Leon Degrelle, combat hero of the Second World War, political leader, author and friend of the Institute for Historical Review, died March 31 [1994] in the southern Spanish city of Malaga. He was 87.
Degrelle was born on June 15, 1906, into a prosperous Catholic family in Bouillon, Belgium. As a young man, he was strongly influenced by the ideas of French writer Charles Marraus.
After study of philosophy, literature and law at the University of Louvain, this gifted publicist and charismatic public speaker turned to journalism and politics. In eloquent addresses to large rallies, several books and numerous booklets, and through his newspaper, Le Pays réel, he quickly made a mark on his country’s political life. At the age of 29, his Catholic “Rex” movement – which demanded radical political reform and the establishment of an authoritative “corporative” state of social justice and national unity – captured 11.5 percent of the vote, and 21 parliamentary seats, in Belgium’s 1936 elections.
Although his party’s share of the vote fell to 4.4 percent in the 1939 election, Degrelle himself was reelected to the parliament with the largest majority of any deputy.
In the wake of Germany’s June 1941 attack against the Soviet Union, Degrelle enthusiastically joined what he regarded as a pan-European crusade to crush Communism. His proposal to raise a volunteer battalion of fellow French-speaking Walloons to ensure a place of honor for Belgium in Hitler’s new Europe was quickly accepted by the Germans.
Turning down an invitation to begin as a officer in the newly formed combat unit, he instead chose to start as a private, sharing all the burdens of his comrades. When he left his homeland in August 1941 to begin military service at the age of 35, he had never fired a gun. Nevertheless, he rose through the ranks to become commander of the unit that finally came to be known as the 28th SS Division “Wallonia.”
As a result of the extraordinary courage and leadership he showed on the Narva front in Estonia, he became the first non-German to be awarded the coveted Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Hitler personally bestowed the honor on August 27, 1944.
Of the first 800 Walloon volunteers who left for the Eastern Front, only three survived the war, one of them Degrelle, who was wounded seven times during the course of his three and a half years of combat. All told, some 2,500 Walloons fell against the Soviets.
Degrelle’s gripping account of duty, death and fierce combat on the eastern Front against numerically superior Soviet forces has won enthusiastic acclaim from readers around the world. The English-language edition, entitled Campaign in Russia, was first published by the IHR in 1985. It earned praise from US Army Brigadier General John C. Bahnsen in a review appearing in an official US Army Department magazine: “.. The pace of the writing is fast; the action is graphic, and a warrior can learn things from reading this book. I recommend its reading by students of the art of war. It is well worth the price.”
To escape death at the hands of the victorious Allies at the end of the war, he made a daring 1,500-mile flight in a small plane from Norway across Europe to Spain, crash landing on the beach at San Sebastian. Critically wounded, he somehow survived, and then built a new and successful life in exile in Spain, which granted him refuge.
Over the years, numerous lies have been told about Degrelle. For example, a Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) report on his death that appeared recently in American Jewish community papers, while mentioning nothing of his remarkable wartime combat record, told readers that Degrelle “was responsible for the deportations and deaths of about 35,000 Jews in Belgium between 1941 and 1944.” This claim has absolutely no basis in fact.
In spite of the catastrophic military defeat of the cause to which he had been so devoted, until his death Degrelle remained defiantly unrepentant. He made this clear in numerous interviews, essays and in a 300-page autobiography, which appeared (in German) in 1992.
During the final years of his life, Degrelle was working on a multi-volume series of books for the IHR detailing the personality, policies, impact and legacy of Adolf Hitler. Hitler: Born at Versailles,the first volume in this projected 13-volume series, was published by the IHR in 1987. In this 535-page book Degrelle traces the origins, course and impact of the First World War. A German edition was published in 1992. A portion of volume two appeared as an essay, “How Hitler Consolidated Power in Germany and Launched a Social Revolution,” in the Fall 1992 Journal of Historical Review.
Unfortunately, Degrelle had been able to complete only a small part of this massive project by the time of his death. The IHR is now considering how best to put the completed portion into publishable form.
"My dearest friend and comrade Léon Degrelle had great doubts at the end of his life, I must tell you. And by special disposition asked to be cremated like Baldur was. This was an Aryan decision, not a Christian one."
"Death by violence, death by cold, death by starvation - these are the normal endings of the stately and beautiful creatures of the wilderness. The sentimentalists who prattle about the peaceful life of nature do not realize its utter mercilessness."
- ‘African Game Trails’ (1910), Theodore Roosevelt.
Aethyrick is a mysterious band from Finland. Their debut album 'Praxis' was released on CD by The Sinister Flame last year and recently the vinyl version came out by the same label. Aethyric offer a kind of Black Metal that is not very common nowadays, musically and lyrically. They create an atmosphere that reminisces the mid-90s melodic Black Metal that goes very well together with their concept that revolves around folk traditions/magic and the dark forces of nature - a solid whole that manages to capture the unique feeling that the mystery of the woodland, the majesty of the nightsky and the perpetual flow of the river can create. Their promo pictures depict everything very successfully as well. If I would try to compare them with other bands, listening to 'Praxis' the 'Ode to the Nightsky' EP of Mudanus Imperium came to my mind, as well as Tiamat and Circle of Dawn.
[caption id="attachment_8680" align="aligncenter" width="400"]Fritz Wetzelberger (1898 - 1989) - Auf dem Gipfel 1928[/caption]
"Whatever the dimensions of the space with which he is familiar and in which he regards himself as situated - his country, his city, his village, his house - religious man feels the need always to exist in a total and organized world, in a cosmos."
“I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.”
One of the saddest duties of any company commander was the letter home to the wives or parents of a fallen soldier under his command. I thought some of you might be interested in the contents of such letters, so I will post and translate a few in the coming weeks. This one is for a 19-year old Kanonier in the Waffen-SS from Berlin, named Heinz Kintzel.
[caption id="attachment_8672" align="aligncenter" width="400"]This is the only picture of Heinz in Uniform.[/caption]
The letter from his company commander to his parents reads:
„After weeks of intense combat, which was crowned by some proud victories, your son Heinz on March 21. 1942, gave his life for his beloved Führer and a better future for Großdeutschland.
During heroic action against the Bolshevic attackers in the area south of Lake Ilmen on March 19, he was so gravely wounded that he died two days later at the main dressing station.
The battle group - to which your son had belonged since January - is today still engaged in the most bitter fighting.
Because of those circumstances, we have so far been unable to obtain greater details about either your son‘s death or the location of his hero‘s grave. We ask for your understanding in light of current conditions.
With your son we have lost a valorous and beloved Kamerad, one who will serve as a shining example in our coming battles. In recognition of his heroic conduct, he had been awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class just a few days prior. We will keep most honored memories of our Kamerad.
We extend our sincere sympathies to you, the cruelly tested parents. Your son died courageously fulfilling his duty, he gave his life for the eternal existence of the Fatherland. May this knowledge be a source of pride as well as solace in this time of heartbreak.
The Tuatha Dé Danann as depicted in John Duncan's Riders of the Sidhe (1911)
By David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri)
This article shows how the early Indo-European language speakers in Europe like the Celts, Germans, Greeks and Scythians, were possibly based upon a Vedic people called the Danavas or Sudanavas (good Danavas) connected to Vedic kings, sages and yogis.
Many ancient European peoples, particularly the Celts and Germans, regarded themselves as children of Danu, with Danu meaning the Mother Goddess, who was also, like Sarasvati in the Rig Veda, a river Goddess. The Celts called themselves “Tuatha De Danaan”, while the Germans had a similar name. Ancient European river names like the Danube and various rivers called Don in Russia, Scotland, England and France reflect this. The Danube which flows to the Black Sea is their most important river and could reflect their eastern origins.
In fact, the term Danu or Danava (the plural of Danu) appears to form the substratum of Indo-European identity at the base of the Hellenic, Illyro-Venetic, Italo-Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic elements. The northern Greeks were also called Danuni. Therefore, the European Aryans could probably all be called Danavas.
According to Roman sources, Tacitus in his Annals and Histories, the Germans claimed to be descendants of the Mannus, the son of Tuisto. Tuisto relates to Vedic Tvasthar, the Vedic father-creator Sky God, who is also a name for the father of Manu (RV X.17.1-2). This makes the Rig Vedic people also descendants of Manu, the son of Tvashtar.
In the Rig Veda, Tvashtar appears as the father of Indra, who fashions his thunderbolt (vajra) for him (RV X.48.3). Yet Indra is sometimes at odds with Tvashtar because is compelled to surpass him (RV III.48.3-4). Elsewhere Tvashtar’s son is Vishvarupa or Vritra, whom Indra kills, cutting off his three heads (RV X.8.8-9), (TS II.4.12, II.5.1). Indra slays the dragon, Vritra, who lays at the foot of the mountain withholding the waters, and releases the seven rivers to flow into the sea. In several instances, Vritra is called Danava, the son of the Goddess Danu who is connected to the sea (RV I.32.9; II.11.10; III.30.8; V.30.4; V.32).
In the Brahmanas Vishvarupa/Vritra is the son of Danu and Danayu, the names of his mother and father (SB I.6.3.1, 8, 9). Clearly Vritra is Vishvarupa, the son of the God Tvashtar and the Goddess Danu. Danava also means a serpent or a dragon (RV V.32.1-2), which is not only a symbol of wisdom but of power and both Vedic and ancient European lore have their good and bad dragons or serpents.
In this curious story both Indra and Vritra appear ultimately as brothers because both are sons of Tvashtar. We must also note that Tvashtar fashions the thunderbolt for Indra to slay Vritra (RV I.88.5). Indra and Vritra represent the forces of expansion and contraction or the dualities inherent in each one of us. They are both inherent in Tvashtar and represent the two sides of the Creator or of creation as knowledge and ignorance. As Vritra is also the son of Tvashtar and Danu, Indra must ultimately be a son of Danu as well. Both the Vedic Aryans and the Proto-European Aryans are sons of Tvashtar, who was sometimes not the supreme God but a demiurge that they must go beyond.
The Danavas in the Puranas (VaP II.7) are the sons of the Rishi Kashyapa, who there assumes the role of Tvashtar as the main father creator. Kashyapa is a great rishi connected to the Himalayas. He is the eighth or central Aditya (Sun God) that does not leave Mount Meru (Taittiriya Aranyaka I.7.20), the fabled world mountain. Kashyapa is associated with Kashmir (Kashyapa Mira or Kashyapa’s lake) and other Himalayan regions (the Vedic lands of Sharyanavat and Arjika, RV IX.113.1-2), which connects the Danavas to the northwest. The Caspian Sea may be named after him as well. The Proto-Europeans, therefore, are the sons of Tvashtar or Kashyapa and Danu, through their son Manu. They are both Manavas and Danavas, as also Aryas.
In the Rig Veda, Danu like Dasyu refers to inimical people and is generally a term of denigration (RV I.32.9; III.30.8; V.30.4; V.32.1, 4, 7; X.120.6). The Danavas or descendants of Danu are generally enemies of the Vedic people and their Gods. Therefore, just as the Deva-Asura or Arya-Dasyu split is reflected in the split between the Vedic Hindus and the Persians, one can propose that the Deva-Danava split reflects another division in the Vedic people, including that between the Proto-Indian Aryans and the Proto-European Aryans. In this process the term Danu was adopted by the Proto-Europeans and became denigrated by later Vedic people.
We should also remember that in the Puranas (VaP II.7), as in the Vedas the term Danavas refer to a broad group of peoples, many inimical, but others friendly, as well as various mythical demons. In the Rig Veda, the Danavas are called amanusha or unhuman (RV II.11.10) as opposed to human, Manusha. The Europeans had similar negative beings like the Greek Titans or Celtic Formorii who correspond more to the mythical side of the Danavas as powers of darkness, the underworld or the undersea region like the Vedic Asuras and Rakshasas. Such mythical Danavas can hardly be reduced to the Proto-European Aryans or to any single group of people.
The Celtic scholar Peter Ellis notes, “Irish epic contains many episodes of the struggle between the Children of Domnu, representing darkness and evil, and the Children of Danu, representing light and good. Moreover, the Children of Domnu are never completely overcome or eradicated from the world. Symbolically, they are the world. The conflict is between the ‘waters of heaven’ and the ‘world.'” The same thing could be said of the Vedic wars of Devas and Danavas or the Puranic/Brahmana wars of Devas and Asuras.
The Good Danavas (Sudanavas)
Kuvalayavaswa slew the Danavas
The Maruts in the Puranas (VaP II.6.90-135) are called the sons of Diti, a wife of Kashyapa, who is sometimes equated with Danu. Her children are called the Daityas which term we have found also connected to the Persians, as the name of the river in their original homeland (Vendidad Fargard I.3). While meant to be enemies of Indra, the Maruts came to be his companions and were great Gods in their own right, often referring to the Vedic rishis and yogis. As wind Gods they had control of Prana and other siddhis (occult powers). They are also the sons of Rudra-Shiva called Rudras, much like the Shaivite Yogis of later times. They were great sages (RV VI.49.11), men (manava) with tongues of fire and eyes of the Sun (RV I.89.7). They were free to travel all over the world and were not obstructed by mountains, rivers or seas (RV V.54.9; V.55.9).
The Rig Veda contains many instances where Danu has a positive meaning indicating abundance or even standing for divine in general. Danucitra, meaning the richness of light, occurs a few times (RV I.174.7; V.59.8). The Maruts are called Jira-danu or plural Jira-danava or quick to give or perhaps fast Danus or fast Gods (RV V.54.9). This term Jiradanu occurs elsewhere as the gift of the Maruts in the last line of most of the hymns of Agastya (RV I.165-169, 171-178, 180-186, 189, 190). Mitra and Varuna are said to be Sripra-danu or easy to give and their many gifts, danuni, are praised (RV VIII.25.5-6). The Ashvins are called lords of Danuna, Danunaspati (RV VIII.8.16). Soma is also called Danuda and Danupinva, giving Danu or overflowing with Danu (RV IX.97.23), connecting Danu with water or with rivers.
The Maruts are typically called Sudanavas, good to give or good (Su) Danus (RV I.85.10; I.172.1-3; II.34.8; V.41.16; V.52.5; V.53.6; VI.66.5; VIII.20.18, 23). Similarly, the Vishvedevas or universal gods are called Sudanavas (RV VIII.83.6, 8, 9), as are the Adityas (RV VIII.67.16), the Ashvins (RV I.117.10, 24) and Vishnu (RV VIII.24.12). The term also occurs in a hymn to Sarasavati (RV VII.96.4), where Sarasvati is called the friend or companion of the Maruts (Marutsakha; RV 96.2). Most importantly, there is a Goddess called Sudanu Devi (RV V.41.18), which is probably another name for the mother of the Maruts. The Maruts in particular or the Gods in general would therefore be the sons of Sudanu or Sudanavas. This suggests that perhaps Danu, like Asura, was earlier a positive word and meant divine. There was not only a bad Danu but a good or Sudanu. In the Rig Veda the references to the Sudanavas are much more than those to Danava as an inimical term.
The Maruts are called Sumaya (RV I.88.1), having a good (Su) or divine power of Maya, which stands for magical power, or Mayina (RV V.58.2), possessed of Maya power. Danu is probably, in some respects, a synonym of Maya, a power of abundance but also of illusion. Like the root Ma, the root Da means “to divide” or “to measure”. Maya is the power of the Danavas (RV II.11.10). The Danavas, particularly Ahi-Vritra, are portrayed as serpents (RV V.32.8), particularly the serpent who dwells at the foot of the mountain holding back the heavenly waters, whom Indra must slay in order to release the waters. Maya itself is the serpent power.
The Maruts as wind gods are powers of lightning, which in Vedic as in most ancient thought was considered to be a serpent or a dragon. The Maruts are the good serpents, shining bright like serpents (RV I.171.2). The Maruts help Indra in slaying Vritra and are his main friends and companions. Indra is called Marutvan, or possessed of the Maruts. Their leader is Vishnu (RV V.87), who is called Evaya-Marut. With Rudra (Shiva) as their father and Prishni (Shakti) as their mother, they reflect all the Gods of later Hinduism. As Shiva’s sons they are connected with Skanda, Ganesha and Hanuman.
Perhaps these Sudanavas or good Danus are the Maruts, who in their travels guided and led many peoples including the Celts and other European followers of Danu. As the sons of Rudra, we note various Rudra like figures such as Cernunos among the Celts, who like Rudra is the lord of the animals and is portrayed in a yoga posture, as on the Gundestrop Cauldron. If the Maruts were responsible for spreading Vedic culture, as I have proposed, they could have called their children, the children of Danu, in a positive sense. We could also argue that the Sudanavas were the Maruts, Druids and other Rishi classes, while the peoples they ruled over, particularly the unruly Kshatriyas or warrior classes could become Danavas in the negative sense when they refused to accept spiritual guidance.
We know from both Celtic and Vedic texts that the early Aryans, like other ancient people, fought each other in various local conflicts, particularly for supremacy in their particular regions. This led to various divisions and migrations through the centuries, which we cannot always take in a major way, just as the warring princes of India or Ireland remained part of the same culture and continued to intermarry with one another. Therefore, whatever early conflict might have existed between the Proto-European Aryans and those in the interior of India, was just part of various clashes between the different princely families that occurred within these same groups as well. It was forgotten over time.
The European Aryans had Gods like Zeus, Thor and Jupiter that serve as the counterparts of Indra as the God of heaven, the God of the rains, the thunderbolt and the lightning. Therefore, we cannot read the divide between the Rig Vedic Aryans and the Danavas as a rejection of the God Indra by the Proto-Europeans. In addition, the Proto-European Aryans continue to use the term Deva as divine as in Latin Deus and Greek Theos, unlike the Persians who make Asura mean divine and Deva mean demon. They also know Manu, which the Persians seem to have forgotten and only mention Yima (Yama). Unlike the Persians, who developed an aniconic (anti-image) and almost monotheistic tradition, the Proto-European Aryans maintained a pluralistic tradition, using images, and worshipping many Gods and Goddesses, like the Vedic. This suggests that their division from the Rigvedic people occurred long before that of the Persians or Iranians, and that they took a larger and older form of the Vedic religion with them.
Migrations Out of India or Central Asia
Wandering of Aryan Tribes
We have noted Danu or Danava as a term for an inimical people or even an anti-god, like Deva and Asura, probably reflects some split in the Aryan peoples. This could be the conflict the Purus, the main Rigvedic people located on the Sarasvati river near Delhi, and the Druhyus, who were located in the northwest by Afganistan, who fought quite early in the Rigvedic period.
Certainly we can only equate the Proto-Europeans with the northwest of India or greater India that extends into Afghanistan and Central Asia. If they can be connected to any group among the five Vedic peoples it must be the Druhyus, though would extend by cultural diffusion to different peoples of Europe, Central and West Asia..
However, we do find Druhyu kingdoms continuing for some time in India and giving names to regions like Gandhara (Afghanistan) and Aratta (Panjab) connected more with Iranian or Scythian people. Yet, we do note a connection between the Scythians and the Celts, whose Druid priests connect themselves with the Scythians at an early period. The Scythians also maintained a trade from India to Europe that continued for many centuries. In this regard the Proto-Europeans could have been a derivation of Aryan India by migration, cultural diffusion, or what is more likely, a combination of both. Even Scythian related Iranian tribes like the Alans (also originally Aryan) moved along with the German Goths throughout western Europe to Spain and North Africa.
Though the Druhyus and Proto-Europeans may be connected, it is difficult to confirm, particularly as the Europeans were a very different ethnic type (Nordic and Alpine) than most of the Indians and Iranians, who were of the Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian race.
However, it is possible that European ethnic types were living in ancient Afghanistan or Central Asia, even Kashmir, where we do find some of these types even today. The evidence of the Tokharians suggests this. The Tokharians (Tusharas) were a people speaking an Indo-European language closer to the European (a kentum-based language), and also demonstrate Nordic or Alpine, blond and red-haired ethnic traits. They lived in the Tarim Basin of western China that dominated the region to the Muslim invasion up to the eighth century AD, by which time they had become Buddhists. They may be related to the European featured mummies found in that area dating back to 1500 BCE. They were also present in Western China around Langchou in the early centuries BCE. The Tokharian language is possibly related to the Celtic and Italic branches, just as their physical features resemble northern Europeans. The Tarim Basin region was later regarded as the land of the Uttara Kurus and as a land of the gods. So such groups were not always censured as barbarians at the borders but were sometimes honored as highly advanced and spiritual.
The evidence does not show an Aryan invasion/migration into India in ancient times, certainly not after the Harappan era (c. 3000 BCE) and probably not before. No genetic or skeletal or other hard evidence has been found to prove this. Similarly, we do not find evidence of migration of interior Indic peoples West, the dark-skinned people that were prominent on the subcontinent to the northwest. But if the same ethnic types as the Europeans were present in Western China, Afghanistan or in northwest Iran, like the Fergana Valley (Sogdia), such a migration west would be possible, particularly given their familiarity with horses. In this case the commonality of Indo-European languages would not rest upon a common ethnicity with the interior Indo-Aryans but on a common ethnicity with peripheral Aryans on the northwest of India.
It is also possible that the European people derived their Aryan culture from the influence of Vedic peoples, probably mainly Druhyus but also Scythians (who might themselves be Druhyus), who migrated to Central Asia and brought their culture to larger groups of Europeans already living in Europe and Central Asia. The Europeans could have picked up an Aryan influence indirectly from the contact with various rishis, princes or merchants, without any significant genetic or familial linkage with Indic peoples. Or some combination may have existed. Such peoples with more Vedic cultures like the Celts could derive mainly from migration, while those others like the Germans might derive mainly from cultural diffusion. In any case, various means of Aryanization existed that can explain the spread of Vedic culture from the Himalayas to Europe, of which actual migration of people from the interior of India need not be the only or even primary factor.
We do note the names of rivers like the Don, Dneiper, Dneister, Donets and Danube to the north of the Black are largely cognate with Danu. This could reflect such a movement of peoples from West or Central Asia, including migrants originally from regions of greater India and Iran. At the end of the Ice Age, as Europe became warmer, it became a suitable land for agriculture. This would have made it a desirable place of migration for people from the east and the south, which were flooded or became jungles.
European and Iranian Peoples of Central Asia and Europe: Sycthians and Turanians
Scythians. Illustration by Angus McBride.
The northern Iranian peoples, called Turanians or Scythians, dominated the steppes of Central Asia from Mongolia to Eastern Europe. By the early centuries BC they had set up kingdoms from the Danube in the West to the Altai Mountains in the East. They were the main enemies of the Persians. Unlike the Persians, their religions had more Devic elements and affinities to the Vedic with a greater emphasis on Devas, Sun worship, drinking of Soma and a greater variety of deities like the Vedic. We could call these Turanians or Scythians the main Proto-European Aryans. Some would identify them with the original Slavic peoples as well, who were likely always the largest and dominant Indo-European group in Europe.
Curiously in the early centuries AD we find the Scythians entering into north India and creating some kingdoms there, with both Hindu and Buddhist influence. It is possible that such contacts with India were transmitted to Central Asia and West, much as from previous Vedic eras.
It is probable that the Danavas, Scythians and Turanians were largely the same group of people with Vedic affinities and connections to Vedic culture through various kings, rishis, traders and movements of both people and cultures. Later the Turks came into Central Asia and displaced the Scythian peoples driving them south and west. Note that the Scythians names their rivers extending to the Danube with names like Danu, though they called the Volga, the Rasa, another famous river name. Indo-Scythian and related Kushana groups ruled Northwest India two thousand years ago when Scythian groups, including the Sarmatians, were powerful in Europe and the steppe region.
Western Indo-European scholarship is aware of these eastern Scythian and other possible European elements. Some like Parpola even see the Vedic peoples of the Rigveda as a migration of the Scythians into India. However, these Central Asian Vedic people were just one branch of a greater Vedic people that included several branches within India itself.
Much of the search for a Proto-Indo-European language or PIE by western scyholars could be more correctly regarded as a search for the proto-European people. What has been reconstructed through it is more the homeland of the Danava-Druhyu branch of the Vedic people after their dispersal from India rather than all the Indo-European speakers. It is at best only a reconstruction of the western branch of the Vedic peoples and even that in a limited and distorted manner. The greater power behind the Indo-European family of languages was the powerful civilization of Vedic India.
Therefore, we need not stop short with reconstructing Scythian and Central Asian Aryan culture, we must take it into India itself, where other Vedic branches existed using many of the same cultural forms like Fire worship, Sun worship, the sacred plant or Soma cult, the cult of the sacred cow and horse, symbols like the sacred tree and swastika, worship of rivers as Goddesses. The philosophical, medical and astronomical knowledge that we find in European peoples like the Celts and the Greeks also mirrors that of India such as we find in the Upanishads, Ayurvedic medicine and Vedic astrology.
25 March 1943 - Monument of the Unknown Soldier in Athens. German National Socialists Honour the Anniversary of the Greek War of Independence (25 March 1821).
The Siege of Tripolitsa or the Fall of Tripolitsa to revolutionary Greek forces in the summer of 1821 marked an early victory in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, which had begun earlier in that year. It is known for the massacre mainly of its Muslim plus Jewish population, which occurred after the city's fall to the Greek revolutionary forces. As historian of the war W. Alison Phillips noted, "the other atrocities of Greeks paled before the awful scenes which followed the storming of Tripolitza".
The siege and the fall of Tripolitsa was an idea earlier conceived by the great chieftain Theodoros Kolokotronis, because he calculated that this would be a heavy blow for the Turks and would certainly give a major advantage to the Greeks, since Tripolitsa was the administrative hub of the Ottoman Empire in Morias (the Peloponnese) and home to probably half of the Turkish population of the district. The siege of Tripolitsa was decided on April 1821 and began the following month.
Life for the Turks gradually became more and more difficult, as food stocks ran out and the population reached its limits. A Turkish attack during August failed and a month later the Greeks managed to invade the city and, after suffering significant losses, to take it over.
The statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis in Tripolitsa
"Inside the town they had begun to massacre. ... I rushed to the palace ... If you wish to hurt these Albanians, I cried, "kill me rather; for, while I am a living man, whoever first makes the attempt, him will I kill the first." ... I was faithful to my word of honor ... Tripolitsa was three miles in circumference. The [Greek] host which entered it, cut down and were slaying men, women, and children from Friday till Sunday. Thirty-two thousand were reported to have been slain. One Hydriote [boasted that he had] killed ninety. About a hundred Greeks were killed; but the end came [thus]: a proclamation was issued that the slaughter must cease. ... When I entered Tripolitsa, they showed me a plane tree in the market-place where the Greeks had always been hung. I sighed. "Alas!" I said, "how many of my own clan — of my own race — have been hung there!" And I ordered it to be cut down. I felt some consolation then from the slaughter of the Turks. ... [Before the fall] we had formed a plan of proposing to the Turks that they should deliver Tripolitsa into our hands, and that we should, in that case, send persons into it to gather the spoils together, which were then to be apportioned and divided among the different districts for the benefit of the nation; but who would listen?
General Theodoros Kolokotronis memoirs
"For three days the miserable inhabitants were given over to lust and cruelty of a mob of savages. Neither sex nor age was spared. Women and children were tortured before being put to death. So great was the slaughter that Kolokotronis himself says that, from the gate to the citadel his horse's hoofs never touched the ground. His path of triumph was carpeted with corpses. At the end of two days, the wretched remnant of the Mussulmans were deliberately collected, to the number of some two thousand souls, of every age and sex, but principally women and children, were led out to a ravine in the neighboring mountains and there butchered like cattle."
Walter Alison Phillips
"Commander Panagiotis Kephalas plants the flag of liberty upon the walls of Tripolizza" by Peter von Hess
"Upwards of ten thousand Turks were put to death. Prisoners who were suspected of having concealed their money were tortured. Their arms and legs were cut off and they were slowly roasted over fires. Pregnant women were cut open, their heads cut off, and dogs' heads stuck between their legs. From Friday to Sunday the air was filled with the sound of screams… One Greek boasted that he personally killed ninety people. The Jewish colony was systematically tortured… For weeks afterwards starving Turkish children running helplessly about the ruins were being cut down and shot at by exultant Greeks… The wells were poisoned by the bodies that had been thrown in…
The Turks of Greece left few traces. They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821 unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world….It was hard to believe then that Greece once contained a large population of Turkish descent, living in small communities all over the country, prosperous farmers, merchants, and officials, whose families had known no other home for hundreds of years…They were killed deliberately, without qualm or scruple, and there was no regrets either then or later."
In the Western countries (Western Europe, the USA, Canada, and Australia) an account of history called “The Holocaust” is repeatedly taught in the schools and depicted over and over again on the television. Most of the people in these countries are made to think that the jews endured unbelievably cruel suffering and intentional extermination to an extent unprecedented in human history. But the actual historic events and their interpretation have been become grossly distorted for political and social reasons. There were several other mass killings, quite similar to what the jews experienced, which happened at around the same time period, and with similar magnitudes of death. Yet those in the West are only told about the Jews, and know nothing about the history of the other mass killings. Unfortunately, accounts of history, even those that are not accurate, are made to have political significance in the present. American soldiers committed all sorts of atrocities against German prisoners during the occupation after the war, including against women, children, and civilians. http://www.rense.com/general46/germ.htm http://www.whale.to/b/starvation_of_germans.html
One former American soldier, Martin Brech, now a Unitarian-Universalist minister, described what he witnessed during the American occupation of Germany:
In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement. It was a cold, wet spring, and their misery from exposure alone was evident. Even more shocking was to see the prisoners throwing grass and weeds into a tin can containing a thin soup. They told me they did this to help ease their hunger pains. Quickly they grew emaciated. Dysentery raged, and soon they were sleeping in their own excrement, too weak and crowded to reach the slit trenches. Many were begging for food, sickening and dying before our eyes. We had ample food and supplies, but did nothing to help them, including no medical assistance. German civilians were not allowed to feed, nor even come near the prisoners.
Outraged, I protested to my officers and was met with hostility or bland indifference. When pressed, they explained they were under strict orders from “higher up”.
When I threw this food over the barbed wire to the prisoners, I was caught and threatened with imprisonment. I repeated the “offense”, and one officer angrily threatened to shoot me.
I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked,”Why?” he mumbled, “Target practice,” and fired until his pistol was empty. I saw the women running for cover, but, at that distance, couldn’t tell if any had been hit. They considered the Germans subhuman and worthy of extermination.
These prisoners, I found out, were mostly farmers and workingmen, as simple and ignorant as many of our own troops. As time went on, more of them lapsed into a zombie-like state of listlessness, while others tried to escape in a demented or suicidal fashion, running through open fields in broad daylight towards the Rhine to quench their thirst. They were mowed down.
Some prisoners were as eager for cigarettes as for food, saying they took the edge off their hunger. Accordingly, enterprising “Yankee traders” were acquiring hordes of watches and rings in exchange for handfuls of cigarettes or less. When I began throwing cartons of cigarettes to the prisoners to ruin this trade, I was threatened by rank-and-file G.I.s too.
Some of our weak and sickly prisoners were marched off by French soldiers to their camp. We were riding on a truck behind this column. Whenever a German prisoner staggered or dropped back, he was hit on the head with a club and killed. The bodies were rolled to the side of the road to be picked up by another truck. For many, this quick death might have been preferable to slow starvation.
Famine began to spread among the German civilians also. It was a common sight to see German women up to their elbows in our garbage cans looking for something edible — that is, if they weren’t chased away.
When I interviewed mayors of small towns and villages, I was told that their supply of food had been taken away by “displaced persons” (foreigners who had worked in Germany), who packed the food on trucks and drove away. When I reported this, the response was a shrug. I never saw any Red Cross at the camp or helping civilians, although their coffee and doughnut stands were available everywhere else for us. In the meantime, the Germans had to rely on the sharing of hidden stores until the next harvest.
Hunger made German women more “available,” but despite this, rape was prevalent and often accompanied by additional violence. In particular I remember an eighteen-year old woman who had the side of her faced smashed with a rifle butt, and was then raped by two G.I.s. Even the French complained that the rapes, looting and drunken destructiveness on the part of our troops was excessive. In Le Havre, we had been given booklets warning us that the German soldiers had maintained a high standard of behavior with French civilians who were peaceful, and that we should do the same. In this we failed miserably.
I realize it is difficult for the average citizen to admit witnessing a crime of this magnitude, especially if implicated himself. Even G.I.s sympathetic to the victims were afraid to complain and get into trouble, they told me. And the danger has not ceased. Since I spoke out a few weeks ago, I have received threatening calls and had my mailbox smashed.
This essay was published in The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1990 (Vol. 10, No. 2), pp. 161-166.
The Allied prison camps of Sinzig and Remagen, which stretched along the Rhine, would have made Auschwitz and Buchenwald seem like vacation resorts in comparison.few Americans are aware that such infamous camps as Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz stayed in business after the end of the war, only now packed with German captives, many of whom perished miserably. “After the Reich: The Brutal History of Allied Occupation”,Giles MacDonogh
Many German prisoners who died in American and British captivity, some in horrid holding camps along the Rhine river, with no shelter and very little food. (there were 116,000 held at one time in Sinzig alone) Others, more fortunate, toiled as slave labor in Allied countries, often for years.
Readings:
James Bacque, Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950 (Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1997)
Ralph Franklin Keeling, Gruesome Harvest: The Allies Postwar War Against the German People (IHR, 1992). Originally published in Chicago in 1947
Youthful members of Waffen-SS captured on the outskirts of Caen by the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division on June 1944. In many cases members of the Waffen-SS, whose courage and chivalry had often been acknowledged even by their military opponents, were brutally beaten and murdered after they surrendered their arms to Allied forces. Surrender by individuals or small groups was not nearly as common in the Waffen-SS as in the regular Wehrmacht. Individual SS-Grenadiers surrendered in some numbers early in the Normandy invasion, but this became less common as fear of mistreatment became widespread. Images: Public domain.
Fritz Wetzelberger (1898 - 1989) - Auf dem Gipfel 1928[/caption]
This is the only picture of Heinz in Uniform.[/caption]
