Wednesday, June 27, 2018

High Finance - Part II

Part II

„The responsibility for the last World War [WW I] rests solely upon the shoulders of the international financiers. It is upon them that rests the blood of millions of dead and millions of dying.“ (Congressional Record, 67th Congress, 4th Session, Senate Document No. 346)


„How then was it that this Government [American], several years after the war was over, found itself owing in London and Wall Street several hundred million dollars to men who never fought a battle, who never made a uniform, never furnished a pound of bread, who never did an honest day’s work in all their lives?...The facts is, that billions owned by the sweat, tears and blood of American laborers have been poured into the coffers of these men for absolutely nothing. This ‘sacred war debt’ was only a gigantic scheme of fraud, concocted by European capitalists and enacted into American laws by the aid of American Congressmen, who were their paid hirelings or their ignorant dupes. That this crime has remained uncovered is due to the power of prejudice which seldom permits the victim to see clearly or reason correctly: ‘The money power prolongs its reign by working on prejudices. ‘Lincoln said.“ (Mary E. Hobard, The Secrets of the Rothschilds).


„If this mischievous financial policy [the United States Government issuing interest-free and debt-free money] which had its origin in the North American Republic during the war (1861-65) should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every Monarch on the globe!“ (London Times Editorial, 1865)


„[The world] forgets, in its ignorance and narrowness of heart, that when we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party; when we rise, there rises also the terrible power of the purse.“ (The Jewish State, New York, 1917)


„I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create money...And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.“ (Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, January 24, 1924)


„Five men meet in London twice daily and decide the world price of gold. They represent Mocatta & Goldsmid, Sharps, Pixley Ltd., Samuel Montagu Ltd., Mase Wespac Ltd. and M. Rothschild & Sons.“ (L.A. Times-Washington Post, 12/29/86)


„The division of the United States into two federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the High [Jewish] Financial Powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid of the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economical and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds predominated. They foresaw tremendous booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies, indebted to the Jewish financiers, to the vigorous Republic, confident and self-providing. Therefore, they started their emissaries to work in order to exploit the question of slavery and thus to dig an abyss between the two parts of the Republic...’“ (La Vieille France, No. 216, March, 1921)


Walther Rathenau, the Jewish banker behind the Kaiser, writing in the German Weiner Frei Presse, December 24th, 1912, said: „Three hundred men, each of whom knows all the other, govern the fate of the European continent, and they elect their successors from their entourage.“ Confirmation of Rathenau’s statement came twenty years later in 1931 when Jean Izoulet, a prominent member of the Jewish Alliance Israelite Universelle, wrote in his Paris la Capitale des Religions: „The meaning of the history of the last century is that today 300 Jewish financiers, all Masters of Lodges, rule the world.“ (Waters Flowing Eastward, p. 108)


„From the strictly financial point of view, the most disastrous events of history, wars or revolutions, never produce catastrophes, the manipulators of money can make profit out of everything provided that they are well-informed before-hand...It is certain that the Jews scattered over the whole surface of the globe are particularly well placed in this respect.“ (G. Batault, Le problème juif; The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, p. 136)


„I know of nothing more cynical than the attitude of European statesmen and financiers towards the Russian muddle. Essentially it is their purpose, as laid down at Genoa, to place Russia in economic vassalage and give political recognition in exchange. American business is asked to join in that helpless, that miserable and contemptible business, the looting of that vast domain, and to facilitate its efforts, certain American bankers engaged in mortgaging the world are willing to sow among their own people the fiendish, anti-democratic propaganda of Bolshevism, subsidizing, buying, intimidating, cajoling. There are splendid and notable exceptions but the great powers of the American-Anglo-German financing combinations have set their faces towards the prize displayed by a people on their knees. Most important is the espousal of the Bolshevist cause by the grope of American, Anglo-German bankers who like to call themselves international financiers to dignify and conceal their true function and limitation. Specifically the most important banker in this group and speaking for this group, born in Germany as it happens, has issued orders to his friends and associates that all must now work for Soviet recognition.“ (Article by Samuel Gompers, New York Times, May 7, 1922; The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, p. 133)


„The mode of government which is the most propitious for the full development of the class war, is the demagogic regime which is equally favorable to the two fold intrigues of Finance and Revolution. When this struggle is let loose in a violent form, the leaders of the masses are kings, but money is god: the demagogues are the masters of the passions of the mob, but the financiers are the master of the demagogues, and it is in the last resort the widely spread riches of the country, rural property, real estate, which, for as long as they last, must pay for the movement.
When the demagogues prosper amongst the ruins of social and political order, and overthrown traditions, gold is the only power which counts, it is the measure of everything; it can do everything and reigns without hindrance in opposition to all countries, to the detriment of the city of the nation, or of the empire which are finally ruined.
In doing this do not financiers work against themselves? It may be asked: in destroying the established order do not they destroy the source of all riches? This is perhaps true in the end; but whilst states which count their years by human generations, are obliged in order to insure their existence to conceive and conduct a far-sighted policy in view of a distant future, Finance which gets its living from what is present and tangible, always follows a short-sighted policy, in view of rapid results and success without troubling itself about the morrows of history.“ (G. Batault, Le problème juif, p. 257; The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, pp. 135-136)


„The full history of the interlocking participation of the Imperial German Government and international finance in the destruction of the Russian Empire is not yet written...It is not a mere coincidence that at the notorious meeting held at Stockholm in 1916, between the former Russian Minister of the Interior, Protopopoff, and the German Agents, the German Foreign Office was represented by Mr. Warburg, whose two brothers were members of the international banking firm, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, of which the late Mr. Jacob Schiff was a senior member.“ (The World at the Cross Roads, by Boris Brasol, pp. 70-71; Rulers of Russia, Rev. Denis Fahey, p. 7)


„The warning of Theodore Roosevelt has much timeliness today, for the real menace of our republic is this Invisible Government which like a Giant Octopus sprawls its slimy length over the city, STATE AND NATION. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self-created screen. It seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive officers, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection. It squirms in the jaws of darkness and thus is the better able to clutch the reins of government, secure enactment of the legislation favorable to corrupt business, violate the law with impunity, smother the press and reach into the courts. To depart from mere generalizations, let say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States Government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as well be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business. They connive at centralization of government on the theory that a small group of hand-picked, privately controlled individuals in power can be more easily handled than a larger group among whom there will most likely be men sincerely interested in public welfare. These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.“ (Former New York City Mayor John Haylan speaking in Chicago and quoted in the March 27, 1927 New York Times)


In „Washington Dateline,“ the president of The American Research Foundation, Robert H. Goldsborough, writes that he was told personally by Mark Jones {one-time financial advisor to the late John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and president of the National Economic Council in the 1960s and 1970s} „that just four men, through their interlocking directorates on boards of large corporations and major banks, controlled the movement of capital and the creation of debt in America. According to Jones, Sidney Weinberg, Frank Altshul and General Lucius Clay were three of those men in the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. The fourth was Eugene Meyer, Jr. whose father was a partner in the immensely powerful international bank, Lazard Freres...Today the Washington Post {and Newsweek} is controlled by Meyer Jr.’ daughter Katharine Graham.“


WALTER CRICK, British Manufacturer, in the NORTHAMPTON DAILY ECHO, March 19. 1925): „Jews can destroy by means of finance. Jews are International. Control of credits in this country is not in the hands of the English, but of Jews. It has become the biggest danger the British Empire ever had to face.“


This startling piece of prediction is particularly impressive to those who have observed the Soviet scene and notice its strange relationship with capitalist financiers - overwhelmingly Jewish - since the revolution. The line runs from Olof Aschberg, self-described „Bolshevik banker“ who ferried to Trotsky the huge sums raised for the revolution by financiers in Europe and America, to Armand Hammer in the 1970s, who has specialized in multimillion-dollar trade concessions with the now supposedly ‘anti-Semitic’ commissars.


PRIMO DE RIVERA, JOSE. 20th century Spanish political reformer (assassinated by the Communists). He stressed that the instruments of Jewish domination in the modern world are money and the press, and that communism is an instrument of international Jewish capitalism used to smash and afterwards rule the nations. (El Estado Nacional)

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Dr. David Duke - “Six Steps to Communist Slavery”


Special guest Dr. Duke joins TradCatKnight to discuss: the hand behind the scene manipulating the masses, who was behind the immigration laws in 1965?, mass immigration, gun control, social justice movement, ISIS, rise in censorship, prophecy indicating Christian victory, Fatima and Russia, latest geopolitical moves of Trump, fake news propaganda, Catholic bashing and MUCH more!

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Illusion and Leverage


by Dr. William L. Pierce

Today I’ll continue with the same general concept we talked about last week: the house-of-cards concept. The Jews maintain their power only by maintaining an illusion, and that illusion is that most people are in agreement with their policies and programs, when in fact a very large number of people are not. The Jews have, of course, a substantial number of willing Gentile collaborators, who collaborate because they depend upon the Jews to help them maintain their own unearned advantages: the feminists, the homosexuals, the welfare rabble, the politicians, and a significant portion of the business and corporate elite. And I’m speaking of White collaborators only. I’m not even concerned about non-Whites. But all of these White collaborators could be swept away were it not for the majority of Whites who are being fooled by the illusion.

After last week’s broadcast a listener commented that the people who pretend to be shocked by Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker’s expression of distaste for the denizens of Times Square and the New York subways are the same people who will never give an honest explanation of why they have fled the cities for the suburbs or small towns. The outflow of White families from the cities – the so-called “White flight” – is the direct consequence of the influx of non-Whites into the cities. The Whites are desperate to get away from the non-Whites – but not one in 20 will admit it. They believe that everyone around them will condemn them if they do admit it. They are so terrified of being thought “racists” that many of them won’t even admit the truth to themselves. Instead they invent a Politically Acceptable reason for their flight: the schools are better in the suburbs because of the higher teachers’ salaries, the suburbs provide easier access to the shopping malls, or whatever.

How is this illusion maintained? Almost entirely through the Jewish control of the mass media of news and entertainment. Most people – most White Americans, anyway – like to believe that they observe the world around them and then come to objective conclusions about things. They like to believe that they are rational individuals. They like to believe that they are independent thinkers. And of course, a few of them are – but most of them, about 95 per cent of them – aren’t. They are conformists. They conform their opinions, their thinking, their attitudes, to what they believe is expected of them.

Consider religion, as an example. People are not Baptists or Lutherans or Roman Catholics or Muslims because they have examined the various religious doctrines, compared them, and then made a rational decision. In 98 per cent of the cases one is a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Muslim or a Buddhist because one’s parents and the other people in one’s community are. A thoughtful person who takes his religion seriously may be prepared to argue about it and to defend cleverly the merits of his particular sect against the claims of a different sect, but the fact remains that his adherence to his own sect is not based on an independent decision. It was based from the beginning on conforming his beliefs to the perceived beliefs of the people around him. All of his arguments are only attempts to rationalize what in the first place was not rational. Think about it, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me.

It works a little differently with other types of belief, but the psychology, the human element, remains the same. In America, the government and the mass media don’t take a position favoring one Christian sect over another or even a position favoring Christianity over Buddhism or Islam, say. The pressure to conform in religious matters must come from family and neighbors. But in political ideology the pressure to conform comes very much from the government and even more from the mass media. And when I say pressure comes from the government, I mean all government-controlled institutions, including especially the schools. All of the media and all of the government institutions promote the belief that mass democracy, American style – television style – is the best possible form of government.

Beyond this they promote the beliefs that men and women are essentially the same, except for the configuration of their genitalia, and that it is “unfair” to treat them differently in any way; that homosexuals are just like heterosexuals except for a different sexual orientation, and that it is “bigoted” to treat them differently in any way; that Jews are clever and witty people, good at business, but honest and also sensitive and caring, and it is “hateful” to have any other ideas about them; and that Blacks and other non-Whites may look different, but under the skin they are just like us – in particular, they are just as intelligent, just as creative, just as good at solving problems, and just as inclined to accept personal responsibility.

Now, whether you personally believe these things or not, I think you’ll agree with me that the government and the mass media do push quite hard for conformity to these beliefs. For example, have you ever seen any television news program showing people using computers – children with computers in a classroom, say – in which a Black wasn’t shown at the keyboard? I mean, it’s like there is a rule that all news program directors must follow: you cannot show a computer unless you show a Black at the keyboard. It’s transparently obvious that they are pushing the idea that computers and Blacks go together, like blackeyed peas and collard greens. That’s what they want the public to believe.

The reality, of course, is that computers are a White thing and always have been: the invention, the engineering, the programming, you name it. Blacks just aren’t involved. You can teach a Black to use a computer, of course, just as you can teach a chimpanzee to ride a bicycle. But computers remain in the White domain, just as bicycles remain in the human domain. And that’s certainly not because anyone is holding Blacks back. It’s a matter of aptitude and inclination. Chinamen certainly are capable of understanding the science involved, which is why under the Clinton policy of globalizing the economy much of the computer technology we developed is moving to China, and we’re now forced to buy some computer products from the Chinese. But if you ever see computer products being imported from Ghana or Zambia it will only be because someone who is not a Black has built a factory there to take advantage of the cheap labor. It will not be because a Black computer whiz in Africa has developed something on his own.

You know, most people understand this at a certain level. They know that this business of always showing Blacks at computer keyboards is a media trick, but they have a hard time resisting it. They feel a compulsion to believe that the illusion is real.

The same trick is used in other ways. If NASA has a public announcement to make about one of its scientific space probes, the chances are pretty good there will be a Black chosen to stand in front of the television cameras, make the announcement, and explain to us the science involved – unless, of course, there has been a screwup and the space probe failed to do what it was supposed to do. Then it’s OK to have a White spokesman. Or if the National Institutes of Health or the Food and Drug Administration has something important to tell us, a Black in a white lab coat will be trotted out for the cameras. The idea is to create the illusion that technology and science and progress and intelligence are associated somehow with Blacks – or at least, that Blacks are just as good at that sort of thing as we are.

And as I already mentioned, it’s difficult to resist this sort of illusion. One cannot turn on a television set or pick up a mass-circulation magazine these days without seeing Blacks presented to us in White roles as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Flip through the channels, and you see Black face after Black face, and the smiling Whites all around them always are approving. Black doctors, Black businessmen, Black teachers, Black scientists, Black comedians, Black singers, Black dancers, Black announcers, Black ball players, Black detectives, Black men running off with White girls, and all the Whites around them smiling and approving. It’s almost hypnotic.

But you know, it is an illusion. The smiling Whites who are so approving of the Blacks are being paid to smile. The Whites in the television audience aren’t being paid, of course, but it’s difficult for them to resist smiling too. It’s a very primitive but very strong impulse, this need to laugh when those around you are laughing, to smile when everyone else is smiling. The television bosses understand this impulse perfectly, and they use it effectively.

And it’s not just in the United States that this illusion is being promoted. The mass media and the democratic politicians in Germany have been collaborating with the Jews for the past 55 years in an effort to foster a similar illusion in the public consciousness of the German people. The Germans always have believed that there was something special about being German, about being born of German parents. Every German inherited through his genes something of the greatness of his nation, its history, its genius.

Of course, the French and the Russians and the English and the Irish have similar beliefs about their own nations. It’s an ethnic thing – but very undemocratic: something which the Jews and their collaborators have been trying hard to stamp out. So shortly after the beginning of this year, early on New Year’s Day, German collaborators chose a newborn baby to be the “German of the Millennium.” And of course, they didn’t choose a German baby for this distinction; they chose a Turkish baby, born in a German hospital to two Turkish “guest workers.” And for the past week politicians and the media people have been holding up this Turkish baby to television audiences in Germany as a typical German of the new millennium, and all of the collaborators and paid media people on the screen at the same time have smiled proudly whenever this announcement has been made. And unfortunately, all too many German television viewers have smiled along with them. That’s the way our people are. And so the German public gradually begins falling victim to this carefully engineered illusion that Turks and Gypsies and Pakistanis and Zulus born in Germany are really Germans, just like all other Germans.

I’ve spoken of the Jewish power structure shielded by this illusion as a “house of cards.” That’s a reasonable term to use, I believe, but let’s try now to understand it a little better. If tonight Washington and New York City and Hollywood all were devastated by massive earthquakes – if most of the people and the institutions which generate and maintain the illusion in America – suddenly were destroyed, the house of cards would not immediately come tumbling down. In fact, the illusion would not instantly be replaced by a clear view of reality. Illusions have a tendency to persist for a while. People who were deceived by the illusion would continue deceiving themselves for a while; they would continue clinging to the illusion. Many people would need guidance in freeing themselves from the illusion and gaining a firm grasp on reality. Providing that guidance would be a far easier task and require much less work than the work the Jews and their collaborators have put into building the illusion. The truth does have its advantages. But still, uprooting the illusion and pulling down the house of cards would not be something that could be accomplished overnight.

There’s another important consideration: the organizational consideration. If a minority wants to maintain its control over a majority – especially if a substantial number of the members of that majority don’t want to be controlled – then the controlling minority needs to have an effective organizational structure through which to exercise its control. The organizational structure provides the necessary leverage which a numerical minority needs in order to control an unwilling majority.

Well, that’s pretty simple and obvious, I guess, but it’s still something to think about in coming to an understanding of our situation. The rule is this: the larger the disparity in numbers, the more the organizational leverage that is required; and the greater the leverage needed, the less is the stability. Which is why the Jews are pushing a number of long-range programs to decrease our numbers, both absolutely and in relation to the feminists, homosexuals, non-Whites, and the others in their camp. At the moment their situation is still quite precarious, in that without governmental compulsion they could not maintain their control; illusion alone would not hold their house of cards up.

At this time, however, they have both: they have the machinery of illusion in their hands, and they have organizational leverage. And they need both. If someone could put a big enough monkey wrench into the gears of the illusion machinery to shut it down for an extended period, the leverage would become very shaky indeed. The politicians and the bureaucrats and the secret police agencies and the military people don’t do the will of the Jews because they love the Jews. They do it because they are part of an organization, part of the governmental establishment. Their paychecks come from the government, and they are hoping that one day their pensions also will come from the government. But the government itself still is based on the idea of popular support, on the idea of elections and votes. When the illusion machinery is no longer available to control the votes, the politicians will be making new calculations, and so will the head bureaucrats. In every case it will be their own advantage they will be seeking, of course. Patriotism is a thing of the past.

On the other hand, if a big enough monkey wrench could be thrown into the government’s gears, then even a fairly small number of determined people could wreck the illusion machinery, and I believe it’s not necessary for me to explain how that could be done. But now the government and the illusion machinery support each other, and I don’t know of anyone who has a big enough monkey wrench to shut down either of them. That’s a shortcoming to which we must address ourselves.

Anyway, do you remember the miniature civil war in Russia back in the early part of the Yeltsin era, in September and October 1993? That was just six years ago. Boris Yeltsin, of course, was the candidate of the Jews – sort of the Bill Clinton of Russia. He had been elected only with the all-out support of the mass media – especially the television networks, which then as now were under the tight control of the Jews, most notably Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gussinsky. Progressive Russian patriots, along with conservative elements from the earlier era, tried to take the organizational machinery away from Yeltsin – which is to say, away from the Jews. The Russian legislature – the Duma – voted to depose Yeltsin, but without anyone to take his place immediately the Army and the KGB continued to take their orders from him.

Patriots stormed the Russian parliament building in Moscow and also the main television station there. They broke through the troops around the parliament building, the so-called White House, seized the building, and barricaded themselves inside. They did not succeed in taking the main television station, however, because the KGB had its toughest troops – its elite troops – guarding the place. They were far more concerned about protecting the television headquarters – about maintaining their hold on the machinery of illusion – than they were about holding onto the White House and its legislative machinery. When the patriots tried to storm Berezovsky’s television station, the KGB troops simply machine-gunned them, and they died in the streets. Keeping the population entranced with the usual television fare, it was then a simple matter to send tanks against the White House. Yeltsin had the Russian Army shelling the White House with tanks to drive out the patriots. And so Yeltsin and his gang – which is to say, the Jews – were able to hang onto power. How different it might have been if the Russian patriots had succeeded in taking over the machinery of illusion at the same time they were barricaded in the White House! A day or two of control of Russian television by a crew of intelligent patriots could have been enough to bring hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians into the streets and also to cause the Army and KGB bosses to make new calculations.

We might also note that organizational leverage works at the international level pretty much as it works at the national level. During the 1993 crisis in Russia, the Jews and their collaborators over here were sweating the outcome. I don’t know what threats and promises were made behind the scenes, but I can imagine. It’s clear that any small country, without nuclear weapons, that doesn’t take orders will get the same treatment Serbia got. It would have been quite a bit more difficult for the Jews if things had gone better for the patriots in Russia in 1993. And things still may take a turn for the better in Russia. Certainly, even a nuclear war, if it unhinges the leverage or wrecks the machinery of illusion, will be better than a continuation of the present course of events. The best chance for avoiding a nuclear war, however, and also for unhinging the Jews’ international leverage, would be to put a big enough monkey wrench into the organizational machinery here so that the U.S. government cannot exercise the Jews’ will against any other country using cruise missiles, the way it did against Iraq and Serbia.

Well, all of my talk today hasn’t provided anything in the way of a concrete plan of action, but perhaps it may help us focus our thinking a little better when we do work out a plan. For now what we must do is continue reaching our people in every way we can. I’ll be happy to have your help in this endeavor.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

The Bolshevik Revolution – Darkness Descends


The untold story of the Bolsheviks, the Romanovs, the Kulaks, and Holodomor, and the greatest massacre of innocent lives in human history.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Stalin’s War Against His Own Troops

The Tragic Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War in German Captivity


By Yuri Teplyakov
Published: 1994-07-01

Yuri Teplyakov, born in 1937, studied journalism at Moscow State University. He worked as a journalist for the Moscow daily newspapers Izvestia and Komsomolskaya Pravda, and for the APN information agency. From 1980 to 1993 he worked for the weekly Moscow News. In writing this article, he expresses thanks to Mikhail Semiryaga, D.Sc. (History), „who provided me with considerable material, which he found in German archives. As for the documents of Soviet filtering camps, I shall go on with my searches.“ This article originally appeared in Moscow News, No. 19, 1990, and is reprinted here by special arrangement.


At dawn on June 22, 1941, began the mightiest military offensive in history: the German-led Axis attack against the Soviet Union. During the first 18 months of the campaign, about three million Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner. By the end of the conflict four years later, more than five million Soviet troops are estimated to have fallen into German hands. Most of these unfortunate men died in German captivity.

A major reason for this was the unusual nature of the war on the eastern front, particularly during the first year – June 1941-June 1942 – when vastly greater numbers of prisoners fell into German hands than could possibly be accommodated adequately. However, and as Russian journalist Teplyakov explains in the following article, much of the blame for the terrible fate of the Soviet soldiers in German captivity was due to the inflexibly cruel policy of Soviet dictator Stalin.

During the war, the Germans made repeated attempts through neutral countries and the International Committee of the Red Cross to reach mutual agreement on the treatment of prisoners by Germany and the USSR. As British historian Robert Conquest explains in his book Stalin: Breaker of Nations, the Soviets adamantly refused to cooperate:

When the Germans approached the Soviets, through Sweden, to negotiate observance of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, Stalin refused. The Soviet soldiers in German hands were thus unprotected even in theory. Millions of them died in captivity, through malnutrition or maltreatment. If Stalin had adhered to the convention (to which the USSR had not been a party) would the Germans have behaved better? To judge by their treatment of other "Slav submen" POWs (like the Poles, even surrendering after the [1944) Warsaw Rising), the answer seems to be yes. (Stalin's own behavior to [Polish] prisoners captured by the Red Army had already been demonstrated at Katyn and elsewhere [where they were shot}.

Another historian, Nikolai Tolstoy, affirms in The Secret Betrayal:

Hitler himself urged Red Cross inspection of [German} camps [holding Soviet prisoners of war}. But an appeal to Stalin for prisoners' postal services received a reply that clinched the matter: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war. The Soviet soldier fights on till death. If he chooses to become a prisoner, he is automatically excluded from the Russian community. We are not interested in a postal service only for Germans."

Given this situation, the German leaders resolved to treat Soviet prisoners no better than the Soviet leaders were treating the German soldiers they held. As can be imagined, Soviet treatment of German prisoners was harsh. Of an estimated three million German soldiers who fell into Soviet hands, more than two million perished in captivity. Of the 91,000 German troops captured in the Battle of Stalingrad, fewer than 6,000 ever returned to Germany.

As Teplyakov also explains here, Red Army "liberation" of the surviving Soviet prisoners in German camps brought no end to the suffering of these hapless men. It wasn't until recently, when long-suppressed Soviet wartime records began to come to light and long-silenced voices could at last speak out, that the full story of Stalin's treatment of Soviet prisoners became known. It wasn't until 1989, for example, that Stalin's grim Order No. 270 of August 16,1941 – cited below – was first published.

What is the most horrible thing about war?“

Marshal Ivan Bagramyan, three-time Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Pokryshkin, and Private Nikolai Romanov, who has no battle orders or titles, all replied with just one word: „Captivity.“

„Is it more horrible than death?“ I was asking soldier Nikolai Romanov a quarter of a century ago when, on the sacred day of May 9 [anniversary of the end of the war against Germany in 1945], we were drinking bitter vodka together to commemorate the souls of the Russian muzhiks who would never return to that orphaned village on the bank of the Volga.

„It’s more horrible,“ he replied. „Death is your own lot. But if it’s captivity, it spells trouble for many ...“

At that time, in 1965, I could not even vaguely imagine the extent of the tragedy which had befallen millions upon millions, nor did I know that that tragedy had been triggered by just a few lines from the Interior Service Regulations of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army: a Soviet soldier must not be taken prisoner against his will. And if he has been, he is a traitor to the Motherland.

 

Captured during the great military victories in the first months of Hitler’s „Barbarossa“ offensive against the Soviet Union, seemingly endless columns of Red Army prisoners such as these are marched to captivity in German camps.

How many of them were there – those „traitors“?

„During the war years,“ I was told by Colonel Ivan Yaroshenko, Deputy Chief of the Central Archives of the USSR Ministry of Defense, in Podolsk near Moscow, „as many as 32 million people were soldiers, and 5,734,528 of them were taken prisoner by the enemy.“

Later I learned where this happened and when. Thus, the Red Army suffered the most tragic losses in terms of prisoners of war in the following battles: Belostok-Minsk, August 1941, 323,000; Uman, August 1941, 103,000; Smolensk-Roslavl, August 1941, 348,000; Gomel, August 1941, 30,000; Demyansk, September 1941, 35,000; Kiev, September 1941, 665,000; Luga-Leningrad, September 1941, 20,000; Melitopol, October 1941, 100,000; Vyazma, October 1941, 662,000; Kerch, November 1941, 100,000; Izyum-Kharkov, May 1942, 207,000. People were taken prisoner even in February 1945 (Hungary), 100,000.

The same archives in Podolsk hold another 2.5 million cards „missing in action“ – two and a half million who never returned home. Experts believe: two million of them are still lying in Russia’s forests and marshes. And about 200,000 must be added to the list of POWs. Proof? From time to time the Podolsk archives receive a letter from somewhere in Australia or the United States: „I was taken prisoner. Request confirmation that I took part in battles against fascism.“

This person was lucky – he survived. The majority, however, had a different lot. German statistics put it on record: 280,000 person died at deportation camps and 1,030,157 were executed when trying to escape or died at factories or mines in Germany.

Many of our officers and men were killed by famine before they reached the camps. Nearly 400,000 men died in November-December 1941 alone. During the entire war there were 235,473 British and American prisoners of war in Germany – 8,348 of them died. Were our men weaker? Hardly. The reasons were different. In the West it is believed that the millions of our POWs who died in captivity fell victim not only to fascism but also to the Stalinist system itself. At least half of those who died from hunger could have been saved had Stalin not called them traitors and refused to send food parcels to them via the International Red Cross.

It can be argued how many would have survived, but it’s a fact that we left our POWs to the mercy of fate. The Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention concerning the legal status of prisoners of war. Refusing to sign it was consistent with the Jesuitical nature of the „leader of the peoples.“

From Stalin’s point of view, several provisions of the Convention were incompatible with the moral and economic institutions which were inherent in the world’s „freest country.“ The Convention, it turns out, did not guarantee the right to POWs as working people: low wages, no days off, no fixed working hours. Exception was also taken to the privileges fixed for some groups of POWs. In other words it should be more humane. But greater hypocrisy can hardly be imagined. What privileges were enjoyed at that very same time by millions in [Soviet] GULAG prison camps? What guarantees existed there and how many days off did they have?

In August 1941 Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the camp for Soviet POWs in Hammerstadt. It is these contacts that resulted in an appeal to the Soviet government, requesting that it should send food parcels for our officers and men. We are prepared to fulfill and comply with the norms of the Geneva convention, Moscow said in its reply, but sending food in the given situation and under fascist control is the same as making presents to the enemy.

The reply came as a surprise. The Red Cross representatives had not read Stalin’s Order of the Day – Order No. 270, signed on August 16, 1941. Otherwise they would have understood how naive their requests and offers were, and how great was Stalin’s hatred for those who had found themselves behind enemy lines.

It made no difference: who, where, how and why? Even the dead were considered to be criminals. Lt.-Gen. Vladimir Kachalov, we read in the order, „being in encirclement together with the headquarters of a body of troops, displayed cowardice and surrendered to the German fascists. The headquarters of Kachalov’s groups broke out of the encirclement, the units of Kachalov’s group battled their way out of the encirclement, but Lt.-Gen. Kachalov preferred to desert to the enemy.“

General Vladimir Kachalov had been lying for 12 days in a burned out tank at the Starinka village near Smolensk, and never managed to break out to reach friendly forces. Yet this was of no concern for anyone. They were busy with something else looking for scapegoats whom they could dump all of their anger on, looking for enemies of the people whose treachery and cowardice had again subverted the will of the great military leader.

We had to be „convinced“ again and again: the top echelons of authority, the leaders, have no relation whatsoever to any tragedy, to any failure – be it the collapse of the first Five-Year Plan or the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the Dnieper. Moreover, these misfortunes cannot have objective reasons either, being due solely to the intrigues of saboteurs and the enemies of the progressive system. For decades, ever since the 1930s, we have been permanently looking for scapegoats in the wrong place, but finding them nevertheless. At that time, in the first summer of the war, plenty of them were found. And the more the better. On June 4, 1940, the rank of general was re-established in the Red Army. They were awarded to 966 persons.

More than 50 were taken prisoner in the very first year of the war. Very many of them would envy their colleagues – those 150 generals who would later die on the battlefields. The torments of captivity proved to be darker than the grave. At any rate the destinies of Generals Pavel Ponedelin and Nikolai Kirillov, mentioned in the same Order No. 270, prove that this is so. They staunchly withstood their years in the German camps. In April 1945 the [western] Allies set them free and turned them over to the Soviet side. It seemed that everything had been left behind, but they were not forgiven for August 1941. They were arrested after a „state check-up“: five years in the Lefortovo jail for political prisoners and execution by a firing squad on August 25, 1950.

„Stalin’s last tragic acts in his purging of the military were the accusations of betrayal and treachery he advanced in the summer of 1941 against the Western Front commanders, Pavlov and Klimovskikh, and several other generals among whom, as it became clear later, there were also people who behaved in an uncompromising way to the end when in captivity.“ This assessment is by the famous chronicler of the war, Konstantin Simonov. It appeared in the 1960s, but during the wartime ordeals there was indomitable faith: the prisoners of war (both generals and soldiers) were guilty. No other yardstick existed.

International law states that military captivity is not a crime, „a prisoner of war must be as inviolable as the sovereignty of a people, and as sacred as a misfortune.“ This is for others, whereas for us there was a different law – Stalin’s Order No. 270.

If... „instead of organizing resistance to the enemy, some Red Army men prefer to surrender, they shall be destroyed by all possible means, both ground-based and from the air, whereas the families of the Red Army men who have been taken prisoner shall be deprived of the state allowance [that is, rations) and relief.“

The commanders and political officers... „who surrender to the enemy shall be considered malicious deserters, whose families are liable to be arrested [just] as the families of deserters who have violated the oath and betrayed their Motherland.“

Just a few lines, but they stand for the hundreds of thousands of children and old folks who died from hunger only because their father or son happened to be taken prisoner.

Just a few lines, but they amount to a verdict on those who never even thought of a crime, who were only waiting for a letter from the front.

Having read these lines, I came to understand the amount of grief they carried for absolutely innocent people, just as I understood the secret sorrow of the words Private Nikolai Romanov told me a quarter of a century ago: „Your own captivity spells trouble for many.“

I understood why the most horrible thing for our soldiers was not to be killed, but to be reported „missing in action,“ and why before each battle, especially before the assault crossing of rivers, they asked one another: „Buddy, if I get drowned, say that you saw me die.“

Setting their feet on a shaky pontoon and admitting, as it were, that they could be taken prisoner solely through their own fault, they mentally glanced back not out of fear for their own lives they were tormented and worried over the lives of those who had stayed back at home.
 

Soviet prisoners of war in a German POW camp. This photograph was found by Red Army troops among the belongings of dead German soldiers.

But what was the fault of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers encircled near Vyazma when Hitler launched Operation Taifun – his advance on Moscow? „The most important thing is not to surrender your positions,“ the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief ordered them. And the army was feverishly digging trenches facing the west, when panzer wedges were already enveloping them from the east.

General Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht’s ground forces, made the following entry in his diary on this occasion: „October 4 – 105 days of the war. The enemy has continued everywhere holding the unattacked sectors of the front, with the result that deep envelopment of these enemy groups looms in the long term.“

Who was supposed to see these wedges? A soldier from his tiny foxhole or Stalin from the GHQ? And what was the result? Who was taken prisoner? Who betrayed the Motherland? The soldier did.

In May 1942, as many as 207,047 officers and men (the latest figure) found themselves encircled at Kharkov. When Khrushchev held power, it was Stalin who was considered to be guilty of this. When Brezhnev took over, the blame was again put on Khrushchev who, incidentally, had been merely warned by Stalin for that defeat which opened the road for the Germans to the Volga. But who then betrayed the Motherland, who was taken prisoner?

The soldier.

May 19, 1942, is the date ofour army’s catastrophe in the Crimea. „The Kerch Operation may be considered finished: 150,000 POWs and a large quantity of captured equipment.“ This is a document from the German side. And here is a document from the Soviet side cited by Konstantin Simonov: „I happened to be on the Kerch Peninsula in 1942. The reason for the humiliating defeat is clear to me. Complete mistrust of the army and front commanders, Mekhlis’ stupid willfulness and arbitrary actions. He ordered that no trenches be dug, so as not to sap the soldiers’ offensive spirit.“

Stalin’s closest aide and then Chief of the Main Political Administration (GPU), Lev Mekhlis, the first Commissar of the Army and Navy, returned to Moscow after that defeat. And what did the soldier do? The soldier stayed in captivity.

There is no denying that no war can do without treachery and traitors. They could also be found among POWs. But if compared with the millions of their brothers in captivity, they amounted to no more than a drop in the ocean. Yet this drop existed. There is no escaping this. Some were convinced by leaflets like this one:

The Murderous Balance of Bolshevism:

Killed during the years of the Revolution and Civil War – 2,200,000 persons.

Died from famine and epidemics in 1918-1921 and in 1932-1933 – 14,500,000 persons.

Perished in forced labor camps – 10,000,000 persons.

Some even put it this way: I am not going into action against my people, I am going into action against Stalin. But the majority joined fascist armed formations with only one hope: as soon as the first fighting starts, I’ll cross the line to join friendly troops. Not everyone managed to do this, although the following fact is also well-known. On September 14, 1943, when the results of the Kursk Battle were summed up, Hitler explained the defeat by the „treachery of auxiliary units“: indeed, at that time 1,300 men – practically a whole regiment deserted to the Red Army’s side on the southern sector. „But now I am fed up with this,“ Hitler said. „I order these units to be disarmed immediately and this whole gang to be sent to the mines in France.“

It has to be admitted that it was Hitler who rejected longer than all others the proposals to form military units from among Soviet POWs, although as early as September 1941 Colonel von Tresckow had drawn up a plan for building up a 200,000-strong Russian anti-Soviet army. It was only on the eve of the Stalingrad Battle, when prisoners of war already numbered millions, that the Führer gave his consent at last.

All in all, it became possible to form more than 180 units. Among them the number of Russian formations was 75; those formed from among Kuban, Don and Terek Cossacks – 216; Turkistan and Tatar (from Tataria and the Crimean Tatars) – 42; Georgian – 11; peoples of the Northern Caucasus – 12; Azerbaijani – 13; Armenian – 8.

The numerical strength of these battalions by their national affiliation (data as of January 24, 1945) was the following: Latvians – 104,000; Tatars (Tataria) – 12,500, Crimean Tatars 10,000; Estonians – 10,000; Armenians – 7,000; Kalmyks – 5,000. And the Russians? According to the official figures of Admiral Karl Dönitz’s „government,“ as of May 20, 1945, there were the 599th Russian Brigade – 13,000, the 600th – 12,000, and the 650th – 18,000 men.

If all of this is put together (as we are doing now), it would seem that there were many who served on the other side. But if we remember that only 20 percent of these forces took part in hostilities, that they were recruited from among millions of POWs, that thousands upon thousands crossed the front line to return to friendly troops, the brilliance of the figures will clearly fade.

One detail – the Reich’s special services displayed special concern over forming non-Russian battalions as if they knew that they would be required, especially after the war when whole peoples, from babies to senile old men, came to be accused of treachery. And it made no difference whether you were kept in a prison camp or served in the army – all the same you were an enemy.

But the POWs themselves were not yet aware of this – everything still lay ahead. The hangover after liberation would set in a little later. Both for those who themselves escaped from the camps (500,000 in 1944, according to the estimate of Germany’s Armaments Minister Speer) and for those who after liberation by Red Army units (more than a million officers and men) again fought in its ranks.

For too long a time we used to judge the spring of 1945 solely by the humane instructions issued by our formidable marshals – allot milk for Berlin’s children, feed women and old men. It was strange reading those documents, and at the same time chewing steamed rye instead of bread, and eating soup made of dog meat (only shortly before her death did my grandmother confess she had slaughtered dogs to save us from hunger). Reading those orders, I was prepared to cry from tender emotions: how noble it was to think that way and to show such concern for the German people.

And who of us knew that at the same time the marshals received different orders from the Kremlin with respect to their own people?

[To the] Commanders of the troops of the First and Second Byelorussian Fronts [Army Groups], and the First, Second, Third and Fourth Ukrainian Fronts...

The Military Councils of the Fronts shall form camps in [rear-zone] service areas for the accommodation and maintenance of former prisoners of war and repatriated Soviet citizens – each camp for 10,000 persons. All in all, there shall be formed: at the Second Byelorussian Front – 15 [camps]; at the First Byelorussian Front – 30; at the First Ukrainian Front – 30; at the Fourth Ukrainian Front – 5; at the Sec ond Ukrainian Front – 10; at the Third Ukrainian Front – 10 camps ...

The check-up [of the former prisoners of war and repatriated citizens] shall be entrusted as follows: former Red Army servicemen – to the bodies of SMERSH counter-intelligence; civilians – to the commissions of the NKVD, NKGB, SMERSH ...

J. ‘Stalin

I phoned Col.-Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, Chief of the Institute of Military History under the USSR Ministry of Defense [and author of Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy]: „Where did you find that order? Both at the State Security Committee and at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs they told me that they had nothing of the kind.“

„This one is from Stalin’s personal archives. The camps existed, which means that there are also papers from which it is possible to learn everything: who, where, what they were fed, what they thought about. Most likely, the documents are in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The convoy troops were subordinate to this government department. It included the Administration for the Affairs of Former Prisoners of War. Make a search.“

And search I did. Maj.-Gen. Pyotr Mishchenkov, First Deputy Chief of the present-day Main Administration for Corrective Affairs (GUID) at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, was sincerely surprised: „This is the first I heard about this. I would be glad to help, but there is nothing I can do about it. I know that there was a colony in the Chunsky district of the Irkutsk Region. People got there after being checked up at the filtering camps mentioned in Stalin’s order. They were all convicted under Article 58 – high treason.“

One colony... Where are the others, what happened to their inmates? After all, as many as 100 camps were at work. The only thing I managed to find out – by October 1, 1945, they had „filtered“ 5,200,000 Soviet citizens; 2,034,000 were turned over by the Allies – 98 percent of those who stayed in Germany’s western occupation zones, mostly POWs. How many of them returned home? And how many went, in accordance with Order No. 270, into Soviet concentration camps? I don’t yet have any authentic documents in my possession. Again only Western estimates and some eyewitness accounts.

 

Many of the Soviet soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans during the 1941-1945 war volunteered to serve with the Germans in an ill-fated effort to liberate their homeland from Soviet tyranny. Altogether about a million Soviets volunteered to aid the Germans in overthrowing the regime that ruled their country – an act of disloyalty by a people toward its rulers without precedent in history.
In this photograph, Lt.-General Andrei A. Vlasov reviews troops of the German-sponsored „Russian Liberation Army.“ By the end of the war about 300,000 RLA soldiers were under Vlasov’s command. Hundreds of thousands of other former Soviet soldiers of non-Russian nationality served in other German-sponsored anti-Communist military units. Vlasov was also chairman of the German-backed „Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,“ which was proclaimed at a conference in Prague in 1944.
Before his capture by the Germans in July 1942, Vlasov was regarded as one of the most brilliant Red Army commanders. At the end of the war he surrendered to the Americans, who turned him over the Soviets. He was put to death in Moscow in 1946.

I spoke to one such eyewitness on the Kolyma. A former „traitor to the Motherland,“ but then the accountant general of the Srednekan gold field, Viktor Masol, told me how in June 1942 in the Don steppes after the Kharkov catastrophe they – unarmed, hungry, ragged Red Army men – were herded like sheep by German tanks into crowds of many thousands. Freight cars took them to Germany, where he mixed concrete for the Reich, and three years later they were sent in freight cars from Germany across the whole Soviet Union – as far as the Pacific Ocean. In the port of Vanino they were loaded into the holds of the Felix Dzerzhinsky steamship [named after the founder of the Soviet secret police], which had previously borne the name of Nikolai Yezhov, [a former] People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs [that is, the NKVD or secret police], bound for Magadan. During the week they were on their way, they were given food only once – barrels with gray flour, covered with boiling water, were lowered through the hatch. And they, burning their hands and crushing one another, snatched this mess and stuffed it, choking, into their mouths: most often people go crazy with hunger. Those who died on the way were thrown overboard in the Nagayev Bay, the survivors marched into the taiga, again behind the barbed wire of – now – their native prison camps.

Just a few survived and returned. But even they were like lepers. Outcasts. How many times they heard: „Better a bullet through your head...“

Many former POWs thought about a bullet in the 1940s-1950s. Both when they were reminded from the militia office – „you are two days overdue“ (all the POWs were kept on a special register with mandatory reports on strictly definite days), and when people told them: „Keep silent. You whiled away your time in captivity on fascist grub...“

And they did keep silent.

In 1956, after Khrushchev’s report, it became possible to speak about Stalin. Former POWs were no longer automatically enemies of the people, but not quite yet defenders of the Motherland. Something in between. On paper it was one way, but in life everything was different.

Two years ago, on the eve of V-Day, I interviewed Col.-Gen. Alexei Zheltov, Chairman of the Soviet War Veterans’ Committee. As befits the occasion, he was telling me with tears in his eyes about the holiday, about a Soviet soldier, an accordion in his hands, in the streets of spring-time Vienna. And I don’t know what made me ask him, well, and former prisoners of war, are they war veterans?

„No, they are not veterans. Don’t you have anything else to write about? Look how many real soldiers we have...“

If Alexei Zheltov, the tried and tested veteran commissar, were the only one to think that way, that wouldn’t be so bad. The trouble is that this philosophy is preached by the majority of the top brass. Both those who have long retired on pensions and who still hold command positions. For nearly 40 years we have been „orphaned,“ have lived without „the father of the peoples,“ but we sacredly revere his behests, sometimes not even noticing this ourselves.

Human blood is not water. But is has also proved to be a perfect conserving agent for Stalin’s morality. It has become even thicker. It has not disappeared even after several generations. It lives on. And not infrequently it triumphs. Try and raise the problem of prisoners of war (even before me this theme was taken up on more than one occasion, so I’m no discoverer here) – the reaction is always the same: better talk about something else. And if you fail to heed a „piece of good advice,“ they may even start to threaten: „Don’t you dare!“

To whom should one address his requests? To the government or the Supreme Soviet? What beautiful walls of the Kremlin should one knock on to demand that soldierly dignity be returned to former POW s, that their good name be restored?

Suppose your knocking has been heard. They will ask: what are you complaining about? What resolution do you take exception to? Oh, not a resolution. You are only worried over the past? How strange...

But it’s even more strange that we still have real soldiers, real heros and real people, meaning that there are also those who are not real. To this day our life is still like a battle front: by force of habit, we continue putting people in slots – these on this side, others over there. There seems to be neither law nor Order No. 270 any longer, like there is no one and nothing to fight against, but all the same whatever was once called black may at best become only gray. But by no means white.

... May 9: the whole country cries and rejoices. Veterans don their medals and pour out wine, remembering their buddies. But even in this circle a former POW is the last to hold out his glass and the last to take the floor.

What then is to be done? What should we do to squeeze the Stalinoid slave out of ourselves?