The BBC is happy to propagate a massive and alarmist falsehood using its new series, SS-GB, as a vehicle to push a message that Brexit is leading back to the 1930s. Less keen I imagine to countenance historical fact…that Hitler was, of course, a fan of a united Europe as a united free market…
Let us begin with a conference in Berlin in 1942, attended by economists and politicians, including Walter Funk, the Nazi economics minister. The matter in hand was how to make use of the subject territories; and it was proposed that there should be a Europaische Wirtschaftgesellschaft. Which means, you guessed it, a European Economic Community.
The war taught Jean Monnet, and Jacques Delors, his much younger heir, how dreadfully France could suffer under untrammelled German economic dominance. But the Speer-Bichelonne deal suggested important institutional ways in which Germany could be tamed.
Oh the irony of that….keep reading.
The BBC readily namechecks Winston Churchill as the ‘father of the EU”, a claim that is patently false but less keen to namecheck Hitler as the ‘father of the EU’. Why not? After all, if nothing else, it was his ‘foreign policy’ that united Europe in the end.
The Economist is willing to give Hitler his due…
The idea of a united Europe stretches back thousands of years. The early enthusiasts were seldom as high-minded as their modern successors.
The drive for “European unity”, which will proceed further next year when the EU‘s membership expands to 25 countries, has deep historical origins. Indeed, they do stretch back to the dissolution of the Roman empire.
Ever since the fall of Rome, a strain in European thought has longed for the re-creation of an over-arching political structure for Europe, and used the Roman empire as a model.
Hitler’s loyalists gave the Roman salute and their cry “Heil Hitler!” was modelled on “Hail Caesar!” When the Nazis formed a new SS division for French volunteers they called it the Charlemagne division.
Others have suffered for making any such comparison..however mild….and truthful…
Cabinet Minister Nicholas Ridley was forced to resign after he described proposed Economic and Monetary Union as “a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe” and said that giving up sovereignty to the European Union was as bad as giving it up to Hitler.
Can’t say Ridley was all that wrong especially as Frau Merkel imports millions of people who have an ideology that has an unfortunate resonance with Hitler’s own…and of course, as the BBC is always telling us, Germany is awash with neo-Nazis who are on the march again….and the Euro has been an economic boon for Germany at the expense of the rest of the EU.
The Third Reich was defeated militarily, but powerful Nazi-era bankers, industrialists and civil servants, reborn as democrats, soon prospered in the new West Germany. There they worked for a new cause: European economic and political integration.
‘For many leading industrial figures close to the Nazi regime, Europe became a cover for pursuing German national interests after the defeat of Hitler,’ says historian Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, an adviser to Jewish former slave labourers.
‘The continuity of the economy of Germany and the economies of post-war Europe is striking. Some of the leading figures in the Nazi economy became leading builders of the European Union.’
There is outrage that Trump thinks Germany has exploited the EU for its own purposes…the BBC tell us…
Europe has been shocked by Donald Trump’s comments about Europe breaking up, about the EU being a “vehicle for Germany”.
I’m sorry but that is the orthodox view, one articulated freely and often by the BBC itself...that Germany has enriched itself at the cost of the other EU countries….
Has Germany, which is the eurozone’s largest economy, actually been a drag on the region more widely? There is an argument that Germany’s large and persistent pattern of exporting far more than it imports is holding back the whole eurozone. The context for this is the eurozone financial crisis. To understand why some regard Germany as a problem we need to start with the countries that were most hit by the financial storms.
From Fortune…
Why Germany is the Eurozone’s biggest free rider
From the FT…
Germany is the eurozone’s biggest problem
From Der Spiegel…
Profiting from Pain Europe’s Crisis Is Germany’s Blessing
Germany loves the Euro because:
Germans have benefitted greatly from the euro — it’s given them an artificially weak currency. Normally, one would hate to be paid in a weak currency — among other things, it makes their vacations abroad more expensive. But for Germany, a weak currency has been its ticket to prosperity. If the Germans would leave the euro, they would actually be shooting themselves in the foot.
God forbid we ever have a weak currency and lower wages and use them as a ‘ticket to prosperity’.
From one economic perspective, the Euro may be better off without the strength of the German economy. (why Germany should leave the Euro) It is something of a paradox that German economic success (improved productivity, lower wage costs) can create problems. But, within the structure of the Eurozone, one countries current account surplus, is another current account deficit.
The EU is a German dominated construct whose economic and political direction are driven by the Germans….it was after all Merkel who made the completely unilateral and disastrous decision to open Europe’s borders to the world….a disaster that will unfold painfully in the decades to come.
I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong , I know that Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem met in 1941 and admiration went both ways with the Mufti praising the concentration camps and the Jewish solution. My history is a bit rusty but I’m sure that Hitler also had an Islamic regiment in the SS , all we need is for Herr Merkle to start forming one then the takeover of Europe will be as her grandfather Adolf wanted.
Mrs K
You are correct as the following link shows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)
Nice hats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_101III-Mielke-036-23,_Waffen-SS,_13._Gebirgs-Div._%22Handschar%22.jpg
would these be the ones that shocked the Germans with their barbarity??
Ze Germanz did indeed have an SS regiment of muslim soldiers. They were regarded as being the perfect soldiers because they believed that to die in battle was a sure way to get into paradise.
Hitler did also meet with the grand Mufti in 1941. However it’s a matter of dispute if he persuaded Hitler to begin killing 4x2s. However he certainly offered to begin an arab uprising against the English in Palestine. He was also responsible for the formation of the above mentioned SS unit, some 20,000 of the buggers.
Here is a nice snap they took to commemorate the meeting.
Not much changes does it? Ze Germanz still want to rule Europe and are still using muslims as a weapon to do so. And it’s up to the Brits to stop them. Again. And glad to say the Yanks are on board. Again.
Hitler didn’t need any persuasion, when it came to murdering Jews. Victimising Jews was a feature of the nazi state from the start. Kristallnacht is seen as a starting-point today, but, in 1938, it probably seemed like the hideous culmination of something.
When the Germans invaded Poland, they were slaughtering Jews, for being Jews, right from the start. By 1941, the Germans had already murdered a huge number of Jews.
The Nazi regime was ,as you say, very keen on a united Europe. The Wehrmacht magazine carried articles on this .
The idea was that Germany would be the strong masculine nation and France the feminine cultured nation. No room for us as even then we were considered poor material as Europeans..
The story of the volunteer SS divisions is interesting and one most of the countries involved want to forget. The Belgian writer Leon Degrelle formed the Wallonian brigade and wrote a book on it. An amazing story but I believe the book is banned.
These SS divisions were renowned for their loyalty to the Nazi regime and to Hitler.
The fate of Degrelle is very interesting. He escaped to Spain and was given refuge by Franco. By all accounts the Nazi elite thought a good deal of him.
Didn’t Hitler and the SS believe in ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer’, a slogan which, during the last seventy years, has slowly but relentlessly been reinterpreted into the aim for ‘One People, one Europe, one Leader (Sorry President)’.
What was failed to be accomplished by military might has been replaced by an attempt to achieve the same ends by the use of economic might using control of the euro as a method of bribing and bullying the members of the Eurozone into slavish submission. Just ask Greece and Italy what happens when politicians fail to follow the orders of the German controlled ECB.
Oh, and isn’t SS-GB the story of what could have happened if we had failed to succeed in standing up to Germany and end their conquest of Europe and had allowed them to succeed in subjugating to their total control. The story isn’t one of Britain developing into a Fascist Country but of Britain being forced to accept control by outside political forces beyond our control, the very thing we are now fighting to prevent against once again.
Of course, that is not how the fake news version the bBBC will present their fanciful drama as.
Some corrections, Alan, to this “There is outrage that Trump thinks Germany has exploited the EU for its own purposes…the BBC tell us…
Europe has been shocked by Donald Trump’s comments about Europe breaking up, about the EU being a “vehicle for Germany”.
I’m sorry but that is the orthodox view, one articulated freely and often by the BBC itself…that Germany has enriched itself at the cost of the other EU countries…. ”
~ ~ ~ ~
If ‘exploiting’ has been done by Germany then it is West Germany as the country doing the exploiting and it included Turkey – mainly – as well as some from other non-EU countries.
I might also take some issue with the language you used in this piece. Technically, West Germany was in no position to ‘exploit’ because as you know well but probably overlooked through busyness that they were not fully in control of their affairs for many years after WW2. (I appreciate the quantity & quality of research in your output for, as well as the monitoring of, this web-site. Am guessing that time pressures probably contributed to these omissions.)
West Germany was largely rebuilt after the war, if I recall correctly, by the hard work and sacrifice of its survivors of the war with help from the Americans and the British.
Again, if I recall correctly, it was the French who initially exploited (western) Europe and ‘The Six’, especially taking reparation from Germany by sequestering territory and natural assets via the creation of the Iron, Coal & Steel Federation, a precursor – some might say a prototype – for the EEC. It was the French economy that benefited first from ‘exploiting’ EEC member nations.
One economic reason that Germany – pre & post-unification – has ‘done well from the EU’ is that it has kept a strong grip on its own inflation and, to an extent, the inflation of the core EEC/EC and then EU/EZ members. Other countries have had leaders and Governments who were not so wise and inflated their economies – sometimes wildly – thus disadvantaging their populations and, inadvertently or otherwise, advantaging Germany.
How I experienced the post unification exploitation of Eastern Europe by the EU was by:
-forcing loans on countries already on their knees economically as their only option, causing austerity measures introduced- forcing down wages, pensions and introducing tax increases. ( IMF at is best and still doing it with Greece)
– privatisation of all utilities and any viable businesses (think Russia with EU oligarchy ) / general asset stripping
– gaining cheap educated labour by the millions, average wage in some full member EU countries is still only 400-700 euros. In Eastern Europe for historical, cultural as well as economic reasons it was very much Germany who gained most.
No difference between old and new empires, once stop expanding…..