AnarchoBolshevik

Mahtowin Munro (Lakota), co-leader of UAINE and lead organizer for Indigenous Peoples Day Massachusetts, said: “We call on the Massachusetts State Legislature to step up now and pass our statewide Indigenous Peoples Day bill and our other legislation currently before them, including bills to ban Native American team mascots, to provide for Indigenous curriculum content in the public schools, to protect sacred Native American heritage and to improve educational outcomes for Indigenous students.” (IndigenousPeoplesDayMA.org)

ETA: Hail Indigenous Peoples Day – Support Workers World and Free Leonard Peltier!

A living wage is the top demand. At an emergency meeting, school board members heard how wage increases are not distributed fairly, with raises going to district central office workers and not teachers and school staff. One teacher explained that every raise she received came with a jump in her health insurance premium.

Kevin Knight, a cafeteria worker, said the only wage increase he has received in his 15 years employment is through stipends provided by the state. Yet both the superintendent and assistant superintendent receive a 2% wage increase every year. Their salaries are over $100,000 and $90,000 respectively. (wdsu.com)

There was a strong presence of Indigenous nations leading the way in protecting and defending “Mother Earth.” Demonstrators linked important struggles to the climate crisis, like stopping the building of “Cop City,” which is destroying forests in Atlanta, and an end to police brutality.

The protest was held a few days before the Climate Ambition Summit taking place Sept. 20 as part of the annual opening session of the U.N. General Assembly. A direct action is scheduled for Sept. 18 at Zuccotti Park, home to the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.

Partially related: Neocolonists massacred five at a Gaza rally marking 2005 neocolonial withdrawal.

Reminder that ‘Israel’ is not a ‘Jewish state’; it is a disgrace.

Nerik Mizzi […] openly support[ed] [Fascist] imperialism by supporting [the Fascist] war effort in […] Abyssinia.^31^ Mizzi’s views can be quoted directly and extensively from MALTA, the newspaper he edited. This was written in Italian and constantly propagated Italian culture, the cause for the official use of the Italian language in Malta and constant praise for the […] fascist government and its policies.^32^ Ivan Vassallo, who describes Mizzi as an Italian imperialist, offers a very comprehensive digest of Mizzi’s views, but fails to mention the British documents which show the extensive financial support that Mizzi received from the […] fascist government.^33^

Henry Frendo states that many Nationalist Party members loved Italy and generally admired Mussolini,^34^ and we can find many instances of open and public Maltese support for fascist Italy. For example, after the assassination attempt on Mussolini’s life in 1926, the Maltese Casa del Fascio in conjunction with the [Fascist] consulate organised several religious services to commemorate the event. In a Te Deum ceremony held in Saint Catherine’s Church in Valletta, a prominent Italian Jesuit, Vincenzo Furci, praised the Duce and extolled his virtues.^35^

Another example is when several Maltese contributed to the ‘Oro per la patria’ campaign started in December 1935 after Italy lost a significant amount of gold reserves during the Abyssinian War. They included the son of Arturo Mercieca, Vittorio Mercieca, the Italian Consulate Legal Advisor Dr. A. Stilon de Piro (later interned), and Rosa Maria and Anna Mallia who were daughters of Carlo Mallia, once a Nationalist Minister and president of the King’s Own Band Club.^36^ Nerik Mizzi made a donation as well, but his party did not.^37^

[…]

It is also clear from the British government’s intelligence report that Mussolini himself pledged financial support to Mizzi. We already know that Mizzi had met with Mussolini twice in his lifetime—once in 1931 and again in 1936.^53^ On 12 November 1936, Mizzi was in Rome and lodged at the Hotel Continental where he requested a meeting with the Duce. Mizzi met Mussolini on 30 November and requested, amongst other things, adverts and subscriptions for MALTA, and these demands were met.

Mizzi also asked for signed photos of the Duce, of Badoglio and H.E. Debono. The newspaper subscriptions were meant for institutes and bodies such as Casa del Fascio (the Italian funded Malta based clubhouse [yes, a clubhouse])^54^ and the cultural institutes.^55^

[…]

The early 1930s had started with Britain tightening its grip over Malta, but it was first the socialists who were purged before the British authorities turned towards Mizzi and the irredentists. In 1932, the Prevention of Seditious Propaganda Ordinance was passed. This was a bill enacted by the Imperial Government to prevent the possession and dissemination of any radical and political material and, in 1933, this bill would be used to purge socialists.

The socialists were also charged with the importation of foreign propaganda and trials led to the dissolution of the Socialist League. Mizzi and his collaborators were in government, however, and their widespread support meant that it would have taken more work to purge them. […] Mizzi was arrested in May 1940 while at the MALTA office in Valletta, expelled in 1942, but returned to Malta from Uganda in March 1945. Once returned, a rehabilitated Mizzi re‐took his post in the Council of Government.^83^

(Emphasis added.)

While this next bit isn’t especially important, I… well… maybe after reading it you’ll understand why I’m including it here:

On 8 September, around fifteen fascists gathered at a demonstration in Ħamrun where they started chanting fascist songs. A crowd of street children soon gathered and starting molesting them, with the leader Victor Savona injuring his forehead in the process, probably from being hit or pushed to the floor.^67^

…no comment.

Events that happened today (September 21):

1894: Anton Piëch, Fascist lawyer, was born.
1934: A large typhoon struck western Honshū, Japan, killing more than 3,000 people.
1939: The Iron Guard murdered Romanian Prime Minister Armand Călinescu.
1942: On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Axis scum sent over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaitsi to Bełżec extermination camp, while in Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, other Axis scum massacred 2,588 Jews. At Yom Kippur’s end, the Third Reich ordered Konstantynów’s Jews to permanently move to Biała Podlaska.
1944: Artur Gustav Martin Phleps, Axis lieutenant general, died in combat.
2012: Børge Willy Redsted Pedersen (a.k.a. Sven Hazel), Axis soldier, expired.

In 1936, the Liechtenstein Homeland Service merged with the more moderate Christian Social People’s Party to form the Fatherland Union (Vaterländische Union, VU), bringing pro‐Nazi views into the political mainstream.⁵ The VU’s party paper, Liechtensteiner Vaterland, joined with German newspapers to publish personal attacks on Jewish individuals living in Liechtenstein.⁶ Despite this disreputable activity, its leader, Alois Vogt, later became Deputy Head of Government in a coalition of national unity with the Progressive Citizen’s Party in 1938.

Another important [Fascist] organisation was founded in March 1938 — the National German Movement in Liechtenstein (Volksdeutsche Bewegung in Liechtenstein, VDBL).⁷ Membership of this group peaked at just below 500. Under the leadership of a local composer and carpenter, Rudolf Schädler,⁸ the party passed sensitive information about Liechtenstein to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, a […] body responsible for promoting [Fascism] to ‘ethnic Germans’ outside the Reich. The newspaper of the VDBL, Der Umbruch (The Upheaval) published overtly pro[fascist] and anti‐Semitic messages in support of its primary objective — union with Germany.⁹ Some VDBL members even joined the […] SS.¹⁰

[…]

The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle made some contingency plans for an Austria‐style Anschluss, and lower‐level officials in the bordering Austrian towns conspired with Liechtenstein [Fascists] to plan the 1939 coup, but the [Fascist] leadership, including Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and Hitler himself, saw no real benefit in gobbling up their tiny neighbour.¹⁴ What’s more, many [Fascist] business leaders based in Liechtenstein actively opposed Anschluss because they enjoyed the country’s low tax rates and its usefulness as a neutral business hub.¹⁵

With no diplomatic pretense or widespread popular support to justify annexation, Hitler contented himself with the hope that Liechtenstein would one day willingly apply to join his empire.

[…]

As the [Third Reich] collapsed between the rapidly converging Eastern and Western fronts, 462 soldiers of the First Russian National Army, a collaborationist unit of the […] Wehrmacht, forced their way through a closed border post and into Liechtenstein. Their objective was not conquest, but shelter. Rather than being compelled to return to the Soviet Union, where they would certainly be punished, they were granted asylum in Liechtenstein by the ‘staunchly anti‐communist’ Prince Franz Josef II.²⁴

Liechtenstein’s sudden outburst of munificence on behalf of these soldiers of the Reich contrasts sharply with its reluctance to shelter Jewish refugees fleeing from the Holocaust. Only 230 Jewish refugees were allowed to settle in Liechtenstein in the twelve years from 1933 to 1945.²⁵ The barrier to entry was gradually ratcheted up amid fears that the presence of too many Jews would bring down the ire of the Third Reich and stoke anti‐Semitic discontent among the people (i.e., outbursts of [Fascist] violence).

In addition to its reticent approach to Jewish refugees, Liechtenstein actually partook in some [Fascist] atrocities. An international commission of historians formed in 2001 found that forced labour had been used on the Liechtenstein royal family’s estates in [Fascist] Austria and that the family had made purchases of stolen Jewish land and property.²⁶ Liechtensteiner companies, meanwhile, sold important automotive components and anti‐air shells to the Wehrmacht.²⁷

(Emphasis added.)

Events that happened today (September 20):

1880: Ildebrando Pizzetti, Fascist composer, was born.
1925: After a long delay, Rome finally opened its first underground rail line: the Villa Literno–Napoli Gianturco railway.
1935: Berlin newspapers published photos of five new U‐boats, the Reich’s first public admission to having any.
1941: Lithuanian fascists and local police commenced a mass execution of 403 Jews in Nemenčinė.
1945: Eduard Wirths, chief SS doctor who performed experiments on prisoners, committed suicide in captivity… I have no comment.
1993: Erich Alfred Hartmann, Axis pilot, dropped dead.

Like the euthanasia crimes of [Fascism], the murder of tuberculosis patients in special facilities had a long backstory. As early as the 1920s, lung specialists and other experts responsible for treating tuberculosis paved the way for decisions and actions under [the Third Reich].

Ultimately the decisions of the 1920s culminated in the comprehensive monitoring of tuberculosis patients, their forced transfer to such special facilities and finally their killing through deliberate neglect, including inadequate nutrition. What is more, by constructing the tuberculosis patients as ‘deviant sociopaths’, these experts helped engender social norms that encouraged their exclusion, which prepared the ground for more radical actions under [German Fascism].^7^

[…]

The First World War was also a positive reference point for some doctors whose thinking was particularly radical. They learnt that the situation of war and crisis favoured those social developments that they advocated. A striking example is provided by Berthold Kihn. In 1932 the psychiatrist and later director of the special facility for ‘deviant’ tuberculosis patients in Stadtroda published a paper in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, a major psychiatric journal.

Shortages during the First World War had also had their good side, Kihn proposed: the Hunger Years ‘truly cleaned out things among inmates of insane asylums’, an allusion to the nearly 70,000 psychiatric patients who starved to death in German health facilities between 1914 and 1918.^28^ The naval blockade by the Entente Powers had led to major supply bottlenecks in the German Reich, which had most affected the weakest members of society.

Government food officials and facility directors had calculated that supplies for the ‘insane’ should be diverted in times of emergency to social groups regarded as more important. Belinda Davis, among others, has studied the hierarchy in the food supply: the military were at the top, followed by population groups important to the war effort, such as industrial workers; at the very bottom were the ‘useless’ inmates of prisons and other penal institutions.^29^

Thus, as Davis shows, there was a sharp divide between ‘food for the strong’ and ‘food for the weak’. Here was much more than a philosophy, well before the [Fascist] takeover of power, that was based on a differential valuation of human life. Such considerations, I contend, ultimately led to the actions of a relatively small group of lung doctors and psychiatrists who rapidly rose to leading positions and, like Kihn, after 1933 organized and implemented the forced incarceration of tuberculosis patients.

[…]

We do not know precisely how many tuberculosis patients lost their lives to negligent care and patient murder. The special facilities did not maintain separate statistics for deliberate deaths and, additionally, there are large gaps in the available records. We can, however, estimate those figures. Through the files preserved from Karthaus, for example, we know that of the 391 persons with tuberculosis committed to that special facility between 1939 and 1945, about 20 per cent died.

While that figure includes instances where the patients died of tuberculosis, this number suggested a death rate much higher than the peacetime death rate among psychiatric inmates. According to official medical statistics, prior to the First World War and in the interwar period the annual mortality rate for those admitted for psychiatric reasons was 7 to 8 per cent.^99^

We therefore have reason to conclude that between 1933 and 1945, a considerable proportion of forcibly interned persons with tuberculosis died as the result of deliberate starvation. If we assume 12 per cent excess mortality, then of the approximately 30,000 patients interned in the special facilities, up to 4,000 would have died as a result of the conditions of their detention rather than from their disease.

(Emphasis added. Note the continuities between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich.)

Events that happened today (September 19):

1909: Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche, bourgeois Fascist, was born.
1939: The Battle of Kępa Oksywska concluded, with Polish losses reaching roughly 14% of all the forces engaged.
1940: Witold Pilecki was voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp to gather and smuggle out information for the resistance movement.
1944: The Battle of Hürtgen Forest commenced, and would become the longest individual battle that the U.S. Army has ever fought. (Coincidentally, the Moscow Armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed, which officially ended the Continuation War.)

Pictured: Imperial troops entering Tsitsihar on November 19, 1931. Click here for more photographs.

The event, known as the Mukden Incident or the Manchurian Incident, became the Imperial pretext to invade and occupy Manchuria. Quoting Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire, page 40:

The Kwantung Army set the construction of Manchukuo in motion with the military conquest of the Northeast known as the Manchurian Incident. Between September 18, 1931, and the Tanggu Truce of May 31 , 1933, a series of campaigns brought the four provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Rehe under [Imperial] military control. The occupation began with a conspiracy engineered by Kwantung Army officers. What had failed in 1928 worked to spectacular effect in 1931.

Staging an explosion of Mantetsu track near the Chinese military base in the city of Fengtian (now known as Shenyang), the conspirators used the alleged attack as a pretext to open fire on the Chinese garrison. Over the ensuing days and months the army quickly escalated the situation, first moving to occupy the railway zone and then embarking on the operations to expel from Manchuria the estimated 330,000 troops in Zhang Xueliang's army.

Unlike in 1928, the metropolitan government ultimately sanctioned army action; the army high command in Tokyo refused to rein in their forces in Manchuria, and the cabinet was unwilling to relinquish territory gained in a fait accompli. Thus the Kwantung Army was permitted to overrun the Northeast, and [the Empire] found itself in full possession of Manchuria.^32^

Now the question that is likely preoccupying you more is why this date, rather than the traditional (and more Eurocentric) proposal of September 1, 1939, should be the real starting point of World War II. If correct, this would mean that WWII lasted for thirteen years and even predated the Third Reich, and for this reason a few scholars refer to this period as ‘the long Second World War’.

Throughout the 1920s, there were plenty of civil wars, uprisings and revolts against local or colonial authorities, and sometimes even border skirmishes between powers. But to the best of my knowledge, there were no major invasions that started in the 1920s (with the possible exception of the Soviet–Georgian conflict, and its international significance is questionable). While the Tibetan Army did invade the Chinese region of Kham in 1930, the Imperial invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was probably the first major invasion in a decade and it would have severer international repercussions.

For example, Geoffrey R. Hamm’s Imperial Defence and the ‘Ultimate Potential Enemy’ shows how this invasion (indirectly) lead to the United Kingdom signing a Navy treaty with the Third Reich in 1935, although in the same text there is the implication that World War II had not yet started:

From the beginning of the crisis Sir Francis Lindley, the ambassador to Tokyo writing in early 1932, held the eerily prophetic view that the

Japanese cannot be turned out of Manchuria without a world war, which it is our first duty to prevent; and that in these circumstances we must trust to the Japanese people gradually realising that they cannot with advantage to themselves pursue a policy of aggression in China in the face of the passive hostility of the rest of the world.^65^

Of course, even in late 1939 there were still some people implying that World War II had not yet begun. For example, quoting from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pages 601–2:

Any idea of mediation [Cadogan said] while German troops are invading Poland is quite out of the question. The only way in which a world war can be stopped is (one) that hostilities be suspended, and (two) that German troops be immediately withdrawn from Polish territory.^7^

While there might not have been a great deal of conflict in Europe (directly) as a result of the invasion of Manchuria, it is worth noting there was almost no military activity on the Western Front from September 1939 to April 1940 either. Furthermore, unlike the 1920s, there were several invasions between 1931 and 1939:

• The Colombia–Peru War (September 1, 1932 – May 24, 1933)
• The Chaco War (June 15, 1932 – June 10, 1935)
• The Saudi–Yemeni War (March 1934 – May 12, 1934)
• The Second Italo‐Ethiopian War (October 3, 1935 – February 19, 1937, which some Africans consider WWII’s beginning)
• And the Second Sino‐Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945, which some Asians consider WWII’s beginning)

The Spanish Civil War (July 17, 1936 – April 1, 1939) was not, strictly speaking, an invasion, but it did involve German Fascists, Italian Fascists, and Portuguese anticommunists fighting for the Spanish fascists, whereas the Soviet Union (and, it seems, Mexico) fought for the Spanish socialists.

The invasion of Manchuria would have significant influences on European fascism, economically and elsehow. For byspel, quoting Walter A. Skya’s Fascist Encounters: German Nazis and Japanese Shintō Ultranationalists:

Hitler closely followed [Imperial] Japan’s conquests in East Asia in the next several years as [it] successfully nibbled away territory from China through a combination of diplomacy, alliances of expediency, and sheer military power. His interests and those of the [Imperial] leadership converged in various ways, including their common concern about the communist threat.

Reto Hofmann’s The Fascist Effect: Japan and Italy, 1915–1952, page 6:

[The] imperial expansion into Manchuria between 1931 and 1933 played a key role in redefining the relationship between Japanese and European fascisms. The establishment of Manchukuo radicalized Japanese politics. It paved the way to the rise of “reformist bureaucrats,” intensified militaristic rhetoric and policies as well as calls for autarky, and heightened patriotic fervor, giving Japanese across the ideological spectrum a sense that [the Empire] had caught up with fascism.^14^

Paradoxically, the more difficult it became to maintain clear distinctions between Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan, the more fascism appeared obsolescent. And yet […] it was in empire that Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and later, Nazi Germany found a powerful ideological common ground.

Page 101:

The Ethiopian crisis dealt a double blow to both political and economic internationalism, signaling a global turn toward the kind of imperial economy that [the Imperialists] had spearheaded in Manchuria.

Page 112:

On November 18, 1936, [Imperial] Japan became the first power to recognize the [Fascist] annexation of Ethiopia and downgraded its embassy there to the rank of a consulate. The Italians reciprocated somewhat belatedly, as it took some time to disengage from its China‐centered foreign policy in East Asia.^14^ But the following year, in November 1937, Italy joined Japan and Germany in the Anti‐Comintern Pact and recognized Manchukuo.

Finally, note the timing of this invasion: it was only two years earlier that the Wall Street stock market crashed and the Great Depression ensued. Quoting from Japan’s Total Empire, pages 36–7:

In 1929, the collapse of the American stock market and ensuing shock wave of global depression dealt the interimperialist alliance another profound blow. All parties responded to the economic crisis with economic nationalism. As they sought to barricade their own interests against any competitors, the imperatives of economic survival seemed to leave less and less room for compromise.

To [Imperial] policy makers this meant sealing off their extensive investments in Manchuria from the rest of China, for special steps seemed necessary to secure a sphere of interest from the forces of Chinese nationalism.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Other events that happened today (September 18):

1939: The Polish government of Ignacy Mościcki fled to Romania while the radio show Germany Calling began transmitting Fascist propaganda.
1940: The Axis submarine U‐48 sunk the Allied liner SS City of Benares; those massacred included 77 child refugees.
1943: Berlin ordered the deportation of Danish Jews.
1944: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoed the Axis cargo steamship Jun'yō Maru, tragically massacring 5,600 humans, mostly neoslaves and POWs. Meanwhile in France, the Battle of Arracourt commenced.

While the Post has yet to publish the documents in full, the leaks and the other sources clearly painted a picture of a potentially disastrous counteroffensive. Fear was so palpable that the Biden administration privately worried about how he could keep up support for the war when the widely hyped offensive sputtered. In the midst of this, Blinken continued to dismiss the idea of a ceasefire, opting instead to pursue further escalating the conflict.

Despite the importance of these facts, they were hardly reported on by the rest of corporate media, and dropped from subsequent war coverage. When the Post (6/14/23) published a long article citing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s cautious optimism about the campaign, it neglected to mention its earlier reporting about the government’s privately gloomier assessments. The documents only started appearing again in the press after thousands were dead, and the campaign’s failure undeniable.

[…]

Even Rep. Andy Harris (D-Md.), co-chair of the congressional Ukraine Caucus, publicly questioned whether or not the war was “winnable” (Politico, 8/17/23). Speaking on the counteroffensive’s status, he said, “I’ll be blunt, it’s failed.”

I promise that Russia will lose the war tomorrow.

Pictured: ‘Transfer agreement used by the Palästina Treuhandstelle ("Palestine Trustee Office"), established specifically for Jews wishing to emigrate from Nazi Germany under the Haavara Agreement, to recover some assets when they arrived in Palestine.’ (Source.)

Quoting Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, page 63:

The debate over the Zionist–Nazi pact continued angrily until 1935. The Ha’avara rapidly grew to become a substantial banking and trading house with 137 specialists in its Jerusalem office at the height of its activities. The regulations were always changing in response to [Berlin’s] pressure, but in essence the agreement was always the same: German Jews could put money into a bank inside Germany, which was then used to buy exports which were sold outside Germany, usually but not exclusively in Palestine.

When the émigrés finally arrived in Palestine, they would receive payment for the goods that they had previously purchased after they had finally been sold. Fiscal ingenuity extended Ha’avara’s operations in many directions, but throughout its operation its attraction to German Jews remained the same: it was the least painful way of shipping Jewish wealth out of [the Third Reich].

However, the [Third Reich] determined the rules, and they naturally got worse with time; by 1938 the average user was losing at least 30 per cent and even 50 per cent of his money. Nevertheless, this was still three times, and eventually five times, better than the losses endured by Jews whose money went to any other destination.^132^

The top limit through the Ha’avara scheme was 50,000 marks ($20,000 or £4,000) per emigrant, which made the Ha’avara unattractive to the richest Jews. Therefore only $40,419,000 went to Palestine via Ha’avara, whereas $650 million went to the United States, $60 million to the United Kingdom and other substantial sums elsewhere. Yet if, in terms of German Jewry’s wealth, Ha’avara was by no means decisive, it was crucial to Zionism.

Some 60 per cent of all capital invested in Palestine between August 1933 and September 1939 was channelled through the agreement with the [Third Reich].^133^ In addition, the British set the annual Jewish immigrant quota, using the weak economic absorptive capacity of the country to limit their number; however, ‘capitalists’ — those bringing in over £1,000 ($5,000) — were allowed in over quota.

The 16,529 capitalists were thus an additional source of immigrants as well as an economic harvest for Zionism. Their capital generated a boom, giving Palestine a wholly artificial prosperity in the midst of the world‐wide Depression.

At first the WZO tried to defend itself against the charges of boycott‐scabbing and outright collaboration by insisting that the Ha’avara transfers did not really break the boycott, since [the Third Reich] did not receive foreign currency for its goods as they were all purchased inside the country for marks.

However, Berlin soon demanded part payment for some of the commodities in foreign currency and soon, too, the WZO started soliciting new customers for [the Third Reich] in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Eventually the Zionists began exporting oranges to Belgium and Holland using [Fascist] ships.^134^ By 1936 the WZO began to sell Hitler’s goods in Britain.^135^

(Emphasis added. Note that ‘Ha’avara’ refers to a trading company that the World Zionist Organisation established to trade with the Third Reich.)

An example of this investment was the ‘Agreement for Transferring Property from Germany to Palestine: Details of the Three Million Mark Agreement’, which is available in the Zionist Record. Excerpt:

The Ministry of Economic Affairs has today published the full text of the decree providing for the transfer of Jewish property from Germany to Palestine.

The decree, which is numbered 54, and is dared August 28th, states that an agreement was concluded “with the Jewish bodies concerned,” for “promoting Jewish emigration to Palestine by releasing the necessary sums without putting excessive strain upon the foreign currency funds of the Reichsbank, and at the same time for increasing German exports to Palestine.”

The Reichsbank is for this purpose opening two special accounts for the Bank of Temple Society, it states, in favor of the Anglo‐Palestine Bank.

See Lenni Brenner’s 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration With the Nazis for the full text.

Lastly, while I hate to state the obvious, I am afraid that it is now justified since there are more neoliberals than usual on this website, so I’ll go ahead and say it: no, demonstrating Zionism’s links with Fascism does not mean that I have anything against Jews. Zionism has nothing to do with protecting Jewish people, unless it intends to protect them by ensuring that thousands of Palestinian civilians won’t be able to breathe anymore, let alone meet Jews. So don’t pretend that a pseudodemocracy that lets dozens of thousands of its own citizens waste away in poverty can possibly hope to represent millions of people from around the world. If Zionism were about caring for Jewish people, its earliest head of state would never have said that he would rather have half a million Jews gone and half a million serving Zionism than both halves living safely in another part of the world:

A month after the [Fascist] pogrom against Germany’s Jews, famously known as Kristallnacht, [David Ben Gurion] stated on December 7, 1938: “If I knew it was possible to save all [Jewish] children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to Eretz‐Yisrael, I would choose the latter—because we are faced not only with the accounting of these [Jewish] children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish People.”

(Source.)

Events that happened today (September 17):

1939: The Reich submarine U-29 sunk the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.
1940: Due to setbacks in the Battle of Britain and approaching autumn weather, Berlin postponed Operation Sea Lion.
1944: Axis forces occupied San Marino but quickly suffered an Allied assault. (Coincidentally, Allied airborne troops parachuted into the Netherlands as the ‘Market’ half of Operation Market Garden, and Soviet troops launched the Tallinn Offensive against the Third Reich and anticommunist Estonian units. Lastly, an Axis war criminal, General Friedrich Zickwolff, died of a disease whilst in France.)
1953: Hans Feige, Axis general, mustered up the decency to drop dead.
2013: Eiji Toyoda, Axis industrialist, expired.

Pictured: Possibly the most unflattering photograph available of General Alexander Averescu.

Quoting from Alan Cassels’s Mussolini’s Early Diplomacy, pages 339–341:

General Alexander Averescu […] had been educated in Italy and was reputed to be both an Italophile and pro‐Fascist. Yet one of his government’s first acts was to override Italian objections and sign a friendship pact with France. On the other hand, Mussolini would take this rebuff from an ideological sympathizer without becoming incensed; in fact, it stimulated [Rome] to reach some accord with Bucharest lest Rumania slip completely into the French orbit.

Averescu was willing to balance his Francophile gesture by an agreement with [Fascist] Italy, so he set no preconditions regarding Bessarabia. Negotiations were conducted on the [Fascist] side by Dino Grandi, and on the Rumanian by Averescu himself and the Rumanian minister in Rome, Alexander Lahovary.^2^ Three months after the accord between France and Rumania, an Italo‐Rumanian friendship pact was concluded on September 16, 1926.

[…]

Superficially then, the Italo‐Rumanian pact was no more substantial than most of the other arbitration agreements that followed Locarno. For that matter, it said no more than the inconsequential Italo‐Czech treaty of 1924. Yet it was vastly more important, partly because the Rumanian and [Fascist] governments intended that it should be so, partly because events quickly brought out its true portent. For Fascist Italy the pact with Rumania was linked in a preparatory way with the first Treaty of Tirana with Albania just over two months later.

Aloisi left Bucharest for Albania to preside over the negotiations leading up to the Tirana pact, while Durazzo, who had held the Albanian post, took Aloisi’s place in Bucharest in time for the Italo‐Rumanian pact. Moreover, while France and Czechoslovakia rushed to Yugoslavia’s side in denouncing the Treaty of Tirana, Bucharest honored the spirit of the recent friendship pact and hailed the treaty.^5^

But one good turn deserves another, and Averescu now felt free to raise the Bessarabian question again. He called for one more mediatory overture to Moscow, certain to be rejected, and then [Fascist] ratification of the protocal of 1920.^6^

All along, Mussolini had anticipated that the Italo‐Rumanian pact would sooner or later, in however roundabout a way, compel him to a firm decision on Bessarabia, and he had made it well in advance. Even before the signing of the pact he had confidentially informed the Italian ambassador in Moscow: “I have come to the decision to ratify the Bessarabian treaty as soon as Rumania provides suitable compensation.”^7^

Also early in September Mussolini had sketched in a memorandum what he considered an adequate quid pro quo; substantially the same requirements were presented to Averescu early in 1927.^8^ The Duce’s demands were in three parts. First was the usual request for commercial privileges in Rumania, “to assist Italy overcome difficulties with Russia of an economic nature as a result of ratification.”

It had been nearly three years since Fascist Italy had accorded the Soviet [Union] de jure recognition in the expectation of vast amounts of mutual trade which had long ago proved illusory, but it was still a useful bargaining ploy.^8a^ Then came a minor point, but one of concern to a hypernationalist like Mussolini—the teaching of Italian in Rumania’s secondary schools.

The sting lay in the third, and political, category: “The honest counterweight to balance the risks and dangers of a rupture of diplomatic relations between Italy and Russia must be offered us by Rumania in the field of Danubian politics. Under the aegis and eventually with the participation of Italy, Rumania must strive to reach an accord with Hungary on the one hand and Bulgaria on the other. Only by realizing under [Fascist] inspiration and guidance an Italo‐Magyar‐Rumanian‐Bulgarian quadruple alliance [quadruplice] could [Rome] face with equanimity the inevitable crisis with Russia.”

While Bucharest declined in January 1927 to join this Danubian bloc, it was probably no mere coincidence that later the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, and Romania would officially ally, thanks to the Third Reich and Imperial Japan, shortly after September 1940.

Page 342:

What, in effect, Rumania was offered was the final assurance and legal sanction in Bessarabia, but at the hazard of reawakening another irredentist bogey in Transylvania, for such was the inference of an association with Hungary. In trying to sell this enterprise Mussolini made special allocations of money to win the favor of the Rumanian press.^9^ But in reality he staked everything on Averescu. “Averescu is a sincere friend of Italy,” he wrote confidently to King Victor Emmanuel.^10^

Page 346:

Mussolini was busily engaged in cultivating the friendship of the Magyar’s archenemy, Rumania. In these circumstances, [Rome], to be sure of Hungary’s allegiance, had to buy it with a formal agreement. Indeed, in early 1927, while Mussolini’s hopes of including Hungary and Rumania in a radical Danubian alignment were still alive, arrangements were made for Bethlen to visit Italy again; an Italo‐Hungary treaty was clearly in the offing.^17^

In the spring Mussolini continued to try to balance between Rumania and Hungary. [The Fascist] ratification of the Bessarabian protocol, which was supposed to win Rumania’s adherence to Mussolini’s grand design, now had to be used to mollify the Rumanian reaction to the impending accord with Hungary. So in March ratification was given and may have muted, if it did not silence entirely, Rumanian criticism of what followed on April 5. This was the signing in Rome by Mussolini and Bethlen of a pact of amity, conciliation, and arbitration, valid for 10 years instead of the customary five. It was accompanied by another accord of no little consequence to [Fascism] for the channeling of Hungarian trade through Fiume.^18^

Rome’s attempts to cool its relations with Moscow were proven half‐hearted with Bessarabia. Pages 350–2:

There remained one criterion of Russo‐Italian relations, which overrode ideology, Matteotti, and Locarno, and which in the last resort determined whether the détente that had begun with recognition continued or lapsed. This was Italian ratification of the Bessarabian protocol. So long as Mussolini withheld it, and thereby also withheld Rumania’s full legal title to the region, the Soviets would endure much at Italian hands and preserve at least the semblance of friendship between Moscow and Rome.

But Mussolini was less concerned with nonratification as a means of maintaining a tie with [Moscow] than he was with ratification as a bribe to entice Rumania to join his grand design in the Danube valley. On September 16, 1926 the conclusion of the Italo‐Rumanian friendship pact implied that a shift in Italy’s stand on Bessarabia was imminent. […] To delay ratification, he wrote to King Victor Emmanuel, “permits Italy still to play the Russian card.”^32^

But the Soviets refused to be mollified. On November 20 Manzoni reported: “The Italo‐Rumanian pact, the Bessarabian situation (fatto Bessarabico) have, then, occasioned the manifestations of Soviet political frigidity toward Italy, and at the same time they have brought to the surface the already existent but hitherto latent feeling of coldness.”^33^

The Soviets were correct in distrusting Mussolini. Since September 1926 he was resolved on ratification of the Bessarabian protocol; his talk of a Russo‐Italian political accord was so much camouflage. This emerged clearly on March 7, 1927, when [Rome] at long last ratified the Bessarabian protocol—and this despite Rumania’s refusal to join Mussolini’s league of Balkan states. Mussolini’s prime concern was still to reconcile Bucharest to [Fascist] Italy’s growing rapprochement with revisionist Hungary.^34^ Mussolini quite consciously, then, provoked a breach with the Soviets. Obviously he now considered the utility of the Russo‐Italian rapprochement to be at an end. It was time to return to a consistent anti‐Bolshevik ideology.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Events that happened today (September 16):

1878: Karl Albiker, Axis sculptor, was born.
1891: Karl Dönitz, Axis admiral who briefly served as the Greater German Reich’s head of state, existed. Likewise did the Reich spy and ‘honourary Aryan’ Stephanie von Hohenlohe.
1910: Erich Kempka, SS member and chauffer, polluted life with his presence. Karl Kling, Axis mechanic, was born on the same day.
1940: Fascist troops conquered Sidi Barrani.
1943: The German Tenth Army reported that it could no longer contain the Allied bridgehead around Salerno.
1945: The Axis occupation of Hong Kong was over.
2012: Friedrich Zimmermann, Axis lieutenant, expired.