism in Argentina and Chile in my earlier articles on Operation Condor and WACL. Indonesia would be the scene of one of the most horrific bloodbaths of the 20th century, with over a million killed after the coup in 1965. Gehlen’s BND (Bundesnachtrichtendienst the German CIA) and the CIA were heavily involved and the Indonesians named their secret police after the Gestapo.
Of course the most horrific crimes of the fascists would be during world war 2 when the Nazis and their many fascist allies would attempt to exterminate jews and gypsies and would also murder tens of millions of serbs, poles, Russians, Belorussians and anyone else who dared to resist. 30-40 million would die in Europe. An equal number would die in Asia at the hands of the Japanese fascists and British imperialists. It was the bloodiest decade in Human history and ever since the Fascists have sought to erase their crimes from memory while vastly exaggerating the crimes of communists. Thanks to the ignorance of the general public claims are made that "jewish bolsheviks" killed 100 million people. To debunk the the racist aspect of this lie first the communists were of every ethnic group not just jews although many jews did join the communist party because of the racism in Czarist Russia which would periodically whip up genocidal pogroms. Ironically many jews also fought on the side of the proto-fascist white Russians (who routinely massacred jews) because of political grudges dating back to the founding of the bolsheviks (When the Jewish Bund was expelled) just as many Mensheviks joined the white forces. In reality 6-7 million people died during the Russian Civil War many of them were killed by the same proto-fascist white Russians who have been spreading these racist lies ever since. Blaming one side for all the casualties is a favorite trick of war propagandists but the brutal massacres conducted by the white Russians are well known to historians. During the Stalin era a million people were killed not 30 million as cold war propagandists and fascists claimed. However during world war 2 27 million soviets were killed. Thus it is was the Nazis who killed far more Russians in 4 years then the communists had killed in 30 years. If a hundred million people had died prior to world war 2 the Soviet Union would never have been able to win the war.
Sorry to go on a tangent but combatting one of the more absurd fascist lies one sees repeated constantly on social media while off topic is in the spirit of my effort to combat fascism. Destroying and distorting history is a major goal of the underground reich. Fascist Academics like Timothy Snyder repeat the same discredited lies as the neo-nazis because it serves the interests of his CIA masters who like Snyder are closely allied with fascists in the Ukraine, the Baltics, the Balkans and around the world. (for a good short account of the Russian Revolution & Stalin Years by a mainstream historian read the Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick for a Communist perspective read Grover Furr's Blood Lies)
Let's return to the global nazi underground which existed prior to the war. It found fertile ground in the United States. Thousands joined the fascist german american bund and paraded through american streets in nazi uniforms. They were well armed and trained and served as an arm of german intelligence. America was also teeming with it's own homegrown fascists most infamously the Ku Klux Klan. Father Charles Coughlin a fascist priest had a massively popular Radio Show and newspaper and was in close touch with german intelligence, the nazi underground, the Ukrainians, and the white Russians. He narrowly escaped going to prison for treason as the war began. There was also the Black Legion funded by Irinay Du Pont to wreak terror on his workers. There was William Dudley Pelley and his silver shirts. There were fascist american ideologues like Francis Parker Yockey who would go onto a bizarre and paradoxical career ending in a mysterious suicide. His friend H. Keith Thompson would become one of the most influential figures in both the mainstream american right and the Nazi underground. Both Yockey and Thompson were recruited into the SD the SS intelligence branch. Thompson would work directly with Skorzeny's Odessa network after the war doling out cash to help escaped SS war criminals establish new identities. Henry Ford had his own private army of thousands of Ukrainian Fascists which he used to terrorize his workers.The Russian emigres had their own Nazi army based in Pennsylvania lead by Prince Anastase Vonsiatsky who was married to the Nabisco Heiress. President Roosevelt was nearly assassinated by a Ukrainian fascist in a plot exposed by father Alexei Pelypenko a Ukrainian fascist who became an FBI informant. J. Edgar Hoover who had his own fascist connections had Pelypenko locked up as world war 2 began instead of rewarding him. The same fascist american industrialists also plotted a coup against FDR. Hence even before the massive recruitment of Nazis following World War 2 America was a hotbed of fascism one of many seldom discussed elements of american history. And many of the same americans who collaborated with the nazis before and during the war continued their collaboration after the war. Although americans like to think of racism as a problem solely of backwoods hicks in reality american fascists are part of a global network of Nazi sympathizers and are found among the wealthiest and most well educated people in the country. Some of your favorite brands are or were owned by fascists Sears, Disney, GM, Morton Salts, The Chicago Tribune, Quaker oats, and of course Ford to name a few examples.
After the battle of Stalingrad many Nazis realized the war was lost and began to make plans to survive their impending defeat. They had stolen hundreds of tons of gold, priceless artworks, jewels. Their industries had made a fortune employing slave labor and stealing factories. They began to make plans to move as much of this wealth offshore as possible. Gold and other treasure was shipped by U-Boat to South America and Asia. Peron cut a deal in which he received a fortune in exchange for hiding the Nazis and their loot. Much of it also found it's ways into banks in Portugal (400 tons of gold went to Portugal alone) and Spain 2 fascist countries that had remained neutral and survived the war with their regimes intact. General Francisco Franco of Spain was forever grateful to the Nazi's for helping him crush the loyalists during the Spanish civil war. Spain would become one of the main centers of the fascist underground and Otto Skorzeny's main base of operations. The nazis also hid a number of valuable patents and technologies overseas. They deposited their gold in Switzerland, London and New York. Some of the gold was seized by the allies and used to secretly fund the off the books operations of the CIA and OPC. Together the americans and their fascist allies managed to keep this huge fortune hidden from the world. According to Dave Emory the Bormann brotherhood would grow to be one of the most powerful economic forces in the world.
Aside from Martin Bormann and Reinhard Gehlen the other top leaders of the Underground Reich were Hans Globke, Otto Skorzeny, Otto Remer, and Hans Ulrich Rudel. Globke the Chief of Staff to Chancellor Adenauer was the most powerful man in the West German government. He made sure that behind west Germany's democratic facade the old nazi bureaucracy operated unchanged and he brought more and more disgraced former nazis back into the government he was known as the grey eminence and also the spider(one of the infamous underground reich orgs was called die spinne or spider) Otto Skorzeny "Hitler's favorite commando" signed on with the CIA while also carrying on his own agenda as head of ODESSA the underground organization of SS veterans. I have no doubt that the 2014 Odessa Massacre in Fascist Ukraine was meant as a tribute to the Odessa network. Skorzeny was also a sales agent for german weapons firms and a military adviser who ran a commando training operation. He also ran the mercenary firm Paladin. He formed close ties with many famous Arab nationalists. Due to the creation of the settler-colonial state of Israel the nazis found many allies in the middle east. Hundreds of Nazis settled there scientists, spies and propagandists. At the same time Israel established close ties to the Gehlen Org and crypto-fascist west Germany became a major backer of Israel. The Nazis also established close ties to Saudi Arabia. In fact the Germans had first had the idea for a global Jihad during world war 1 it was the brainchild of their agent an archaeologist and master spy Max Von Oppenheim. However the British proved more successful at manipulating the arabs with their "Lawrence of Arabia" and his wahabi allies. However there would be a number of fascist ties to first the muslim brotherhood and then Al Qaeda. The Germans built an infamous Mosque in Munich used first by their muslim fascist SS veterans recruited during world war 2 in the balkans and central Asia. Later the same Mosque would be taken over by the Muslim brotherhood. Fascist bankers like Francois Genoud would fund Al Qaeda out of the same swiss banks that funded the Underground Reich.
Otto Remer tried to bring the Nazis more openly back into power. In a suppressed chapter of the cold war the Soviet Union had offered to allow Germany to be re-unified, re-industrialized and even re-armed on the sole condition that it not join NATO. Thus in Germany contrary to myth it was solely the US that was to blame for the decades of division. The Berlin wall was built because of the refusal of this generous offer. Otto Remer seized on this issue to launch his political career. It was actually Otto Remer who was responsible for crushing the coup plot that followed the failed assassination attempt on Hitler he was in on the conspiracy but switched sides when he learned hitler had survived the bomb and Remer arrested the military men responsible. Hitler appointed him his personal bodyguard. After the war Remer would attempt to launch a thinly veiled new version of the Nazi party the Socialist Reich Party SRP and ran against chancellor Adenauer demanding that Germany accept the soviet offer. Still a devout Nazi in his view Hitler's only mistake was his disastrous decision to invade the Soviet Union. Most likely Remer's activities were approved of by elements of west Germany that wanted to pressure the US for even more concessions. This is part of what Martin A. Lee calls the See-Saw strategy which West Germany adopted to manipulate the cold war for their own ends. West Germany would threaten to ally with the east or to pursue a neutralist course in order to force concessions from the US. Mostly these involved releasing ever more war criminals. However Remer went too far when he accepted funding from East Germany which hoped that even if he couldn't bring about a neutral Germany he could at least destabilize west Germany. However in a pattern that would constantly repeat in both America and Germany Chancellor Adenauer would adopt many elements of Remer's platform.
However due to American pressure his party was outlawed and he served a brief prison sentence before heading into exile to the middle east for a couple decades. However he would later return to Germany in the 1980's and mentor the neo-nazis leaders of the future like Michael Kuhnen and Eward Althans who would wage a bloody terror campaign on immigrants during the 80's and 90's. Remer became the father of third position fascism claiming to oppose both capitalism and communism. He was a eurasianist who wanted to unite Russia and the rest of Europe into a single fascist empire expelling the americans and overthrowing the communists. 3rd position fascism has become increasingly popular in the post cold war era. Francis Parker Yockey became it's greatest exponent and his Ideas along with Julius Evola's occult brand of fascism in turn inspired Alexander Dugin the creator of fourth position fascism. 3rd position fascism is one of the most influential ideas that no one has ever heard of since it's catch phrase "neither left nor right" became the motto of the right wing alt-media parroted endlessly by people who have no idea of it's origins. Needless to say the Alt-Media itself has deeply fascist roots many of it's favorite themes were stolen from Willis Carto and his spotlight magazine and it was Carto and his liberty Lobby which kept Yockey's ideas alive. Carto served as a bridge between fascism and the GOP and founded the holocaust denying Institute for Historical Review. The militia movement was also started by neo-nazis who decided to cloak their beliefs in christianity and patriotism. The extreme right is excellent at disguising itself cloaking it's ideas in libertarianism one minute and outright fascism the next. The extreme right of the 90's would slowly morph into the alt-right of today. The gullible american public never thinks to ask who funds all these patriot radio stations or who is backing Alex Jones? Fed on a diet of sensationalistic lies they lose all touch with reality and are ready to back anyone who can offer the right false promises. Hence the rise of Donald Trump.
Hans Ulrich Rudel was an ace german fighter pilot during the war. Since he had a clean record he became a global go between and frontman for the underground Reich since unlike Skorzeny and Remer he was not a wanted man. In addition to Odessa there were a whole host of underground Reich groups HIAG, Stille Hilfe, The Amsterdam Group, the Bruderschaft. There were also a hundreds of fascist groups around the world with new ones constantly being created. Rudel traveled the world passing secret messages between these groups and acting as a poster boy for the underground Reich. He would also serve as a consultant for the US defense department on both the F-16 and the A-10. When he died his address book would list his contacts with hundreds of fascists around the world including Klaus Barbie. One of the most horrifying parts of the underground reich was it's base in Chile called Colonia Dignidad. As if hosting a colony of Nazis was not bad enough it was also a Mind Control cult that served as cover for it's leader Paul Schafer to molest every young boy he could lay his hands on. It also served as a site to work out experimental tortures as if the Pinochet regime wasn't brutal enough and the place was stocked with enough weapons to arm a small army. This included James bond type gadgets lethal weapons disguised as pens or walking sticks. It also included a huge stockpile of Sarin gas and also the means to use tiny amounts of it to induce undetectable heart attacks.
As with Colonia Dignidad the nazis found ways to hide themselves and their allies using religion. Most notoriously of course this involved the Vatican and their Croatian fascist allies that ran the ratlines by which thousands of fascist war criminals were smuggled around the world. There was also P2 the Masonic Lodge started by Licio Gelli at the request of the CIA that completely infiltrated both the government and the Vatican and was tied to massive embezzlement, the mafia, arms dealing, Gladio false Flag terror attacks and the funding of Fascist governments in Latin America especially Argentina. Although this article focuses on Germany and the US Italy the birthplace of fascism had, perhaps an even more shocking and paradoxical postwar fascist history then Germany and was almost as influential worldwide. There was the "left" fascism of Giorgio Almirante inspired by Mussolini's Salo republic. There was the occult fascism of Julius Evola who sought to revive sun worship and who sought to create an "Order" modeled on the Waffen SS which Trump adviser Steve Bannon is a fan of. Evola became the guru of the GLADIO terrorists. Like the vatican The Protestant churches also ran their own ratlines. In the united states the protestant fundamentalist christian right often overlapped with fascism with Gerald L. K. Smith and his Christian Nationalist Crusade backed by Henry Ford. More recently the christian coalition endorsed David Duke's failed Gubernatorial bid in 1992.
In India some came to view Hitler as a destructive but divine avatar of Vishnu. Subhas Chandra Bose the Indian Nationalist sought Axis help in freeing his country from the British empire while at the same time becoming an ardent admirer of Hitler to the point of deification. A french convert to Hinduism Savitri Devi became a sort of high priestess to the underground Reich. The Nazis became advisers to the Dalai Lama in Tibet and had hoped to turn feudal Tibet into a bulwark against Chinese communism a strategy later adopted by the CIA. The Chilean fascist Miguel Serrano friends with the Dalai Lama, Carl Jung and Herman Hesse created a bizarre Nazi new age UFO cult. He wasn't necessarily unique Ernst Zundel the Canadian fascist and Holocaust denier was also obsessed with UFOs. The Celestial Seasonings Tea company is actually owned by a fascist UFO cult. The popularizers of Zen Buddhism D.T. Suzuki and Karlfried Graf von Durckheim were both ardent nazis. WACL had it's own muslim branch the World Muslim Congress whose Issah Naklah and Dr Inamullah Kahn both Pakistanis were backers of the future Al Qaeda and Mujahideen in Afghanistan. There were also a host of new-age and Pagan groups founded by Nazis who had sought to revive norse religion. In america there was even a religion called Hitlerism. Far more influential was the Christian Identity movement lead by Rev. Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations. He was following in a long line of fascist preachers like Gerald L.K. Smith. Even Reinhard Gehlen was deeply involved in evangelical churches as were the Dulles Brothers. The nazis were thus able to disguise themselves in religion from the established religions like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam to the newer more fringe movements of occultism, neo-paganism and the new age.
The Nazi's attempted to form alliances with the non-aligned movement which given their fanatical racism is rather paradoxical. However it makes more sense once one examines certain trends in german strategic thinking. Karl Haushofer was the father of geo-politics. Germany was behind when it came to the game of empire since it's efforts were focused on re-unification while the British and French were busy conquering huge swaths of the worlds territories. Haushofer saw a way to turn this weakness into a strength by backing anti-colonial struggles around the world to weaken Germany's British and French Rivals. He sought to form an alliance with India, China, and above all Russia continuing in the tradition of Bismarck and Frederick the Great. Hitler an ardent racist vetoed these plans. He refused to back "the colored races" even against a common enemy. Viewing the Soviet Union as composed of racial inferiors "a jewish head on a slavic tatar body" he launched his disastrous attempt to colonize eastern Europe exterminating the jews, and killing and enslaving everyone else. Thankfully for the world the Soviet Union was able to first stop and then rollback Hitler's armies with the enormous sacrifice of 27 million lives. However after the war both these strategies would re-emerge with the Otto Remer and his SRP along with American Francis Parker Yockey arguing for an alliance with Russia. Otto Skorzeny and his Odessa network meanwhile allied himself with 3rd world National liberation movements in Palestine, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Peron in Argentina. Yet the whole time Skorzeny was also working for the same CIA whose goal was the destruction of these same movements. Hjalmar Schact backed Sukarno in Indonesia and even used Nazi gold to fund Sukarno's revolutionary fund an attempt to build alternatives to the world bank and the IMF. The Non-aligned movement with it's determination to side with neither the Capitalist or Socialist world opened itself up to fascist infiltration and collaboration. Thus began the trend which has very dangerous consequences in our own time of the phenomenon of fascists supporting the right causes for the wrong reasons. This has allowed them to infiltrate and recruit new members among movements opposing zionism, imperialism and even against Fascism itself.
This disgusting trend seems to increase exponentially every year. Finally it has culminated with the election of emperor Trump a racist billionaire who managed to win support from all sorts of people who should know better by dropping a few empty promises on better relations with Russia and ending support for terrorists in Syria. Promises that were quickly betrayed leaving us with the worst of both worlds. The struggle against imperialism is nothing more then a farce if it is motivated by racism. Fascism is merely an intensification of Imperialism as Hitler instinctively realized. Racism was developed as a justification for the crimes of imperialism once the age or reason arrived and Christianity was no longer enough of an excuse. Sure we are slaughtering them wholesale and burning their cities but we are saving their souls thus the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors justified their genocidal crimes which were in reality motivated by greed. I'm reminded of todays liberal interventionists willing to destroy one country after another to bring them the benefits of democracy. As belief in science replaced religion racism became a favored justification for the crimes of empire. Hitler was inspired by racist thinkers like the french Arthur De Gobineau and the British Huston Stewart Chamberlain. Hitler was inspired by the genocide against the native americans. Thus the attempts of racists to pass themselves off as anti-imperialists is a disgusting farce. Until you realize the common humanity of the world what right do you have to pose as protectors of the third world? One should oppose Israel because it is a racist apartheid state not because one is racist against jews. How can one ever hope to end apartheid Israel when you are turning the whole planet into a fourth reich. Of course for this very reason there is actually the behind the scenes support of Fascists by fanatical zionists since the more racist the world becomes the more people can be convinced to move to Israel.
Which leads me to address another uncomfortable topic in the faint hope that someone may be brought to their senses although racism is often immune to rational argument. This obsession in the alternative media with a worldwide jewish conspiracy. In the past I have dealt with controversial topics such as the power of AIPAC and the Neo-Conservatives' Yinon plan style strategy to balkanize the middle east to the benefit of Israel. However there is a difference between recognizing the power of the Israel lobby or exposing the imperial strategies of the neo-Cons (some who are motivated by american imperialism while others first priority is Israel) and this obsession to blame all the ills of the world on the jews which has become so tragically common. Israel has had influence on the choice of american imperial targets like Iraq, Libya, and Syria. But the US was an imperialist country long before there was a state of Israel. Obsessed by anti-jewish racism people fail to realize that the problem of foreign lobbies goes far beyond Israel and as I've discussed in the past the various foreign lobbies are often in one fascist league together. The China-Lobby-allied with the Israel lobby which allied with the Guatemala lobby the Haiti Lobby the Cuba lobby, the Argentina Lobby, the Sugar Lobby, Israel helped form the turkish lobby and allied with the saudi lobby and the WACL lobbies. The whole thing was tied in with the Mafia and the international drug trade and is just as much a fascist network as it is a zionist one. In fact this network of lobbies ties in with the underground reich. Racist investigators always miss the big picture since they think every mystery is solved as soon as they find a jewish name. And to make their fraudulent theories work they pretend all sorts of people are jewish who aren't.
In addition to the Israel Lobby and the Neo-cons there are two other factors that give rise to the popularity of blaming the jews for everything. The role of Jewish capitalists and the Jewish Mafia closely interlinked with the Italian Mafia and later the Russian Mafia. The mafia is a perfect example of the flaws of racist thinking. If one wanted to demonize the Italians one could construct a theory based on the Sicilian mafia and the other Italian organized crime groups. One would always be on the lookout for Italian names one could quickly discover that the mafia owns politicians and that it is heavily involved in banking. One could spend ones life studying all the Italian gangsters, criminals, and fascists, the insane popes the outlaws the mad emperors of the roman empire. Soon one could see Italians at the root of all evil. Yet this rarely happens because there is not a huge global underground movement dedicated to demonizing the Italians that has employed tens of thousands of people and spent millions of dollars to manipulate people into blaming the Italians for everything wrong with the world. Hence no one is obsessed with swiss bankers, Italian bankers, or above all german or american bankers. To return to the Italian obsessed researcher one would remain oblivious to the fact that every nation has a mafia there is the Yakuza, the Triad, the latin american cartels every country has it's organized crime every city and every town. This is basically what happens to people who begin to obsess about the jews. Yes no doubt if one is only on the lookout for corrupt jewish businessmen and follow their interconnections with other corrupt jewish businessmen, the jewish mafia, and the Israel lobby one will uncover an endless stream of villains. However one is ignoring the fact that all capitalists are greedy and ruthless not just the jewish ones, all mafias are made up of criminals and not just the jewish ones and all of americans allies are evil not just Israel. Not to mention the heroic role many jews have played and continue to play in battling capitalism, imperialism, fascism, and zionism These Foreign lobbies have been allowed to amass huge political power because it serves the interests of imperialism and the military industrial complex. To further confuse things once one enters the world of deep politics one can never be sure what interests someone serves. To hide his vast underground underground corporate empire Martin Bormann often recruited jewish businessmen as fronts. George Soros for example got his start as a fascist collaborator in Hungary. Israel often prefers to employ non-jewish spokesmen like John McCain. The ADL has been funding fascist groups since the 50's. Often the more information you uncover on someone the less clear it becomes whose interests they serve. The best spy or traitor is the always the one person you'd least expect. Just ask James Angleton who saw Russian spies everywhere but never suspected his close friend Kim Philby.
Which brings us back to the Fascist infiltration of the non-aligned movement. The story of Juan Peron serves as an example of the disastrous attempt to be neither left nor right. It could be applicable to Russia Peron was an ambiguous figure who could be seen as either a left wing nationalist or a third way fascist. He used the Nazi gold he received in an attempt to improve the lives of Argentinians. The gold was in his wife Evita's name and she used it to fund a massive charity campaign. He attempted to build up Argentine industry to break it's dependance on the US. He allowed the growth in power of the labor movement. He resisted the US hegemony over Latin America. For these reasons he had many left wing supporters. Of course behind the scenes he was being backed by Schact and Bormann who wanted to increase the influence of German corporations. At the same time he palled around with Fascists and turned his country into a safe haven not just for loot but for thousands of escaped Nazis and their fascist allies like the Croatian Ustashe. He was fiercely anti-communist. He was initially overthrown by a more Neo-liberal pro-american fascist faction and he went into exile in Spain where he was friends with Otto Skorzeny and other famous fascists like Leon De Grelle. At the same time Peronism was supported by many left wing forces back home who demanded his return. It was when he finally returned from exile in the 70's that this paradoxical alliance fell apart. As he got off the plane he was greeted by a crowd of left wing peronists, his fascist right wing allies had arranged an ambush for them and they were machine gunned. His fascist supporters continued their war on his left wing supporters. Peron died and his widow was overthrown in 1976 by the ultimate in neo-liberal fascists. They waged a dirty war on Argentina and murdered 30,000 people and opened the country up for looting by America and Europe with disastrous consequences. A similar turn the the right would occur in Egypt after Nasser died Sadat would betray everything he stood for, and Indonesia where after Sukarno was overthrown in a right wing coup backed by the CIA and the Gehlen Org a million people would be killed.
As for Russia when it decided in a moment of extreme folly to accept the false promises of German neutralism (in which amazingly even Otto Remer played a part meeting with a key Gorbachev adviser) the results were equally disastrous. Helmut Kohl the German Chancellor promised that in exchange for german re-unification NATO would never move east. Gorbachev agreed and did nothing while the CIA seized eastern Europe. Gorbachev himself was soon overthrown by the CIA. The German's launched a war on Yugoslavia backing their old Croatian fascist allies who targeted the Serbs who are longtime allies of the Russians. It was used as an excuse for the first aggressive deployment of german troops since World War 2. The war on Yugoslavia would ironically lead to the rise of Putin. Putin's attempt to balance left and right is eerily similar to a Peron or a Nasser. Dugin the Russian fascist demonstrates how easily it could all end in disaster since Dugin is supporting everyone and no one. Dugin is pushing ever mutating fascism to it's greatest extremes he claims to be a christian while being a satanist, claims to be a Russian nationalist while supporting Ukrainian fascists and even Al Qaeda all while hyping the threat of immigrants. He is the embodiment of the chaos that could follow if Russia's contradictory policies should implode. He is also the embodiment of fascist infiltration of anti-imperialist causes. Dugin's 4th position Fascism allows his followers to sound like socialists when talking to left wingers, fascists when talking to right wingers, religious when talking to conservatives, or occultists when talking to new agers, muslim sympathizers when talking to muslims, and anti-muslim to anti-immigrant forces, Or even nice reasonable sounding liberals if the occasion calls for it. However as Martin A. Lee discusses in "The Beast Re-Awakens" Russia very nearly went fascist in the 1990's. Remer's disciples like the newly re-unified Germany lost no time in launching an eastward invasion of skinheads using so many interlocking front groups that it is likely in my opinion they were being backed by the BND (German intelligence) and even the CIA. According to Covert Action Bulletin The CIA was of course heavily involved in fueling the fascist explosion in post cold war eastern Europe and Russia using the Free Congress Foundation a fascist american lobby group funded by the NED to give both fascists and free-market forces a huge edge in starting new parties. As in america these forces were often close Yeltsin was closely linked to the Fascist Pamyat party. And of Course German Corporations expanded east buying control of much of the economies of eastern Europe especially focusing on controlling the media.
Perhaps one of the more terrifying lessons one learns from studying fascism is the dangers it can pose with out actually coming to power as is exemplified in Martin A. Lee's discussion of German Fascism in the 80's and 90's. As he points out a very similar thing happened in both the US and Britain where both Reagan and Thatcher began using fascist talking points in order to win the election. A lesson we learned again when Fascists helped Trump win the election. Not much had changed in Germany since Adenauer's crypto-fascist government of the 50's. The German government was still full of thinly disguised fascists like General Klaus Naumann and Klaus Kinkel. The Kohl government openly funded fascist expellees Vertriebenen groups and the police and military were both infested with a whole new generation of Nazis. Germany was even openly plotting to seize back the former ethnic german areas in places like Poland, Kaliningrad and the Czech Republic. Germany was involved in the destruction of Yugoslavia and the revival of a fascist Croatia. The Croatians had helped the underground reich flee after the war. During the cold war NATO signed a secret treaty with Yugoslavia and Germany was even allowed to construct underground bases in Croatia. This brings us to an interesting tangent as not only was there a metaphorical "Underground Reich" there was also a quite literal Underground Reich of secret underground bases in Europe and Latin America.
Not only was Germany involved in reviving fascism and destroying Yugoslavia it was also responsible for the breakup of Czechoslovakia reviving another world war 2 relic independent Slovakia. Germany was working closely with the CIA to revive fascism throughout eastern Europe and German Neo-Nazis dreamed of capitalizing on the chaos caused in Russia by the american puppet Yeltsin to seize Russia itself. During the 90's Russia would suffer a wave of fascist hate crimes even worse then Germany's. Yeltsin would like Kohl attempt to redirect anger for his spineless incompetence onto refugees and ethnic minorities. Nazis had helped get Kohl elected but the popularity of their more openly fascist parties the DVU and the Republikaners was also a threat. They were becoming popular due to their anti-immigration campaign. Germany had been thrown into chaos by re-unification since instead of trying to smoothly re-integrate east Germany Kohl had allowed his corrupt cronies to intentionally loot and destroy the east german economy while the Kohl government went on anti-communist witch hunts that saw tens of thousands of teachers and other civil servants fired. To distract attention from this fiasco Kohl decided to launch his own anti-immigrant campaign to blame refugees for the economic chaos he had unleashed.
Although Kohl managed to steal the fascist parties key issue he also made their views respectable. With the collusion of the German government Remer and Skorzeny's neo-nazi proteges like Michael Kuhnen and Bela Ewald Althans were allowed to wage an anti-immigrant terror campaign that only grew more intense the more Kohl pushed for the same demands. Funded and trained by the veterans of the underground reich funded by fascist businessmen from around the world, and secretly backed by german intelligence they built an army of skinhead thugs. They were able to amass a massive weapons arsenal in the chaos that followed the destruction of the Soviet Union as demoralized red army troops sold their weapons to make a quick buck. The neo-Nazis engaged in thousands of beatings and attacks. Instead of stopping them the police often recruited them and both the police and the army took part in this terror campaign that has since been forgotten. Whole cities were ethnically cleansed and it was a miracle that more people were not killed. For example they set fire to massive apartment complexes housing refugees who barely managed to escape with their lives. Others were not so lucky as whole families were killed in arson attacks. Even when caught the nazi thugs were always quickly released. Kohl responded by pretending these were just random attacks when in reality the whole thing was a tightly organized army of skinheads operating as parts of interlocking front groups. It became increasingly clear that the german government was using these fascist gangs as their foot soldiers in the anti-immigrant campaign. Instead of cracking down on the Nazis Kohl used their crimes as an excuse to change the constitution launching a brutal crackdown on asylum seekers.
A similar if less extreme pattern was followed in America where fascists from WACL and the extreme right helped Ronald Reagan get into office. In America there was also a wave of hate crimes. Ronald Reagan helped legitimize the fascist revival in Germany visiting an SS cemetery and claiming that they were also "victims" of the war. It was a moment of triumph for the underground reich as the SS who once had to flee as war criminals were now being openly praised. As Martin A. Lee points out this energized the growth of german fascism and holocaust denial during the 1980's. The Reagan Administration even had plans to include the holocaust in the history curriculum blocked for failing to take into account the nazi and KKK perspective. All over the world fascist views were becoming normalized. Bush I's fascist ties are so numerous due to his father Prescott and his long CIA career that I won't even try to go into them here. The Clinton administration would wage it's own war on immigrants that would take 400 lives. It would also expand support for Croatia in order to get the support of america's powerful but largely unknown Croatian lobby. It would wage war on black americans under cover of a war on drugs. Seemingly nothing would stop the endless shift rightward in american politics driven by the extreme right so that today voters are given a choice solely between hating Russians and Hating Muslims. McCarthyism has become the new liberalism while fascism is the new conservatism. Now with Trump (who has openly fascist advisers) in office hate crimes are again skyrocketing although like in Kohl's Germany this fact is constantly downplayed. A black student David Josiah "DJ" Lawson was murdered close to where I live last month one of many unknown victims of the latest fascist resurgence.
But of course I've gone on for long enough the massive topic of the Underground Reich cannot be dealt with in a single article. Dave Emory has spent an hour each week for 30 years trying to do the topic justice. It is the multinational corporations that are to blame for the steadily worsening economic conditions in the west. Deporting refugees from war and poverty isn't going to improve your lives nor is creating an anti-jewish hysteria the solution to your problems. For a thousand years Jews have been scapegoated and massacred aside from the horrors this created it did nothing to change the feudal or capitalist systems that exploited the majority of the population. Only by changing the entire system will things improve. However that is the last thing your exploiters want so they want you to direct your rage at the poor and powerless rather then the rich and powerful. Do not give in to these fascist manipulators and infiltrators. You will bring the same disastrous ruin upon us as Ukraine has experienced since 2014.
The Underground Reich has managed not merely to survive but to thrive by constantly mutating like a super virus as Roger Griffin puts it. Fascism splintered and transformed itself into a hundred forms, it became a multinational corporation, a cult, it wrapped itself in religion, controlled it's own press, trained a global army of neo-Nazis and terrorists, It transformed itself into the BND german intelligence agency it was incorporated into the CIA, it sought to infiltrate and corrupt both sides in the cold war and helped destroy the soviet union. Nazis were vital in bringing down the Berlin Wall they even choses the same date (November 9) as the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom and Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Fascists are active in the police and the military. They control vast fortunes. They can hide behind any cause from environmentalism, to anarchism, even multiculturalism ( like Alain Benoist) or gay rights. They pretend to oppose the empire while at the same time serving it. They have been active online since before there was an internet and control large sections of the alternative media. They have their own music groups and video games are active in hollywood and the music industry. They write sci-fi and fantasy novels. Fascist post-modern "philosophers" like Zizek even masquerade as communists. Others like Jean-Francois Thiriart pose as anti-imperialists.
In other words while society believes they are dealing with a tiny fringe group in reality we are dealing with a massive well financed well trained, and well organized global underground reich. They are often backed by some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet. By imposing the neo-liberal Washington consensus on the world the perfect conditions are being created for this underground reich to thrive as more and more people are driven into poverty and looking for someone to blame. Yet even when these fascists do not actually fully come to power that does not stop them from shaping the agenda of mainstream politics as the German and American examples show. Thus it is vital that the world finally begin to pay attention to the danger the underground reich poses to the planet. We must expel fascist infiltrators from our midst and guard our minds against the sinister agenda's of fascist propagandists. We must familiarize ourselves with the many disguises fascists adopt in america this often takes the form of "100% Americanism" of libertarianism, Christian Fundamentalism, and defense of the constitution a trend that has existed since FDR's time. Next time one of your friends posts some racist nonsense online please try talking some sense into them. Fascism has already killed tens of millions of people it's menace must be stopped now before it is too late.
Thank you to Alexandra Valiente for help on editing
Sources
My Main source was Dave Emory. Anyone interested in the topic of fascism should draw on the massive stockpile of information he has compiled. You can also find his excellent work on a wide range of topics from JFK to 9/11. He provides excellent info on both trump and the fascist government of Ukraine. His final five star book recommendation is "The Secret War Against the Jews" By John Loftus which I haven't had a chance to read yet. You can find all Dave Emory's work at
http://spitfirelist.com
I also read "The Hitler Legacy The Nazi Cult in Diaspora: How it was Organized, How it was Funded, and Why it Remains a Threat to Global Security in the Age of Terrorism" by Peter Levenda which I recommend for a good intro on the topic as it is both packed with information while being short and a comparatively light read.
Next I read the encyclopedic "The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right Wing Extremists" by Martin A. Lee which provides an in depth account of postwar fascism up to the 1990's.
Finally there is the massive "Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International" by Kevin Coogan. This book uses the life of the mysterious fascist Francis Parker Yockey as a vehicle to explore the intellectual history of fascism and as a window onto to fascist underground of 1945-1960. You should probably read this after Lee's book as it is a challenging read.
Dave Emory conducted a long series of interviews with all three of these authors which you should check out.
The 1st Peter Levenda interview
https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-838-interview-1-with-peter-levenda-about-the-hitler-legacy/
The 1st Martin A. Lee interview
https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-70-interview-with-martin-a-lee/
The 1st Kevin Coogan interview
https://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-185-interview-with-kevin-coogan/
And here is the massive archive episode Dave Emory and Nip Tuck did on the History of American Fascism
https://spitfirelist.com/anti-fascist-archives/rfa-10-13-the-aryan-nations/
There are of course hundreds of great Dave Emory episodes I could recommend Check out the anti-fascist archives, the miscellaneous archives the lecture series as well as his newer episodes of FTR. He has also done many great interviews over the years with people like Russ Baker and Daniel Hopsicker.
And here is a PDF of A special Covert Action Issue exposing the CIA role in destroying the Soviet Union and funding a revival of fascism in eastern Europe
https://archive.org/details/CovertActionInformationBulletinNo35TheCIAInEasternEurope
An Expose of Dugin
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/dugins-occult-fascism-and-the-hijacking-of-left-anti-imperialism-and-muslim-anti-salafism/
My previous articles on Fascism
America, the CIA, and Fascism
http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2014/03/america-cia-and-fascism.html
Nazis and the CIA (On the Gehlen Org)
http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2014/06/nazis-and-cia.html
Operation GLADIO
http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2014/06/operation-gladio_23.html
Operation Condor
http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2015/10/operation-condor.html
WACL part 1
http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2016/07/irancontra-pt-3-wacl.html
WACL part 2
http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2016/08/irancontra-pt-4-wacl-2.html
