DMV: No Hitler License Plates

RICHMOND, Va.--The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday recalled a license plate that appeared to have coded references glorifying Adolf Hitler. What does that mean exactly?

The vanity plate reads "14CV88," and was the subject of complaints after photos were posted online.

The "88" is a coded reference to Heil Hitler, often used by white-racist gangs, as each word begins with the eighth letter of the alphabet.  The "14" is thought to stand for the number of words in a white supremacist credo. The "CV" is an apparent reference to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Germany Reopens Alleged Nazi Investigation

BERLIN--Hannover prosecutors have reopened an investigation in which a 95-year-old former SS officer is accused of being involved in two 1943 massacres of Jews in the Polish city of Lublin, according to a GoogleNews.com report.

The prosecutors' office made the decision based on a letter that suspect Erich Steidtmann wrote in October 1943. Steidtmann was a captain in the Nazi's elite force, the SS, and also the head of a company belonging to the infamous Hamburg Polizeibataillon 101.

"We reopened the investigations to check whether he was on vacation during the time of the massacres or whether he was at the location when it happened," prosecutor Kathrin Soefker told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The prosecutor said a new understanding of an abbreviation in the letter could indicate that Steidtmann was not on home leave when the shootings of thousands of Jews took place, as he had told prosecutors during earlier investigations in the 1960s.

The abbreviation in question was a military code to indicate that the sender of the letter was in the field. The letter itself was dated October 31, 1943 — three days before the massacres began.

During the so-called "Mission Harvest Festival" massacres on November 3 and 4, 1943, tens of thousands of Jews in the district of Lublin were shot by Nazi officers, among them members from Steidtmann's Hamburg Polizeibataillon 101 company.

YouTube To Remove 'Downfall' Parodies

YouTube has recently begun removing videos that feature content from Constantin Films 2004 film about the last days of Hitler, "Der Untergang" ("Downfall"), despite the fact that many of these videos are parodies and thus constitute fair use of the material, according to MSNBC.

The "Downfall" parodies often take a now-infamous scene from the movie--in which Hitler reacts to the news that Germany is about to lose the war--and puts satirical subtitles over the action (the movie is in German).

"According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, these videos are being removed because of YouTube's automated Content I.D. system, which allows copyright owners to disable any videos that contain its content — regardless of whether the videos may be legitimate because they contain other elements. Many of the parodies are still up, as YouTube's Content I.D. system is not perfect — but it's probably only a matter of time before the filtering system hunts them down and removes them," according to MSNBC.

Nazi Flags To Flow From Belfast City Hall?

It is quite possible that one of mankind's most hated symbols will find a home on top of city hall in Belfast--if you can believe it. But it is not what it seems.....

The swastikas will fly if a proposal to use the building as a set for a new drama about Nazi Germany is approved, according to a report in The Belfast Telegraph.

"The producers of the film, which will see Doctor Who actor Matt Smith playing the lead, are also hoping to use the civic centre's internal courtyard to recreate one of the infamous book burning episodes of the era," the report said.

The 90-minute feature, written by acclaimed playwright Kevin Elyot, will tell the story of English novelist Christopher Isherwood (Smith) who lived in Berlin in the pre-war period.

Obama Marks 65th Remembrance Day

President Barack Obama marked today, the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II, called Remembrance Day, with a statement honoring the memory of "those who endured the horrors" of the Nazi atrocities of World War II.

The president says the Holocaust calls on all people to renew their commitment to prevent genocide and "to confront anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms."

Indianapolis Offers Statewide Holocaust Remebrance Event

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A statewide Day of Remembrance of the Jewish Holocaust will include a ceremony at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis.

Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf will deliver the keynote address at the event that begins at noon Tuesday. Other speakers include state Treasurer Richard Mourdock; Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council President Michael Wallack; Indiana Civil Rights Commission Executive Director Tony A. Kirkland and Clayton A. Graham, who is chairman of the Martin Luther King Jr. Indiana Holiday Commission.

The King Commission is hosting the observance that recalls the Nazi genocide of some 6 million European Jews.

Swede Hoegstroem In Poland For Auschwitz Sign Theft

Swede Anders Hoegstroem arrived in Warsaw on a Polish military aircraft today before being transferred to Krakow, where he faced charges for the theft of the infamous Auschwitz "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign, according to a report.

Krakow prosecutors hope to begin the hearing on Monday, the report added.

Hoegstroem's attorney Bjoern Sandin has said his client could receive up to 10 years in prison for charges of stealing, destroying and selling a cultural object of importance.

Polish justice officials indicted Hoegstroem in January for suspected involvement in the December theft of the sign, which translates to "Work Will Set You Free." Authorities issued a warrant for Hoegstroem's arrest on February 2, and Swedish police arrested him nine days later.

Five other men have also been arrested in connection with the Auschwitz theft, and three have been tried and sentenced to terms of between 18 months to two and a half years. Two of the five have said Hoegstroem asked them to steal the sign.

Hoegstroem founded the Swedish neo-Nazi National Socialist Front in 1994 and led it for five years before quitting.

70th Anniversary of Nazi Germany's Invasion Of Norway

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Norway. Above is a spread with picture taken (courtesy of http://imgur.com/otJJD) from the guard's log from Oscarsborg, the fortress that sunk Blücher, Germany's newest heavy cruiser at the time.

As David Irving described the invasion on his site: "The 70th anniversary of Hitler's lightning invasion of Norway. Germans got there just days before Mr Churchill's invasion of Norway (had overheard him chatting about it on the phone). Guess who was hanged for war crimes."

I infer he is referring to General Alfred Jodl, who convinced Hitler to stay the course after he had grown nervous about the overall campaign.

WW2 Pastor Bonhoeffer Spied For U.S.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theological genius of the 20th century, is now emerging as a martyr as well as a spy -- a war hero who conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Read report here on Foxnews.com.

"On April 9, 1945, 65 years ago today, just a few weeks before an allied offensive brought Germany to its knees and ended World War II in Europe, a young, mild-mannered Lutheran theologian was hanged by the Nazis in Flossenburg Concentration Camp.

"His crime ... conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler," the article relates.

"What is so amazing about the story of Bonhoeffer is that he puts a completely different spin for us as Americans on World War II," says Eric Metaxas, author of "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" (Thomas Nelson, 2010), the first biography in 40 years of this influential Christian. The book is being released on Friday, the anniversary of Bonhoeffer's execution.

"Christians all over the world have read his books," Metaxas says in the article, "but very few people know the full story of his involvement in a plot to kill the head of the German state."

Bonhoeffer is revealed in the book as one of the few German Christians who refused to appease Hitler and his perverted interpretation of Christianity, the article related. Bonhoeffer's staunch resistance to the Third Reich and his push for civil disobedience cost him his life.

He was willing to be involved in a plot to kill Hitler. "He wasn't helpful as a gunman; he was helpful with contacts all around Europe," Metaxas says in the article. "He had the ability because he had ecumenical church contacts to work as a double agent, and that is what he was, he was a double agent."

The plot was discovered, and Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943.

Norway Nazis Eyed Russian Colonies

OSLO -- Documents released by Norway's state archives show the collaborationist government during World War II wanted to establish Norwegian colonies in the Soviet Union.

The newly digitized documents show that the government installed by the Nazis prepared to ask Adolf Hitler to allow Norwegian settlements in Russia and Ukraine.

The documents consist of correspondences between collaborationist leader Vidkun Quisling's advisers. One adviser suggests in a letter dated June 26, 1941 - four days after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union - that northern Russia would be better used by Germanic peoples because Slavic peoples "don't know how to make use of the land."

The documents were published online ahead of Friday's 70th anniversary of the April 9, 1940, Nazi invasion of Norway.

April 2010 Confederate History Month

In Germany and Austria, it is a crime to express support for National Socialism; it is even problematic to honor soldiers who died fighting for Hitler. But Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell has declared April 2010 Confederate History Month.

"Neo-Confederate organizations, such as the 25,000-memberUnited Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the League of the South, and the Council of Conservative Citizens (sometimes called "the uptown Klan"), typically send out a nationwide alert to respond to what they call a "heritage violation," the article acknowledges.

"Although, to the general public, their slogan is "heritage not hate," anyone on the receiving end -- particularly if he is African-American -- will face a barrage of death threats, such as "I hope you are killed in the most violent, bloody way possible by another worthless jigaboo ni**er!!! WHITE POWER!!! HEIL HITLER!!!" 

Indeed, in 1931 the United Daughters of the Confederacy "voted to see that the last meeting place of the Ku Klux Klan in Nashville, and from where the last ride was made, is suitably marked."

It's hard to read this and not juxtaposition it with what happened to David Irving in Austria.

British historian David Irving was arrested in Austria, put on trial in Vienna, and spent 13 months of imprisonment. He decided to visit Austria in November 2005 to speak to a student group, in spite of an outstanding warrant for his arrest for the "crime," committed 16 years earlier, of having expressed dissident views about the wartime treatment of Europe's Jews. His arrest, he said, may have been part of a "set up" organized by Austrian police.

He was sentenced to three years in prison on the basis of a law imposed by the occupation authorities in 1945--YES, THAT IS 1945--to prevent a revival of National Socialism. This "elastic" law, he went on, is now used to punish people who utter any one of a long list of forbidden phrases. Irving's arrest and trial generated tremendous media attention, including editorials and opinion pieces in newspapers around the world condemning the "Holocaust denial" laws under which he, and many others in Europe, have been imprisoned, fined or forced into exile.

HAPPY CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH! As sick as that sounds, the Austrians have a lot to learn about democracy. I am not going to get started about the place Free Speech has in a democracy, I shouldn't have to.

German War-Era Consumer Goods Outlast the Thousand Year Reich

Consumer brands and products from the Nazi era are still widely available, according to this Axis History Forum.

And not just in Germany. The list of brands and products to be found in the U.S. is quite extensive, including Henkell champagne (poor Ribbentrop, he should have stayed in sales), Nivea skin cream and several brands of upscale automobiles I certainly wouldn't mind owning, such as Mercedes, BMW and who could forget the Porsche. I also read on the Axis History Forum.that the German's created the forerunner to the Audi. (And of course the VW -- and yes, I know Hitler sketched the the iconic People Wagon's trademark shape on a cocktail napkin, a strange implement for a teetotaler to use.See below.)

Who could forget the fruits of pharmaceutical company Bayer's efforts, which included heroin. Fanta was a German war-era product invented because Coca-Cola ceased exporting ingredients for the soft drink, leaving that German know-how to fill the gap in the market--rather successfully it would seem.

And then there is Hugo Boss and those cool, never-(I mean never)-to-be-forgotten SS uniforms. Do you think he stuck the death's heads on the caps, too? Nah, that sounds like a Himmler addition.

Palmolive soap and Velveta cheese also came from Nazi Germany. (I didn't have the time to research all this, folks, I relied on the website linked above.)

Now, the story of Hitler and the VW.

"Sitting at a restaurant table in Munich in the summer of 1932, Hitler designed the prototype for what would become the immensely successful Beetle design for Volkswagen (literally, the "car of the people"). In an era where only the most economic elite possessed cars, Hitler believed that all people should be able to own a car and additionally thought that a smart design could allow for reliability, enjoyment, and vacation travel. The name given to the car in 1938 was Kraft durch Freude (KdF-Wagen, literally "strength through joy car").

"Hitler gave his design to the head of Daimler-Benz, Jakob Werlin, and stressed its importance. "Take it with you and speak with people who understand more about it than I do. But don't forget it. I want to hear from you soon, about the technical details." Not even Chancellor yet and already giving out orders!

'Holocaust Soap' From Jewish Shop Owner To Be `Tested'

A bar of soap that its owner claims was made from Jewish corpses during the Holocaust has been seized by police for tests, you can read here.

"Montreal police last week took possession of the soap from Jewish shop owner Abraham Botines after he tried to sell the alleged World War II relic from his curiosity shop on the city's trendy St. Laurent Boulevard. The police will conduct an in-house chemical analysis of the bar of soap, which has a swastika stamped on it, to determine whether it was made from the corpses of Holocaust victims, the Montreal Gazette reported Thursday.

"The bar of soap has a swastika stamped on it."

"Botines was willing to sell the bar for $300. The store owner claims he bought the bar of soap from a retired Canadian soldier who found it in a concentration camp. Botines' son Ivan, who co-owns the store, said its ingredients are a mystery."

Botines said he tried to sell the item to a Holocaust museum, which refused the offer. He said he has long been collecting memorabilia from the Nazi era. He has been criticized in the past for selling Nazi memorabilia, according to the Gazette. 

Czech's Brno To Unveil Holocaust Memorial

A commission has been set up to erect a memorial to Jewish and Roma Holocaust victims from the city of Brno, in the Czech Republic. Some 12,000 Jews and Roma, or Gypsies, from the city were killed in Nazi-run concentration camps during World War II.

.The commission is currently being established by representatives of the Jewish and Roma communities, according to the Czech Press Agency.

The city plans to receive designs for the memorial by the end of September, Brno Deputy Mayor Daniel Rychnovský told the Czech Press Agency.

The memorial will be erected in 28 October Square, according to the report. There is currently no memorial to victims of the Holocaust in Brno.

Hitler Artworks Expected To Fetch High Prices At British auction

If only he had been an artist. But alas, he was not, at least not a full-time artist who was too busy to practice politics. As a result, we are stuck with his artwork all over the world, though by now, following the Hitler Diaries farce, which torpedoed so many fine reputations, how one can tell a real from a fake is way beyond simple me.

"Adolf Hitler never made it as an artist [to put it bluntly], but his drawings and paintings have garnered increasingly high bids at auction," according to this article.

"Apparently it's not neo-Nazis who are buying, but history buffs and art collectors." What a relief!

So how much does de Fuhrer's artwork fetch on the open market? Well, his drawings and water colors "sell for prices in the tens of thousands," though if this has to do with his artistic mastery or dark place in history is anybody's guess.

Here's one enlightened guess:

"These prices are clearly much too high when considered just in terms of the works' artistic value," curator for 20th-century art Stephan Diederich told Deutsche Welle. "I would guess that - for whatever reasons - the buyers are less interested in art and more interested in pieces that recall Hitler." For whatever reasons.......

Many people assume that buyers are Nazi sympathizers or Neo-Nazis. That is far from true, said Richard Westwood-Brookes of the Mullock's auction house.

"Our buyers last year were interested either from a historical or from an artistic point of view - and in the latter case, I mean they were interested in acquiring the work of such a well-known failed artist," he explained

Other objects like a car once belonging to Hitler have also brought high bids.

A Mercedes and boat belonging to Hermann Goring were found rotting in a Russian barn and the Red Sea (see stories, on this site) respectively and obviously. Perhaps this more than anything else preserves the relative powers of their offices in the Third Reich.

New TV Production Of Diary Of Anne Frank

The Diary of Anne Frank -- TV Review

The new version of "The Diary of Anne Frank" on PBS's "Masterpiece Classic," playing Sunday, April 11, at 9pm,  is described as "more from Anne's observations about herself and those around her than on her desperate circumstances.See story, in the Hollywood Reporter.

"Her diary, though it includes incidents of fear and alarm, has less to do with the murderous brutality of the Nazi invaders outside the Amsterdam annex where she and her family hid and everything to do with the precocious and sometimes profound insights of an adolescent girl on the cusp of womanhood."

In 1942, just as Anne turned 13, the Germans began to round Jews up and deport them to labor and death camps. This is partly a results of the Nazi's wanting to speed up their handiwork now that America had entered the war following Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war against it.

Otto Frank and his family and friends survived for two years before their never-identified traitor turned them in to the Dutch police, all of whom would soon find themselves on the wrong side of the law once the Allies liberated these oppressed people.

In this writer's opinion, it will be difficult for this production to top the ABC version completed a handful of years ago with Ben Kinglsey starring as Otto. For some reason, the official Anne Frank association would not cooperate or lend their imprimatur to that made-for-TV film.

Nazi Sympathizers Ran American Universities

"American Jews remember the Ivy League colleges of the 1930s as being places where Jews were not especially welcome. Quotas on Jewish students — the infamous numerus clausus imported from Europe — were, very literally, the order of the day. The question of quotas in higher education was, and remains, a difficult and controversial matter. On the one hand, a generation and more of American Jews were denied access to the Ivies; on the other hand, as my mother (herself a victim of antisemitism and gender discrimination in the university world) would say: “Jews can’t get into Yale? That’s terrible. But quotas are not expulsion. Quotas are not murder.”

Now we may know why Jews and the Ivy League didn't mix.

A book review, “The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower” is described as being "nothing less than a litany of outrages, but were it just that, the book would be viewed, legitimately, as a hysterical screed."

Was this man an Ivy Leaguer?

Andi-Def Slams Jesse James as 'Stupid'

Anti-Defamation League slams Jesse James for his ‘offensive’ Hitler photo: ‘It’s stupid behavior’

Isn't that cute? He even made a fake, little mustache for himself! What a guy!

April Brings 65th Anniversary of Nazi's End

"It is time once again for the annual ritual of feeling collective anguish at the disgraceful plight of our Holocaust survivors. As Holocaust Remembrance Day rolls around, we are reminded that those who lived through the Nazi-instigated horrors that destroyed European Jewry continue to lack basic necessities." Read the article here.

The gist seems to be, "Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog announced this week that about 80,000 Holocaust survivors would receive subsidies of up to 90 percent on essential medications under an agreement reached with the Treasury, the Health Ministry and his own ministry.

"It’s a commendable move, but one that raises disturbing realizations. Sixty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz and 62 years after the establishment of the State ofIsrael, there are tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors who are apparently in desperate need of government subsidies to buy medicine."

Russia is planning a series of event to commemorate the end of World War 2.

Two Iowa Men Appeal Sentences for Role in Neo-Nazi Drug Ring

By Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two more men sentenced for their roles in a drug ring run by a neo-Nazi group operating in Nebraska and Iowa are appealing their sentences.

Bradford Winnie of Blair and Gregory Stanek of Omaha have filed notices to appeal in U.S. District Court in Omaha.

Winnie was sentenced Monday to more than 17 years in prison. Stanek was ordered Thursday to serve almost 32 years.

They're among eight men who pleaded guilty to gun and drug charges tied to the group.

Chad Winters, Jeffrey Welker and Justin Snelling, all of Omaha, and Justin Hawthorne, Michael Davis and Kenny Dofner, all of Council Bluffs, Iowa, have been given prison sentences ranging from eight to more than 32 years. Snelling filed his appeal notice in August and Welker in October.

Serbia Seeks Extradition of Suspected Nazi from United States

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serbian court Friday issued an international arrest warrant for a naturalized U.S. citizen suspected of committing genocide as a Nazi officer in Belgrade during World War Two.

"Peter Egner, 88, is wanted on charges of killing 17,000 civilians, mainly Jews, Roma and political opponents between 1941 and 1943, during the German occupation," Zorica Ristic, spokeswoman for the Belgrade higher court, told Reuters.

Egner, an ethnic German born in Yugoslavia, entered the United States in 1960 and became a citizen in 1966.

The U.S. Justice Department has asked a federal court to revoke his U.S. citizenship based on evidence of his role in a Nazi mobile killing unit that participated in the mass murder of more than 17,000 Serbian civilians.

Belgrade was occupied by German forces from April 1941 until October 1944. More than half a million Serb civilians were killed during World War Two.

St. Petersburg Conference Condemns Nazi Glorification

An international parliamentary conference dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War will take place on Wednesday in Russia's second largest city of Saint Petersburg, the press-service of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly has said.Catch the story here.

Wewelsburg Castle, Himmler's 'Pseudo' Sanctum?

"Wewelsburg Castle, once a pseudo-religious sanctum for Hitler's SS, has been shrouded in mystery since 1945. Its echoing crypt and mysterious occult symbols have spawned fantasies of pagan, torch-lit ceremonies held by the murderous brotherhood. A new exhibition at the site aims to dispel such myths -- and reflects Germany's new approach towards explaining its darkest places."


Himmler, the homicidal nut, may have been slightly less of a nut, at least when it comes to his occult beliefs, according to a recent article, though there is a chance this is just wishful thinking on the part of Germany.

Hitler Wanted Shroud of Turin

Hitler, despite actions taken against Catholics and countless others, apparently had his eyes on one of the holiest relics of his time, the Shroud of Turin, as can be read here. However, it may not have been as big loss as many would have thought; as the veracity of the Shroud has long been in doubt; one theory has it that the great Leonardo da Vinci painted it, offering the world a kind of new art form.

Goring's Armored Mercedes Supposedly Found On Russian Farm

A story on a white supremacist website indicates that a motor dealer has found an armoured sports car built for the Nazis worth 12million pounds (is that in today's money?).The Mercedes 540K Special Roadster was found in a Russian farm. "Seemingly," whatever that means, Hitler's second-in-command Hermann Goering is expected to have owned the vehicle, which is the light blue trademark color of the failed Luftwaffe.

It seems to be the season for finding Goring's long-lost toys. His "Yacht Has Been Found Rotting Away at a Mooring in the Red Sea," according to this article. "The 90 foot motor yacht CARIN II - an expensive gift to the wartime Luftwaffe leader from the German automobile industry in 1937, has been found lying at anchor in the Egyptian resort El-Gouna on the Red Sea. It is badly neglected and in need of repairs after having been impounded by Colonel Gaddafi with its owner and crew in 1987 in Libya.