Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307
“Edward disliked the Jews both on religious and economical grounds. The crusading spirit, that had almost lost hope of fighting against the Moslem, saw some satisfaction in wreaking its vengeance on the Israelites (sic).
Edward held strongly the medieval belief in the sinfulness and harmfulness of usury. He was angry that the Jews fleeced his subjects, and saw with disgust that the lands of an impoverished and spendthrift nobility could hardly render him their due service, because they were mortgaged up to the hilt to Jewish usurers. His own embarrassed finances and constant burden of debt did not make him the more friendly to the money-lender. Early in his reign Edward drew up severe laws, forbidding Jews to hold real property, enjoining on them the wearing of the distinctive and degrading Jewish dress, which was bidding fair to become obsolete, and prohibiting usury altogether. [In the book, Edward the First, the Edict of 1275, the Statutem de Judeismo or Statute regarding Jewry, was never mentioned but this Royal Edict was meant to eliminate usury.
Only about 10,000 Jews were expelled from English territories at that time.] The Jews knew no other way of living and turned in their distress to even less legitimate methods of earning a livelihood. They sweated and clipped the king’s coin so unsparingly that the prices of commodities became disorganized, and foreign merchants shunned a realm whose money standard fluctuated so widely and constantly. [Note: The term ‘clip joint’ is derived from this meaning of the word ‘clip.’ Also, if you look at the ridges on the edge of an American dime or quarter, you will see ridges. The ridges are there today only for decoration but this ridging was introduced to coinage in Europe hundreds of years ago in order to frustrate the coin-clippers.]
In 1278, the royal vengeance came down upon the unlucky sweaters. Nearly three hundred Jews were imprisoned in the Tower on the charge of depreciating the coinage. More than two hundred of them were hanged and their goods confiscated to the Crown. But very few of the Christian goldsmiths and moneyers, who had been the partners of their guilt, were likewise partners in the punishment. Edward caused them to be arrested, but, with very few exceptions, they were released through the partiality of the Christian juries that tried them.
Here is a good quote from the preface of Professor MacDonald’s Culture of Critique:
In Cof C (Ch. 3), I noted that Jews were very prominently involved in the Soviet secret police and that they played similar roles in Communist Poland and Hungary. In addition to many lower ranking security personnel, prominent Jews included Matvei Berman and Naftali Frenkel, who developed the slave labor system which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. (The construction of a canal between the Baltic and the White Sea claimed many thousands of lives. The six overseers of the project were Jews: Firin, Berman, Frenkel, Kogan, Rappoport, Zhuk.) Other Jews who were prominent in carrying out the Red Terror included Genrik Yagoda (head of the secret police), Aron Soltz, Lev Inzhir (chief accountant of the Gulag Archipelago), M. I. Gay (head of a special secret police department), A. A. Slutsky and his deputy Boris Berman (in charge of terror abroad), K. V. Pauker (secret police Chief of Operations), and Lazar Kaganovich (most powerful government official behind Stalin during the 1930s and prominently involved in the mass murders that took place during that period) (Rapoport 1990, 44-50). In general, Jews were not only prominent in the leadership of the Bolsheviks, but they ‘abounded at the lower levels of the party machinery – especially, in the Cheka, and its successors the GPU, the OGPU and the NKVD’ (Schapiro 1961, 165). The special role of Jews in the Bolshevik government was not lost on Russians: 'For the most prominent and colourful figure after Lenin was Trotsky, in Petrograd the dominant and hated figure was Zinoviev, while anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka stood a very good chance of finding himself confronted with, and possibly shot by, a Jewish investigator’ (Schapiro 1961, 165). Beginning in 1917 it was common for Russians to associate Jews with the revolution (Werth 1999, 86). Even after the German invasion in 1941, it was common for many Russians to hope for German victory to rid the country of 'Jews and Bolsheviks’ – until the brutality of the invaders became apparent (Werth 1999, 215).
The discussion of Jewish power in the Soviet Union in CofC notes that in stark contrast to the campaigns of mass murder against other peoples, Stalin’s efforts against a relative handful of high-ranking Jewish Communists during the purges of the 1930s were very cautious and involved a great deal of deception intended to downplay the Jewish identity of the victims. Jewish power during this period is also indicated by the fact that the Soviet government established a Jewish autonomous region (Birobidzhan) in 1934, at least partly to curry favor with foreign Jewish organizations (Gitelman 1988). During the 1920s and throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union accepted aid for Soviet Jews from foreign Jewish organizations, especially the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee which was funded by wealthy American Jews (Warburg, Schiff, Kuhn, Loeb, Lehman, Marshall).
Another revealing incident occurred when Stalin ordered the murder of two Polish-Jewish leaders of the international socialist movement, Henryk Ehrlich and Victor Alter. These murders created an international incident, and there were protests by leftists around the world (Rapoport 1990, 68). The furor did not die down until the Soviets established a Jewish organization, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), dedicated to winning the favor of American Jews. American Jewish leaders, such as Nahum Goldmann of the World Jewish Congress and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress), helped quell the uproar over the incident and shore up positive views of the Soviet Union among American Jews. They, along with a wide range of American Jewish radicals, warmly greeted JAC representatives in New York during World War II.
Daniel Ogden (THE ANCIENT GREEK ORACLES OF THE DEAD)
In the modem age, the fame of the Acheron and Avernus nekyomanteia outstrips that of Heracleia and Tainaron, but these oracles are paradoxically much harder to define. Two difficulties complicate their investigation. The first is that from the Classical period, if not before, the two sites were confounded with each other in Greek and Latin mythological literature. The second is the misapprehension that nekyomanteia were always based in caves, natural or man-made. This fallacy has led archaeologists to locate the two nekyomanteia wrongly in local man-made caves, and to develop erroneous reconstructions of their use based upon readings of Pausanias Periegetes' account of the consultation-procedure for the oracle of Trophonius and Lucian's account of the necromancy of Menippus. In both cases these reconstructions send the consulters on minutely choreographed ritual progressions through dark tunnels. These culminate in encounters with ghosts in the form of puppets manipulated by priests who scuttle through further concealed passageways. A precursor of the fun-fair ghost-train or the Disneyland haunted house is envisaged.
Literary sources, beginning with Homer's Nekyia, locate the general area in which the Acheron nekyomanteion was located with reasonable clarity, namely at the 'Acherusian lake', the marsh into which the Acheron temporarily broadened out at its confluence with the Cocytus in Thesprotia, near Ephyra/Cichyrus. Following a suggestion of Frazer, Sotirios Dakaris identified the Acheron nekyomanteion with a Hellenistic complex beneath the monastery of St John Prodromos at Mesopotamo, which overlooks the confluence. This had been burned down in the Roman devastation of Epirus in 167 BC. His excavations of the site and his interpretations of it formed the subject of many publications between 1958 and 1993. Its most striking feature is an elaborate, subterranean, vaulted 'crypt' -the 'underworld' itself, supposedly. Above the underworld (why not in it?), in a square structure with walls over three metres thick, consulters encountered models of ghosts or underworld powers. These were swung out at them in a cauldron by priests who operated an elaborate crane from secret passageways within the hollow upper courses of the walls. The machine's ratchets, cast-iron counterweights and six statuettes of Persephone were discovered in the structure. The consulters' experience of the ghosts was enhanced by the consumption of supposedly hallucinogenic lupines and beans, the carbonized remains of which were found in jars in the comer store-rooms. The consulters had progressed to the theatre through the significantly right-winding corridors around it, making sacrifices and submitting to purifications along the way, and finally passing through a brief underworld-evoking labyrinth. But this cannot stand. The nekyomanteion hypothesis does not account for the copious quantities of other foodstuffs also found carbonized in the storerooms, or the vast amounts of crockery and agricultural and domestic tools found on the site. In 1979 Baatz proved beyond doubt that the ratchets belonged rather to dart-firing torsion catapults, and derived from ten separate weapons. Twenty-seven iron darts for them to fire have also been identified from the site. It becomes clear that the square building, with its three-metre thick wall, was a defensive keep. The labyrinth that gave admission to it protected its entrance against assault, perhaps against Roman battering rams in particular. The 'crypt' was a mere cellar or cistern. The site is an elaborate example of the Hellenistic building-type known as a Tunngehoft. The story of its last days is easily written: as Roman troops approached, its farming occupants withdrew into the keep with their tools and as much produce as they could garner, and, making sure their cistern (if it was such) was full, prepared to withstand a siege. But their catapult defences were unable to prevent the Romans from burning their fort down. Only the Persephone statuettes, two of which wear her distinctive polos headdress, give pause for thought, but she was in any case the local goddess, and it is not to be denied that the real nekyomanteion was somewhere close. However, Dakaris' interpretation of the site has continued to be influential, and Papachatzis even reinterpreted the archaeological evidence for the Tainaron nekyomanteion cave on the basis of it.
Ghost of Elpenor, Lykaon Painter
If we return to the literary sources for the Acheron nekyomanteion, we may be surprised to discover that there is no mention of a cave in them whatsoever. Insofar as they suggest any configuration at all for the nekyomanteion, they imply that it was a lakeside precinct. Homer's Odysseus merely performs his consultation beside the river, perhaps from the rock said to stand at the confluence, whilst his scholiast refers to the lake itself at that point under the name of Nekyopompos, 'Sending-the dead'. In the beautiful illustration by the Lycaon painter of Odysseus' encounter with the ghost of Elpenor during this consultation, one can actually see the marsh reeds rising behind the ghost. Herodotus' Periander sends for his divination 'to the Acheron river, to the nekyomanteion' (see below): hendiadys? Aeschylus' Psychagogoi or 'Evocators' restaged Odysseus' consultation. In the following valuable fragment of the play, the Evocators advise Odysseus, taking on the role allotted to Circe in the Odyssey:
Come now, guest-friend, take your stand on the grassy sacred enclosure of the fearful lake. Slash the gullet of the neck, and let the blood of this sacrificial victim flow into the murky depths of the reeds, as a drink for the lifeless. Call upon primeval earth and chthonic Hermes, escort of the dead, and ask chthonic Zeus to send up the swarm of night-wanderers from the mouths of the river, from which this melancholy off-flow water, unfit for washing hands, is sent up by Stygian springs. (Aesch. Psych., Fr. 273a, TrFG) 19
Here Odysseus actually stands in a lakeside precinct and pours the blood from the neck of his sacrificial sheep directly into the lake itself, from which the ghost will arise directly. The traditional assumption that the location of this play was not Acheron but Avernus is all but groundless,whilst Hermes, mentioned in the fragment, is found in association with the former but not the latter. In the Frogs, Aristophanes makes brief mention of three underworld rivers: 'the black-hearted rock of the Styx and the crag (σκόπελος) of the Acheron, dripping with blood, and the dogs that run around the Cocytus ... ' The 'crag of the Acheron' is most easily read as denoting a rocky outcrop over the river on which or from which blood offerings are made into it.
As with Heracleia and Tainaron, a single supposedly historical report of a consultation attaches to the Acheron nekyomanteion, the well known tale of Periander and Melissa:
On one day he stripped all the women of Corinth on account of his wife Melissa. For he sent messengers to her, to Thesprotia, to the Acheron river, to the nekyomanteion, on the question of the deposit of a guest-friend. Melissa appeared and said that she would neither indicate nor declare where the deposit lay, for she was cold and naked. The clothes that had been buried with her were of no use to her because they had not been burned. As witness to the truth of these assertions stood the fact that Periander had thrown his loaves into a cold oven. The token was proof: he had had sex with Melissa's corpse. When these utterances were reported back to Periander, he at once issued an edict that all the women of Corinth should go out to the Heraion. So they came out as to a festival in their finest adornments, but he posted his bodyguards in ambush and stripped them all alike, free and slave, piled their clothing up into a trench and burned it with a prayer to Melissa. After doing this he sent to Melissa a second time and she told him where she had put the guest-friend's deposit. (Hdt. 5.92)
The traditional nature of this tale has been demonstrated by a number of comparative studies. In view of Tainaron's Cicada, it is of particular interest that Melissa's name means 'bee', another insect with strong chthonic associations. Once again the theme of ghost-placation features strongly here. No indication of the means by which the ghost was encountered is given.
***This blog doesn't necessarily agree with everything written in this article. Historical accounts make references to the necromancers seeing ghosts or shades. Skeptic archaeologists and historians argue that these were "simply hallucinations caused by ritual food or drink with psychotropic properties", but that doesn't mean that this rational opinion is true.
If I wanted to provide an example of the Faustian spirit at work, I would probably point to the Asgardsrei festival. Just think about what would be the most extreme and difficult event to organize. A NSBM festival would be high on the list. After you organize it, authorities in your country attack it, and you become an unwanted and unwelcome person in your own fatherland. What do you do? You move to a different country and proceed with your work. The festival becomes the largest event of its kind in the country. What can you do next? Of course you make it the largest event of its kind in Europe and build a whole network of initiatives around it. And when in 2017 the festival becomes widely recognized as the largest and most radical black metal event in the world – what more can you do? Well, of course – you make it an even larger, even more radical, two-day festival, with an additional day of bonus events. Organizers of the Asgardsrei festival are raising the bar higher with every repetition, and they take no prisoners.
Since in my report on Asgardsrei 2017 focused more on the metapolitical aspect of the whole event and the wider radical black metal scene, this year I want to pay more attention to all the events during the festival.
Friday, the 14th: Pact of Steel and Kabaret Peste Noire
All the events began on Friday, December 14th, with the third edition of the annual Pact of Steel conference. This conference is closely connected with the Asgardsrei festival and is aimed at adding the metapolitical and theoretical dimension to the whole event. Pact of Steel took place in the Reconquista Club which is a venue run by people connected with the wider Ukrainian Azov movement. Reconquista is a combination of restaurant and a bar, which has a fighting space where MMA fights (but also pole dancing and stand-up comedy) are regularly organized. The place is decorated in a modern nationalist and military style, and is effective in attracting young people (especially men) to the nationalist movement. It run by our guys for our guys, a model which all movements in Europe should follow.
The conference began with a bit of delay. The person responsible for organizing this event and moderating the speeches was the well-known Olena Semenyaka: a brilliant nationalist, and one of the most important intellectuals in Europe, whose hard work and eloquence can put to shame most of men involved in our movement. Olena opened the conference, outlining the idea both behind both Asgardsrei and Pact of Steel, as well as introducing the speakers.
The first part of the conference was dedicated to “Metapolitics and Counter-Culture” and consisted of a speech by Fróði Midjord (hailing from the Faroe Islands), a well-known intellectual and activist, the mastermind behind the Scandza Forum. Fróði spoke about the nationalist understanding of man: based mainly on Heidegger’s concepts, he spoke of the ideas of being thrown into the world and of Dasein. In this understanding man is not a tabula rasa (as Leftists would have us believe). Man comes to this world with a certain heritage, which he should not reject but embrace – not aim to seek some abstract freedom, but to realize the destiny inherited from his ancestors. A return to this concept of life can be an antidote to the materialism and nihilism of the contemporary men of the West. The speech was met with many interesting questions from the audience, mostly regarding putting these ideas into practice.
The second part of the conference was dedicated to the “European Reconquista” and consisted of a speech by Hendrik Möbus (hailing from Germany), well-known in black metal circles as the man behind the band Absurd, but who was also from the very beginning involved in shaping the ideological side of the black metal scene. Hendrik’s speech was dedicated to the infamous baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who led one of the white armies against the Bolsheviks in Mongolia during the civil war in the Russian Empire after the October Revolution. Ungern-Sternberg is a very black metal figure, filled with martial spirit to the point of madness, a dedicated fanatic searching for new ways to realize his aims, steeped in mysticism, hoping to unite the East and West in a struggle against a common enemy. Honestly speaking, I listened only to the first part of the speech, as I had to leave early, but I later watched it on-line. The first part of the speech was dedicated to the biography of Ungern-Sternberg, and it must have been interesting for people unfamiliar with this character, but if you have read the literature about him (which is quite limited) you would not learn anything new. However, the second part of the speech dedicated to the aims of interpreting the actions of Ungern-Sternberg within our contemporary traditionalist and nationalist paradigms was much more engaging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSgGNh0TdEU
After the conference, the first artistic part of the festival took place: Kabaret Peste Noire. Peste Noire is one of the leading contemporary black metal bands, who from the very beginning aimed at experimenting with sound and lyrical content, and it is a real achievement for our cause that such an interesting and unusual act is openly supporting us. This time Peste Noire prepared a special acoustic set of their songs. The organizers did not expect such interest from the audience, so in the end there was a huge line to get into the club, then a huge line to leave your coat, then a huge line at the bar, and the audience barely fit in the club. However, the venue itself (Monteray Club in the center of Kiev) was very good, the sound was clear, and most important of all – the performance was great. The musicians who entered the stage were the drummer and bassist of Moloth, a session accordion player, and Famine of Peste Noire playing acoustic guitar and performing vocals.
Kabaret Peste Noire was an idea that could have turned out great, but it also could have been a total failure. However, the band performed with such energy that the audience really got the idea behind the show. Many people said that this was the craziest and most unusual part of the festival. Famine performed wearing a black beret with a Totenkopf, ensuring everyone in the audience which European country this crew represents. They performed such Peste Noire tracks as: “Dueil angoisseus,” “Amour ne m’amoit ne je li,” “Casse, pêches, fractures et traditions,” or “Quand je bois du vin.”
Before the last song of the show Famine disappeared and came back wearing a yellow vest. They performed “La Commune” by the French band Vae Victis, and the audience really got the revolutionary spirit which is currently manifesting itself through the popular uprising on the streets of France. For an encore the band just came back and performed some of the tracks again, including the cover. And it was a brilliant idea, as it was during the encore that the audience began reacting most vividly, and energy filled the whole venue. After the concert there was an MMA night in the Reconquista club, but most people decided to stay in the center with friends or get rest before Saturday.
Asgardsrei 2018
The festival venue was Bingo Club, a large hall, built in the concrete Soviet style, located outside of the city center. It had a large stage. The audience was divided into some smaller sections but with a lot of open space just in front of the stage. There was a VIP area — a terrace overlooking the audience. Honestly speaking, I preferred the 2017 venue – Sentrum club. But Bingo was obviously bigger, and the stage was easily seen from all places in the audience. And just like during the previous festival, even though there were two bars, the queue for drinks was at times unbelievably long.
Wehrwolf
The first day of the festival (Saturday) began with the performance of Wehrwolf — representatives of the Belarussian NS scene. It was a great choice for the opening act. Wehrwolf play a very energetic, though quite generic, NSBM with some hatecore influences. And the musicians played professionally and knew how to make a show, so even though they were the first act, they got a very good reaction from the gathering crowd.
Dark Fury
The second act for Saturday was the Polish band Dark Fury. They represent the second wave of Polish black metal. With a very aggressive and heavy sound combined with radical lyrics, they were a perfect choice for Asgardsrei. Some people had doubts about how this concert was going to work, after footage from Eternal Hate Fest was put on YouTube (the guest vocalist for Dark Fury did not perform well back then, to put it mildly). But this time it was a tight performance, one of the factors which made Dark Fury masters of the Polish radical black metal scene. Dark Fury presented a mix of new and old songs (including a song of the legendary Thor’s Hammer).
Baise Ma Hache
The next band was Baise Ma Hache — a revelation of the French black metal scene. They have an original and consistent style — musically, lyrically, and visually. And starting with the LP Breviaire du Chaos their musical output is some of the best contemporary black metal. BMH performed with a full line-up, including a bassist (thus far they had performed only with guitars). One of their live trademarks are now two vocalists who make their performances even more powerful. Apart from their own tracks — and who doesn’t like “Edelweiss Noir” or “Kali Yuga Jugend”? — they went back to the roots of the scene and performed Darkthrone’s “Under a Funeral Moon.” A powerful and memorable performance with which BMH confirmed their status of the new generation of radical black metal.
M8l8th
Then, Moloth entered the stage. This originally Russian, now Russian-Ukrainian, project is filled with people behind the Asgardsrei festival and Militant Zone, but also Wotanjugend, Russian Center, and other initiatives connected with black metal and nationalism. Moloth have a unique aggressive and powerful sound, and their double vocal take (clean singing and screaming) works perfectly during live performances. In 2017 this was one of the most powerful performances, and this year it was even better. The energy on stage was paired with great visualizations in the background (I liked especially the clip dedicated to Russian anti-communist fighters) and the enthusiasm of the audience. Moloth performed classic tracks such as “Rodny Moy Kray,” or my favorite “Tears of Autumn,” but also the new track “Coup de Grace” with Famine of Peste Noire performing guest vocals.
Acherontas
The next act was Greece’s Acherontas. They may have seemed like an odd choice, since their lyrics are steeped in occult themes, not martial or political, but if you remember that the roots of this band lie in the Stutthof project, their appearance on Asgardsrei makes much more sense. Acherontas (the leader of Acherontas) must be applauded for never cutting his ties with the radical scene and cucking or counter-signaling. Quite the contrary: after some fans started complaining about his participation in Asgardsrei, he publicly told them to get lost and stop supporting the band. I have not seen the whole performance — one of the best things about Asgardsrei are possibilities for networking with people from all over the world — but Acherontas performed a professional and energetic act, received positively even by people who are not fans of this vein of black metal.
Goatmoon
The sixth band of the night was the Finnish group Goatmoon. Last year they were the best act of the festival. And this year they did it again. The music of Goatmoon is perfect for live shows, blending aggression with melody, and straightforward simplicity with more sophisticated parts. But it must be emphasized that Goatmoon consists of professional musicians, who not only play very well, but also know how to do a show. Especially the frontman, with his insane vocals and onstage charisma, can get the whole crowd to enthusiastically take part in the performance. And it is difficult not to get engaged when you hear such tracks as “Alone,” “Aryan Beauty,” “Finnish Steel Storm,” “Storming Through White Light,” or “Kunnia, Armageddon.” Goatmoon played quite a long show, but if they had stayed twice as long on stage, the crowd would still have been going crazy until the very end.
Nokturnal Mortum
Saturday night concluded with the performance of the legends of Ukrainian black metal scene: Nokturnal Mortum. This is a top quality band, who combine professional performance with a sincere primeval energy. Their combination of powerful riffs and symphonic arrangements is the best expression of the spirit of the Eastern Slavic school of black metal. Nokturnal Mortum performed a long show consisting mostly of newer material, but they played some of their best-known old tracks.
Nordglanz
The festival on Sunday began with the German group Nordglanz. Again, a great opening act, since they play a very catchy kind of black metal with heavy Metal and RAC influences. There were some problems with sound — the electric violin would not work, and the violinist left the stage. At times the keyboards were not audible, and they play an important role in Nodrglanz’s music. But overall it was a good opening show, though I was hoping they would play “Töten für Wotan,” but they didn’t.
Sunwheel
The next act was the Polish band Sunwheel, born of the ashes of Swastyka and the legendary Kataxu. They play aggressive, riff-oriented black metal with death metal influences. Since their drummer left the band right before Asgardsrei, they performed with pre-recorded drum tracks. It is always difficult to play without a live drummer, and during the first song the sound was chaotic, but it got better, and the pre-recorded drums added a cold and inhumane aspect to the violent music. At the end of the performance, the musicians put on hooded costumes and performed songs by Kataxu, which was one of the most original Polish black metal acts of their time.
Terrosphära
The third band of the evening was the Austrian group Terrosphära. It was the only non-black metal band of the festival, but they suited the whole line-up well and were a great addition to Asgardsrei. Terrosphära plays energetic hatecore with lots of heavy breakdowns. During all of Asgardsrei the audience was full of energy and reacted positively to the bands, but during the performance of Terrosphära the reaction was most brutal, with moshpits happening throughout the whole concert.
Frangar
The fourth band was the Italian act Frangar. They mix black metal with hatecore and RAC influences and are a most powerful live band. Unfortunately, there were some problems with the sound, especially with the vocals, but Colonello is such a charismatic frontman that he could get the audience involved even if the electricity went off. “Gioventu di Ferro,” or “Trieste Chiama” are pure power, inspired by the futurist dynamics of Italian fascism. The performance concluded with the cover of “Avanti Ragazzi di Buda,” an anthem dedicated to the European nationalist rebels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBjBR5SPSYA
Der Stürmer
The next band on Sunday evening was the Greek group Der Stürmer. They are the definition of NSBM: musically, lyrically, and ideologically. If you ever wonder if a certain group can be considered as NSBM just compare them with Der Stürmer. The band included Stormheit of Stormheit and Goatmoon on bass. It was clear that he had not rehearsed much with them, but he did a great job, as did the rest of the band. Der Stürmer have basically two types of tracks: classic black metal blasts, and slower more RAC influenced anthems. They mixed these two quite well in their performance: “Der Stürmer,” “When Totenkopf Rises,” “Forces of Tradition,” “Those Who Lived and Died Like Heroes,” “The Hammer Falls on Zion,” “Himmelstürmer” — every fan of radical black metal knows these tracks by heart, and you could tell by the enthusiasm of the audience how great and powerful this performance was.
Stahlfront
Then, the German group Stahlfront entered the stage. And it was quite an entrance: the musicians and their crew were dressed in futuristic NS uniforms, combined with black metal corpse-paint and occult symbolism. They marched right through the audience, and began the performance, heavy with aesthetics and theatrical gestures. And while I think their music is too generic at times, it was a show of the highest quality. Many of the audience considered it the best of the whole festival. They also used great visualizations — simple and powerful, such as the black sun, runes, or a Nazi UFO, straight from a documentary on Third Reich occultism. There was not one person in the audience who was not staring with awe at the stage during Stahlfront’s performance.
Absurd
The final band on Sunday evening was the German group Absurd. This was the most controversial act of the previous festival, as the expectations were really high and some people complained about the previous performance being too raw. This time the line-up was slightly different, and expectations were high again. Absurd began with “Asgardsrei” — and you could hear that the sound is still raw. However, they were getting warmed up with every song. Also, complaining that Absurd has a raw sound is like complaining that Der Stürmer uses NS themes. Absurd has so many well-known songs that it is probably impossible to find some the audience would not know. The whole audience was singing along, and the performance ended with musicians from other bands entering the stage and performing “Wen Walkürien Reiten” together with Absurd.
Black Metal – The New Generation
Visiting Kyiv and taking part in Asgardsrei once again provided real food for thought and the impetus for reflections on the wider European nationalist movement.
First of all, I was surprised by how popular radical black metal can become — and let us be honest: black metal is esoteric and inaccessible, both musically and aesthetically. Based on my interactions with other festival participants, I learned that some of them were nor great fans of the NSBM or just the BM scene, but the festival itself intrigued them so much that they decided to come. I admit to being a great enthusiast of black metal, but I always considered its impact to be greatly limited. And this is one of these situations in which it is good to be wrong. Black metal itself has gained a completely new incarnation in the East — combined with the NSXE ideals, without self-destructive tendencies, much less individualistic, steeped in the real-life realization of military and martial slogans. And this new incarnation has already become a valuable part of the contemporary nationalist movement.
Second, participants in Asgardsrei come from probably all European nations. I have met people from Europe and the United States, but I know there were also participants from both Americas. There were also (for the first time) people from South Africa. You could feel the spirit of European brotherhood. Of course, no one pretended that there are no differences between us. Regarding some issues, especially historical matters, we will never be able to fully understand each other. But we are united by a common future and the struggle for the survival of our nations. From this perspective we can just overcome certain past issues.
References to the most primeval symbols are a great way of building the unity of white nations. The colors of some military formations or nationalist organizations will always provoke objections from people coming from different countries, but such symbols as the solar cross or the black sun will always be valued by every conscious European. Furthermore, some marginal or esoteric figures, such as the aforementioned Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, are easier to accept by people from different nations than better-known heroes.
Another interesting issue is the participation of women in the nationalist movement. Let us be honest: black metal and nationalism have always attracted more men than women. Women are less interested in marginal or radical movements. The reason for this is the fact that women care more about the opinion of others. They take social stigmatization less easily. And they are less willing to fight to change the existing situation. (Women generally participate less willingly in the race, but they prefer to wait for the winners at the finishing line.) But we must always keep in mind that most men do not care about any kind of ideals, and they prefer to live in their parents’ basements while playing video games or watching porn. Anyway, among the Asgardsrei participants there were more men, but there were quite a lot of women. This is another proof that nationalists are beginning to win, and the nationalist movement is gaining strength. Meetings with Ukrainian female nationalists are always very uplifting. There are more and more of them, and they really identify with the movement, and are devoting their efforts to our victory.
Finally, not only nationalists participated in the festival. Some people just came to listen to music and watch the show. They might not identify with the whole message of the artists or the organizers, but they at least partially accept it. In Ukraine radical black metal circles have managed to force their worldview on the wider extreme scene. Just as in the 1990s most people listening to rock or metal had Leftist leanings, they often wore Che Guevara patches, even if they were not really involved in any kind of leftist initiatives, right now in Ukraine many fans of extreme music just listen to nationalist bands or wear patches with nationalist symbols. It is possible that this will have no effect on the future, but in fact the wider scene in Ukraine is beginning to turn in the direction of nationalism.
Asgardsrei 2019?
After the festival I heard the joke that to make Asgardsrei 2019 better than this year’s version, the organizers will have to summon Kalki and end the Kali Yuga. But speaking seriously, I have a few ideas on how to make this event better.
First of all, in 2017 the metapolitical part was as good as the musical one. This year it would be difficult to keep up with such a line-up of bands. However, the conference was a little pale in comparison with the concerts. More speeches and more time for discussions would be a good idea. Furthermore, more discipline in matters of time would be good. If there are so many overlapping events, every delay becomes quite a problem.
Second, the Cossack House, where the Militant Store, Plomin Club, Orientyr Publishing House, and the Dürer art studio are located, is becoming an initiative as important and well-known as the model of this kind of activism, namely Italy’s CasaPound. It would be good to show guests from various countries these Ukrainian nationalist accomplishments, and also to discuss with them their technical and organizational aspects, which could be a great inspiration for nationalists from other countries.
During Asgardsrei 2017, the flags of the participants’ countries and organizations were hung over the audience in the VIP area, and it made a really good impression. This time however, there were almost no flags over the audience, only among the participants. It would be nice if the organizers provided an opportunity to bring flags and hang them over the audience or the stage. The number of initiatives and countries represented at Asgardsrei is huge, and it also makes a great impression in the photos that circulate on the web after the festival.
There are also some small organizational issues connected with the concerts. During the festival itself there were only sporadic small sound problems during a few performances (which is unavoidable during such a large event). However, during Kabaret Peste Noire, the line to the club and then to the cloak room was truly huge. It is a small issue, but why not eliminate it next year?
Speaking of Kabaret Peste Noire — such an acoustic concert was a brilliant idea. Maybe next year it would be good to expand it? No need to look far — Goatmoon also performs acoustic sets. Stormheit, who plays bass in Goatmoon, has an incredible project — Stormheit — which could also provide an acoustic set. And I am sure that there are folk and neofolk bands that would be willing to perform at such an event.
According to what I see on the internet, there are more and more small companies and craftsmen, who are producing jewelry or clothes inspired by the European tradition. Perhaps it would be a good idea to provide them with an opportunity to present and sell their work during the festival. Asgardsrei takes place around the holidays, so many people would be interested in buying a gift for themselves or for friends without waiting for delivery. During the festival, there were stands for Militant Zone, Svastone, Plomin, and other outlets, and there were always lines in front of them. Other ideas are Q&A sessions with the performing musicians and an exhibition of works of visual artists cooperating with Militant Zone.
While the club itself was a great place for this festival — it was large enough for such audience; there was room for the stands; the stage was large and visible; the sound was great — it would be even better if the organizers had a place of their own where such events could happen. Sounds unrealistic? Well, five years ago the idea of organizing a two-day radical black metal festival for 1,500 participants in Ukraine also sounded unrealistic. The more money that goes to our people and remains in the nationalist counter-system, the more the scene becomes independent — the better.
However, I must emphasize, that all of these are small issues and ideas on how to make a great festival even better. After Asgardsrei 2017, I wrote that it was not only the best event of the year but also the best event I had ever participated in. This year I need to write it again: Asgardsrei 2018 was not only the best event of the year but also the best event I have participated in.
"In the vermilion field it is the ancient emblem of Eternity: the golden serpent that makes of itself a perfect and perpetual circle. And inside the circle is the constellation of the Bear, it is the seven Guards, it is the seven fatal stars that from the dawn of time lead the navigation of the Mediterranean people, of our lineage. "
"Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need for countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value. Such things show that the capacity for metaphysics does not go hand in hand with the need for it..."
"For decades, since the twilight years of the 19th century, something had been stirring in the German-speaking lands of central Europe, something that shook off the heavy-handed rationalism of a confident age and plunged into the deep places where human consciousness merged with the forces of nature. In the wake of a lost war and a bitter economic depression, that archetypal force seized on an unlikely vehicle -- an Austrian artist turned political agitator named Adolf Hitler -- and swept up most of Europe into a maelstrom that ended, as the myths of Wotan always end, in Götterdammerung"
Swastika Banner and the Hellenic Flag proudly flying side by side on the Sacred rock of Acropolis. The fulfillment of the Aryan Destiny and an Archetypical Triumph of our Cosmotheory.
William Joyce is too often remembered as “Lord Haw-Haw,” a name that seems like a joke—and is. However, those who really know who this man was will recognize that he was an exceptional individual, who suffered martyrdom for his pro-Western beliefs.
Intellectually gifted William Joyce had a family tree to be proud of. Theirs was a family whose merits had given an entire region of Galway, Ireland their name: “Joyces’ Country.” Their roots traced back to William the Conqueror’s colonization of medieval England and the later crusades. Among Joyce’s ancestors were three archbishops, three founders of the Dominican College at Louvain, several mayors of Galway, an historian, a 19th-century poet-physician, an American revivalist preacher, and the noted author and poet James Joyce. William’s father, Michael Joyce, as a 20-year-old British citizen (Ireland was then ruled from Westminster), had emigrated to the United States in 1888. Four years later he renounced his British citizenship and became an American citizen. He was very successful in his trade and returned to Ireland in 1909 to live in comfort.
Fiercely loyal to the crown and proudly pro-British, the Galway County inspector of police was unstinting in his praise of Michael Joyce, who now, through lapse, considered he was again a British citizen. Not so, the chief constable of Lancashire informed him. He and his wife Gertrude were formally cautioned against the provisions of the Aliens Restriction Order (July 8, 1917). Michael and his wife were now in no doubt as to their, and their son’s, nationality: They were citizens of the United States of America. At the conclusion of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (December 8, 1921) when a portion (26 counties) of Erin gained independence, Michael Joyce, no doubt due to his anti-Republican sympathies, re moved himself to England to dedicate himself to king and empire. William was then 15. There was never any doubt as to his son’s similar loyalty to the crown, an excess of which caused him to lie about his age when enrolling in the Regular Army at 16. He was ejected after four months service, when his true age was revealed.
The young Joyce joined the Officer Training Corp. It was through the OTC college system that the dedicated and highly cerebral student acquired BAs in Latin, French, English and history. Later on, in 1927, he obtained first-class honors in English. In terms of his academic brilliance Joyce’s achievements have never been bettered. His close friend, John Angus MacNab, described how Joyce could quote Virgil and Horace freely. Besides being able to speak German, he spoke French fairly well and some Italian. He was not only gifted in mathematics but had a flair for teaching it. He was also widely read in history, philosophy, theology, psychology, theoretical physics and chemistry, economics, law, medicine, anatomy and physiology. He played the piano by ear.
This was a period of international upheaval and uncertainty. The “Russian” Revolution and bitter civil war were now over. Events had delivered that great nation to the tyranny of international Jewish revolutionaries. Bankers such as New York-based Kuhn, Loeb and Co., who shared their ilk and presumably the ensuing opportunity for profit, had financed these revolutionaries. Europe was horrified at what appeared to be the relentless flames of revolution licking at their own shores. Winston Churchill was on record as saying:
”It may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of providing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible . . . at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”1
Against this background, the young Joyce, on December 6, 1923, joined Miss Linton-Orman’s British Fascisti Limited, an organization set up to counter Red revolutionary activity. Joyce was soon to come face to face with Red revolutionaries. During an election meeting, a communist thug leaped on the 18-year-old activist’s back and with an open razor slashed him from mouth to ear. It was a scar that Joyce carried with him to the gallows. During this period of international upheaval, membership in a fascist organization and the defense of the British empire were one and the same thing. Indeed it was so in Germany, Italy and many other European nations then battling against the communist struggle for world domination. The political event Joyce was defending when attacked was an election meeting for the Unionist Parliamentary candidate, Jack Lazarus.
In 1933, The Financial Times brought out a special eight-page supplement under the caption: “The Renaissance of Italy: Fascism’s Gift of Order and Progress.” As late as November 11, 1938, Winston Churchill opined:
”Of Italian Fascism, Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honor and stability of civilized society. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.”2
Only later would the defeated British empire genuflect to the triumphant airs of The Internationale. Joyce, reluctant to commit himself to existing anti-communist organizations, eventually opted for Oswald Mosley’s newly formed British Union of Fascists (BUF). He remained skeptical, however, of Benito Mussolini.3 His skepticism was due to the Italian leader’s apparent lack of concern at the threat posed by organized world Zionism. On the other hand, he had great admiration for Germany’s recently elected leader, Adolf Hitler.
Fired by the prospect of accompanying BUF leader Oswald Mosley to Germany with the possible opportunity of meeting the Führer, the young Joyce was to unwittingly sign his own death warrant. Realizing that as an American citizen it would be impossible to obtain a British passport, he lied about his place of birth to obtain the document. Obviously such a document was invalid, but Britain’s judiciary would later be happy to make an exception to the rule if it would provide opportunity for a legalized hanging.
Ironically the proposed trip to Germany never did take place. An excellent speaker, Joyce often deputized for Oswald Mosley. He regularly addressed large audiences including a major fascist rally in Liverpool on November 26, 1933, attended by an estimated 10,000 fascists. Of him A.K. Chesterton wrote:
”Joyce, brilliant writer, speaker, and exponent of policy, has addressed hundreds of meetings, always at his best, always revealing the iron spirit of fascism in his refusal to be intimidated by violent opposition.”
John Beckett, the former Labour member of Parliament on attending a meeting addressed by Joyce said: “Within 10 minutes of this 28-year-old youngster taking the platform, I knew that here was one of the dozen finest orators in the country.”
Cecil Roberts, who heard Joyce at a political dinner in London’s Park Lane Hotel described the event years later:
”Thin, pale, intense, he had not been speaking many minutes before we were electrified by this man. I have been a connoisseur of speech-making for a quarter of a century, but never before, in any country, had I met a personality so terrifying in its dynamic force, so vituperative, so vitriolic.”
During this period Oswald Mosley was speaking at the largest political rallies ever held in Britain. “We know that England is crying for a leader,” Joyce told a Brighton audience in 1934, “and that leader has emerged in the person of the greatest Englishman I have ever known, Sir Oswald Mosley.” Joyce’s political sympathies however were unambiguously in favor of national socialism, and by 1936 he had coined the slogan: “If you love your country you are a national[ist]. If you love her people you are a socialist. Therefore, be a national socialist.”
He was equally uncompromising on the Jewish question. Then as now, it was usual for Jewish financial interests to buy a country by purchasing the party in power. In the summer of 1934 the BUF was offered 300,000 British pounds by a Jewish businessman prominent in the tobacco trade. It was sufficient to finance the BUF for two years. Without consulting his party’s leader, Joyce rejected the offer “with an impolite message.”
Joyce, if nothing else, was an indomitable champion of the working class, for whom all his efforts were directed. It was hardly surprising that he was as consistently scathing of capitalists and communists; not to mention the decadent English bootlickers, whom he described as “the parasites of Mayfair.”
Joyce, by then divorced, knew one other great passion, his love for fellow party worker Margaret Cairns White. Upon the announcement of their engagement, a mutual friend said to her: “Well, I do hope you will be happy, but it may be uncomfortable being married to a genius. And William is a genius, you know.”
By 1937 the English establishment’s enthusiasm for fascism had waned. The Fleet Street-based propaganda machine backed by Jewish interests was in its ascendancy. The success of National Socialist Germany and Italian Fascism, rather than being seen as a template for European solidarity and revival, was now seen as a threat to British interests, the establishment and its aristocracy. Simplistically there were more readers of Fleet Street’s poisonous press than there were readers of the British Union of Fascist’s tabloid, The Fascist. The BBC, then as now, had always leaned toward Marxism. Riding on the back of organized anti-fascist propaganda and Red violence the government banned the wearing of political uniforms and torch-light processions. Their further tightening up of the Public Order Act hit the fascist movement hard—as intended.
As the police turned a blind eye to Red riots, the owners of public halls, most of them Labour authority controlled, denied venues to the fascists. Their presses were seized and their members intimidated and harassed. The war clouds were now looming and the British fascists’ last chance to form peaceful alliance with burgeoning racial-nationalism in Europe was now fading fast. There would be no more elections until 1945. (Britain in essence was an elected dictatorship from 1937 to 1940, a parliamentary dictatorship from 1940 to 1945.) On the retreat and burdened with unsustainable overheads, the BUF staff was reduced by 80 percent. Within a month of his wedding to his Maria Callas look-alike bride, Joyce was unemployed. His enforced redundancy owed much to his disenchantment with Mosley. Joyce was intolerant of weakness exemplified by Mosley’s concessions to the then government.
Subsequently Joyce, Beckett and MacNab set up the National Socialist League, which dismissed copying the Ger man pattern. For Joyce knew the German leader disdained imitation:
”His way is for Germany, ours is for Britain. Let us tread our paths with mutual respect, which is rarely in creased by borrowing. Nationalism stands for the nation and socialism for the people. Unless the people are identical with the nation, all politics and all statecraft are a waste of time. A people without a nation are a helpless flock or, like the Jews, a perpetual nuisance; a nation without people is an abstract nothing or a historical ghost.”
By studying these words carefully, one can perceive why Britons today, deprived of their nationhood through open-door immigration and foreign ownership, have be come a flock without a shepherd and in many respects, especially abroad, a perpetual nuisance.
By now the war clouds were darkening, leaving Joyce on the horns of a dilemma. He could not support a war arranged by corrupt politicians acting on behalf of international finance. Yet evasion of national service was unthinkable. As things turned out, there was no dilemma at all. Joyce and his wife Margaret were already marked down for arrest and detention for the duration of the coming war. In fact, many people were sentenced to long terms in prison merely for peaceful activities aimed at stopping England’s war against Germany. One such was Anna Wolkoff, the daughter of an admiral in the Russian Imperial Navy. On November 7, 1940, Judge Justice Tucker sentenced her to 10 years imprisonment.
The same judge five years later would try Joyce at the Old Bailey. At the Wolkoff trial he described the absent Joyce as a traitor—a well-publicized remark that should have eliminated him from presiding over the fugitive’s later trial. Joyce’s plan was to renew his false passport and that of Margaret. Their intention was to go to Ireland, which would resolve their dilemma. However, the Munich Agreement made their departure unnecessary, and the couple went instead to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where Joyce experienced a “spiritual visitation” of some sort, the impact of which kept him awake and talking all night. What followed was a period of much soul-searching. Events forced the young couple to decide on Berlin as being the best option to escape an English jail.
Angus MacNab had already established that both Joyce and his wife would be granted German citizenship if they chose to resettle in Germany.4 Time was fast running out.
The House of Commons was being re called the following Thursday to pass all stages of the Emergency Powers (War) Act. This would effectively turn the British government into a dictatorship. Joyce was under no illusions. He and tens of thousands of others who had pursued peace with Germany would be summarily arrested and detained indefinitely without trial. He applied for the renewal of their passports. As national socialists working for peace between the two nations, there was now only one country where the Joyce’s presumed they would not be imprisoned: Germany. It was an argument strongly favored by Margaret.
At about midnight on August 24, the couple’s telephone rang. It was a call from a friendly MI-5 intelligence officer, warning Joyce that he was due to be arrested under the Emergency Powers Act. He had at most two days to make good their escape. On August 26, 1939, five days before Germany retaliated against repeated Polish attacks on her borders, William and Margaret Joyce left London. Arriving in Berlin they found the city seething with defensive preparations. There the English visitors found that Christian Bauer, their contact and ticket to a new life, had exaggerated his influence and could offer little by way of assistance. In the confusion of events there was even the possibility they might be interned should Britain declare war on Germany. Disconsolate and footsore the pair tramped the streets of the German capital coming up against one obstacle after another. Finally, without work and running short of money they decided in unison to return to England. Yet again fate was against them. William had changed all of his money into Deutschmarks, a currency that was now invalid for journeys beyond Germany’s borders. British Embassy staff were unhelpful. At Margaret’s suggestion the couple fatefully decided to stay in Berlin; a decision reinforced when next day Joyce landed a job as a part-time freelance interpreter. During the night of August 31, 1939, Poland, which, six months earlier, had invaded Czechoslovakia and which already controversially occupied German territory looted after World War I, crossed the German border. It was a little after midnight when radio broadcasts were interrupted by an announcement that the small German border town of Gleiwitz had been attacked and occupied by Polish irregular formations. Within hours Germany retaliated.
Two days later, a delegate of the Labour Party met with British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax. “Do you still have hope?” he was asked. “If you mean hope for war,” answered Halifax, “then your hope will be fulfilled tomorrow.”
“God be thanked!” replied the representative of the British Labour Party. In Germany the mood was less jubilant. The shocked population listened to their country’s leader Adolf Hitler as he addressed the Reichstag on September 1:
”Just as there have occurred, recently, 21 border incidents in a single night, there were 14 this night, among which three were very serious. . . . Since dawn today, we are shooting back. I desire nothing other than to be the first soldier of the German Reich. I have again put on that old coat which was the most sacred and dear to me of all. I will not take it off until victory is ours, or I shall not live to see the end. There is one word that I have never learned: capitulation.”
Back in London the police were raiding the Joyces’ apartment, only to find the tipped-off couple had already gone. Though free in Germany, they felt lonely, helpless and homesick. They had no ration cards; William’s meager earnings reduced them to living on acts of charity. Every apparent job opportunity turned out to be a disappointment—a vague promise and nothing more. Reduced to destitution, he was finally asked: “Have you ever thought of working for the radio?” Joyce replied that he had not, and moments later an interview was being arranged.
Though desperate for competent English speakers, the Reichsrundfunks Foreign Service was not impressed with Joyce’s performance (he was suffering from a heavy cold that week), but reluctantly provided employment to the equally reluctant Joyce. Faced with possible internment or certain destitution, he had little choice but to accept the post offered. The rest is history. Joyce spent the rest of En gland’s war providing English-speaking listeners with the German point of view on the conflict’s unfolding events. He was one of many various nationalities carrying out the same task. The same could be said for the internationally recruited staff serving the British government through the BBC at London’s Bush House.
Joyce was never the “Lord Haw-Haw” of Fleet Street mythology. He was given this nom-de-plume by Daily Express journalist Jonah Barrington, who had mistaken Joyce’s broadcast for that of Norman Baillie-Stewart, a Seaforth Highland Regiment veteran who, like many others, had decided to fight for the triumph of European interests rather than international capitalism and communism.
Much of the comment made about Joyce’s broadcasts is similarly myth. His biographer, J.A. Cole, conceded that:
”To this day he is quoted as having made statements he never uttered. Most of what people think they know of him is false and not fact. . . . An extraordinary viciousness has characterized much of the writing about him, but what was written in anger [about Joyce] now looks spiteful and even absurd.”
Claims that Joyce sneeringly provided accurate predictions that certain areas or buildings had been chosen for air strikes, were also wide of the mark. The government’s Ministry of Information, having already refuted claims that Germany had detailed topical knowledge, felt the need to issue a further statement: “It cannot be too often repeated that Haw-Haw made no such threats.” Joyce’s biographer concluded by remarking: “And the legend lives on to this day. Mention ‘Haw-Haw’ in any gathering, and out come the stories of what people heard, as they will insist, with their own ears. Joyce was a man who is remembered—for what he did not say.”
William L. Shirer, the author of the notable distortion, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, who worked in Berlin with Joyce, described him as the “No. 1 personality of World War II . . . an amusing and intelligent fellow.”5 What is beyond question is that Joyce’s broadcasts, with the benefit of hindsight, seem compellingly accurate. In the first radio talk definitely established as Joyce’s, the expatriate spoke of Britain’s position in the war.6
In one broadcast he commented on the hypocrisy of England’s government “‘fighting to the last Frenchman (Pole, Belgian, Norwegian . . .’); making promises it couldn’t keep.” Ironically the facts as Joyce presented them are more in accordance with the facts than those presented by the subsequent British explanation of events. England’s pact with Poland, its reason for declaring war on Germany, was later found to be illegal. Furthermore, the British government’s promise of direct aid to Poland, 9,500 planes for instance, came to nothing, as did other promises. Likewise promises made to Norway, whose neutrality was to be desecrated by British invasion.
By now the German government had documents setting out the most fulsome English promises of assistance to Holland and Belgium if their territories could be used to launch attacks on Germany. These promises were subsequently found to be similarly false. Joyce spoke passionately of the “Dunkirk debacle” of the French and the British Expeditionary Force:
”What was England’s contribution? An expeditionary force which carried out a glorious retreat, leaving all its equipment and arms behind, a force whose survivors arrived back in England, as the Times admitted, “practically naked.” Whatever excuses may be found for their plight the men who made the war were reduced to boasting of a precipitous and disastrous retreat as the most glorious achievement in history. Such a claim could only besmirch the proud regimental standards inscribed with the real victories of two centuries. What the politicians regarded, or professed to regard, as a triumph, the soldiers regarded as a bloody defeat from which they were extremely fortunate enough to survive.”
The next test of Britain’s might was the Battle of France. All the professions of brotherly love and platonic adoration which Churchill had poured forth to the French politicians resolved themselves into 10 divisions, as compared with 85 divisions, which had been in France at the height of her struggle in the last war. As the world knows, the effect was nil; and when Reynaud telegraphed madly night and day for aircraft, he was granted nothing but evasive replies. The glorious Royal Air Force was too busy dropping bombs on fields and graveyards in Germany to have any time available for France.
But after the final drama of Compiegne and the defeat and the utter collapse of the French, the heroic might of the British lion suddenly showed itself at Oran. That inspired military genius, Winston Churchill, discovered that it was easier to bomb French ships, especially when they were not under steam, than to save the Weygand line. If it was so hard to kill Germans, why not, he reasoned, demonstrate Britain’s might by killing Frenchmen instead? They were beaten and would be less likely to resent it.
Joyce in this first broadcast went on to scorn Churchill’s “cowardly” response to Germany’s success in fighting back:
”Churchill, the genius, has his answer ready. What is it? First, Germany’s ambulance planes are to be attacked wherever seen. They can easily be identified by the Red Cross that they bear, and they are unarmed, so the great brain conceives another possibility of victory. The fact that these planes have saved many British lives weighs as nothing in comparison with the triumph that can be achieved by shooting them down.”
The second part of the answer is to be found in the instructions issued to British bombers flying over Germany. In reply to the charge that these machines were dropping bombs on entirely non-military places, Mr. Churchill, with another flash of genius, replies, “Of course. The planes have to fly so high that the targets cannot be distinguished!” Otherwise, the Germans would shoot them down. In consequence of this instruction, harmless civilians have been murdered at Hanover and in other towns. The British prime minister has abandoned all pretense that these bombing operations have military objectives. The principle is, “Drop the bombs wherever you can, without being seen, and what they hit, they hit.” It is unnecessary to say that a terrible retribution will come to the people who tolerate, as their prime minister, the cowardly murderer who issues these instructions. Sufficient warnings have already been given.
J.M. Spaight, CB, CBE, principal secretary to the Air Ministry, afterwards admitted Churchill’s role in flouting international law by bombing civilians:
”Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly three months after the Royal Air Force had commenced bombing German civilian targets. Hitler would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely anxious to reach with Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to battle zones.”7
In a later broadcast on January 4, 1944, the 37-year-old Joyce asked: “How can the ordinary British soldier or sailor understand why he should be expected to die in 1939 or 1940 or 1941 to restore an independent Poland on the old scale, while today he must die in order that the Soviets rule Europe? Surely it must occur to him that he is the victim of false pretenses?”
Speaking on April 17, 1944, he said:
”There are today hundreds of thousands of British soldiers who will cease to live during the attempt to invade Western Europe. They are prepared to sacrifice their lives, but for what? For their country? Demonstrably not! Britain has only the stark prospect of poverty before her. For the rights of small nations? Certainly not. What British politician wants to hear of Poland today? For what, then, are these men to die? They are to die for the Jewish policy of Stalin and Roosevelt. If there is any other purpose to their sacrifice, I challenge Mr. Churchill to tell them what it is.”
Perhaps it was the accuracy of Joyce’s analysis of events that would later place his head in the vengeful British noose.
Part of the blackening of Joyce’s character is the claim that his speeches were universally ridiculed. In fact, his broadcasts were widely listened to in Britain and far from everyone found them as laughable as was claimed by the newspapers of the time. His biographer, J.A. Cole, describes an event at which two visitors were having afternoon tea with David Lloyd George.
The statesman interrupted the conversation to switch on the radio so that the Hamburg service could be heard. The former prime minister listened attentively, and once he remarked: “The government ought to take notice of every word this man says.”
Life magazine accorded Germany the lead in the radio war. The influential American magazine calculated, probably correctly, that 50 percent of the English listened to Joyce’s broadcasts from Hamburg. The manager of the East Riding Radio Relay Service complained, “We are inundated with requests for Lord Haw-Haw broadcasts, which we are not allowed to give.”
As the war drew to a close several attempts were made to save Joyce and his wife from English vengeance but they came to naught. Dr. Joseph Goebbels, before his death, inquired whether a submarine could be used to take the fugitives to Galway in neutral Ireland. Though not dismissed out of hand, it was impractical, and the idea was not pursued. A further plan, to allow escape to Sweden, was blocked by the Swedes. But at that late stage an escape was unlikely to succeed anyway. Denmark was in a state of near chaos, and communist bands roamed, a law unto themselves.
In fact, Joyce was not inclined to either run or to take his own life, preferring to allow fate to deal with him as it might. The couple ended their days in defeated Germany much as they had begun; as wandering victims of events. As the first rays of spring were warming the north German countryside, the couple often strolled through the pastoral landscape surrounding Flensburg, contemplating the budding birch trees. Occasionally they would come across small groups of British soldiers. It amused Joyce to banter with them, and on one occasion, a knot of soldiers enjoyed a conversation with a couple whom they thought were Herr and Frau Hansen. It was precisely because Joyce did not sound like his music hall caricature that he went unrecognized.
The beginning of the end came on Monday morning, May 28. Joyce had climbed to his favorite spot, the crest of the hill overlooking Flensberg’s beautiful harbor. There, to use his own words he “seemed to have fallen into a trance-like state; and with the utmost earnestness he prayed for help and guidance.”
Later, realizing that his wife would be searching for him, Joyce took one final look at his beloved harbor below before turning to search for her. Following the path down the hill the former broadcaster encountered two British army officers gathering wood. Perhaps realizing that silence would be regarded as suspicious, Joyce, speaking in French to the servicemen, said, “Here are a few more good pieces.” What ever aroused their suspicion, we may never know. Capt. Alexander Adrian Lickorish of the Reconnaissance Regiment, and Lt. Perry, an interpreter, followed and overtook the limping man. “You wouldn’t happen to be Joyce, would you?” Perry asked.
The conditioned response for anyone so challenged was to do as Joyce did: Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the official document that would dispel the officer’s suspicion. Before he could present it, however, Perry drew and fired his revolver.
It was never felt necessary to explain why such a standard response to a simple question should have resulted in a man being violently shot down. The bullet entered Joyce’s right thigh and then went through his left leg, causing four wounds. As he fell to the ground, he cried: “My name is Fritz Hansen.”
The grim irony is that the “officer” who shot Joyce, Perry, was no Englishman, nor was he a soldier. “Perry” was not his real name; the Lieutenant was an armed German Jew serving with the British forces.
William Joyce lies in an ambulance after his arrest by British officers at Flensburg, Germany, on 29 May 1945. He was shot during the arrest.
The wounded fugitive was handed over to the guard commander at the frontier post, where his true identity was revealed. During the ensuing raid on the couple’s lodgings a lieutenant and a party of 10 infantrymen, two Bren gun carriers and a lorry arrested his wife, Margaret. “Your husband has been arrested,” he snapped, adding that he was to arrest everyone in the house, including the children.
Joyce was held at the frontier post for several hours. Then a door was eventually flung open, and the sight of soldiers confronted Margaret as they emerged, carrying her husband on a stretcher. He looked pale. As the party passed, he looked up and waved. “Erin go bragh” (Ireland forever), she called out to him.
Her claim that the occupants of their lodgings had not known their true identity brought the group’s release. On returning to their home the family discovered that it had been ransacked by the troops; even their meager food supply had been “liberated.” Joyce’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment was treated as something of a freak show for the entertainment of his captors. To one of his tormentors the wounded fugitive responded: “In civilized countries wounded men are not peep shows.” Newspaper hacks, unable to afford the slightest dignity to the captured pair referred to Margaret as “his alleged wife,” or “the woman who claims to be his wife.”
The macabre death procession of British justice; a parade of grim reapers garbed in the accouterment of state legislature, now began the long march to the gallows. The subsequent trial ran its murderous course and few today question that it was a judicial lynching. Joyce was not, of course, British and much of the rest of the proceedings were equally questionable. Never from the moment of his arrest to his present predicament had Joyce ever denied his role, his purpose or his belief in national socialism. To the end he took the view that friendship with Germany being in the best interests of the English people he could not therefore be a traitor. On the contrary, those who conspired with Bolshevism to subvert and overrun civilization were in deed the traitors. In a letter to his friend Miss Scrimgeour he wrote:
”One day, I hope, it will be recognized that, whether or not I aided the king’s enemies (and who made them enemies?), I was no enemy to Britain: But I had no intention of offering any apology or excuse for my conduct, which history will surely vindicate. . . . As the days go by, it will become more and more obvious that the policy which I defended was the right one.”
Well aware that he was being hanged for opposing a war which cost the British army alone 350,000 dead, whilst England’s bunker-bound warmongers lined their pockets and gained their peerages through war profiteering, Joyce ended his letter:
”I cannot quite restrain my contempt for those who would hang me for treason. Had I robbed the public and impeded the war effort by profiteering on ammunitions, a peerage would now be within my reach if I were willing to buy it.”
In a later letter to the same recipient Joyce wrote: “You may be sure that the Jewish interests in this country will make every conceivable effort to liquidate me.”
Whatever the rituals of the court procedure, its day-to-day events were a parody; a judicial circus for the mob who, inflamed by Fleet Street, wished nothing other than the gallows (for words he never uttered). Joyce’s fate had already been decided upon despite the illegality of the charge laid against him.
Undeniably, he was an American citizen, and therefore could not be subject to England’s hastily improvised Treason Act, 1945. Joyce’s defense counsel acquitted themselves well, under the circumstances. Joyce recounted afterward how, in the cell below the court, he had discussed his prospects with his counsel. They remarked in unison that they had both been threatened with assassination if the court found in his favor and counts 1 and 2 were dismissed on the grounds that Joyce was undoubtedly an alien. The crucial legal ruling as to whether he owed allegiance to the crown had yet to come.
J.A. Cole described how:
”. . . the sparkling display of mental agility and legal erudition fascinated him (Joyce) as lawyers argued over nationality matters of mind-numbing complexity. Rumors swept the streets and public ignorance in legal complexities caused a near riot when misinterpretation (the first two charges, the assumption that he was British, being dropped) of findings suggested that the hangman had been thwarted.”
Joyce, however, was convinced that a state lynching was quite certain. He was under no illusions. He was a spectator and a foil; he was lending his presence to the fabrication of the spurious legitimacy of a show trial. In the outcome, Judge Justice Tucker decided that Joyce’s passport, obtained fraudulently on August 24, 1939, for the purpose of making his escape from England, caused the defendant to owe allegiance to the crown. No doubt the same judge would have regarded an Irish Kerry Blue to be a British bulldog had its owner falsified its Kennel Club papers.
In respect of the single remaining charge, a particular broadcast deemed to be treacherous, there was considerable doubt. The prosecution’s case hung (if you will excuse the expression) on what a detective-inspector “thought he had recognized.” In fact, the inspector’s case was afterwards undermined. But it was on this third count that Joyce was found guilty: “Assisting the king’s enemies by a specific broadcast.”
“Joyce! The sentence of the court upon you is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged until you are dead; and that your body be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall have been confined before your execution. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” The chaplain murmured: “Amen!”
Joyce stared defiantly at Judge Tucker as he pronounced the death sentence, then turned sharply and walked as smartly from the dock as he had entered it. Joyce without precedent was denied the right to express an opinion as to why the death sentence should not be carried out.
In a letter to his wife, he wrote: “I thought of interrupting the judge and demanding my undoubted right to make a reply; but my contempt for the judgment, combined with a somewhat belated respect for my own dignity, kept me silent.”
Joyce afterwards reflected on the judge’s reluctance to hold his gaze as he donned the black cap and read out the sentence:
”It gave me no small degree of satisfaction to see that His Lordship, complete with vampire chapeau, after once meeting my eyes, read his precious sentence into his desk. Ah! My dear, those were a proud few minutes of my life.”
To his wife he added:
”Some papers, I am told, have stated that my expression was contemptuous: It probably was. But whether I bore myself becomingly is, after all, for others to judge: but I do believe that I did nothing to shame me in the eyes of my lady, and I am therefore content.”
Whilst the condemned’s cell in London’s grim Wandsworth Prison was being prepared, Joyce was held in a Wormwood Scrubs cell. Though his counsel began the appeal procedure, Joyce was under no illusions. “Distinguished lawyers were laying 50 to 1 on an acquittal: I was not,” he wrote. Initially the date for Joyce’s execution was set for November 23, 1945, and on the 17th of that month his wife Margaret was transferred from the Belgian jail where she was being held to Holloway Prison, the women’s jail in London. The execution date having passed due to the appeals process Joyce retracted nothing of his original statement, and he advised his wife not to amend hers:
”Morally, if not legally, it is highly pertinent that we firmly believed ourselves to be serving the best ultimate interests of the British people—a fact which was appreciated and respected by the best of our German chiefs. And it was always our thesis that German and British interests were, in the final analysis, not only compatible but mutually complementary.”
The Manchester Guardian was not alone in expressing doubt as to the legality of Joyce’s forthcoming hanging:
”One can say that this document, which he ought never to have possessed, has been—unless the law lords judge differently—the deciding factor in Joyce’s sentence. One would wish that he had been condemned on something more solid than a falsehood, even if it was one of his own making. . . . Even in these days of violence, killing men is not the way to root out false (unpopular) opinions.”
Despite the dangers of association, Joyce was far from alone in his beliefs, and he received many letters of support. He wrote: “I feel overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends and these tributes from complete strangers. I am really embarrassed.” A couple in Kensington had sent a check for 50 pounds. Typically a small Suffolk farmer contributed 10 shillings “for a very brave gentleman.”
On the morning of December 18, the appeal was heard—and dismissed. The death sentence was to be carried out on January 3, 1946. On December 28, he wrote to his friend Miss Scrimgeour:
”I trust, like you, that the works of my hand will flourish by my death; and I know there are many who will keep my memory alive. The prayers that you and others have been saying for me have been and are a great source of strength to me, and I can tell you that I am completely at peace in my mind, fully resigned to God’s will, and I am proud of having stood by my ideals to the last. I would certainly not change places either with my liquidators, or with those who have recanted. It is precisely for my ideals that I am to be killed. It is the force of ideals that the Hebrew masters of this country fear; almost everything else can be purchased by their money: and, as with the Third Reich, what they cannot buy, they seek to destroy: but I do entertain the hope that, before the very last second, the British public will awaken and save themselves. They have not much time now.”
In his last letter to his wife on New Year’s Day, 1946, he wrote:
”As I move toward the Edge of Beyond, my confidence in the final victory increases. How it will be achieved, I know not; but I never felt less inclined to pessimism, though Europe and this country will probably have to suffer terribly before the vindication of our ideals. . . . Tonight I want to compose my thoughts finally; the atmosphere of peace is strong upon me, and I know that all is ready for the transition.”
Visitors besides his wife found Joyce in a spiritual sense of peace. Angus MacNab eloquently expressed his feelings with these words:
”In his last days, although in perfectly good health, his actual body seemed spiritualized, and without what you would call pallor, his flesh seemed to have a quasi-transparent quality. Being with him gave a sense of inward peace, like being in a quiet church.”
Joyce, in a letter to his wife, recalled the spiritual visitation he had experienced at Ryde just before the outbreak of England’s war:
”It was, in those hours, as if some shadowy foreknowledge were given to me, causing a convulsion of what you might rightly call “burning of energy.” I knew that all I had and more was required of me; and I suppose I was in an emotional state arising out of “knowledge” hidden from the conscious mind. My fear on each occasion was that you would be physically torn from me; but far stronger was the feeling that we should never be spiritually separated.”
Such was the esteem with which Joyce was held that on the night of his execution former teachers at Birkbeck College —who remembered their likable, hardworking, although strange, student—sent a message to the governor of Wandsworth Prison. “They recalled him as they had known him, and if it were within the rules they would like the governor to tell him that they wished him well.”
National Socialist Martyr and Hero William Joyce was executed on September 3 1946. Another heinous crime of democratic England.
It was a bitterly cold morning on January 3, 1946. In a small chapel in Galway, Ireland, mass was being said for an American citizen about to be hanged in England’s grim Wandsworth Prison. The condemned prisoner was still writing his farewell notes as the liturgy began.
In the last letter that his wife would receive posthumously the condemned American wrote:
”I never asked you if you wanted to receive posthumous letters: The question was too delicate, even for me; but I assumed your wish. For I think you are sufficiently strong now to overcome the grief of this blow, and that your faith will triumph over tears. For my part, I want to write as long as I can and then mend the snapped cable in an eternal way.”
At this point his letter was interrupted by his wife’s final visit. When she had gone, he continued in a smaller, neater hand:
”Oh, my dear! Your visit! With no words can I express my feelings about it! I want the children to take leave of me, of course, as they will this afternoon: but now I am anxious to die. I want to die as soon as possible, because then I shall be nearer to you. With the last glimpse of you, my earthly life really finished. With you, dear, it is otherwise, because you are destined to stay for a time and will have me with you to help: I am more confident than ever that we shall be together: but, after I have seen the children, the lag-end will be of no use to me except in one way; that I can still write some lines to you.
”Let me tell you, though, that spiritually, an unearthly joy came upon me in the last instants of your visit. And you will know exactly why. You would not blame me for being impatient to go beyond. Still, despite my impatience, I shall be glad to talk this evening to my kind, good chaplain, who has done so much for me and who will give me communion tomorrow morning. There will be a great chorus of prayer as I pass beyond.”
Footnotes
1. Winston Churchill. Illustrated Sunday Herald. Feb. 8, 1920. 2. Witness to History, Michael Walsh. Historical Review Press, Uckfield, England. 3. The Italian leader had been honored as a British knight of the bath. His knighthood was removed in 1942. 4. Joyce and his wife became naturalized German citizens on September 28, 1940. 5. Lord Haw-Haw and Joyce, J.A. Cole, Faber and Faber, London, 1964. 6. Bremen, August 2, 1940, 22.15 BST. Repeated Zeesen, August 3, 1940. 7. Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P. Veale. Mitre Press, London. 1948. (Nelson Publishing Co., U.S.A., 1953).
