Diary of Wilhelm Canaris

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Sandeep,

In haste - the main countries with oil interests in Iraq were Russia and France. If anyone had their reasons for allowing oil issues to dominate their policy it was these countries. It is worth pointing out that the intelligence services of these countries also thought Iraq had WMDs.

It is not widely understood that the USA had as much access to Iraqi oil as it wanted, because oil cargoes change ownership while in transit at sea. I was told of one cargo that changed hands six times between the Gulf and the UK (which was not its final destination), but there is no theoretical limit.

You will have to look elsewhere for the USA's primary motivation.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Susanna]

Hello Sandeep,

Thank you for your response. Yes, many of the resistors hoped to unseat Hitler before he escorted all of Europe into a war that would kill tens of millions. There was much about Hitler for them to resist. Some, like Dohnanyi, Oster, Beck and crew were appalled at the treatment of Jews. Many were alienated by the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair. A few were even made wary by the assassinations of Roehm and some of his fellows despite seeing the SA as a potential threat.

Although many of these men were undoubtedly proud Prussians, I don't believe they were primarily motivated by class superiority. What do you have to back up that assertion?

Very active in the early resistance, General Halder carried a pistol in his pocket for months attempting to reach the decision to shoot Hitler.

Imagine the lives that would have been saved if only he had.

Adios,
Susanna

[Susanna]

Hello Sandeep,

You say: " The US system cracks down on them giving no quarters."

But at no time has the US been under a totalitarian dictatorship that beheads those even suspected of thinking differently.
They are, at least legally, assumed innocent until proven guilty.

" legal method did a German officer have available......in one of my posts above...which you must have missed."
I must have missed it too.


Adios,
Susanna

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Sandeep....,

Both Snowden and Assange are evading legal processes that are in no way equatable with the Nazis' "People's Court". They do not face the death penalty, nor are their families at risk from "Sippenschaft" (spelling?).

Certainly Stalin was almost as bad as Hitler, and definitely more fatal to his own people. But, if you remember correctly, Roosevelt did not select Stalin as his "pal", Hitler threw them together by attacking one and then declaring war on the other. The contest between Liberal Democracy (France, UK, USA, etc,.) and Totalitarianism (USSR, Nazi Germany) was much aided by the fact that the two totalitarian powers tore each other to shreds - a job that was only completed at the end of the Cold War by the collapse of the USSR.

Most Soviet "dissidents" were actually treacherous armed and uniformed citizens of an ally, however accidentally acquired, and had worked against the interests of all the Allies, not just the USSR. However, there were a few sent back illegally. These were some White Russian exiles who had fled the USSR some 20 years earlier, after the Russian Civil War, who nobody bothered to differentiate from the far larger number of deserters from the Red Army who wore German uniform.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Hi Susanna,

Your post on the relationship dynamics between German generals and Hitler, deserves a more elaborate response. Please allow me some time since 'am caught in a flap now. But knowing Halder, one can safely say that he was more likely to shoot himself in the foot rather than hit Hitler, if he ever actually tried any stuff with that pistol in his pocket ...provided he got the safety off first !

Ciao
Sandeep

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Hi.....

For those who missed the following post in ref to legal methods ( or the lack of them) of removing a legitimate govt by serving officers....

Hi Sid...

There is no legal method for doing something which is ipso facto illegal. You cannot contemplate the overthrow of a legitimate govt through extra legal / unconstitutional means. And that too in the midst of a world war. The fundamental issue then is....the legitimacy of the 3rd Reich.

The govt took good care to keep the final solution under wraps. Like most govts do with their dirty secrets. If the US forces at that time knew that the WMD rationale was just a cooked up spiel? Would that have justified treachery ?

The actions of the likes of Canaris put the Germans at a disadvantage in the midst of an existential global war....where defeat resulted in a Carthaginian crisis. They got bailed out by the Cold War...that is another story.

Ciao
Sandeep

Having said this, it also needs to be pointed out that it WAS possible to oppose the Nazi regime's policies peacefully and without resorting to treason and treachery. It is not true or factual to state that the brutal and totalitarian nature of the regime made any form of peaceful dissent impossible. In the midst of the two front war, in June 41, large scale civilian protests broke out against the order to remove crucifixes from schools in Upper Bavaria. Catholic soldiers serving in the front signed written petitions against this move by gauleiter Adolf Wagner. It must be noted that half the population of the greater German Reich was Catholic after the Anschluss and Sudetenland incorporation.

No sooner had the above order been rescinded, that in July 41 Bishops Von Galen ( Muenster) and Bornewasser ( Trier) started their movement against the pet Nazi euthanasia programme. The high point of this movement was a public demonstration against none other than Hitler at Hof in August !!

And lo and behold .. euthanasia was stopped as a State policy !

Ciao
Sandeep

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Sandeep.....,

You do not know whether Assange is facing "A trumped up charge of rape whose definition is not sex by force" any more than anyone else. Why? Because he will not submit himself to the legal processes of one of the most liberal and human rights-conscious countries on the planet!

I am not sure where your incomprehensible anti-Feminist diatribe comes from, but it seems ludicrous and irrelevant.

In this context, it doesn't matter whether "The uniformed dissidents working against Stalin's regime during WW II had nothing against the western allies.", or not. The point was that they were working against their interests, often by occupying Western Allied countries on behalf of the Germans.

The Baltic troops were not sent back to the Soviet Union en masse, because the USA, in particular, never recognized their absorption into the USSR.

The Cossacks were acting as occupation forces in Yugoslavia. The Ukrainians were unquestionably Soviet citizens and not obliged to serve in German uniform. Similarly, most Russians were Soviet citizens.

As I said earlier, a small number of White Russian exiles, who had never been Soviet citizens, were illegally sent to the USSR along with the great majority of Soviet citizens, because nobody bothered to differentiate them from the majority.

You miss my point entirely. To put it crudely, the great majority of Soviet citizens sent back by the Western Allies to the USSR were sent legitimately. What is questionable is what Stalin subsequently did to them.

I made no mention of Vlasov at all, so you cannot presume my opinion of him with any legitimacy.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Sandeep,

You can add the protests in Berlin by the spouses of Jews due for deportation in early 1943.

However, the problem with all three cases- Jewish spouses, removal of crucifixes and euthanasia - is that there was no legal mechanism to protest in Nazi Germany and it required extra-legal activity.

Furthermore, the euthanasia programme, which began before the war has claimed 70,000 lives before the suspension, but 200,000 in total. Some suspension!

Cheers,

Sid.

[Susanna]

Hello Sandeep,

You say " the US forces at that time knew that the WMD rationale was just a cooked up spiel? Would that have justified treachery ? "

A false claim of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in order to justify a war, and the death of more than 11 million people as a fait accompli are not comparable causes for possible action, in my view.

I'm not sure why you seem to paint General Halder as inept. Many sources differ:

"Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Halder received numerous general staff assignments, leading to his first command post in October 1934, when he was promoted to major general and made Artillery Leader VII. In reality, that title represented command of a full-strength infantry division concealed within the German army’s order of battle in an effort to skirt the disarmament terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1936 Halder was promoted to lieutenant general and transferred to the army general staff headquarters in Berlin. As Hitler pressed the case for an invasion of Czechoslovakia—citing the national interests of the Sudetenland—Ludwig Beck, chief of the general staff, resigned in protest. Although Halder had openly criticized the Gestapo, the SS, and other elements of the Nazi Party, he was appointed to succeed Beck in September 1938. In fact, Halder’s resistance to the Nazis went far deeper, and both he and Beck were actively involved in a plan to overthrow Hitler. After the diplomatic victory that resulted in the Munich Agreement, however, Halder determined that Hitler’s position was too strong, and he refused to proceed with the plot."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... anz-Halder

I await your response on the relationship between Hitler and "the generals" with bated breath.

Adios,
Susanna

[Susanna]

Hello Sandeep,

You say " it WAS possible to oppose the Nazi regime's policies peacefully and without resorting to treason and treachery."

What happened to these religious protestors when they objected to the slaughter of Jews?

Adios,
Susanna

[Marcus]

Two posts from sandeepmukherjee196 discussing present day politics were removed.

/Marcus

[GeoffreyTV]

Canaris Diaries: once Kaltenbrunner presented the Canaris diaries to Hitler on 20 April 1945, they are never mentioned again other than by speculators.

As it been a few years since the last time the Canaris diaries have been discussed, I was wondering if anything new has emerged in the interim as to their possible whereabouts?

[Boby]

Try this article
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals ... f&result=1

If we can believe Huppenkothen later testimony, Canaris diaries (5 volumes) were burned 2 or 3 May 1945 near Schloss Mittersill, Salzburg.

[GeoffreyTV]

Many thanks Boby, this is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to read.