HISTORY AND THE CURRENT CONTEXT
[HistoryAndCurrentContext.blogspot.com]
* "BBC, Reuters Involved in UK Government Plot to Spread Cold War Propaganda, Docs Reportedly Show" (2020-01-14, sputniknews.com/uk/202001141078037664-bbc-reuters-involved-in-uk-government-plot-to-spread-cold-war-propaganda-docs-reportedly-show/) [archive.is/mHFkR]
---
* "Project Zebra: the secret WWII mission that built bonds of friendship between American and Soviet pilots" (2020-01-06, taskandpurpose.com/hyten-special-assistant-sexual-assault) [archive.is/gIyiw]
---
* "Before the Holocaust, Ottoman Jews supported the Armenian genocide’s ‘architect’ ; Author Hans-Lukas Kieser says a desperate Zionist press praised the empire even during the slaughter of its minority population, a murder which Israel continues to gloss over today" (2018-09-07, timesofisrael.com/before-the-holocaust-ottoman-jews-supported-the-armenian-genocides-architect/) [archive.is/5jIJw]
- image caption: Mehmed Talaat Pasha, left, with Ismail Enver Pasha and Turkish colonel Halil Sami Bey.
---
* "Koreans in Nazi Germany shed light on complex past" (2020-01-08, upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/01/08/Koreans-in-Nazi-Germany-shed-light-on-complex-past/8171578532649/) [archive.is/kJfOL] [begin excerpt]: Koreans who lived in Berlin during the period of Nazi rule briefly thrived under Adolf Hitler, despite the catastrophic ambitions of the Third Reich, according to a U.S.-based Korean studies specialist.
Frank Hoffmann, author of Berlin Koreans and Pictured Koreans, has studied the history of Koreans in the German capital from 1909 to 1940. He is also working on a book on the activities of the Manchukuo Embassy in Berlin, the outpost of the Japanese puppet state created during Tokyo's occupation of Manchuria.
Limited Korean espionage connected to the embassy and the hidden lives of the Koreans who lived in Berlin between the first and second world wars reveal relatively unexplored truths about Koreans of the Japanese colonial period, according to Hoffmann.
The group's ideological disagreements and the dissolution of their longstanding friendships may have even foreshadowed the political disputes and eventual division of the Korean Peninsula during the Cold War. [end excerpt]
- image caption: Kim Paek-pyong, a Korean eugenicist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Berlin, is seen standing in this undated photograph with an unidentified German associate measuring plaster casts of human hands.
---
* "27 Million Died In Russia Because Wall Street Built Up Hitler’s Wehrmacht To Knock Out Soviet Union" (2017-08-09, countercurrents.org/2017/08/27-million-died-in-russia-because-wall-street-built-up-hitlers-wehrmacht-to-knock-out-soviet-union) [archive.is/mFNik]
---
* " ‘We’ll shut your filthy mouth’: Putin says Russia will combat the rewriting of WWII history with new free-to-all archive center" (2020-01-18, rt.com/news/478610-russia-fight-history-distortion-putin/) [archive.is/0qcrO]
* " 'Nobody in Poland cares about WWII anymore': Warsaw ignores 75th anniversary of its liberation from fascism" (2020-01-17, rt.com/news/478449-poland-fascism-russia-history/) [archive.is/Y2Ucy]
* "It’s inhumane of Poland to obscure the memory of the ocean of blood the Soviet Army shed to defeat Hitler" (2020-01-17, rt.com/op-ed/478425-warsaw-liberation-poland-soviet-union/) [archive.is/Pmd1X], about the author: John Laughland, who has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford and who has taught at universities in Paris and Rome, is a historian and specialist in international affairs.
* " 'Remember the past & honor the dead': Former president Walesa slams Poland's failure to commemorate Warsaw's WWII liberation" (2020-01-17, rt.com/news/478482-lech-walesa-liberation-warsaw/) [archive.is/HFGqK]
* " ‘We wanted to be Red Army soldiers’: Polish veterans recall childhood memories of Warsaw’s liberation" (2020-01-17, rt.com/news/478446-warsaw-liberation-witness-poland-russia/) [archive.is/RE2b3]
* "What Poland Has to Hide About the Origins of World War II" (2020-01-12, strategic-culture.org/news/2020/01/12/what-poland-has-to-hide-about-the-origins-of-world-war-ii/) [archive.is/xig37]
* "75 years later: Newly-released wartime docs debunk myths about WWII’s liberation of Warsaw" (2020-01-16, rt.com/news/478443-poland-warsaw-liberation-myths/) [archive.is/JyqfS]:
Warsaw was liberated by Soviet forces 75 years ago today — and Polish officials have cloaked the pivotal event in myths ever since. Yet, newly-released historical documents help shed some light on the truth.
Official Warsaw had no plans to celebrate this date — but it is not the first time that Poland has ignored the liberation of its state capital. Since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the early 1990s, politicians across Eastern European have pushed the notion that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were equally responsible for instigating World War II — and the idea that Red Army soldiers led a brutal occupation, instead of liberating Poland, has firmly found its place in the nation’s history books.
That view continues to prevail in some other European states, too — but a trove of recently-declassified wartime documents, published by the Russian Defense Ministry, tells a different story.
Myth 1: ‘Only the Home Army were true heroes’
With Poland under Nazi occupation, the Home Army (Armia Krajowa/AK), which supported the country’s London-based government-in-exile, became a dominant resistance movement. Decades on, the AK are lionized by many in modern Poland as the true heroes and patriots of history, while Poles who helped Soviet forces are often demonized as traitors.
The AK are hailed in annual ceremonies around a white obelisk erected in the 90s in downtown Warsaw to honor their efforts. In 2019, President Andrzej Duda honored surviving AK members as role models and a “precious treasure of history.”
Yet, the uncovered Red Army dispatches reveal that the image enjoyed by the Home Army fighters is a whitewashed one. The declassified reports show in fact, that in many instances after the end of the war, AK units behaved less than admirably — roving as armed criminal gangs, kidnapping and killing Polish police officers — and “terrorizing” ordinary people who dared to help the Soviets.
In November 1945, AK agents attacked a police station in the town of Kepno, killing everyone inside — including the wife and two children of an officer. In the same month, they murdered a member of the pro-Soviet Polish Workers’ Party in his apartment in the town Pulawy in front of his wife and wounded his child. AK insurgents also began a campaign of intimidation against Poles who would cooperate with Soviet forces. One warning read: “Take your children and prepare to die.”
Myth 2: ‘The Red Army crushed the 1944 uprising’
Eager to discard any positive memory of the Soviet liberation of Warsaw, Poland today instead chooses to focus on a heroic but failed rebellion which took place on the city streets in the fall of 1944. Duda last year accused the Red Army of taking a “passive” stance during the uprising, supposedly in order to allow the Nazis to annihilate the Poles who might later rise up against the Soviets.
This opinion is commonplace in Polish media. An article published in the leading Rzeczpospolita newspaper last year argued that the USSR refused to help the rebels because it saw the revolt as “a unique opportunity to destroy the independence-minded elite of the Polish nation with German hands.”
In reality, when the Polish revolt against the Nazis was in full swing, the Red Army liberated Warsaw’s Praga district on the left bank of the Vistula River — but the troops lacked sufficient means to proceed further and assault Warsaw outright, the declassified documents say. Despite stark shortages in aviation fuel, transcripts of the Red Army’s radio dispatches show that the Soviets still managed to supply Polish rebels with food, weapons and munitions. The Red Army also shelled certain parts of the city at the rebels’ requests.
In contrast, airdrops conducted by the US and Britain were “ineffective,” the documents note. At one time, the Allies deployed 80 planes on an air-support mission, but 95 percent of their drops landed in German-controlled areas.
The Soviet reports also indicated that the uprising itself was ill-conceived from the beginning. Dispatches describe how rebels, armed only with handguns and grenades, failed to capture crucial strategic outposts and destroy the railways, which the Germans were using to transport forces around the city. Ultimately, the rebels’ makeshift street barricades were no match for tanks and artillery.
Myth 3: ‘All Poles saw the Red Army as evil occupiers’
The Polish state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) and the Foreign Ministry has cast the Red Army soldiers not as liberators from Nazism but merely as “totalitarian occupiers,” who bore little difference from Hitler’s troops.
In internal reports, the Red Army admitted that in some areas Poles were indeed more sympathetic to AK insurgents. Yet, in Warsaw the vast majority of locals were “friendly and welcoming” towards the Red Army, thanking its soldiers for ridding the country of Nazis.
“The Germans wanted to kill us but the Soviets saved us, and now we’re home again,” one local man was quoted as saying after the Soviet troops rescued 50 Poles near the city of Rzeszow, who were about to be transported to Germany for slave labor.
Myth 4: ‘The Soviets looted Poland after the war’
According to the IPN, Soviets troops brought nothing but destruction, as “Polish society remained enslaved under Soviet rule and under the rule of Moscow's communist regime for the next decades.”
Poland was in ruins after the Nazi occupation, so the primary goal of the Soviets forces was to distribute food and end hunger. One report from the Soviet military authority mentions how between 1944-45 the army provided the locals with 316,000 tons of potatoes and fresh vegetables, as well as 138,000 tons of grain. People also received scores of different tools and goods, which ranged from livestock, plows, tractors and combines to mattresses and sewing machines.
What’s more, the field medics with the 1st Belorussian Front treated tens of thousands of locals in army hospitals, while the unit’s railway troops rebuilt many railroads, roads and bridges that were demolished during the war.
* "Forgotten Secret History of World War II: Before Hilter Invaded Poland, Poland Invaded Czechoslovakia" (2003-06-08, weeklyuniverse.com/2003/poland.htm) [archive.is/fteb5]:
Poland is often called the first victim of World War II -- invaded and divided by Hitler and Stalin in 1939. Almost forgotten is the startling fact that, only months before before Hitler invaded Poland, Poland joined Hitler in dismembering Czechoslovakia!
That's the long buried historical fact unearthed in the Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia and illustrated in the below map.
According to the Encyclopedia, in May of 1938, Hitler mobilized his military to annex Czechoslovakia's German-speaking Sudetenland -- but halted when Britain, France, and Stalin's Soviet Union threatened war if he did so. Hitler backed down, but he wouldn't let the matter rest.
On September 15, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain visited Hitler to discuss a "peaceful solution" to the Sudetenland question. In a followup meeting on September 22, Chamberlain agreed to allow Hitler to annex the Sudeten region.
But Hitler wasn't satisfied! He wanted German troops to enter the Sudetenland at once -- something Chamberlain refused to allow. With war looking imminent, on September 23, the Czechoslovakian military mobilized to defend against Nazi Germany.
Poland then made its move.
On September 27, seeing that Czechoslovakia was in dire straits with Nazi troops readying to invade, Poland issued an ultimatum, demanding that Czechoslovakia hand over its Tesin (Teschen) district.
Two days later, on September 29, France, Britain, Germany, and Italy signed the Munich Agreement. It allowed Hitler to have the Sudetenland in exchange for him agreeing to "guarantee" Czechoslovakia's borders -- but only after Poland and Hungary had taken their shares!
Britain and France not only sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler -- but to Poland and Hungary too!
The sellout appears in Article 1 of the Munich Agreement. According to the Encyclopedia [Vol. 1, p. 8]:
"As Article 1 of the agreement put it, 'when the question of the Polish and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia has been settled, Germany and Italy will each give a similar guarantee to Czechoslovakia'.
Poland had been first to share in the spoils. After an ultimatum from Warsaw on September 27, 1938, Czechoslovakia had ceded to Poland the district of Tesin (Teschen) -- an area of some 625 square miles with a population of 230,000 people."
After signing the Munich Agreement, Chamberlain flew back to Britain, declaring that the Agreement meant "peace in our time!" But it was not to be.
Poland took its piece of Czechoslovakia first. Then Hungary helped itself to some of Czechoslovakia's Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia region. Hungary said it had been stolen from them after World War One by the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.
To make matters worse, even while it was being dismembered, Czechoslovakia was contending with demands for independence from its Slovakian region. And so, now trying to appease its own citizens, Czechoslovakia agreed to grant more autonomy to Slovakia, and to hyphenate the country's name, so that it became Czecho-Slovakia.
Abandoned by its allies and threatened with civil war, Czecho-Slovakia was unable to fight its neighbors. Instead, it allowed Germany, Hungary, and Poland to bite off pieces, hoping they'd eventually all be satisfied and go away.
But it was not to be. According to the Encyclopedia [Vol. 1, p. 8]:
"Having appeased the Polish and Hungarian demands in accordance with the Munich Agreement, Czecho-Slovakia was now entitled to ask for the promised guarantees from Italy and Germany.
On November 5, Chvalkovsky raised the point in a discussion with Dr. Hencke, German chargé d'affaires in Prague, only to be dismissed with the reply: 'The question of the guarantee will not arise until the new frontiers have been defined in detail by the commissions.' "
But instead of guaranteeing the new borders, Hitler took advantage of Czecho-Slovakia's internal divisions. He encouraged Slovakia to declare independence, so he could more easily take the remaining Czech region. As enticement, in March 1939, Hitler promised Slovakia that if it declared independence, he would protect it -- from Hungary and Poland!
According to the Encyclopedia [Vol. 1, p. 10], Hitler gave Slovakia a choice:
"[O]n one hand, the autonomous Slovak Government could continue to exist according to the statute granted to it in the previous autumn by the Prague Government -- in which case Germany would settle accounts with the Czechs and leave the Slovaks to the mercies of Poland and Hungary. Alternatively, if Slovakia demanded immediate independence from Prague, the Reich would offer all-powerful protection to the new state, and would shield her from the territorial greed of Warsaw and Budapest."
In the end, Hitler took the remaining Czech region, and Slovakia won its independence -- at least until the end of World War II. Slovakia was forced to reunite with the Czechs under Communism, but was separated once more after the fall of Communism.
Stalin was angered by being cut out of the Munich Agreement by his "allies", France and Britain -- but he got back at them! In 1939, Stalin snubbed them by signing a "non-aggression pact" with his new buddy, Hitler.
Poland did not enjoy its Czech spoils for long. Less than a year after stealing its piece of Czechoslovakia, Poland was invaded and divided by Hitler and Stalin. Even after World War II -- and to this day -- Russia has not returned much of the territory it stole from Poland.
Wise men have long said, As ye sow, so shall ye reap, or, What goes around, comes around. Crushed by Nazis and Communists, Poland soon knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a conquering bully -- a thousandfold over!
The Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia is "Based on the Original Text of Lt. Col. Eddy Bauer"; Editor-in-Chief Brigadier Peter Young, DSO, MC, MA; Consultant Editors Brigadier General James L. Collins, Jr. U.S.A., Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, and Correlli Barnett, Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge; Editorial Director Brian Innes; H.S. Stuttman Inc. Publishers; Copyright Orbis Publishing Ltd., 1972, 1978, Copyright Jaspard Polus, Monaco, 1966; ISBN: 0-87475-520-4."
Readers who wish to learn more about this subject may wish to purchase: Borders of Language and Identity in Teschen Silesia (Berkeley Insights in Linguistics and Semiotics, Vol. 28), by Kevin Hannan and Decision in Vienna: The Czechoslovak-Hungarian Border Dispute of 1938, by Edward Chászár.
---
* "Communist MEP Lefteris Nikolaou blasts the EU for attempting to re-write History" (2020-01-20, idcommunism.com/2020/01/communist-mep-lefteris-nikolaou-blasts-the-eu-for-attempting-to-rewrite-history.html) [archive.is/gGuLd]:
"The EU will not succeed to re-write people's history, no matter how much anti-communist ink will spill" was the message delivered by the MEP of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos in his intervention during EU Parliament's plenary in Strasbourg.
The debate's subject was "Distortion of European history and remembrance of the Second World War". In his intervention, the KKE MEP pointed out the following (translation from the Greek text):
"We understand your concern. Despite the anti-communist decisions of the European Parliament, the campaign of lies and history's distortion, the provocative equation of communism with the monster of fascism, the billions of euros spent for the youth's "discipling", you haven't succeed to re-write History.
That's why you keep the anti-communist machine "in high speed". With the anti-communist resolution, with successive anti-communist discussions in every plenary.
Anti-communism is in the EU's DNA and the people know, they see, the results of this policy. Emboldening fascist and other criminal groups, including the charged nazi Golden Dawn in Greece. Banning of Communist Parties in EU countries - in Poland, in the Baltic states - limiting of the communists' activity and their participation in elections, persecutions of militant people, destruction of historic monuments.
You will not succeed! No matter how much you struggle to rename the Antifascist Victory day into "Europe Day", the truth will shine.
Because this year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, when the people's struggle, led by the communists, the Soviet Union, the Red Army, crushed Hitler's fascism.
The future of the people is incompatible with capitalist exploitation, with poverty, war, uprooting! Socialism is the future!"
---
Koche Xoxe, Interior Minister of Albania, was arrested in 1948 to contain his tendency for free relations with Yugoslavia.
---
* "KOSOVO: How Serbia Bravely And Brilliantly Fought NATO And Why Is The 'Independence' Of Europe’s Top Narcoterrorist, Human-Organ Trafficking, Sex Slavery 'State' Finally Crumbling" (2019-08-01, fort-russ.com/2019/07/kosovo-how-serbia-bravely-and-brilliantly-fought-nato-and-why-is-the-independence-of-europes-top-narcoterrorist-human-organ-trafficking-sex-slavery-state-finally-crumbling/) [archive.is/iTwW2]
---
* "The Forgotten History Of ‘Fragging’ In Vietnam; Senate candidate Roy Moore was reportedly among those officers targeted by their own men" (2017-11-26, huffpost.com/entry/the-forgotten-history-of-fragging-in-vietnam_b_5a1b77b6e4b0cee6c050939d) [archive.is/MoMkO] [begin excerpt]: The term “fragging” was derived from the fact that a fragmentation grenade was rolled into the area where an officer or NCO was sleeping. When it exploded, no fingerprints could be found. The target was often a leader who was hated because he was incompetent in leading men, or excessively harsh in his discipline, or overly aggressive in waging war (putting the lives of soldiers and Marines at unnecessary risk just so that he could gain glory and advance his own career).
In addition to thousands of threats that were never carried out, there were confirmed reports of at least 800 fraggings or attempted fraggings in the Army and Marine Corps, with 86 men killed and an estimated 700 wounded. “But this was probably only the tip of a deadly iceberg,” says historian James Westheider. The true figure may never be known.
According to Westheider, many officers felt unsafe simply because they were authority figures. During his second tour in Vietnam at Duc Pho in 1968-1969, Major Colin Powell (later a four-star general) said he was “living in a large tent and I moved my cot every night, partly to thwart Viet Cong informants who might be tracking me, but also because I did not rule out attacks on authority from within the battalion itself.” Captain Thomas Cecil, who was stationed at Cam Ranh Bay in 1970-1971, “was so worried about attacks on his life that during his last month in Vietnam, he slept in the military intelligence (MI) bunker, and only his battalion commander knew where he was at night.” [...]
Most fraggings occurred inside camps, while out in jungles and rice paddies, a different method was used by infantrymen who wanted to kill “bad officers,” according to Robert Nylen, a combat infantry officer and author of Guts. “Sometimes, an errant bullet struck an incompetent fool amid a firefight. Problem solved.”
According to military historians, murders of superiors have been rare in America’s recent wars – Iraq and Afghanistan – because the military draft was ended in 1973 and an all-volunteer armed force was instituted. Efforts were made to exclude criminals, drug addicts, and misfits.
- [About the author]: Hamilton Gregory, a Vietnam veteran, is author of McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Men in the Vietnam War, plus the Induction of Unfit Men, Criminals, and Misfits, and he appears in a YouTube video entitled “McNamara’s Folly.”
---
* "Sun Ra’s 1986 Poland concert recording released for the first time" (2019-09-24, thevinylfactory.com/news/sun-ra-arkestra-live-poland-vinyl-in-kalisz/) [archive.is/Q5VER] [begin excerpt]: Taking place on the 7th of December in 1986 as part of the 13th installment of the International Jazz Piano festival, the 10-track performance included ‘Prelude To A Kiss’, ‘Children Of The Sun’ and ‘Mack The Knife’. [end excerpt]
---
* "How this popular black evangelist colluded with FBI to destroy MLK in the 1960s" (2019-05-14, face2faceafrica.com/article/how-this-popular-black-evangelist-colluded-with-fbi-to-destroy-mlk-in-the-1960s) [archive.is/Eb531]
* (2020-01-19, by Emory Douglas, facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10221728479907643&set=a.1634685913424&type=3&theater) [archive.is/SCJFk]:
In Dr. King's speech in 1967 titled: "WHY I'M OPPOSED TO THE WAR IN VIETNAM"
he said: "the greatest purveyor of violence on earth the American Government".
When Dr. King talked about the battles against "the greatest purveyor of Violence on earth" he described them as:
- "RACISM": which is about racial oppression / a system of white supremacy.
- "EXTREME MATERIALISM": a value system which things and money are considered more important than people / keeps many people poor while a few get rich.
- "MILITARISM": it's about waging wars and everything it takes to make war / money / weapons / training / major corporate interest
and the private military contractors with war being their profit motive.
* "The forgotten assassination of MLK’s mother Alberta King in 1974" (2019-10-12, face2faceafrica.com/article/the-forgotten-assassination-of-mlks-mother-alberta-king-in-1974) [archive.is/KcVtF]
---
===*===*===
* "How Soviet books brought literacy and socialist culture to the Third World" (2020-01-16, peoplesworld.org/article/how-soviet-books-brought-literacy-and-socialist-culture-to-the-third-world/) [archive.is/esOzt]
---
* "Medieval Shoemakers Enjoyed Gourmet Food, Norwegian Researchers Say" (2020-01-14, sputniknews.com/society/202001141078030735-medieval-shoemakers-enjoyed-gourmet-food-norwegian-researchers-say/) [archive.is/ZsJy6]
===*===*===
All materials not authored by members of the "The Northbay Uprising Media Collective" are ©, ® or ™ to their respective owners and authors, and are included in this database for evaluative purposes only, without commercial profit. For commercial use of the materials on this database, please contact the respective copyright owners of the materials. Copyright owners of materials on this page are not responsible for the contents of this database.
Files types linked are noted if not standard (.html). Files noted as (.pdf) may be viewed in most standard browsers, or by downloading the viewer app from the proprietor [get.adobe.com/reader].
(is.gd) is a web address shortening app, with direct links noted when used with this app.
Archival sites save a text and a graphical copy of a web page with no active elements and no scripts (nor popups or malware), and with timestamps, including Archive.org (how-to) (donate), [peeep.us] [via.hypothes.is] [webcitation.org] [webrecorder.io], & Archive.is/fo (how-to) (donate).
===*===*===
===*===*===
===*===*===
No comments:
Post a Comment