9 November 1923 and the Martyrdom in the National-Socialist Art

„Die Fahne“ (the Flag) - by Paul Herrmann

 „Feier des 9. November an der Feldherrnhalle in München 1941” (Commemorating of 9-th November at the Feldherrnhalle in Munich, 1941)  - by Paul Herrmann

“Und ihr habt doch gesiegt” (Yet Victory is Yours) - by Paul Herrmann

„Fallen Brown Shirt“ – by Felix Albrecht

“Meine Ehre heißt Treue” (My Honour is Called Loyalty) – by Felix Albrecht

“9 November 1923” – by Felix Albrecht

“SA Man Rescuing Wounded Comrade In The Street”, 1933 – by Hermann Otto Hoyer

 

3 Postcards in honour of 9 November 1923

 

 

Wind of Change: Green Energy in the Third Reich

Source: http://artamanen.tumblr.com/post/102725968849/wind-of-change-green-energy-in-the-third-reich

„Der Nationalsozialismus steht vor der Aufgabe, seine umwälzende und neuformende Kraft auch auf dem Gebiet der Energieversorgung in den deutschen Ländern zu beweisen. Er wird diese Aufgabe mit derselben Entschlossenheit anpacken und lösen, mit der er alle die anderen Probleme gelöst hat.“

„The National-Socialism faces the challenge to prove his revolutionary and reformatory power in the field of energy supply, throughout the German lands, too. He will deal with this challenge as decisive as with any other problem in the past.” — Walther Schieber, „Energiequelle Windkraft“, 1941.

After the meltdown at the Soviet-era, nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, in 1986, and the subsequent radioactive fallout that affected large parts of Europe and beyond, many people around the world started to feel concerned with the means used to generate energy. While ideas for using alternative sources of energy – water, sunlight, and the wind – circulated among the “Green Movement” for decades, the powers-that-be in politics and industry kept relying on fossil fuel – oil, gas, and coal – or nuclear power to satisfy the ever increasing energy demand of our thoroughly industrialized, urban societies. Only after the World started to witness gruelling wars fought over resources like oil and gas, and the devastating effects of contaminating the air by burning fossil fuel, the alternative sources of energy were taken into consideration in earnest. When a massive earthquake hit Fukushima in Japan, in 2011, and destroyed the nuclear power plant in this city, the German government decided to abandon nuclear energy altogether, and to use wind turbines - among others - as compensation. If you are driving on a German Autobahn nowadays, you can hardly miss the many wind farms scattered all around Germany in an attempt to generate “clean energy” and also to become more independent from oil and gas imports, considering that the global resources of fossil fuel are anything but infinite.

However, what you might be unaware of is that the idea to build wind farms in Germany is not a novelty, at all. As a matter of fact, this idea originated in the Third Reich and was put forth, among others, by WALTHER SCHIEBER in his manifesto “Energiequelle Windkraft”, in 1941. Schieber was a German chemist who occupied various posts during the Third Reich; for example, he served as deputy of Albert Speer, in his position as Minister of Armaments, responsible for the wartime production of the German industry. Schieber was, like many other influential Germans of that time, a far-sighted man who realized that the German Reich remained vulnerable to its many enemies for as long as it had to rely on – and import – oil and coal to generate energy, instead of looking for ways that would use the replenishable resources available to Germany at home: water, sunlight, and – wind.

He wrote: “Inzwischen hat der Krieg die enorme Bedeutung von Kohle und Öl mit der ihm eigenen Deutlichkeit in fast jedes Hirn gehämmert. (…) Nicht selten mußte sich die Strategie des Krieges nach den Möglichkeiten einer Mobilisierung von Kohle und Öl richten. Schon daraus geht hervor, daß der in die Zukunft denkende Wirtschaftler und Politiker nach Kraftquellen Ausschau halten muß, die weniger für die Bedürfnisse des Krieges als für die Erfüllung friedlicher Zwecke nutzbar zu machen sind.“ (Translation: “Meanwhile, the War has hammered the huge importance of coal and oil into almost every mind quite drastically. It wasn’t exceptional that the strategy of war had to be designed according to the availability of coal and oil. That in itself demonstrates the need for every economist and politician, who is concerned with the future, to look out for alternative sources of energy that can not only be used in war but for the productivity in times of peace, as well.”)

Additionally, Schieber voiced a sentiment that would echo in our society only many decades later: The concern for the many grave, ecological issues caused by the rapid use of fossil fuel. National-Socialism was an ideology, and a movement, profoundly caring for the Ecology. In that sense, the Third Reich was the first “Green Nation”, ever. Schieber wrote: “Wahrscheinlich werden sich die Menschen späterer Epochen über (die) Verschwendung von Bodenschätzen genau so entsetzen, wie wir uns ein Kopfschütteln über jene Zeiten leisten, in denen verantwortungslose Geschäftemacher die Wälder ganzer Gebirgszüge und Ländereien abholzen ließen, ohne jemals danach zu fragen, ob spätere Geschlechter die furchtbaren Folgen dieser Maßnahmen zu tragen hätten.” (Translation: “Most likely, people of later times will be as aghast at the waste of fossil fuel as we shake our heads in disgust over times of yore, when irresponsible merchants had cut down entire forests of the mountains and countryside without ever wondering if later generations must bear the horrible consequences of their decisions.”) For Schieber, it was imperative that Germany would actively seek and find new ways for generating energy that do not have any adverse effect on Ecology.

In Germany and elsewhere, water was already used to propel power generators at a grand scale. However, you only have so many rivers that can be used to that end. Thus Schieber advocated the use of wind energy, because conditions for building wind farms could be found anywhere. In a first step, he envisioned the building of wind turbines on remote farms and outposts in Germany that were not yet connected to the national energy grid. In 1941, the German Army was still advancing towards the East, conquering vast stretches of fertile soil intended to provide living space for German settlers and farmers in future. Schieber realized the urgent need for such future colonies to be independent from a most likely hostile environment, and thus he proposed to make future German settlements in the East thriving on wind energy by design. Furthermore, in the long run he hoped to make the entire German Reich independent from fossil fuel by a joint venture of wind — as well as water energy. “Vielleicht ist es späterhin möglich, unsere gesamte Energieversorgung nur auf die sich stetig erneuernden Energiequellen Wasser und Wind aufzubauen, wobei in den Talsperren unserer Wasserkraftwerke willkommene Speicher vorhanden sein würden, um die Minderleistung der Windkraftwerke bei schwachen Winden auszugleichen. Es würde dann ein Energieaustausch der ausbauwürdigen Wasserkräfte Großdeutschlands mit den Windkraftwerken des windgünstigeren Norddeutschlands über die vorhandenen Hochspannungsleitungen in Frage kommen.“ (Translation: “Perhaps at a later stage it will be possible to switch our entire energy supply to the ever replenishing energy sources water and wind. The river dams of our hydroelectric plants would make an excellent storage facility to compensate the lesser output of our wind farms in calm times. There would be an exchange of electric energy between our improvable hydroelectric plants in Greater Germany and the wind farms in the favourable conditions of North Germany, by the means of our high-voltage power lines.”)

Walther Schieber was not an eccentric indulging in a pipe dream, in his book, he presented many calculations to build cost-effective wind farms, and he discussed the various designs for wind turbines and which one would serve the desired purpose at best. Powerful and influential circles in the Third Reich were interested in ways to make Germany an independent, strong and resilient nation that could rely on her own powers and resources, and become truly autarkic, at last. Moreover, the Ecology was a prime concern of National-Socialism and Adolf Hitler himself contemplated on how to make an entire nation – if not, mankind at all! – live in accord with the fragile Ecosystem on Earth. It is thus safe to say, that, if the war would have taken a different course with a different outcome, the proposed plans of Walther Schieber could very well have been adopted by the German leadership and put to use accordingly.

Instead of having the Soviets build the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, in the Ukraine, which blew up almost 30 years ago as a grim reminder on man’s hubris when he intends to use the solar fire of the Gods, Ukraine and East Europe could have been littered with wind farms 70 years ago: Generating green and clean energy that won’t ever run dry, that neither harms Man, nor contaminates Nature. Germany, under the guidance of National-Socialism, could have saved and changed the World and make it a better place for future generations. As we know, alas, Germany was vanquished and National-Socialism remains vilified up until today. And we continue to shed blood over resources that soon will be gone for good; and we continue to live in an environment tainted and polluted by our insatiable hunger for energy; and we still look up to the sky fearfully whenever a nuclear power plant fails and radioactive fallout contaminates the air. 

National-Socialism was – and remains to be – the most traditional yet modern ideology, ever conceived by man. It is an ideology that has the final solution to the existential question of man, seventy years ago, just as well as today. Because the question remains the same, and so does the answer. And it is still not too late to acknowledge who the ones were coming up with the solution in the first place. Not some think-tank of the United Nations, in the 21st century, or elsewhere; it was Germans like Walther Schieber, who believed in the positive power of National-Socialism. We can’t be wrong if we do the same.​

Die Deutsche Wochenschau – Newsreel No. 502 – 17 April 1940

Germany Invades Denmark and Norway;

Danish Troops Ordered to Cease Resistance;

Oslo Captured by German Troops.

The Reich in Photos - Commemoration on 9-th November 1938 in Munich

The partisan war in violation of international law

Source: http://www.cwporter.com/partisanen.htm

On 22 June 1941, the Council of the Supreme Soviet imposed martial law over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, White Russia, Karelia, Bessarabia, as well as over the territories of Archangel, Murmansk, Vologda, Leningrad, Kalinin, Ivanovo, Yaroslav, Ryazan-Smolensk, Tula, Kursk, Moscow, Voronezh, Orel, the Crimea, and Krasnodar. General mobilization was ordered in 15 military districts.

Partisan warfare was unleashed one week later. It was a prepared measure in violation of international law for which the Wehrmacht was unprepared. Furthermore, a “Service Regulation for the Partisan War” had been in effect in the Red Army since 1933. As early as January and February 1941, large scale partisan war games were held in various military districts of the Soviet Union by the “Society for the Encouragement of Defense” (Osowiachim), in which the civilian population also took part, as reported by the Army newspaper “Red Star”. Based on these experiments, the Soviet Communist Party created so-called “Destruction Battalions”, even prior to the beginning of the war. When an area was to be abandoned by the Red Army, these destruction battalions were systematically supposed to destroy all businesses, communications installations, medical installations, etc. of any military or commercial importance, and to being partisan warfare as soon as the front was overrun (56)

On 29 June1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union called upon all Party, Soviet, Trade Union and Komosol organizations to form “partisan divisions and diversion groups” and to pursue and destroy the German invaders in a “merciless struggle… to the last drop of blood”. (57). Two phrases occur repeatedly throughout all following announcements, orders, instructions, instructions and guidelines of the Central and Provincial authorities of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until the end of the war. One phrase consists of all the possible variations on the word “destroy”, and the other, all possible variations on the word “invader”. As early as 1 July 1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of White Russia, for example, in compliance with the order from Moscow, ordered civilians “to blow up or damage streets and bridges, fuel and food warehouses, set vehicles and airplanes on fire, cause railway accidents, give the enemies no rest either day or night, destroy them wherever one comes across them, to kill them with everything at hand: ax, scythe, crowbars, pitchforks, and knives”. A particularly remarkable sentence states: “In destroying the enemy, don’t shrink from resort to any means at all: strangle, burn, poison the fascist expectoration!”

On 3 July 1941, Stalin, in his well-known radio speech “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and Sisters! Fighters of our Army and Navy!”, which was broadcast everywhere over and over again in the following days, ordered the population to deprive the German invader of everything that might be of use: “Not single locomotive, not one single railroad car, not one kilogram of grain, not one liter of fuel must be left behind for the German enemy”. Anything that could not be taken away was to be destroyed: “In enemy-occupied areas, partisan divisional units, on both foot and horseback, must be created to fight the units of the enemy army, to set partisan warfare ablaze everywhere, to blow up bridges and streets, to destroy telephone and telegraph connections, to burn down forests, warehouses and wreck trains. Intolerable conditions must be created in the occupied territories; the enemy is to be pursued and destroyed at all time, and all enemy measures must be thwarted.” (58).

On 18 July 1941, followed the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union entitled “On the Organization of the Struggle Behind the Lines of the Hostile Troops”, the leaders of the Republic, Area and district committees of the Party organizations were personally made responsible for ensuring that “Partisan divisions, diversion and destruction groups on foot and horse”, in compliance with Stalin’s order, were organized to “create intolerable conditions for the German invader” (59).

Stalin’s speech at a celebration session of the Mosow Soviet of the Deputies of the Workers on the occasion of the 24 th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution on 6 November 1941 was peppered with insults directed at German soldiers: “Men with the morals of beasts”, “Robbers who have lost all human face in their moral rottenness and have long since sunk to the level of beasts”, “Men without conscience and honor”, etc. Any expedient was permitted against them. The population was to be mobilized “to the last man” in destroying the German enemy (60). To this purpose, on 17 November 1941, Stalin issued Order no. 428, which, in German journalism, became known as the “Arsonists Order”. In the original, the order was entitled: “The monstrous crimes, cruelties and acts of violence of the German authorities in the occupied districts and territories” and stated as follows: “All settlements occupied by German troops are to be set on fire, to a depth of 40 to 60 km behind the main front line and 20 to 30 km on both sides of the roads. Air Force, Artillery and Partisan divisions groups equipped with bottles of fuel” were assigned to this task. The order is even said to have contained the following sentence: “The search and destroy commandos shall carry on the destruction actions in the uniform of the German army and Waffen-SS. Such actions incite hatred against the fascist occupiers and facilitate the recruitment of partisans in the backcountry. At the same time, care should be taken to leave survivors to report on ‘German atrocities’". 20 to 30 “courageous fighters” were to be selected for these underground guerrilla groups, to be created in each regiment. “In particular, those who destroy settlements behind the German lines in German uniforms are to be nominated for the receipt of medals”, the order says. The last sentence says: “The population must be told that the Germans burnt the villages and localities to punish the partisans” (61). The propagandists of the Red Army followed Stalin’s brutal order to the letter, even though it was chiefly directed against the Russian population. On 30 November 1941, the most powerful of these propagandists, Ilya Ehrenburg, issued the proclamation: “Fighters, Spies, Partisans!”, in which he called upon members of these three groups to do as follows: “Anywhere there is a house in which the Germans might warm themselves, smoke the Germans out!” (62).

On 7 January 1942, the Soviet Foreign Ministry issued the following hypocritical note to their accredited diplomats in Moscow: “The Soviet Government, before the diplomatic representatives of world public opinion, objects to the cruelties, devastations and plundering committed by German troops in the Soviet territories, in which the German Wehrmacht deliberately destroys entire villages and cities and burns them to the ground, rendering the Soviet population homeless. The destruction has assumed the dimensions of widespread devastation. The Soviet population is robbed of food and clothing, while anyone who resists is shot” (63). With these remarks, the Soviet government attempted to blame the Wehrmacht for atrocities unscrupulously committed by the Soviets themselves, against their own population.

The demonization of the German soldiers in Soviet propaganda paved the way for partisan atrocities against the “fascist beasts”, ”fascist carrion”, “band of Hitlerite cannibals”, “German robbers”, “Hitler hordes”, etc. To the partisans, this classification of the enemy was a license to kill. The cruelties of the Red Army were overshadowed by the cruelties of the partisans. German soldiers who fell into the hands of the partisans had to expect the worst. On 1 October 1941, a member of the Central Committee named Kazapalov called upon the partisans “to torture” captured German soldiers “by mutilating them before shooting them” (64). Brutalized members of the partisan hordes followed these instructions only too willingly. The Germans, in turn, commonly referred to the partisans as ‘bandits’.

German officers were not always able to prevent their soldiers from taking revenge. The bitterness was too great. What happens in a soldier who finds his comrades lying mutilated at the edge of a forest? The pay book of every member of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS contained a document entitled “The 10 Commandments of the German Soldier”, which was learned by every recruit. The third commandment stated: “No enemy who surrenders is to be killed, except for partisans or spies. The latter are to receive a just punishment from the courts”. These humane statements, which were entirely in conformity with international law and had been implemented in the campaigns until that time, were soon proven inadequate for the actual situation.

Despite the escalation of brutality in the partisan war, the German military leadership repeatedly called upon the soldiers of the Wehrmacht to spare the foreign civilian population. The Commander in Chief of the Army, in his “Guidelines for Fighting the Partisans”, issued on 25 October 1941, ordered that all German soldiers were to “win the trust of the population through rational and fair treatment, thus depriving the partisans of further support” (65). In the “Guidelines for the Reinforced Struggle against the Problem of Banditry in the East” (Instruction no. 46) of 18 August 1942, even Hitler had to admit that the cooperation of the population was “indispensable”, demanding “strict but just treatment” of the Soviet population. (66)

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55. Fritz Becker: Stalins Blutspur durch Europa: Partner des Westens 1933-45, Kiel, 1995, p. 236.

56. L.V. Richard: Partisanen. Kämpfer hinter den Fronten, Rastatt, 1986, pp. 21, 63.

57. Direktive des Rates der Volkskommissare der UdSSR und des ZK der KPdSU, in : Heinz Kühnrich: Der Partisanenkrieg in Europa 1939-1945, East Berlin, 1965, p. 434, f.

58. L.V. Richard (see note 56), p. 21.

59. Heinz Künrich (see note 57), p. 437.

60. Joseph Stalin: Über den Grossen Vaterländischen Krieg der Sowjetunion, East Berlin, 1952, p. 16 ff.

61. GenStH Fremde Heere Ost II H 3/70 Fr. 6439568, National Archives Washington, series 429, roll 461; Fritz Becker (see note 55), p. 268 ff; Dimitri Wokogonow: Stalin. Triumph und Tragödie. Ein politisches Profil, Düsseldorf, 1989, p. 617 f; Ic-Berichte von Partisanen in deutscher Uniform bei Rudolf Aschenauer (see note 36), p. 153 ff. The author has not yet received [a copy of] the original order from the National Archives.

62. Joachim Hoffmann (see note 33), p. 201.

63. Fritz Becker (see note 55), p. 269.

64. Joachim Hoffman (see note 33), p. 110.

65. Befehl vom 10 October 1941 über das Verhalten der deutschen Truppen. For further information on the partisan war on Russian soil, see, among others: Heinz Künrich: Der Partisanenkrieg in Europa 1939-1945, East Berlin, 1968; Soviet Partisans in World War II, edited by John A. Armstrong, Madison, 1964; Peter Kolmsee: Der Partisanenkrieg in der Sowjetunion, East Berlin 1963.

66. Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv RW 39/69, sheet 70.