Sunday 22 January 2012
The Irish and the Nazis - Jig Heil!
' Oh here's to Adolph Hitler ,
Who made the Britons squeal ,
Sure before the fight is ended
They will dance an Irish reel . '
Sinn Fein Irish Republican 'War News ' November 1940
Further to the last post about de Valera blacklisting Irish soliders who joined the British Army to fight Hitler, here's an interesting documentary which sheds yet more light on Ireland's rather sad history with regard to the Nazis. Big thanks to John for this one.
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It is estimated that about 200 Nazis either sought refugee here or used it as a base to run to other places.
Here are again the top 5.
1. Otto 'Scarface' Skorzeny, once described as Hitler's favourite soldier and the most dangerous man in Europe, was feted by the Dublin social glitterati.Fourteen years after he had rescued Mussolini from a hilltop fortress in 1943, Skorzeny arrived at a reception in his honour held at Portmarnock Country Club.The cream of Dublin society attended the event, including a young politician, Charles Haughey.
2. Albert Folens, who died in 2003 at 86 after founding Ireland's leading academic text-book (printed all christian brothers text books) publisher, was involved in the Gestapo and Waffen SS. Arrested by the British Army in Germany, he was sentenced to 10 years after a military trial. But he escaped after 30 months and fled to the Republic on a false passport.
3. The so-called 'Butcher of the Balkans', Andrija Artukovic, was another who sought and found sanctuary in Ireland, spending his time in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar in 1947.
4. Pieter Menten, a Dutch Nazi war criminal, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Jews in Poland, moved to a Co Waterford mansion in 1964 before he was eventually tried and imprisoned. After his prison term, the Irish government would not allow him back.
5. Another notorious war criminal welcomed into Ireland was Celestine Laine, leader of the Bezen Perrot, a Waffen SS unit responsible for the torture and murder of civilians in occupied Brittany. Laine, a French extremist, joined the SS when the Germans recruited local help and took command of the region where he had grown up, ordering the torture of countless resistance fighters who once lived alongside him. His favoured method was to take young men and women into the forests at night to torture and then execute them. Laine died in Dublin in 1983 . And of course, the State knew NOTHING..
Forgot to add, for those interested in dressing up as Nazis in Ireland , (this is not a joke )and would be illegal and offensive in most European countries. You can join
http://battlegroupsouth.com/
Their website informs us:
“Kampfgruppe Sud / Battlegroup South is now in operation almost six years. It was set up initially as a club dedicated to the restoration and preservation of original German WW2 vehicles”
“We represent a kompanie from the Liebstandarte SS Panzer Division, late war , as this is the most appropriate due to our collection of vehicles and 3 tone cammo paint schemes, etc.The L.A.H having being involved from the start of the war right up to the end was the perfect choice of group to portray .”
They forget to mention that the
1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler to give it its full name.By the end of World War II it had been increased in size from a regiment to a Panzer division. The elite division, a component of the Waffen-SS, was found guilty of war crimes in the Nuremberg Trials. Members of the LSSAH participated in numerous atrocities. They murdered at least an estimated 5,000 prisoners of war in the period 1940–1945, mostly on the Eastern Front. Great, we celebrate this? and criminalise those who fought for freedom.
Jesus - this stuff is dynamite. Well done everyone. the blog needs to be a compulsory subject for the leaving cert. Am waiting in Le Havre for a ship maintenent but ran into Bono last night at a do in Paris. He said to tell you that he feels very strongly about this Nazi issue and wants to see a lot more about it in the blog. At my suggestion that this might act as a distraction from your totally justified focus pieces on his tax affairs he pooh poohed me, ordered another bottle of Krug and passed me a card with the name of 'me own fuckin, tax lawyer, in case you need him like - just keep that gombeen fucker at bay - OK'
Very interesting documentary, John - shocking, and a terrible indictment of the mentality of many in this country, especially those in power.
And what about the business of not being able to reveal the jewishness of the French refugee childen to the not-so-great Irish public? Incredible.
Recommended viewing to all on the blog.
@ Ponyboy. Don't worry mate, we won't let Bono undermine our cause with his support! Bon voyage!
Worth a read.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/20/warcrimes.world
This is all very well but there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the Irish government, is there?
Millions fought for the axis, it is no surprise some washed up on Ireland’s shores – and sure aren’t we the most friendly and welcoming people on earth?
If any of them had a case to answer it was for something that happened outside Ireland’s jurisdiction, so it was not something Ireland couldn’t have done much about, even if it wanted to.
Were any of these people charged with anything while here?
Did Ireland obstruct proceedings? I don’t think so.
to last comment,Anon, "some washed up on Irish shores". It was not easy to get residence in Ireland there was no EU free travel agreement.It is interesting to note
The Department of Justice xplained in 1948 that:
"It has always been the policy of the Minister for Justice to restrict the admission of Jewish aliens, for the reason that any substantial increase in our Jewish population might give rise to an anti-Semitic problem"
But no problem, it seems, for ex Nazis with pocket full of stolen cash, like Menton and others.
"How is it that we do not see any of these [Emergency Powers] Acts directed against the Jews, who crucified Our Saviour nineteen hundred years ago, and who are crucifying us every day in the week? How is it that we do not see them directed against the Masonic Order? How is it that the I.R.A. is considered an illegal organisation while the Masonic Order is not considered an illegal organisation? [...] There is one thing that Germany did, and that was to rout the Jews out of their country. Until we rout the Jews out of this country it does not matter a hair's breadth what orders you make. Where the bees are there is the honey, and where the Jews are there is the money."
Oliver J. Flanagan (22 May 1920 – 26 April 1987) Fine Gael TD
From his maiden speech to the Dail.on 9 July 1943 . So I wonder how we let the former Nazis in.
Good God, GM, shocking. What's ironic GM about this is, the Spawn of Satans loins would feel far more at home in Eire 2012 than at any other time in its history. GM when you get a quasi-socialist global ethic bailing out neo liberalism you know there is something seriously wrong. When you get an entire population on a small island comfortable with it's own brand of it, you know events have become dangerous! The Gombeen is flourishing.....In a sense the world is only catching up with Ireland now. These Nazis obviously did some research before they arrived.
JASUS GM how much worse can it get , first hiding paedo clerics now SS scum i will not be returning for the mass triumphant return of diaspora next year even if EDNA sends a state jet WHERES BERTIE- BH
Huge pologies to all for being so slow to get comments up... in Internet provider transition, so had no Web access last evening! Sorry!
Yes, hardly a matter of "washing up on Irish shores". One mass murder had a new identity created for him to evade justice and the Government would not give the documentary makers access to the files.
Then there is the fact that the religion (Judaism) of the child refugees of Vichy could not be disclosed for fear of the reaction it would provoke from Paddy and Mary Catholic.
Indeed the genocidists DID do their research when seeking out a population to hide among. One that was already busy hiding a multitude of sins and was rife with hypocrisy.
@John
The quote from O.J. Flanagan reminds us where the true support for European Far right politics lay in Ireland, in FG and the Blueshirts.
Chilling quote from FG taoiseach-to-be John A. Costello's speech during a Dáil debate on a bill to outlaw the wearing of uniforms - aimed mainly at the blueshirts
"The Minister gave extracts from various laws on the Continent, but he carefully refrained from drawing attention to the fact that the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and that the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as, assuredly, in spite of this Bill...the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State."
You need to drop the parish pump politics for a minute - FF and FG were both socially conversative, and both right wing. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
And don't forget the Shinners and the IRA collaborated with the Nazis, and gave us the quote above.
@GM
Your quote above is indeed useful. It makes it clear that the 'support' the IRA gave the Nazis revolved around anti-British sentiment. The IRA were only interested in what Germany could do to help them attack Britain and never offered any help to Germany that did not support this goal.
FF and FG are indeed both socially conservative on the grand scheme of things, and are both right wing. Tweedledum and Tweedledee today perhaps but back in the 30s and 40s they were only just finished killing each other in a civil war.
What defined FG was it's pro-treaty stance and hence a more pro-British stance. Woven into this was another favorite antisemitic view, that the famine was not the fault of British Landlords, as Dev would have you believe, but was caused by nasty Jewish bankers who put the screws on them for money.
This particular antisemitic view had been knocking around since long before Adolf was even a twinkle in his father's eye.
No, the IRA would just have enabled Hitler to set up a Quisling government in Ireland which would have deported Ireland's 4,000 Jews to the extermination camps.
Sure, their support was based on pure anti-Britishness, but that is the central argument.
Being motivated by anti-Britishness and the 800 years is myopic in the context of supporting, or turning a blind eye to Nazism. And then the State itself offering a safe haven to mass murderers when the full light of the Holocaust and other atrocities has become clear to all, as the programme (which I recommend watching) details above.
@GM
So, what you are suggesting is that a Nazi invasion force would have made an alliance with the IRA rather than the Blueshirts, despite the fact the Blueshirts:
a. Modelled themselves on the European fascists, espousing the same ideology as the Nazis,
b. Fought the same side as the Nazis in the Spanish Civil War,
c. Fought continually against the IRA and beat them in the Irish Civil War.
I think it far more likely that W. T. Cosgrave (FG leader) would have been installed as our Quisling.
Mr Cosgrave after all had a certain way with words
“I am not going to hesitate if the country is to live, and if we have to exterminate ten thousand Republicans, the three million of our people is greater than this ten thousand” (speech during civil war)
I think you are stuck in Civil War politics. The IRA, not Cosgrave, collaborated with the Nazis. The Nazis used disaffected nationalist movements in other European countries for exactly the same purposes - Patsies.
@GM
You say “I think you are stuck in Civil War politics.”??
Are we not talking about an issue that arose in the Civil War era? Most of the political players were Civil War veterans after all. I think Civil War politics would have played a big part in deciding how the cards fell in the event of a German Invasion.
So called IRA collaboration was nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to get another ‘20,000 rifles’ from Germany. They never offered for example to help train German soldiers to fight partisans (something they might conceivably have been able to do).
You say “…the Nazis used disaffected nationalist movements in other European countries for exactly the same purposes – Patsies”.
Very true but were the Blueshirts not a disaffected nationalist movement? Think about it. They had all started off on the same side but the ‘Blueshirts’ signed the treaty, gained power, beat Dev & the IRA in the civil war but then lost it all in a democratic election of all things!!!
They were so pissed off that O’Duffy the Blueshirt leader was lobbying Cosgrove to mount a coup d'etat right up to the night before Dev was to take power.
It wasn't a Blueshirt who died on a Nazi U-Boat. The IRA, for their blinkered reasons, negotiated with the Nazis who hoped to use them as a foothold in Ireland. Fact.
Your speculations regarding the Blueshirts are that alone - speculations.
I think the Blueshirts and the IRA would have went to war over who would be the puppet regime! Anyway, facetious comments aside, I remember some documentary about a German bomber which crashed into Mt Leinster, Wexford and the crew were given full military burial honours with the German ambassadoe in attendance and many local Wexford dignitaires who gave the NAZI salute at the funeral. I have looked for the footage on youtube but no luck yet.
Irish C, here is a clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI5qItpk6gE
Blue shirts giving the nazi salute, the film is only 32 seconds.
GM, as you said, there was much right wing sympathising right across the political spectrum in 1930s Ireland. It was, what it is.
The appropriate Quisling for the Nazis, could have been found in either IRA or the much depleted ACA. The Nazis wouldn't have been found pickey. With the collusion between elements of the IRA and the Third Reich already establish, they would have seemed a natural repository for essential information and hence had first choice of the spoils. Just before the Nazis obliterated everything moving on the Island.
Yes, Irish C, it would be good to find the footage you speak of. Let's know if you do.
That's right D... just different branches of feuding cultural nationalist families. But that's it - the IRA got there first.
Hi anon, I checked that link, it's very interesting, thanks but not the footage I saw. It was released after its 50 year ban under OSA was up, so would have been on some TV programme in last 10-15 years. I remember it was distinctly embarrassing on account of the wife of the mayor of Wexford town giving the fascist salute - the coffins were draped in swastikas. Maybe rte could be of assistance, I must email them.
From an Irish Times article , by historian Diarmuid Ferriter, early Feb 2012, on Ireland in WW2- This was a comment u by 'Kate' - her email shows she may be USA based( it's often easier to be objective when outside this country)- Anna
From Kate_ "It seems that De Valera's stance was not so much to keep Ireland neutral, but rather to keep her isolated. .... Maybe De Valera was just too much anti-Brit ..."
Well said: keep them poor, ignorant, swamped in myth and imbued with fear of outsiders. The 'history' of Ireland as instilled by Church and State was insular, self-aggrandising and devoid of context. In De Valera's Ireland the ‘outside’ existed as a threat to Irish Catholicism and/or 'independence'.
As for the magnificent ‘sacrifice’ in the war of independence: a total of 1,400 were killed: 363 RIC personnel, the majority of whom were Irish Catholic and killed by the IRA; 261 British Army soldiers; 550 IRA volunteers, and 200 civilians. (Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, pp. 201-202).
Any objective student of history might note Ireland suffered little loss in "defeating” a “British Empire" weakened by 6 million soldiers dead or lost in WWI - 662,000 of the dead were British plus a further 140,000 British recorded missing; 5,104 of those, men of the 36th Ulster Division on 1st July 1916 at the Somme; just short of 10 times the 550 who died for Irish "freedom". The total number of Irish deaths in WWI as opposed to the 550 who died in the war of Independence was 27,405.
In such context, details of Irish nationalists then murdering each other in a Civil War leaves no space for the usual mythologizing; in rejecting the Treaty De Valera rejected the democratic will of the majority of the Irish people and turned “brother on brother” (James Stephens). Interestingly, the total number of Civil War dead and wounded has never been counted; records show 500-800 Free State Army soldiers killed and “over 12,000 Republicans imprisoned”.
Researchers have estimated 4,000 died – murdered by their 'own' kith and kin, nearly eight times the number of 'volunteers' killed by the British in the war of independence!
And then ‘The Famine' 1845; no acknowledgement EVER in Ireland that, mid-1840s, a 'potato blight' swept Northern Europe, not just Ireland. At that time, there was NO "social contract" anywhere - just charity. Indeed prior to the mirage 'Tiger', it would appear only the self-designated 'elite' survived comfortably in Ireland? I take my information from Mr Ferriter’s excellent series. Pre-1990 it was ‘normal’ for the Irish 'poor' to emigrate in their hundreds of thousands, as it is again today. Some facts:
In the mid-1840s: 40,000–50,000 died from famine in Belgium; in Portuguese Cape Verde famine killed 42% of the population; in the Highlands of Scotland 1.7 million either died or emigrated; in Ireland "it is estimated 1 million died; 1.5 million emigrated"; famine resulted "in hundreds of thousands of deaths in north Portugal”; in Finland “15% of the entire population died”; in northern Sweden “more than150,000 died”. People educated elsewhere know these facts and more. Something needs to change in the Irish Education system.
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