Our Politically Correct Hitler/Nazi Obsession

[nacho]

Background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aribert_Heim

Nazi-hunter says he's closing in on 'Dr. Death'

By JEANNETTE NEUMANN

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The world's top Nazi-hunter said Thursday he's made progress in finding 94-year-old "Doctor Death," a former concentration camp physician accused of torturing Jewish prisoners as they died and who may have been living for decades in Argentina or Chile.

Efraim Zuroff, head of the Israeli branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told a news conference that his mission to the southern reaches of the Americas led him to at least four people who claim to have seen Aribert Heim in the past 45 days.

"We're better off than before we came," Zuroff said. "That doesn't guarantee Heim's capture, but I'm hopeful."

Zuroff launched the investigation last week in the southern Chilean fishing town of Puerto Montt, where Heim's daughter lives, although she was reportedly overseas at the time.

Zuroff said during the past three years she has traveled several times to the Patagonian town of San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina, which he visited this week. The Nazi hunter believes Heim is hiding out somewhere between the two towns, separated by the Andes mountain range.

"There is increasing pressure on Heim and on his family," Zuroff said Thursday. "People under pressure make mistakes," he added.

Zuroff told The Associated Press that the Puerto Montt trip was a "turning point" because he was able to speak face-to-face for the first time with acquaintances of Heim's daughter and raise awareness among locals.

"These are people who brought us specific details that gives us something concrete to latch onto," said Sergio Widder, the center's Latin American representative. He declined to elaborate.

Heim was indicted in Germany after World War II on charges he murdered hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941. The Wiesenthal center says he injected the corrosive poison phenol directly into the hearts of many and used "other torturous killing methods."

Zuroff says Heim's children have made no claim to a bank account with euro1.2 million (US$1.6 million) and other investments in Heim's name. To do that, they would have to produce proof that "Doctor Death" is dead.

He said he's been tracking recent requests by Heim's lawyers for legal documents related to his estate that "would have no value if he is dead." He would not give details.

A reward of euro315,000 (US$495,000) is being offered jointly by the center, the German and Austrian governments and a private donor for information leading to his capture. Heim tops the Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals.

Zuroff met Thursday morning with Argentine Justice Minister Anibal Fernandez, who said the government will facilitate Heim's arrest and extradition if Heim is found in the country.

Although World War II ended more than 60 years ago, the center continues to take on new cases as Nazi sightings surface. Between March 2007 and 2008, the Wiesenthal Center opened 202 new investigations, Zuroff said.

The South American probe is part of the Jewish human rights organization's "Operation: Last Chance" — an effort to bring aging war criminals to justice before they die. If alive, Heim would be 94.

Answering critics who say Heim's age undermines the validity of the hunt, Zuroff said to "keep in mind what he did when was a very young person."

"If we put a limit on age, in a practical sense that means we're saying you can get away with genocide, which is morally outrageous," he added.

After World War II, Heim was held for two and a half years by the United States military but was released without being tried.

He disappeared in 1962 after he was tipped off that German authorities were about to indict him, Zuroff said.

[fajwat]

Reuters just loves stories about Nazis.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSLM63579720080825

Tunnels show Hitler's megalomaniac vision
Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:27pm EDT

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three vast tunnels were opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi Germany.

The 16-metre (50-foot) deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall the world had ever seen.

The overground plans, never completed because of World War Two, included boulevards, squares and huge buildings, such as an arch dwarfing the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the 290-metre high Great Hall, with room for 180,000 people.

Hitler called the concept, a symbol of the power of the Third Reich, "Berlin -- the capital of the world" but in recent times it has come to be known as "Germania."

The tunnels, between 90 and 220 meters long lying beneath the Tiergarten park, would have accommodated roads and a railway line.

"The tunnels -- which are in surprisingly good condition -- were part of Speer's grand plans, what we now call 'Germania'," historian Dietmar Arnold, head of the Berlin Underground Association and bunker tour guide, told Reuters.

Last week, Arnold -- who runs an exhibition of Hitler's plans -- took journalists on a rare visit into the dank tunnels.

They are closed to the public most of the time because of safety concerns, but visits can be arranged.

"The acoustics are incredible," said Arnold, who likes singing a note and hearing it reverberate around him.

After the war, British forces in divided Berlin closed the tunnels. They were rediscovered in 1969 but have remained shut. In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they were handed to the city of Berlin.

The Berlin Underground Association, set up in 1997, has seen a surge in interest in tours of Berlin's remaining bunkers.

Although most were destroyed, some of the maze of 1,000 World War Two bunkers are intact and serve as a reminder of the city's violent history.

Propaganda posters and escape instructions on the walls convey a sense of the past. In one bunker, suitcases, helmets, and uniforms from various sites are on show.

"Interest is constantly growing -- we have about 150,000 visitors a year to the bunkers," said Arnold. "That is partly why we want the bunkers to be protected -- they are an important part of the history of Berlin."

By the end of the war, Germany's most heavily bombed city could protect up to 800,000 people in its bunkers.

(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

[nacho]

Last week, Arnold -- who runs an exhibition of Hitler's plans

Aaarnoold!  Put down that gun!  It's time for dinner!

[Disco Dust]

Come on now.....even a notorious Nazi can save a life:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080831/wl_uk_afp/entertainmentbritainfilmdrugspeoplemirren;_ylt=At5rwMlMqepG413j2zF4eAMUewgF

[nacho]

"Hitler tree" may face the axe in Polish town
Tue Jul 7, 2009 1:32pm EDT

JASLO, Poland (Reuters) - An oak tree planted in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War Two to mark Adolf Hitler's birthday may soon face the axe if the local mayor has her way.

Authorities in Jaslo in rural southeastern Poland discovered the origins of the tree when plans were lodged to fell it to make way for a traffic roundabout.

"We obtained information that this is no ordinary tree but was put here to mark Adolf Hitler's birthday," said Jaslo's mayor, Maria Kurowska. "So should I try to improve our town's communications or should I allow a memorial to that criminal to remain standing? The choice is simple for me."

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, triggering World War Two and beginning more than five years of occupation. Six million Poles died, including almost all of the country's three million Jewish citizens.

Not everybody in this town of 38,000 shared Kurowska's view that the tree must go.

"It was 1942 when the Germans brought a seedling of an oak here and planted it in the center of the town with all honors, an army orchestra and salutes," said Kazimierz Polak, who was present at the planting ceremony as a child 67 years ago.

"My father told me then that it was Hitler's birthday and we found out later the seedling had come from Braunau am Inn (in Austria) where Hitler was born," Polak said.

"It's a historic curiosity. What is the oak really guilty of? It's not the tree's fault that it was planted here to honor the biggest criminal and enemy of Poland."

[nacho]

Oh look! We do have a Nazi thread.  I thought so...

Ran across this today:

Oh Nazis, you so crazy. While the Germans, Soviets and Americans all had some pretty nutty ideas during wartime in the 20th century, the Nazis always seem to take the biggest slice of the crazy cake. During the Second War of the World, the Reich spent a fair amount of time and money research our canine friends in an attempt to turn them into more than just adorable companions.

More at: http://thereifixedit.failblog.org/2011/06/30/white-trash-repairs-historical-thursday-hitlers-talking-dogs

I've never heard of this before, so I'm not sure I buy it. But that may be because the "There I fixed it Blog" (an extension of fail blog) is almost always a failblog-style picture. So it's weird to suddenly get a big chunk of real information from them.

Here's their source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_talking_dogs

[RottingCorpse]

Those wacky and zany neo-Nazis!

Bones of Hitler deputy exhumed, burned

BERLIN (AP) — The bones of Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, have been removed from their grave in a small Bavarian town that had become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.

Before dawn Wednesday, workers exhumed Hess's bones from the grave in the Wunsiedel cemetery, then cremated the remains and scattered them secretly in a lake, whose name and location are not being divulged, cemetery administrator Andreas Fabel told The Associated Press.

"The grave is now empty," he said on Thursday. "The bones are gone."

Hess was captured in 1941 when he parachuted into Scotland on a mission to negotiate peace between Britain and Germany.

The attempt was denounced by Hitler, and Hess later told British authorities that the Nazi leader knew nothing of it.

In recent years, Hess has come to be seen as a martyr by the far-right and thousands of neo-Nazis have used the anniversary of his death as an occasion hold large rallies, with Wunsiedel — near the Czech border — often a focal point.

Most such rallies have been banned since stricter laws were implemented in 2005, but the grave continued to attract far-right extremists to the town.

With the lease on the burial plot coming up for renewal in October, Hess's relatives and Lutheran church authorities in the town decided it was best to remove the remains, Fabel said.

"Both sides were in favor of it," he said.

Hess was an early confidant of Hitler's, and, while Hitler was imprisoned in the 1920s, the Nazi leader dictated much of his infamous manifesto "Mein Kampf," or "My Struggle," to him.

Hess eventually rose to the position of deputy Nazi party leader, but by 1941 his influence with Hitler was waning. His flight to Scotland is widely seen by historians as an attempt to restore his importance.

Instead, Hitler said he was delusional and the British treated him as a prisoner of war.

At the Nuremberg trials after the war Hess was found innocent of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against peace and conspiracy to commit crimes against peace.

Hess was the last inmate at Spandau Prison in then-West Berlin when he died on Aug. 17, 1987 at age 93. Allied authorities said he hanged himself with an electrical cord. The prison was demolished shortly afterward and the rubble secretly disposed of.

Hess was buried in his family plot in Wunsiedel, at his request.

[RottingCorpse]

Screenplay...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9088865/Hitler-had-son-with-French-teen.html

Hitler had son with French teen
Adolf Hitler had a son with a French teenager while serving as a soldier during the First World War, according to new evidence.

Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War.

His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence, both in France and in Germany, which is published in the latest edition of Paris's Le Point magazine.

Hitler is said to have had an affair with Mr Loret's mother, Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917.

Although he was fighting the French near Seboncourt, in the northern Picardy region, Hitler made his way to Fournes-in-Weppe, a small town west of Lille, for regular leave.

There he met Miss Lobjoie, who later told their son: "One day I was cutting hay with other women, when we saw a German soldier on the other side of the street.

"He had a sketch pad and seemed to be drawing. All the women found this interesting, and were curious to know what he was drawing.

"I was designated to approach him."

The pair started a brief relationship, which resulted in the birth of Jean-Marie, who was born in March 1918 after being conceived during a 'tipsy' evening in June 1917.

Miss Lobjoie later told Jean-Marie: "When your father was around, which was very rarely, he liked to take me for walks in the countryside.

"But these walks usually ended badly. In fact, your father, inspired by nature, launched into speeches which I did not really understand.

"He did not speak French, but solely ranted in German, talking to an imaginary audience. Even if I spoke German I would not be able to follow him, as the histories of Prussia, Austria and Bavaria where not familiar to me at all, far from it.

"My reaction used to anger your father so much that I did not show any reaction."

Jean-Marie was, like thousands of other French children with German soldier fathers, badly treated by his peers at school.

He was referred to as 'the son of the Bosh', and often had fights as he tried to defend his father, who had by now disappeared over the border back to Germany.

Miss Lobjoie, meanwhile, refused to discuss Jean-Marie's father, and ended up giving her only son away for adoption in the 1930s to a family called Loret.

His real father would not recognise Jean-Marie, but continued to stay in contact with Miss Lobjoie.

Incredibly, Mr Loret went on to fight the Germans in 1939, defending the Maginot Line before it was bypassed during the Nazi invasion which resulted in France being occupied from 1940 until 1944.

Mr Loret even joined the French Resistance, and was given the codename 'Clement'.

Just before her death in the early 1950s, Miss Lobjoie finally told Jean-Marie that his father was arguably the most infamous dictator in human history.

Mr Loret said: "In order not to get depressed, I worked non-stop, never took a holiday, and had no hobbies. For twenty years I didn't even go to the cinema."

Mr Loret recently began investigating his past in great detail, employing scientists to prove that he has the same blood type as Hitler, and that they even have similar handwriting.

Photographs of the two also reveal an astonishing resemblance.

Other elements which corroborate the story are official Wehrmacht, or German Army, papers which show that officers brought envelopes of cash to Miss Lobjoie during the Second World War.

When Miss Lobjoie died, Mr Loret also found paintings in her attic which were signed by Hitler, who was an accomplished artist.

In Germany, meanwhile, a picture of a woman painted by Hitler looked exactly like Miss Lobjoie.

Francois Gibault, Mr Loret's Paris lawyer, said: "He first came to see me in 1979, but was a bit lost and did not know whether he wanted to be publicly recognised as Hitler's son, or to erase all that completely.

"He had the feelings of many illegitimate children: the desire to find a past, however heavy, but also the fear of returning to the old routine.

"I talked with him a lot, playing the role of psychologist rather than lawyer."

Mr Gibault said that Mr Loret's own children might now be in a position to claim royalties from Mien Kampf ('My Struggle'), Hitler's famous book which has sold millions of copies around the world.

Mr Loret wrote a book called 'Your Father's Name Was Hitler' in 981, and it is now set to be re-published with all the new evidence.

Hitler, who was born in an Austrian village, frequently spoke of his love for France, and especially for Paris.

In December 1940, he paid an emotional visit to the capital city, where he was pictured saluting Napoleon's tomb in front of his bemused generals.

More intriguingly still, Hitler transferred from Vienna part of the remains of Napoleon II, Napoleon Bonaparte's son with Marie Louise of Austria.

Hitler often enthused about the greatness of Napoleon, saying that he wanted to have as big an impact on history as the Frenchman.

Although he never officially had any sons or daughters of his own, Hitler often spoke of his love of children and animals.

He married his mistress, Eva Braun, as the Red Army shelled his bunker in Berlin, in 1945, and committed suicide shortly afterwards.

[RottingCorpse]

http://news.yahoo.com/poster-campaign-launched-germany-nazis-160422316.html

Poster campaign launched in Germany to find Nazis

BERLIN (AP) — The Simon Wiesenthal Center launched a poster campaign in several German cities Tuesday appealing for help in tracking down the last surviving Nazi war criminals not yet brought to justice, and promising compensation to those who provide useful information.

About 2,000 posters depicting the entrance gate of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz were put up in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne asking the public to come forward with information that may lead to the arrest of Nazis some seven decades after the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

"Unfortunately, very few people who committed the crimes had to pay for them," Efraim Zuroff, the U.S.-based Jewish center's top Nazi hunter, told reporters in Berlin. "The passage of time in no way diminishes the crimes."

The Wiesenthal Center is asking for tips to be called in to a hotline in Germany with as much information as possible.

Underneath the black-and-white picture of the death camp on the poster, the following words are emblazoned in German on a blaring red background: "Late, but not too late. Millions of innocents were murdered by Nazi war criminals. Some of the perpetrators are free and alive! Help us take them to court."

A reward of 5,000 euros ($6,580) will be paid for the information upon the indictment of a suspect, another 5,000 euros upon conviction, and a further 100 euros per day spent in prison — up to 150 days — for a total of 25,000 euros, Zuroff said.

Zuroff, who is the director of the center's Israel office, estimated there are still about 60 people alive in Germany who are fit to stand trial for the crimes they allegedly committed. They are suspected of serving as guards at Nazi death camps or being members of death squads responsible for mass killings, particularly early in the war before the death camps were established.

The drive is part of the center's "Operation Last Chance II" initiative.

It comes more than two years after German prosecutors said the successful conviction of former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk had set a precedent that allowed them to reopen hundreds of investigations and prosecute former death camp guards as accessories to murder, even if they could not prove the defendants personally killed anyone.

Demjanjuk was found guilty in May 2011 of thousands of counts of accessory to murder after a Munich court found he served as a death camp guard. He denied he had served as a guard and died while the case was under appeal.

[nacho]

Good...I'm glad we're putting so much effort into capturing and punishing 90 year olds as opposed to trying to correct some of the current -- and far more damaging and large-scale -- modern acts of genocide!

[nacho]

So I fell down the Wikihole reading about "the most loathsome people of WWII."

Odilo Globocnik:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilo_Globocnik

He's basically solely responsible for the murder of 1.5 million Jews in the death camps in his jurisdiction. That's, what, almost 25% of the total killed?

Mario Roatta:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Roatta

So what I loved here was learning -- for the first time -- about the Italian-sponsored ethnic cleansing programs. The Italians, apparently, were setting up their own death camps, largely for Croatians, Slovenians, and Slavs, in general. Their goal was to "de-Balkanize the Balkans" in an attempt, I presume, to take over all that territory. Which is crazy (and would, in fact, present a problem for the Axis powers as Hitler had to delay his Russian campaigns -- to disastrous results -- to help out the Italians in the Balkans and Greece).

So while the Italians were basically fucking up the entire war, this asshole was running around with his own personal army depopulating entire villages by literally beating everyone to death.

[monkey!]

Did he at least make Soylent Green?

[nacho]

Did he at least make Soylent Green?

Mengele did!

[nacho]

I almost put this in the UrbEx thread...


http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/exploring-the-secret-nazi-tunnels-under-a-german-vacation-town

[monkey!]

This thread needs more Jew jokes.