When Hitler came to power in 1933 the Communist HQ in Berlin was seized and members of that Party arrested and tortured in it. The Nazis captured the Party’s membership lists and played host to an MI5 Agent in that HQ, who copied them, in the company of the resident MI6 agent in Britain’s Berlin Embassy. A recent article in the London Review of Books, which has not been challenged, goes into the matter in detail.
Dublin’s Irish Times editorially welcomed Hitler’s accession. In 1936 General Franco, who had been posted to the Canary Islands lest he do the Spanish Republic a mischief, was flown to Morocco by the British Colonel Hugh Pollard whence he launched his murderous mutiny and set upon his 40 year tyranny in Spain. Pollard became British MI6 Station Officer in Madrid in 1940.
Pollard had form. During the life of the first Dail Eireann he was employed by the British in Dublin Castle as an “information” officer. His propaganda was so false, crude and scurrilous that it fooled nobody with more than two brain cells at the time, but it has been regurgitated in some revisionist academic studies in recent years.
An entry in Wikipedia gives a brief but useful outline of the reprobate’s career.
We have a lot to thank Franco for – what horror would have been inflicted on western Europe if the communists had got a foothold in Spain.
Beware the people who argue fascism will stop communism. The nazis were the real force that stopped the reds steamrolling western Europe.
That’s a very good point Croiteir which is very much forgotten. I have to say Donal Kennedys contributions to this blog are frankly poor and very one dimensional . I know Jude will say why don’t you contribute (time constraints) but surely this blog deserves better than his contributions?
I’ll take that as a back-handed compliment to me and a back-handed swipe at Donal. I’ve said it before, neill: this blogsite is open to any opinion – in fact I welcome all – provided it’s something more than abuse and/or libellous. Besides, if you don’t like Donal’s blogs, why not point out what their weaknesses are? That’s what discussion’s about.
“A lot to thank Franco for”. Croiteir, you obviously know “your history”. I believe the Communists were only part of the story? Hitlers Condor Legion backed Franco & Britain secretly supplied him with weapons on the fly ( taking a “neutral stance” for the optics) Love the pictures of (well fed) senior clergy with their chums.
And the peaceful idyllic Europe we have experienced since then has happened? A Free & Peaceful Europe under the great US of A. Thanksgiving & all that I thought it appropriate to provide William Burroughs poem on Thanksgiving (to remember the great “history” the USA) which fits in nicely with Mr Kennedys excellent piece on illegal British interference in other countries which in turn blends with all the other Empires throughout history & their hegemoney & their crushing of independence. A vicious circle from c1492 to ISIS2015.
Enjoy
Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts
thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison
thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger
thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot
thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes
thanks for the American Dream to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through
thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces
thanks for Kill a Queer for Christ stickers
thanks for laboratory AIDS
thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs
thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business
thanks for a nation of finks—yes,
thanks for all the memories all right, lets see your arms you always were a headache and you always were a bore
thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.
http://www.magneticmag.com/2011/11/william-s-burroughs-a-thanksgiving-day-prayer/
Seen a right few of those church-going women with their mean, pinched bitter faces in these parts.
Incidentally if Turkey (re Thanksgiving) the country supports ISIS, is a member of NATO & shoots down a “Communist” SU 24 that is bombing the ISIS terrorists do we have a lot to thank Turkey for?
D
I think Pollard was a Captain, not a Colonel.
Incidentallly, “Captain Boycott” was not a Captain, nor even a regular soldier.
He was a lowly Ensign in a part-time Militia.
I wouldn’t have the knowledge to put together a post as your contributors obviously do Jude, but since we are talking about Nazis.
Not sure how you feel about this but I feel Mary McAleese was spot on when she claimed that there was widespread hatred of Catholics comparable to the way Nazis despised Jews and we are still dealing with the consequences of it.
I understand she apologised over media and political pressures, but it doesn’t mean she was wrong. So much for freedom of speech when the truth is denied for political expediency.
History really is a propaganda exercise and fair play to Donal and others who have the learning to put it out there.
Dickens, you got it to a tee…..a 9 year old grandson,being taught history in a primary school here, realized something was amiss …..asked ” Grandda …was there nobody in America before they started killing people “