Late Stage Capitalism AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

The billionaire companies behind Zionism’s bombs

www.workers.org

>The U.S. company Boeing Defense, Space and Security manufactures the bunker-buster bombs and the guidance systems [that the occupation] relies on. Lockheed Martin makes the Multiple Launch Rocket System used to strengthen the IOF ground forces. Ghost Robotics produces the robotic “dogs,” complete with weapons, that [the occupation] uses to patrol areas of northern Gaza. > >Northrop Grumman sells extensive amounts of weapons and military technologies to [the occupation]. According to The Mapping Project: “Northrop Grumman is deeply complicit in [Zionism’s] ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland and theft of Palestinian resources. Northrop Grumman developed manned aircraft missile systems, which the […] Air Force uses in attacks on Palestinians. > >“In collaborative ventures with Lockheed Martin (another major U.S. weapons manufacturer), Northrop Grumman provides [the occupation] with the Longbow System used in [Zionism’s] fleet of Apache AH64D helicopters […] and in the production of the F-35 fighter jets. […] Northrop Grumman also produces parts used in F-16 fighter jets sold to [Zionism’s régime].” (mapliberation.org) > >[Zionism’s régime] has employed these and other weapons systems “containing Northrop Grumman component parts in its repeated attacks on densely populated areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Lebanon. In these attacks, [the régime] has targeted civilian homes, civilian infrastructure and refugee camps.” > >While Biden and Netanyahu are well-deserving of growing global outrage, so too are the millionaires like Boeing’s President and CEO Ted Colbert, Lockheed Martin’s President and CEO Jim Taiclet and Northrop Grumman Chair, CEO and President Kathy Warden, who oversee these killing corporations. > >These multibillion-dollar weapons producers have everything to gain from Blinken and Biden’s consistent refusals to put any restrictions on weapons sales to [Zionism’s neocolony]. > >The U.S. “money for weapons purchases” is by no means unique to its support of [Zionism]. The billions of dollars that Biden and Congress give to Ukraine is usually in the form of weapons produced by the same U.S. companies profiting off the war in West Asia.

Palestine AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Palestinian Resistance pays tribute to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

www.workers.org

>The banner of resistance will not be broken, and the martyrdom of the Master of Resistance marks the beginning of a new phase of greater strength and determination to continue on the same path. > >The Popular Front mourns the Master of Resistance, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, and a group of Hezbollah’s brave leaders, martyrs on the path to Al-Quds [Jerusalem]. > >In the name of its Secretary-General, his deputy, its Political Bureau, Central Committee, and all its cadres and members at home and in the diaspora, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourns to our people, the nation, the Axis of Resistance, and the liberation movement, the leader of the resistance, the master of martyrs, and the inspiration of an entire generation, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah “Abu Hadi,” the Secretary-General of Lebanese Hezbollah, and a group of heroic leaders of the resistance who were martyred in a cowardly zionist assassination in the southern suburb of Beirut, coordinated and planned with the criminal American enemy. > >The Front expresses its deep solidarity with the brothers in Hezbollah — leadership, cadres, and fighters — and the Lebanese people, and the Axis of Resistance, in this great and significant loss. We send them a clear message: Your wound is our wound, the blood of your leaders is our blood, and the martyrdom of the Master of Resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, represents the beginning of a new phase of resistance, more powerful and determined to continue on the same path.

US News AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

U.N. diplomats walk out on Netanyahu’s speech

www.workers.org

>The diplomats’ walkout was the only visible protest inside the U.N. The New York Police Department did not allow any protesters closer than four blocks away. Thousands of protesters were kept away from the immediate area near where Netanyahu was speaking while thousands of police — all on paid overtime, funded by New Yorkers’ tax dollars — were deployed that day to control the demonstrators. > >What the diplomats could have done, but did not do, was to surround Netanyahu and demand his arrest as a war criminal, responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of innocent civilians, including infants and children in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. > >In fact, the U.N. is a toothless organization that is unable or unwilling to follow even its own directives. The U.N.’s accommodation of [neocolonialism] — including giving war criminal Netanyahu a podium to spout his venom — recalls the behavior of England when the government practiced “appeasement” in the 1930s toward Hitler’s Germany.

US News AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Workers strike at Eagles, 76ers and Phillies stadiums

www.workers.org

>In a show of solidarity, the Save Chinatown Coalition sent an email to its members asking them to “Stand with Aramark workers who are taking on corporate greed to make our city a better place” and to join the picket lines. > >“Before we even talk about building a new arena, we need to make sure that stadium food service jobs are good jobs,” said Tiffani Davis, an Aramark concessions worker at Citizens Bank Park, Wells Fargo Center and Lincoln Financial Field. “Year-round work should come with year-round benefits like health care and family sustaining wages.” (WHYY.org, Sept. 23)

history AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

On this day in 1936, the British proletariat resisted the fascist invasion of Cable Street

invidious.nerdvpn.de

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2199972 > >The context for this was that Oswald Mosley formed a party called the [British Union of Fascists](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Union_of_Fascists) in 1932. By 1936 he was having a hard time, he wasn’t doing as well as he thought [that] he was going to do, so Mosley had hit a roadblock, he was making no progress. He decided that one way of breaking through electorally was to galvanize anti‐foreign sentiment, anti‐Jewish sentiment, anything against the other, and the place to do that was the East End of London, which had brought **everybody** together. > > > >The East End of London was always the melting pot of British society, and he could specifically target the Jewish population of the East End of London. So he decided, after a campaign of about nine months in which he was using his thugs to intimidate people, to smash windows, to come down here and say, ‘We can do this, look, we are going to take on the foreigner in British society!’ What happened? > > > >Mosley, dilettante that he was, turned up late—he apparently was on his way to a wedding in [the Third Reich], his own wedding, presided over by Joseph Goebbels, and he decided that things weren’t going to plan. Local Labour dignitaries decided that things were getting too fraught and negotiated with the head, the commissioner of the police. Somebody called Commissioner Games [*sic*], and they decided to point the fascists in the other direction. So instead of trying to get into the East End, they marched away along the embankment. > > --- > :::spoiler Click here for other events that happened today (October 4). > [**1881**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1881): Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch, Axis field marshal and the Wehrmacht’s Commander‐in‐Chief, decided that life wasn’t miserable enough for us, so he had to come along. > **1892**: Engelbert Dollfuß, Austrofascist Federal Chancellor, plagued the earth. > [**1903**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1903): Ernst Kaltenbrunner, lawyer, general, and the Reich Security Main Office’s director, arrived so that he could embarrass the human race. > [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1940): Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber met Benito Mussolini in the Brenner Pass on the Italian–Austrian border. Benito Mussolini was happy to notice that the Chancellor seemed to have given up on any talks of invading Britain. Coincidentally, Axis bombers attacked Kent in southern England and the area near London, damaging homes, farms, and factories. The Axis lost two Ju 88 bombers (and the Allies lost three fighters along with one pilot). > > Aside from that, the Secours National, being planned for revival in preparation of the first winter under Axis occupation, came under Philippe Pétain’s authority. That same day, Pétain wrote to Henry Dhavernas, founder of the youth group Compagnons, in support of his efforts. Afterwards, the Axis bombed London again between 1900 and 2100 hours. > [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1941): The Axis exterminated 432 Jewish men, 1,115 Jewish women, and 436 Jewish children in Vilnius, Lithuania (for a total of 1,983 humans). Panzergruppe 3 and Panzergruppe 4 also began to surround rear elements of the Soviet Western Front in Russia, capturing Kirov and Spa‐Demensk in the process. The Axis continued to advance toward Vyasma to complete the envelopment. Elsewhere, Axis submarine *U‐129* picked up 119 survivors of Axis supply ship *Klara* (sunken by Allied cruiser HMS *Kenya* on the previous day) three hundred miles northeast of the Azores islands. > [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1942): The XIV Panzer Korps attacked the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, and Type IXC U‐Boat *U‐505* departed at Lorient, France on her fourth patrol to the northern coast of South America. > [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1943): Heinrich Himmler talked openly about the Final Solution at a meeting in Posen, Reichsgau Wartheland, noting that he cared little about the livelihood of Slavs and other peoples in occupied Eastern Europe since the conquered people were mere slaves to the Third Reich. He warned his lieutenant, however, that this task would be unwritten in history despite its importance in German history. As that was going on, the 16th Panzer Division attacked the newly gained bridgehead on the Biferno River near Termoli, Italy on the eastern end of the Volturno Line, and the Axis captured Kos in the Dodecanese Islands. > [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1944): An Axis V‐2 rocket hit Rockland St Mary six miles southeast of Norwich, England. It hit the village school directly, injuring two grown‐ups along with thirty‐four children, and the blast damaged twenty‐three houses nearby. It was the worst assault on the Norwich region during the war. > **1976**: Francis Joseph Collin sent out letters to the park districts of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, requesting permits for the NSPA to hold a white power demonstration. > **1997**: Otto Ernst Remer, a Wehrmacht officer who was partially responsible for German neofascism, dropped dead. > **2009**: Günther Rall, Wehrmacht major and Luftwaffe aviator, expired. > :::

Capitalism in Decay AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Dogs under the Third Reich and the Empire of Japan

My earliest memory involving dogs in the Third Reich is perhaps from trying the shareware version of *Wolfenstein 3D*, where the weakest foe is a German Shepherd who tries to compensate for its pitifully low health by zig‐zagging towards the protagonist. Although undoubtedly unnerving to first‐time players, they’re otherwise only menacing to somebody who is out of bullets and low on health.  Pictured: The attack dog from *Wolfenstein 3D*. Most other adults, however, are likelier to think of [Blondi](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Blondi): the dog whom the head of state received as a gift in 1941 before he used her as the unwilling test subject for cyanide in April 1945. Media portrayals of Blondi’s little rôle in history range from the accurate depiction in the motion picture *Downfall* to being parodied in the series [*Danger 5*](https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=7eQwAilMWtE) — to name only a few examples. While most of us are going to be at least slightly familiar with the Third Reich’s mass deployment of dogs as camp guards, we rarely wonder about the fuller extent of their usage. The reality is that the Fascists deployed many dogs (especially German Shepherds) for a variety of purposes in addition to guarding camps. Quoting Susan Bulanda’s [*Military Dogs of World War II*](https://annas-archive.org/md5/28178cfbdc0c656c76faf03864fb2fcb), pages 115–122: >By the time Hitler came into power in 1933, the [Fascists] had already formed training camps which included the Sturmabteilung (SA, the “Brownshirts”) K9 units. These camps provided trained men for the new […] Army and because the [Fascists] had masked the training programs so well, by the time World War II started, [the Third Reich] had [over 200,000 dogs](https://sci-hub.ru/10.1177/0011128797043002001) trained and ready for war. If that wasn’t enough, [the Third Reich] then publicized a call for more dogs which added another 100,000 to the ranks. > >Primarily, the [Third Reich] used German Shepherds, Dobermans, Airedales, and Boxers. These dogs were trained to act as sentries, scouts, guards, and messenger dogs. Patrol dogs worked with their handler, accompanied by a patrolman who would check identity papers or perform other routine duties. > >The dogs in the Bahnschutz K9 units were also used to round up Jews and were used in ghettos as well as concentration camps to control, herd, and attack Jewish prisoners. Some 90 percent of the dogs used in this unit were German Shepherds. Throughout the war, prisoners, soldiers and Jews alike were forced to march in file, and dogs were used to keep them in line. If someone lagged or got out of formation, the dogs would nip them. These dogs were used in France, the Soviet Union, Italy, Poland, and North Africa in the same manner. > >The [Fascists] also used ambulance dogs. These dogs were trained to ignore any soldiers standing or walking. If a dog found a soldier lying on the ground, he would grab a short, detachable leather strap attached to his collar—called a bringsel—and go back to the handler. The handler would put the dog on a leash and the dog would lead the handler to the wounded soldier. > >For messenger dogs, the [Fascists] used only the smartest dogs. They taught the dog to follow a scent trail using a molasses‐type scent that would be dispensed in a few drops every three feet. These dogs had one handler. > >As dog lovers know, sometimes a well‐trained dog will show a talent, or adapt to a task that goes beyond its training. There is an account of such an incident in North Africa that transpired between Allied and Axis troops, where, it seems, the [Axis] had taught pure white dogs to act as pointers. The [Allies] controlled the western part of a small valley in Ousseltria, Tunisia, while the [Axis] controlled the eastern side. > >During the ensuing battle, dogs played an important part on both sides. When an [Allied] lieutenant and two sergeants were sent out to reconnoiter enemy positions, they spotted a pure white dog standing quietly and pointing. Within a few minutes, the [Allies] were raked with machine‐gun fire. > >Later, when a patrol was sent out to look for the beleaguered [Allied personnel], the dog was gone. The dog’s job had been to show the [Axis] where the enemy soldiers were located. This was not the only time [Allied] soldiers saw pure white dogs pointing out their positions and then returning to the [Axis]. > >Sadly, when the [Axis powers] had to withdraw quickly from Africa, they abandoned most of their dogs. Throughout the war, the [Axis] used so many dogs that there were few left for breeding stock after it ended. .jpg) Pictured: Waffen‐SS volunteer Kalju Jakobsoo with his dog Caesar in 1944. >Before [the Imperial Japanese] attacked Pearl Harbor, they had already built up their army to a war footing and were engaged in a war of conquest with China. Their [Western] allies had supplied [the Empire of] Japan with about 25,000 trained dogs. Most were German Shepherds, the breed that the [Eastern Axis] seemed to prefer. The [Eastern Axis] then set up several dog training schools in [the Empire of] Japan and one in Nanking, China. > >The [Eastern Axis] used dogs for patrols, as scouts, and as sentry dogs. [It] also used them as suicide dogs. Instead of trying to blow up tanks as the [Soviets] had tried to do, the [Eastern Axis] had the dogs pull small carts loaded with bombs onto [Allied] positions. Once the carts were close enough, the [IJA] would detonate the cart. The [Eastern Axis] also used untrained, vicious dogs in various campaigns and let them attack soldiers and civilians alike, as was the case in Hong Kong. > >Interestingly, the [Eastern Axis] had also tried to use small mixed‐breed dogs to locate enemy troops, in much the same way as the [Western Axis] used the white dogs trained to point. Instead of pointing, the small dogs would search an area and once they located the enemy, would run back to [their masters] to alert them to the [Allied] positions. These dogs were not vicious, but the [Allies] soon figured out what the dogs were doing and would instead follow them back to the [Axis] positions. > >The soldiers who encountered [Eastern Axis] war dogs often commented that the dogs were, for the most part, poorly cared for; they were not well groomed, were half‐starved, and had not been well trained. The [Eastern Axis] used the typical village street mongrel as patrol and messenger dogs. Not many of the purebred dogs that were owned by the more affluent members of [Imperial] society were donated for the war effort. Quoting Robert Tindol’s *The Best Friend of the Murderers: Guard Dogs and the Nazi Holocaust* in [*Animals and War: Studies of Europe and North America*](https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=7EF2D62F49DAFFA29C549FEB891A3C3A): >Though the [Fascists] utilized dogs in various wartime rôles, they also trained and employed canine guards for use in most if not all of the concentration camps and death camps. In fact, most of the eyewitness accounts of the camps mention and sometimes even focus on the guard dogs that terrorized, often mauled, and occasionally killed the camp prisoners. > >Moreover, the reports seemingly indicate that the dogs were not necessarily trained and brutalized as indiscriminate and uncontrollable killers, but often were friendly companion‐dogs from breeds not normally known for their unpredictability and viciousness. > >[…] > >Although Höss would have us believe he is merely describing cruel and crude attempts at self‐amusement, dogs were also used for garden‐variety sadism at Auschwitz. Such was the case with Otto Moll, who was in charge of the Auschwitz crematoria and who was executed after the war. Moll’s psychosexual predilections had a particularly gruesome twist, for he “had a preference for setting his German shepherd loose on young, attractive Jewish women.”²⁰ > >The most notorious of the [Axis] camp guards’ canine companions was a St. Bernard cross named Barry, who served commandant Kurth Franz at both the Sobibór and Treblinka death camps. Contemporary photographs show that the dog was scarcely the type of animal that would normally elicit terror in adults or even children, and at least from outward appearances looked more like a docile and loving family companion than a killer. But Barry’s credentials are well‐documented: >>[T]here was a dog named Barry who was trained by the SS men to bite the Jews, especially when they were naked on the way to the gas chamber. The beatings, the biting of Barry, and the shooting and shouting of the guards caused the Jews to run through the “tube” and push themselves into the “baths,” hoping to find some escape from the hell around them.²¹ > >Barry was not used merely to herd victims into the gas chambers, either. Other reports indicate that Franz often walked through the camp, unleashing his dog on hapless victims in an arbitrary fashion: >>When Franz and his dog Barry would approach the group of prisoners, they would all instantly be on their guard, for they knew his tour always ended with someone being victimized.²² The Third Reich also inhibited the friendly relations that Jews, Roma and Sinti could have with canines and other animals, though the results were not always successful. Quoting Boria Sax’s [*Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust*](https://annas-archive.org/md5/85b1dc17fee0fa8f2a0881be8d7a0202), page 119: >The [Third Reich’s] animal protection laws contained little aspiration toward universality. Both legal documents and public announcements repeatedly emphasized their specifically German character, and violations were ‘sometimes referred to as “foreign to the spirit of the people” [*Volks‐fremd*]. The [Third Reich] tried to deny the comfort offered by animals and nature to many people. > >[Roma and Sinti], living on the fringes of European society for centuries, had learned to exploit sources of food that were shunned by the majority; at times they hunted hedgehogs. These were protected (Giese and Kahler, p. 242), and Hermann Göring had given them special status as “useful animals.” To make the hunt for hedgehogs more difficult, [Roma and Sinti] were forbidden to own dogs. This regulation, which had precedents before [1933] (Wippermann, pp. 195–96), was among the earliest that restricted the contact of despised groups of people with animals. > >Laws were designed, whether consciously or not, to confirm the identification of Jews with the decadence of urban civilization. A decree of February 15, 1942, prohibited Jews, whom the [Axis] considered naturally cruel to animals, from having pets (Wippermann, p. 196). The decree was a preliminary step toward deportation of the Jews to concentration camps, where conditions would not be compatible with the animal protection laws. > >Since there was a lack of shelters, the pets confiscated from Jews were almost always euthanized. Jews were also forbidden to hunt, a favorite activity of rural people. The literature of the period, especially that of victims, documents how precious contact with animals often became for those living under [Axis] domination. > >The Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, forced to work under severe conditions as a French prisoner of war, reports that friendship with a stray dog reaffirmed the humanity of the prisoners. The prisoners named the dog “Bobby.” “He would appear at morning assembly,” Levinas writes, “and was waiting: for us as we returned, jumping up and down and barking with delight. For him, there was no doubt we were men” (p. 153). As with [humour](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4154684), canines could be instruments of healing as well as oppression. For example, Sharon Peters wrote a book titled *Trusting Calvin: How a Dog Helped Heal a Holocaust Survivor's Heart*, and Isaiah Spiegel’s [*A Ghetto Dog*](https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=95qVeG0EupQ) indicates that these quadrupeds could be of some consolation to the people trapped in ghetti. Further reading: [*Breeding Racism: The Imperial Battlefields of the “German” Shepherd Dog*](https://www.animalsandsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/skabelund.pdf) --- :::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (October 4). [**1881**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1881): Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch, Axis field marshal and the Wehrmacht’s Commander‐in‐Chief, decided that life wasn’t miserable enough for us, so he had to come along. **1892**: Engelbert Dollfuß, Austrofascist Federal Chancellor, plagued the earth. [**1903**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1903): Ernst Kaltenbrunner, lawyer, general, and the Reich Security Main Office’s director, arrived so that he could embarrass the human race. [**1936**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1936): [The fascists failed to overtake Cable Street.](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2199972) [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1940): Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber met Benito Mussolini in the Brenner Pass on the Italian–Austrian border. Benito Mussolini was happy to notice that the Chancellor seemed to have given up on any talks of invading Britain. Coincidentally, Axis bombers attacked Kent in southern England and the area near London, damaging homes, farms, and factories. The Axis lost two Ju 88 bombers (and the Allies lost three fighters along with one pilot). Aside form that, the Secours National, being planned for revival in preparation of the first winter under Axis occupation, came under Philippe Pétain’s authority. That same day, Pétain wrote to Henry Dhavernas, founder of the youth group Compagnons, in support of his efforts. Afterwards, the Axis bombed London again between 1900 and 2100 hours. [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1941): The Axis exterminated 432 Jewish men, 1,115 Jewish women, and 436 Jewish children in Vilnius, Lithuania (for a total of 1,983 humans). Panzergruppe 3 and Panzergruppe 4 also began to surround rear elements of the Soviet Western Front in Russia, capturing Kirov and Spa‐Demensk in the process. The Axis continued to advance toward Vyasma to complete the envelopment. Elsewhere, Axis submarine *U‐129* picked up 119 survivors of Axis supply ship *Klara* (sunken by Allied cruiser HMS *Kenya* on the previous day) three hundred miles northeast of the Azores islands. [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1942): The XIV Panzer Korps attacked the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, and Type IXC U‐Boat *U‐505* departed at Lorient, France on her fourth patrol to the northern coast of South America. [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1943): Heinrich Himmler talked openly about the Final Solution at a meeting in Posen, Reichsgau Wartheland, noting that he cared little about the livelihood of Slavs and other peoples in occupied Eastern Europe since the conquered people were mere slaves to the Third Reich. He warned his lieutenant, however, that this task would be unwritten in history despite its importance in German history. As that was going on, the 16th Panzer Division attacked the newly gained bridgehead on the Biferno River near Termoli, Italy on the eastern end of the Volturno Line, and the Axis captured Kos in the Dodecanese Islands. [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/4/1944): An Axis V‐2 rocket hit Rockland St Mary six miles southeast of Norwich, England. It hit the village school directly, injuring two grown‐ups along with thirty‐four children, and the blast damaged twenty‐three houses nearby. It was the worst assault on the Norwich region during the war. **1976**: Francis Joseph Collin sent out letters to the park districts of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, requesting permits for the NSPA to hold a white power demonstration. **1997**: Otto Ernst Remer, a Wehrmacht officer who was partially responsible for German neofascism, dropped dead. **2009**: Günther Rall, Wehrmacht major and Luftwaffe aviator, expired. :::

Capitalism in Decay AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

The 2024 elections and the danger of neofascism: The working class must no longer remain at its foes’ mercy

www.workers.org

>The elections will come and go, but no matter who wins, the danger of [neo]fascism and [neo]fascist activity remains, because its potential is tied to the crisis of the capitalist system. Whatever happens in November, the need to address what is necessary for the development of a new working-class movement will remain. > >If Trump loses the election, it is likely that he will refuse to concede, claim that the election was stolen and call on his supporters to rise up. We can only speculate on what that might mean. What we do know is that within the MAGA movement there are forces prepared to mobilize, to use violence and to target the most oppressed sections of the working class. It may even target political opponents. > >There exists in the United States an armed neofascist infrastructure with the covert and overt involvement of considerable segments of the police. While this is not on the level of the KKK in its heyday or the brownshirts (storm troopers) in Germany in the 1930s or the blackshirts in Italy in the 1920s, it should not be dismissed. > >If a struggle breaks out after the elections that threatens the workers and oppressed, the working-class movement must be prepared to respond. This would have to include the readiness to organize workers’ anti-fascist defense committees. There are already calls for a united front against fascism. Depending on events, it’s possible that such a united front could be a stepping stone towards a mass workers’ formation. > >All who are serious about breaking the political dictatorship of the capitalists must revisit and seriously reassess the relevance of the class question to the situation we face today. There is no way of getting around this. Moreover, this reassessment for those who are ready must be theoretical. > >The Marxist thesis on the centrality of the class struggle and the role of the working class in the revolutionary process has been under attack since the publication of the Communist Manifesto. In the wake of setbacks to the working- class movement, especially in the epoch of neoliberalism, more than a few have abandoned Marxism or dulled its sharpness and abandoned its revolutionary objectives in order to make it more compatible with the view that capitalism is going to last for a long time, maybe even forever. > >This belief has only served to suppress the centrality of the class struggle and the development of the working-class movement. It has created the false, paralyzing and prevailing conclusion that organizing the working class is the exclusive domain of the traditional union movement, with all of its limitations. > >The union movement and its current leaders have tied themselves to the Democratic Party and the policy of business unionism over mass organization and militancy. They have, by and large, succumbed to the fragmentation of the working class and the backwardness of some sections of the working class. This leadership has embraced the orders given to it by bosses that their unions are supposed to be fighting, orders that they must support U.S. imperialism and keep radical and revolutionary politics out of the labor movement. > >Particularly since the 1980s, they have resigned themselves to representing a shrinking base of unionized workers instead of organizing and militantly fighting for the entire multinational working class. > >Radicals and militants were purged en masse from the labor movement during the height of the anti-communist witch hunt in the 1950s and in many ways the once decisive influence of radicals during the historic working-class struggles of the 1930s has never recovered. But nothing in existence remains constant, and the labor movement is changing from the bottom up.

Capitalism in Decay AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Liberals’ embarrassing attempts to explain why they could not prosecute Fascists for war crimes in Ethiopia

[The liberal bourgeoisie’s refusal to prosecute Fascists for their atrocities against Ethiopians](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2141002) was more cringeworthy than you think. >Labour MP, Ben Riley, […] who had seen such Parliamentary evasion practiced previously, was not silenced. Reverting to the main issue, Ethiopia’s exclusion, he declared: “I have not seen the reply, but **may I ask whether it is not a fact that all the Allied nations are entitled to be represented on that Commission except Ethiopia, and why is Ethiopia excluded?**” > >[Speaker for Foreign Affairs, Richard] Law was obliged to say something. Acting on the earlier Foreign Office brief, he lamely began by following the line pursued by Eden and Hall, and declared: “Generally speaking, the policy of the United Nations in this matter is only that those nations which were associated with this matter at the beginning should be members of the Commission.” > >Then, doubtless realizing the inadequacy of this answer, he improvised. Seeking, like Hall, to make it appear that the British Government had no wish to exclude Ethiopia, he added, disarmingly, “I can assure the hon. Member […] that the Ethiopian Government were informed at the time these negotiations began and that they offered no comment on them.” **Both observations were untrue, but since no one in the House knew this, Law’s “inexactitudes” passed uncorrected.** > >Law’s reply nevertheless created disquiet on the Opposition benches. Emanuel Shinwell, a prominent Labour member, and committed anti‐fascist, had not forgotten [the use of poison‐gas in Ethiopia.](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3815069) He jumped up to ask the Supplementary question: >>In view of the use of poison‐gas by the Italians against the Abyssinians, would it not be an act of justice to hand over Italian war criminals to the Ethiopians? > >**Law tried to stifle this question with four brief words: “That was another war.”** > >This attempt to discourage discussion provoked a Conservative MP, Kenneth Pickthorn, to ask, reflectively, “Is it part of the war for democracy that the elaboration of this new technique about trying war criminals should be completely accepted without discussion in this House or any effective discussion in this country?” > >Law turned this question to his advantage, declaring with exaggeration: “There has been a good deal of discussion at Question time at any rate.” > >That was not, however, the end of the story. Two further MPs intervened. The first, Sir Herbert Williams, a Conservative, defended the Government’s position, by questioning the right of Ethiopia to commission membership. He asked, sarcastically, “Can the right hon. Gentleman say on what fronts Ethiopian troops are now engaged in capturing any of these prisoners?” > >Reginald Sorensen, a pacifist Labour member, then spoke more philosophically. “In view of the obvious difficulties and embarrassments which this and similar questions are causing,” he demanded, “could we not have some clearer definition as to what exactly a war criminal is and to what extent that should cover not only this campaign but others?” > >**To these interventions, the Government spokesman vouchsafed no reply.²⁸** :::spoiler (Emphasis added. Click here for trivia.) >President Franklin Roosevelt declared on 21 August that those “committing barbaric crimes” should, at the end of the war, be “subjected to due process of law.”⁵ **On 7 October**, he announced that the United States would “co‐operate […] in establishing a United Nations Commission for the investigation of war crimes,” and promised that “just and sure punishment” would be meted out to those “responsible for the organized murder of thousands of innocent persons” and “the commission of atrocities violating every tenet of Christian faith.”⁶ No comment. ::: --- :::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (October 3). [**1892**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1892): Sentaro Omori, Axis vice admiral, existed. **1894**: Walter Warlimont, Deputy Chief of the Operations Staff of the Third Reich’s Armed Forces High Command, blighted the earth. **1904**: Ernst‐Günther Schenck, SS doctor, joined him. [**1932**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1932): Imperial luxury ocean liner *Hikawa Maru* departed Kobe for Seattle, her 13th round trip across the Pacific. [**1934**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1934): The Fascists of Gil Robles entered the Spanish government, sparking four days of violence by the workers in Barcelona and Asturias. [**1935**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1935): [One hundred thousand Fascist troops & Askari mercenaries, headed by Emilio De Bono, invaded Ethiopia from Eritrea](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2183070) (without a formal declaration of war). Coincidentally, Brixia Model 35 light infantry mortars entered service with the *Regio Esercito*. [**1937**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1937): Imperial flightcraft sank Chinese torpedo boat *Hupeng* at Jiangyin. [**1939**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1939): Hans Frank ordered a ‘ruthless exploitation’ of occupied Poland. [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1940): Vichy passed antisemitic laws that excluded Jews from positions in the army, government, commerce, industries, and the press (in other words, Vichy reduced France’s Jews to second‐class citizens). Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, Raphaël Alibert, Marcel Peyrouton, Paul Baudouin, Yves Bouthillier, Charles Huntzinger and François Darlan all signed this law. Meanwhile, the Axis assaulted London, Worcester, Birmingham, and Wellingborough through single‐bomber raids. The Allies suffered damage at the De Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield, while the Axis lost one Ju 88 bomber to ground‐based antiaircraft fire. Overnight, several small Axis raids targeted London again. Lastly, Prince Kotohito stepped down as the Chief of the IJA’s General Staff. [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1941): At about 0001 hours, Axis submarine *U‐431* sank Allied ship *Hatasu* east of Newfoundland, massacring forty humans, and only seven survived. Afterwards at the Berliner Sportpalast in Berlin, the Chancellery announced during a rally that the Third Reich had captured 2,500,000 Soviet prisoners of war, destroyed or captured 22,000 guns, destroyed or captured 18,000 tanks, destroyed 14,500 aircraft, and since 1939 had expanded by an area four times as large as Britain. The Chancellery stressed that the Soviet Union had been broken and would never rise again. Coincidentally in Russia, Panzergruppe 2 of the Armeeguppe Mitte captured Orel 220 miles south‐southwest of Moscow. Elsewhere, the Axis attempted to encircle the Soviet Bryansk Front. [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1942): The Axis and the Eastern Allies both incurred heavy losses as the 6.Armee pushed the Soviet 62nd Army back to the Volga River at Stalingrad. Additionally, the first successful A4 test flight reached the altitude of 84.5 kilometers (52.5 miles) at Peenemünde. [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1943): The Wehrmacht invaded Kos Island under a heavy air umbrella, and the Axis massacred ninety‐two civilians in Lingiades, Greece. [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1944): The Third Reich’s Air Force III/KG 66 at Burg, near Magdeburg reported an inventory of thirteen Mistel unmanned glide bombs, of which tenwere serviceable. Five of the flightcraft took off on this night to attack the bridges at Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The weather conditions were poor and three of the vehicles crashed into the Teutoburger Wald; Oberst Horst Polster, the Staffelkapitän, died as did Unteroffizier Fritz Scheffler and Unteroffizier Paul Barinski. The other pilots could not find the target in the fog and yet another was brought down. Additionally, the Axis established the first Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter unit at Achmer and Hesepe near Osnabrück under the command of Austrian‐born ace Major Walter Nowotny. The unit had thirty flightcraft distributed among two squadrons and took the task of intercepting USAAF day bomber raids on the heart of the Greater German Reich. As well, an Axis V‐2 rocket hit the Hellesdon Golf Course near Norwich, England at 1950 hours, injuring somebody and damaging a glasshouse, five farm buildings or barns, several haystacks, and one acre of sugar beet. On the other hand, Axis troops evacuated Tiddim, Burma. :::

West Asia AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Zionist régime calls on Jews to settle south Lebanon

invidious.nerdvpn.de

It seems that the age of adventurer‐conquerors is not over yet… not for the Herzlians, at least.

history AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

On this day 89 years ago, the Fascist bourgeoisie invaded Ethiopia, massacring hundreds of thousands of humans

archive.org

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2183070 > Quoting Carl T. Schmidt’s *The Corporate State in Action: Italy under Fascism*, pages [135](https://archive.org/stream/corporatestatein010773mbp/page/n150/mode/1up)–[6](https://archive.org/stream/corporatestatein010773mbp/page/n151/mode/1up): > > >Yet despite the efforts of the Fascist régime to salvage property interests and promote recovery, Italy was in an unhappy condition at the end of 1934. For, after more than ten years of power. Fascism had been unable to solve Italy’s economic difficulties. > > > >Mussolini was forced to admit: ‘We touched bottom some time ago. We shall go no farther down. Perhaps it would be hard to sink any lower. […] We are probably moving towards a period of humanity resting on a lower standard of living. We must not be alarmed at the prospect. Humanity is capable of asceticism such as we perhaps cannot conceive.’²³ > > > >Not long after, in inaugurating the Corporations, he announced: ‘One must not expect miracles.’²⁴ Industrial production remained at low ebb, foreign trade still fell off, unemployment was at a distressingly high level and efforts to combat it had had little substantial effect. All this was very harmful to Fascist prestige. > > > >**Continued economic troubles and the inner pressures of Fascism impelled the Dictatorship to seek escape in foreign fields. War might be a kind of public works vastly more effective in reviving industry than anything tried before. With their attention focused on the glories of the battlefield, the people might be diverted from an uncomfortable concern over their domestic misfortunes. And certainly a military victory would solidify the Fascist movement and restore its fading glamour.** > > > >In this crisis, the rulers themselves would learn that the machine they had built under whose dominion men must live in constant spiritual tension, in fear and uncertainty is above all an engine of warlike enterprise. > > (Emphasis added.) > > For many Africans, this was the real start of World War II, and [Fascism’s reputation in the liberal régimes would never be the same.](https://books.google.com/books?id=sWB9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA287) Ethiopia was the only nation‐state in Africa to have successfully resisted European imperialism up until this point, and the invasion was so shocking to the world that [even many otherwise profascist Japanese were appalled (for a while).](https://books.google.com/books?id=QJYkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92) > > It [cost the lives of at least **350,000** Ethiopians, involved numerous unpunished war crimes](https://hexbear.net/post/406071), and [brought Europe’s two Fascist empires closer together, serving as an important inspiration to the Third Reich.](https://hexbear.net/post/2537105) Its importance can hardly be overstated, but I suspect that many of us know little to nothing about his tragedy thanks to Eurocentrist education. > > Now, concerning the documentary: it is a bit crude and archaic at times, and being made for television it inevitably suffers from time constraints, but it is still quite good for beginners and anybody who is more orientated towards [visual learning](https://wp.me/p1OD48-3w). It also provides examples of U.S. attitudes towards Mussolini pre‐1935, something that antisocialists rarely discuss. > > Alternatively, [*Lion of Judah*](https://archive.org/details/SecondItaloEthiopianWarDocumentaryFull) is an hour longer and is lush with precious archived footage, but it almost feels like a stereotypical nature documentary with its painfully long pauses between narrations, its lengthy shots of almost everything that the Italians and Ethiopians were doing (from dancing to pedestrianism), and the subtitles are difficult to read, but beggars can’t be choosers. (There are a few modern, [amateur](https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=OlPCZ_9T490) [documentaries](https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=FI_slfHDAzg) available, but I am reluctant to recommend them given that the authors are centrist chumps.) > > Further reading: > > [*The Invasion of Ethiopia — Mussolini’s […] Plan For Restoration of the Roman Empire*](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/?p=356035) > > [*Prelude to World War II*](https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=FE26410B889AF50341ADB0C71D131E0D) > > [Click here for more.](https://hexbear.net/search?q=Ethiop&communityId=142) > > My humblest request is that we not let the memory of this tragedy fade away. Where other educators have failed in their duty, we must not fail in ours. > > --- > :::spoiler Click here for other events that happened today (October 3). > [**1892**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1892): Sentaro Omori, Axis vice admiral, existed. > **1894**: Walter Warlimont, Deputy Chief of the Operations Staff of the Third Reich’s Armed Forces High Command, blighted the earth. > **1904**: Ernst‐Günther Schenck, SS doctor, joined him. > [**1932**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1932): Imperial luxury ocean liner *Hikawa Maru* departed Kobe for Seattle, her 13th round trip across the Pacific. > [**1934**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1934): The Fascists of Gil Robles entered the Spanish government, sparking four days of violence by the workers in Barcelona and Asturias. > [**1935**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1935): Brixia Model 35 light infantry mortars entered service with the *Regio Esercito*. > [**1937**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1937): Imperial flightcraft sank Chinese torpedo boat *Hupeng* at Jiangyin. > [**1939**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1939): Hans Frank ordered a ‘ruthless exploitation’ of occupied Poland. > [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1940): Vichy passed antisemitic laws that excluded Jews from positions in the army, government, commerce, industries, and the press (in other words, Vichy reduced France’s Jews to second‐class citizens). Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, Raphaël Alibert, Marcel Peyrouton, Paul Baudouin, Yves Bouthillier, Charles Huntzinger and François Darlan all signed this law. > > Meanwhile, the Axis assaulted London, Worcester, Birmingham, and Wellingborough through single‐bomber raids. The Allies suffered damage at the De Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield, while the Axis lost one Ju 88 bomber to ground‐based antiaircraft fire. Overnight, several small Axis raids targeted London again. Lastly, Prince Kotohito stepped down as the Chief of the IJA’s General Staff. > [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1941): At about 0001 hours, Axis submarine *U‐431* sank Allied ship *Hatasu* east of Newfoundland, massacring forty humans, and only seven survived. Afterwards at the Berliner Sportpalast in Berlin, the Chancellery announced during a rally that the Third Reich had captured 2,500,000 Soviet prisoners of war, destroyed or captured 22,000 guns, destroyed or captured 18,000 tanks, destroyed 14,500 aircraft, and since 1939 had expanded by an area four times as large as Britain. The Chancellery stressed that the Soviet Union had been broken and would never rise again. Coincidentally in Russia, Panzergruppe 2 of the Armeeguppe Mitte captured Orel 220 miles south‐southwest of Moscow. Elsewhere, the Axis attempted to encircle the Soviet Bryansk Front. > [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1942): The Axis and the Eastern Allies both incurred heavy losses as the 6.Armee pushed the Soviet 62nd Army back to the Volga River at Stalingrad. Additionally, the first successful A4 test flight reached the altitude of 84.5 kilometers (52.5 miles) at Peenemünde. > [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1943): The Wehrmacht invaded Kos Island under a heavy air umbrella, and the Axis massacred ninety‐two civilians in Lingiades, Greece. > [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/3/1944): The Third Reich’s Air Force III/KG 66 at Burg, near Magdeburg reported an inventory of thirteen Mistel unmanned glide bombs, of which tenwere serviceable. Five of the flightcraft took off on this night to attack the bridges at Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The weather conditions were poor and three of the vehicles crashed into the Teutoburger Wald; Oberst Horst Polster, the Staffelkapitän, died as did Unteroffizier Fritz Scheffler and Unteroffizier Paul Barinski. The other pilots could not find the target in the fog and yet another was brought down. > > Additionally, the Axis established the first Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter unit at Achmer and Hesepe near Osnabrück under the command of Austrian‐born ace Major Walter Nowotny. The unit had thirty flightcraft distributed among two squadrons and took the task of intercepting USAAF day bomber raids on the heart of the Greater German Reich. As well, an Axis V‐2 rocket hit the Hellesdon Golf Course near Norwich, England at 1950 hours, injuring somebody and damaging a glasshouse, five farm buildings or barns, several haystacks, and one acre of sugar beet. On the other hand, Axis troops evacuated Tiddim, Burma. > :::

Jewish Community of Lemmygrad AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Happy New Year!

I’m kind of embarrassed that we’re going to end up celebrating the New Year **thirteen weeks late** again! Oh well. We’ll beat you to the punch one of these days, as soon as we catch you off guard! Anyway, here is some history that someone may find interesting: [*Rosh Hashanah with the Early Israelites*](https://www.thetorah.com/article/rosh-hashanah-with-the-early-israelites). Quote: >Part of the new year celebration ritual in ancient Near Eastern cultures was the solemn procession of the god, whose image would be removed from the temple precinct, paraded, and then returned to it. This ritual served a practical function, since the god’s quarters needed to be purified—a practice referred to in the Bible with the verbs *kappēr* and *ṭahēr*, and associated with Yom Kippur, also part of the New Year season.[28] > >In addition, it gave the god’s many non-priestly and non-royal worshipers direct access to the deity, unavailable to them during the year. In the Babylonian New Year festival, the king is reported to have taken the god Marduk “by the hand,” leading the image back into the temple. > >In Israel and Judah, a similar ritual appears to have taken place with the portable shrine in which YHWH was mysteriously present.[29] The Ark proceeded amid acclamation (*tĕrûᴄâ*) and blasts of the horn (*qôl šōpār*, 2 Samuel 6:15). In the premonarchic period, this would have been led by the priests, while in the monarchic period, the king would have taken a leading rôle in these proceedings. > >A fine illustration of the king’s rôle is preserved in the narrative about David’s transfer of the Ark to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). Donned like a priest in a linen ephod, David led the Ark to its resting-place. Although the story narrates a one-time event, it is modeled after the annual procession of the Ark.[30] In a similar manner, the Judean kings would have taken the lead in the procession of the Ark. > >The participation of the king was a powerful means to consolidate the position of the human king, with rather obvious political implications: G‐d was king on high, and the monarch was his deputy on earth. The few psalms that celebrate the human ruler as G‐d’s son on earth (such as Psalms 2 and 110) likely originated in the context of the New Year celebration. Certainly, the presentation of the king as a priestly figure (Psalm 110:4) is entirely in keeping with his rôle in the procession.

judaism AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Happy New Year!

I’m kind of embarrassed that we’re going to end up celebrating the New Year **thirteen weeks late** again! Oh well. We’ll beat you to the punch one of these days, as soon as we catch you off guard! Anyway, here is some history that someone may find interesting: [*Rosh Hashanah with the Early Israelites*](https://www.thetorah.com/article/rosh-hashanah-with-the-early-israelites). Quote: >Part of the new year celebration ritual in ancient Near Eastern cultures was the solemn procession of the god, whose image would be removed from the temple precinct, paraded, and then returned to it. This ritual served a practical function, since the god’s quarters needed to be purified—a practice referred to in the Bible with the verbs *kappēr* and *ṭahēr*, and associated with Yom Kippur, also part of the New Year season.[28] > >In addition, it gave the god’s many non-priestly and non-royal worshipers direct access to the deity, unavailable to them during the year. In the Babylonian New Year festival, the king is reported to have taken the god Marduk “by the hand,” leading the image back into the temple. > >In Israel and Judah, a similar ritual appears to have taken place with the portable shrine in which YHWH was mysteriously present.[29] The Ark proceeded amid acclamation (*tĕrûᴄâ*) and blasts of the horn (*qôl šōpār*, 2 Samuel 6:15). In the premonarchic period, this would have been led by the priests, while in the monarchic period, the king would have taken a leading rôle in these proceedings. > >A fine illustration of the king’s rôle is preserved in the narrative about David’s transfer of the Ark to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). Donned like a priest in a linen ephod, David led the Ark to its resting-place. Although the story narrates a one-time event, it is modeled after the annual procession of the Ark.[30] In a similar manner, the Judean kings would have taken the lead in the procession of the Ark. > >The participation of the king was a powerful means to consolidate the position of the human king, with rather obvious political implications: G‐d was king on high, and the monarch was his deputy on earth. The few psalms that celebrate the human ruler as G‐d’s son on earth (such as Psalms 2 and 110) likely originated in the context of the New Year celebration. Certainly, the presentation of the king as a priestly figure (Psalm 110:4) is entirely in keeping with his rôle in the procession.

history AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

The Lebanese opposition to Fascism

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5823211 > >On 9 April 1933, **a few weeks after Adolf Hitler’s nomination as Reich Chancellor, a group of communist activists tore down the German flag of the German general consulate in Beirut and wrote explicit slogans on its walls: “Down with Hitler, the tyrant, the executer of the German workers! The German workers and their heroic Communist Party shall live!”⁸** > > > >For a broader, left‐leaning spectrum, including not only the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party but other non‐party‐affiliated workers, students, and intellectuals as well, opposition against fascism gradually shifted to the center of ideological and strategic debates.⁹ > > > >[…] > > > >The threat of fascist coups in Europe, the formation of Popular Fronts in France and Spain, and [Fascist] preparations for an attack against Abyssinia in 1935 ever more highlighted the need to revise the [Communist] party’s isolationist strategy. In close contact with the Comintern and the French [Communist Party], **the communist movement in Lebanon and Syria set up a Committee for the Popular Struggle in Defense of Ethiopia explicitly meant to raise public awareness and to create broader alliances against fascism in the Arab world itself.¹⁴** > > > >In addition to the publication of the clandestine newspaper *Nidal al‐Shaʻb* (*People’s Struggle*) and the takeover of the renowned monthly cultural magazine *Al‐Duhur* (*Ages*), the organization of strikes and manifestations extended the popular basis of its activities—and further shifted its political priorities to questions of Arab independence, national unity, and the struggle for Palestine.¹⁵ > > > >Internationally, the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, held in July–August 1935 in Moscow, marked a turning point for Communist strategies vis‐à‐vis Italian Fascism and German [Fascism], confirming the gradual revision of past tactics whose devastating consequences had become all too visible in the ultimate defeat of political opposition in [the Third Reich]. > > > >**The proceedings of the conference and the speeches by representatives of the national communist parties highlighted these changes, drawing particular attention to the need to unite mainstream nationalist forces in an attempt to thwart further fascist successes.** Summarizing recent developments in Syria and Lebanon, Yusuf Khattar al‐Hilu, the delegate of the Syrian Communist Party, outlined the menaces posed by several imperialist powers striving to extend their influence into the Arab world: > >>Italian Fascist propaganda has greatly increased in recent times. Each year Mussolini’s agents organize free trips to Italy for young Arabs. The station Radio Bari broadcasts Arabic‐language programs three times a week about “Italian–Arab friendship” and “fascist well‐being” in Italy. It is the same with German fascism. **Hitler has purchased the largest bourgeois newspapers in Syria which every day are full of photographs and articles about Hitlerism, which they represent as the “saviour of the German people.” Nazi agents try to use the national hatred the Arab people have for French imperialism to obtain their fascist goals.¹⁶** > > > >The resulting strategy to confront [Fascism] echoed the dilemma of the communist movement under French mandate rule. The congress’s decision to form broad popular fronts in Europe and national fronts in the colonies further emphasized the national struggle of the colonized populations, shifting attention from local “reactionary” powers and social and political rights to imperialism and European fascist régimes. The [Fascist] invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935 gave credibility to these needs. > > > >As in the case of Libya, Italy’s latest aggression illustrated the immediate dangers posed by European fascism. The struggle against fascism as a threat to independence increasingly served to mobilize popular support and helped link the [Communist Party] to mainstream nationalist currents. While larger sectors of the local population continued to voice fascination for the [German Reich], **Italy’s brutal policies in Libya and its attack against Abyssinia had fostered the image of fascism as an imperialist power.** > > > >Notwithstanding significant efforts to ameliorate its standing in the Middle East, **suspicion of [Fascist] ambitions was shared—as in Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq—by many in Lebanon and Syria.¹⁷** > > > >[…] > > > >The [Fascist] advance against France in summer 1940 left the Levantine public in a state of shock. On 22 June 1940 the German–French armistice agreement was signed. Three days later, on 25 June, a similar agreement was concluded in Rome between Italy and France. > > > >The agreed‐on conventions were intended to regulate France’s relations to the Axis and to set preliminary rules for cooperation and the administration of territories affected by the French defeat. Both armistice conventions called for the demobilization and disarmament of French forces not required for an immediate preservation of public order and territorial defence.²⁹ > > > >Despite the immediate influence of the Axis and the rule of Vichy forces in the mandates, **opposition to rapprochements to the Axis and its agents had not completely ceased. Local communist circles were among the most outspoken objectors of the Axis’s growing influence.** The publication of the clandestine newspaper *Nidal al‐Shaʻb* in the name of the party was part of their activities.³⁰ > > > >As a handwritten pamphlet consisting of a few pages, **the paper provided one of the rare opportunities to voice uncensored criticism of the local government and its Axis partners.** Demands for an amelioration of the economic and social conditions were linked to calls for neutrality of the mandates in the international conflict. Despite its explicit criticism of the Axis as an immediate threat and the most aggressive expression of imperialist rule, such a position did not imply concession to the Allied powers. > > > >On the eve of the Iraqi–British conflict, in March 1941, the paper strongly criticized not only Axis ambitions in Africa and the Arab Middle East but British intentions as well, with its slogan “No British, no Germans, no Italians, but bread, freedom and independence!”³¹ Under current conditions, neither European power could count on sympathies among the local population. As imperialist states driven by shared interests in the region, they were no allies in the struggle for independence, political rights, and economic prosperity. > > > >[…] > > > >**News of the Soviet army’s encirclement of Berlin had reached the Levantine public in the early evening of 24 April 1945. Soon after, large crowds took to the streets. People gathered spontaneously in Beirut and other Lebanese and Syrian cities.** From a local perspective, the war against [the Western Axis] had effectively come to an end. > > (Emphasis added.) > > Quoting Harvey Henry Smith’s *Area Handbook for Lebanon*, [page 299](https://books.google.com/books?id=JvWPPs7dADQC&pg=PA299): > > >Upon the surrender of the Vichy […] troops in [West Asia] in July 1941, volunteers from the Troupes Spéciales du Levant were enlisted in the [Allies] and saw action in north Africa, Italy, and Southern France. > > > >In June 1943 the [Allies] reconstituted units of the Troupes Spéciales du Levant, which then operated as part of the British forces in the Middle East. In 1945, as a result of continuing pressure by Lebanese leaders for control of their own forces, [Paris] turned over to them the Lebanese units of the Troupes Spéciales du Levant. These units totaled about 3,000 men and became the nucleus of the present Lebanese Army. > > [In 1942, these troops participated in the Battle of Bir Hakeim against the Wehrmacht.](https://books.google.com/books?id=JM1xpHXZumAC&pg=PA41)

Capitalism in Decay AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

The Fascists expected their invasion of Ethiopia to be quick & easy; they were wrong, & it cost them heavily

www.cambridge.org

([Mirror.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382895042)) >To salvage the bond market and raise revenue, in 1936 the régime offered to convert the Redeemable Bond—purchased at L. 80 with a nominal value of L. 100 but now valued at only L. 68 on the market—into a new bond of L. 100 nominal value, if the bondholder paid L. 15 in cash. With little alternative, most bondholders accepted the conversion, generating six billion lire net.⁷⁶ While these bonds generated some revenue, they mostly allowed the state to monopolize savings capital and control inflation.⁷⁷ > >**Raising capital by restricting liquidity and suppressing consumption also led to wage compression among workers, as economic historians Vera Zamagni, Maria Gómez‐León, and Giacomo Gabbuti demonstrated; the wages of industrial workers, in particular, declined or stagnated, even as industry flourished.⁷⁸ Workers’ well‐being, measured by any metric, fell substantially throughout the 1930s. For example, the number of under‐nourished Italians grew from one in five in 1922 to one in three by 1938.⁷⁹** > >**As working‐class tables grew more spartan, the property owners remained relatively unmolested.⁸⁰ After 1936, Thaon di Revel studied various tax reforms to target the wealthy, but few were successfully introduced, such as a 10% withholding tax on the coupons of all private bearing securities and other taxes to limit the distribution of dividends.** > >More serious reforms failed. Property owners decried the October 1936 special property tax as a “forced loan,” pressuring the régime to modify the measure to allow property holders to borrow the taxed amount from the bank, in effect, using the tax as cover for further money creation.⁸¹ Consequently, **the régime continued to rely primarily on indirect taxes, which disproportionately affected working‐class consumers and increased inequality.⁸²** > >**By creating money, soaking up liquidity, and suppressing consumption, the régime financed military operations and multi‐million‐lire public contracts to [Fascist] industrial firms, especially those in IRI’s portfolio, to supply and support the invading armies.** > >The largest civil expense was road construction, which represented some 81% of public expenditure on civil projects (ca. 8,075 million lire).⁸³ Most of the work was done by Italy’s premier road construction company, Puricelli. By 1936, the firm had been taken over by IRI and its leader, Piero Puricelli, was replaced with a man of IRI’s choice, suggesting it was more closely controlled than other firms in IRI’s portfolio.⁸⁴ > >According to economic historian Gian Luca Podestà, Puricelli obtained 1.3 billion lire in public contracts to build roads in AOI between 1936 and 1940, putting the company in the black by 1939.⁸⁵ By February 1939, the Italians had built or reinforced an estimated 3,352 km of road in AOI.⁸⁶ > >**All sorts of enterprises popped up to supply and service the advancing [Fascist] military apparatus and the construction sites across the Horn.** One of the largest was trucking, as everyone and everything had to be trucked from the low‐lying Italian Red Sea ports to the Ethiopian high plains. > >**Mid‐sized trucking companies, like Gondrand Transports, saw the imperial project as a chance to make themselves a globally significant firm. Even very small companies like Gotti S.p.A. of Massa Lombardo, a company with only eight trucks, jumped at the opportunities offered by the imperial market flush with public money.⁸⁷** > >The booming battlefront economy pulled Italy’s under‐ and unemployed workers to AOI. An estimated 330,000 Italian soldiers and militiamen, together with 100,000 militarized Italian workers, were in East Africa by late‐Spring 1936.⁸⁸ Many furloughed soldiers stayed. An estimated 102,548 Italians migrated to AOI in 1936 alone.⁸⁹ > >By June 1937, an estimated 63,530 Italians were employed as roadworkers, alongside 43,720 “native” workers, and 10,680 Yemeni and Sudanese workers.⁹⁰ **Unskilled Italian workers could expect to make about ten times the daily wage of an equivalent African worker (ca. 1934–1936) and about twice what they earned in Italy. The differences were even greater for Italian skilled workers and professionals, who had ample opportunities as African workers were summarily removed from skilled positions and excluded from most forms of skilled work.⁹¹** This seems like a good spot to stop the excerpt, but there are a few more paragraphs that I wish to quote as they feel particularly relevant given recent events. >**[A]s the war dragged on, Guarneri and Thaon di Revel grew increasingly concerned about Italy’s reserves and Italy’s difficulty accessing foreign markets.¹⁰⁰** In October 1936, Guarneri and Thaon di Revel convinced Mussolini to devalue the lira under the guise of pegging it to the floating dollar. This devaluation of more than 40% would enable Italy to continue buying and selling on foreign markets.¹⁰¹ > >Guarneri privately urged Mussolini to be cautious with the treasury reserves—as the liberal government had been—because Italy would need them to rejoin the global capitalist market.¹⁰² Extending the Italian economy so far was a colossal risk. > >And it did not pay off. > >**The war was neither lightning‐fast nor conclusive. The [Fascists] confronted a much stronger and more enduring resistance than they had anticipated. By early 1937, the [Fascists] occupied only the main cities of Ethiopia and some of the hinterlands. The countryside was a stronghold for the Ethiopian resistance, which grew only stronger in response to the régime’s brutal attacks on the civilian population. The regions around Gondar, Lake Tana, and Addis Ababa were in continuous revolt (see Fig. 2).¹⁰³** > >**Not only did the war last longer than expected, but the cost ballooned. While more research is needed to establish exact expenditures, even Podestà’s conservative estimates show the régime far exceeded the estimated 2,400 million lire per year in expenditures (Table 1).¹⁰⁴** > >Maione, in contrast, estimates [that] **the [Fascists] spent in total 57,303 million lire (1935–40).¹⁰⁵ By most estimates, the occupation and colonization of AOI amounted to about 25% of all public expenditure and between 10–12% of national income.¹⁰⁶** > >**The war was the most important factor in increasing these expenses. Roads were also costly, especially because the hastily built roads needed constant repairs.¹⁰⁷ Moreover, [the Kingdom of] Italy had to use its reserves to buy war matériel, including petroleum, and pay taxes and service fees at Djibouti in French Somaliland and the British‐controlled Suez.¹⁰⁸ And it was precisely here—the weakest point in the Italian economy—that the League of Nations’ economic sanctions hit the hardest.¹⁰⁹** > >**While sanctions eased in 1936 and European powers had largely accepted [Fascist] Italy’s claims to Ethiopia by 1937, Ethiopians continued to resist [Fascism].¹¹¹** As a result, agricultural output in the Horn of Africa diminished substantially due to the ongoing conflict, land seizures and failed agricultural experiments, and the number of Africans abandoning agriculture for wage work.¹¹² (Emphasis added in all cases.) --- :::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (October 2). **1847**: Paul von Hindenburg, conservative who helped promote the NSDAP to institutional power, was born. [**1934**](http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/LNTSer/1934/221.html): Helsinki signed the ‘Agreement concerning Payments in connection with Goods Transactions between the Two Countries’ in Berlin. **1935**: Benito Mussolini announced amid a large gathering of ministers, state secretaries and specially selected foreign dignitaries that war with Ethiopia was imminent. **1938**: Alexandru Averescu, profascist Romanian, dropped dead. [**1939**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/2/1939): Friedrich Ruge received a clasp to his Iron Cross 1st Class medal, and Luftwaffe Friegerkorps X under the command of General Hans Geissler formed at Hamburg. The Korps would specialise in anti‐shipping operations. [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/2/1940): Berlin ordered Hans Frank and other Axis officials in occupied Poland to keep the standard of living low and to deprive the Polish population of education, for the Poles were now nothing but lowly labourers for the Fascist bourgeoisie. Additionally, Berlin ordered that the Polish gentry be exterminated. Apart from that, a Ju 88 bomber became lost in the darkness during an early morning reconnaissance mission and landed at Brightlingsea, Essex, England at 0630 hours before falling into Allied captivity. During the day, the Luftwaffe launched six raids of Bf 109 and Bf 110 fighters and fighter‐bombers against London and Kent in southern England; only one of the raids contained bombers. The Axis lost five bombers and five Bf 109 aircraft. Overnight, the Axis bombed London, Manchester, and Newcastle. [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/2/1941): The remainder of Armeegruppe Mitte launched Operation Typhoon, the attack on Moscow. Meanwhile, Panzergruppe 2 under General Guderian became split into two pincers at Sevsk, Russia; the northern pincer moved toward Bryansk while the northeastern pincer moved toward Orel. After sundown, Axis bombers attacked the Tyneside and Tees‐side areas in northern England (massacring fifty humans, destroying 250 buildings, and severely damaging shipbuilding and repairing facilities at South Shields) and the Dover area in southeastern England (slaughtering ten folk). As well, Axis submarine *U‐94* chased and attacked Allied tanker *San Florentino* west of Ireland over a course of six hours, sinking her at 0552 hours; twenty‐three folk died but thirty‐five lived. Two and a half hundred miles east of Iceland at 0652 hours, Axis submarine *U‐562* sank the Allied catapult‐armed merchant ship *Empire Wave*, ending twenty‐nine lives but leaving thirty‐one alive. At 0709 hours, west of Ireland, Axis submarine *U‐575* sank the Netherlandish merchant ship *Tuva*, killing somebody (but leaving thirty‐four alive). Finally, the third Messerschmitt Me 163A rocket‐powered prototype flightcraft, piloted by Heini Dittmar, achieved an unofficial world speed record of 623.85 mph. [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/2/1942): Z35 launched at the DeSchiMAG shipyard in Bremen, and Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn‐Wittgenstein received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/2/1943): Berlin issued orders to deport Danish Jews to concentration camps. On the other hand, the Ar 234V‐2 jet bomber suffered a fire in its wing and crashed at Rheine Airfield north of Munster, killing test pilot Flugkapitän Selle. [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/2/1944): The Wehrmacht terminated the Warsaw Uprising after sixty‐three days of fighting largely due to its enemy’s want of food and ammunition. Although the Axis occupation forces suffered sixteen thousand dead, it still massacred 15,200 insurgents and 200,000 civilians, and it devastated many buildings in the fighting. Likewise, Friedrich Christiansen ordered a raid on the village of Putten, Gelderland, the Netherlands as retaliation for the murder of his subordinate Leutnant Sommers by resistance fighters. The Axis subsequently executed many civilians and deported 661 men to labor camps. In Lapland, General Lothar Rendulic ordered the Axis’s 20th Mountain Army to open hostilities against the Finnish III Army Corps. :::

fair.org

>And in some ways, what unfolded in Lebanon last week was something dystopian, but it wasn’t a movie. It affected real people’s lives. And so many in the Western media were fixating on the novelty of Israel’s attack, and sometimes celebrating it, but they neglected to acknowledge or even consider the sheer terror experienced by tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians. And this is a society that suffered through years and years of trauma, and this was the latest attack that unfolded in this incredibly pernicious way. > >A lot of the coverage also didn’t get into the question of whether this constituted a war crime. And, on the face of it, it seems to meet the definition of a war crime: Human Rights Watch, a few other rights organizations, [issued statements](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers-harmed-hezbollah-civilians) noting that international humanitarian law [forbids the use of booby traps](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule80), especially with objects that have such important use for [civilians](https://apnews.com/article/pagers-explosions-lebanon-doctors-security-israel-f35bd0f0e0a57bb5f37c139d1f32926d). I think it would fit the definition of a war crime, beyond just being an act of terrorism that’s meant to instill terror in a civilian population. > >[…] > >So this was an entirely indiscriminate attack, and it puts the Western media fascination with Israel’s technological prowess into even sharper focus. We had the Western press marveling at—I’ll just quote a few of the terms—“[Israel’s prowess](https://archive.is/FkLtc),” “[precision](https://web.archive.org/web/20240930215449/https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/lebanon-pagers-explode-hezbollah-israel-09-18-24-intl-hnk),” “[James Bond](https://archive.is/QZcRQ)”–type operation. And quite a few other terms that obscured the sheer terror of what [Zionism’s régime] had carried out over those two days in Lebanon.

Capitalism in Decay AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

Numerous capitalists who chose to collaborate with the Axis made huge profits out of munitions orders

>On 20 February, [not long after the [Axis’s new] administration was set up [in Italy]](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5707348), the newspaper reported on a meeting between the gauleiter and a workers’ delegation. Rainer had begun by making a speech of welcome in which he expounded a favourite concept of [Fascism’s] social ideology: the [supposed] elimination of all social classes and distinctions. ‘The supreme law of all true socialism’, he said, ‘should be that there is no privileged class and no one is entitled to live at other people’s expense’. > >After which, reported the *Deutsche Adria Zeitung*, he held a long conversation with the workers, ‘discussing economic and social matters and listening to their requests’,⁴¹ promising that the latter would receive the fullest consideration from the [Axis] authorities. > >**The real experience of workers in the operations zone was quite different from this rosy propaganda picture.** No doubt Rainer was sincere in his desire to review wages and salaries, and he made a demagogic promise personally to ensure the creation of a welfare system; **but the scanty measures actually taken were quite insufficient to guarantee workers, especially manual workers, a decent standard of living, and if improvements were made to working conditions in the factories, they merely papered over the cracks.** > >**Propaganda carried small conviction to people who endured daily privation and overwork; shipyard workers in particular — to whom communism had much more appeal than [Fascism] — were prominent in the Italian resistance, many of them joining the ‘Garibaldi’ brigades in the mountains of Friuli.** > >Conditions were particularly bad for those working for the Todt organisation, either on the impressive defences being constructed to guard against a potential Allied invasion of the Adriatic coast or on securing vital road and rail links, which were being continually damaged by partisan attacks.⁴² > >While the propagandists promised new clothes and shoes, abundant food and generous wages, **the Todt workers — ostensibly volunteers, but most of them under coercion — were forced to work in appalling conditions, dressed in rags, living in improvised barracks near the building sites, ill‐fed and subject to implacable [Axis] surveillance.** > >The wages, it is true, were not to be despised, being rather above the regional average. **But those who benefited most from Rainer’s labour policies were not the manual workers but the numerous entrepreneurs who chose to collaborate with the [Axis] and made huge profits out of munitions orders with the help of a thoroughly browbeaten workforce.** This is why no anticommunist’s appeals to the proletariat should be taken seriously: benefits for the lower classes invariably cut into the upper classes’ funds. One cannot serve two masters. >Besides wooing workers in the regional economy, the [Axis] propagandists had another primordial objective: to persuade as many local men as possible to go and work in [the Third Reich], either in munitions factories or for the Todt organisation. This recruitment of workers was a major preoccupation, vigorously pursued by the [Axis] occupiers all over Italy, not merely in the *Adriatisches Küstenland*: it engaged the attention of both the Reich plenipotentiary for the employment of labour, Friedrich Sauckel, and the Wehrmacht. > >**When calls for volunteers proved unprofitable, from early 1944 Sauckel’s organisation began to round up workers. But even forced recruitment did not yield the expected results: from 8 September onwards a mere 87,517 Italians went to [the Greater German Reich], whereas [Axis officials] had expected to send at least a million and a half.** > >As Klinkhammer has pointed out, this failure was partly caused by rivalry between various elements in the [Axis] occupation apparatus, and partly by curbs imposed on German rapacity by the RSI, whose representatives were quite successful in frustrating deportation plans, at least at local level.⁴³ :::spoiler (Emphasis added in all cases. Click here for more.) >To defend the region’s Italian character and preserve its traditional politico‐social orientation, Coceani and Pagnini, with the approval of the great majority of Trieste’s business community, preferred to support the [Axis], whom they saw as the only force capable of combating the Slav and communist partisans. > >But this pretence that the [collaborationist] authorities were defending national values, and their anti‐Slav pact with the [Greater German Reich], proved substantially counterproductive, giving the impression that the local Italian population was radically, indeed violently, nationalistic and negating attempts by the Italian resistance to forge a national identity based on the defence of the political liberties destroyed by the ‘border’ Fascists. > >Nationalism apart, some of Trieste’s leading businessmen and financiers chose collaboration in the hope of reaping huge short‐term profits from [Axis] orders and, in the longer term, of re‐establishing themselves at the centre of [Axis]‐dominated Europe, as [Axis] propaganda had promised they would do. > >But it was when evoking defence against the partisan threat, and the region’s commercial ambitions, that Rainer’s legitimising strategy scored its greatest successes: >>social demagogy and the will to power can be seen as the common denominators of Nazi administrators, and this would ensure the collaboration of local groups (particularly ship‐builders, insurance agents and forwarding agents) who were willing to adapt to the new conditions in the hope of securing a leading position — and their own future — in the south‐eastern corner of the greater Reich. Of course there were serious conflicts of interest and of course the German take‐over was not a painless one […] but each and every potential conflict was suppressed by the determination to avoid overt clashes and acknowledge the common interest of defence against the Slavs and Communists. It is hard to imagine a more perfect fusion between class and national interests.⁷¹ ::: \ Here we can see the Axis’s usage of both the carrot and the stick: when the Fascist bourgeoisie’s promises and (very modest) concessions failed to attract workers, it called in the muscle. --- :::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (October 1). **1878**: Othmar Spann, Austrian protofascist, stained the earth. [**1936**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1936): Francisco Franco became the head of Spain’s Nationalist government. (Coincidentally, the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia dissolved itself, handing control of Catalan defence militias over to the Generalitat.) [**1938**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1938): Pursuant to the Munich Agreement signed the day before, the Third Reich commenced the military occupation and annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. [**1939**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1939): After a month‐long siege, the Wehrmacht occupied Warsaw. [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1940): Small Axis raids of twenty to seventy flightcraft each attacked RAF airfields in England, though London was untargeted during the day. The Axis lost four fighters (and the Allies lost five fighters with four pilots). Overnight, the Axis bombed London. Additionally, Luftwaffe ace Erich Hartmann began basic training with Friegerausbildungsregiment 10 at Neukuhren, near Königsberg in Ostpreußen or East Prussia. [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1941): Operations began at the Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, and the Axis established Italian ‘M’ battalions. Apart from that, Wilhelm Keitel ordered that, in regards to the hostages the Wehrmacht had been holding and executing in retaliation of partisan attacks, choice of victims would be important, as well known victims would have greater effect in keeping the occupied peoples in line. [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1942): Egmont Prinz zur Lippe‐Weißenfeld became the commanding officer of the 1st Group of the Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 wing as Kurt Fricke received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross and Francis Tuker received the temporary rank of major general. On a side note, USS *Grouper* torpedoed *Lisbon Maru*, not knowing that the ship was carrying British prisoners of war from Hong Kong. [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1943): The Gestapo arrested two hundred twenty Danish Jews, and troops from the Wehrmacht’s 1st Mountain Division massacred eighty‐seven people in the village of Lingiades, Greece in retaliation for the murder of Oberstleutnant Josef Salminger by partisans. On the other hand, the Axis lost Naples to the partisans and then the Allies. Finally, the Axis set up a zone of operations, the Adriatisches Küstenland (Adriatic Coast), in Italy. [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1944): The Axis‐occupied island of Jersey became a Fortress, but the Axis garrison at Calais, France capitulated to the Allies. **1945**: Shizuichi Tanaka, the Axis’s Military Governor of the Philippines, took his own life. [**1946**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/10/1/1946): Nuremberg trials sentenced several leading German Fascists to death or imprisonment. **1959**: Enrico De Nicola, President of Fascist Italy’s Chamber of Deputies in the early 1920s, expired. **1994**: Paul Lorenzen, Fascist philosophist and mathematician, perished. :::

history AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

‘Neutral’ European states that assisted the Third Reich

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/76983 > **Liechtenstein** > ‘*An [official investigation](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280705174) into [Liechtenstein's World War II history](https://hexbear.net/post/649271) […] has found that forced labor from a [Axis] concentration camp worked on estates owned by the royal family in [Axis]‐occupied Austria at the time.*’ ([Source.](https://www.dw.com/a-1552304)) > > **Portugal** > By 1938, the Third Reich was the *Estado Novo* (Portugal)’s second largest trading partner. Its balance of trade went from a $90 million shortfall in 1939 to a $68 million surplus in ’42; [the Bank of Portugal’s assets](https://hexbear.net/post/3582717) more than tripled and those in the private banks nearly doubled during World War II’s first four years. The Third Reich depended on the Estado Novo’s rich wolframite and tungsten ore deposits, which were critical for producing more war munitions and particularly the armour‐piercing kind. Tungsten ore was so valuable that the Allies tried to buy as much as possible before the Reich could, and when that failed they used economic sanctions on the Estado Novo in 1944, but the Reich bypassed this by simply cloaking its mining interests there. ([Source.](https://books.google.com/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA312)) Finally, the Estado Novo was home to [dozens of Portuguese men who fought alongside their Spanish brethren in the Blue Division.](https://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/15251.pdf) > > **Spain** > This is the most obvious addition, but few of us are familiar with the details. Like the Estado Novo, the Spanish State supplied the Third Reich with wolframite, but it also channelled oil thereinto. ([Source.](https://books.google.com/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA293)) Likewise, while never officially part of the Axis, [the Spanish ruling class still sent about 47,000 other anticommunists, and medical services, to assist in the reinvasion of Soviet Eurasia.](https://hexbear.net/post/2216129) Read [*Transnational Exchange in the Nazi New Order*](https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009418786789) for the details in that regard. Finally, the Spanish ruling class sent a good deal of arms to the Third Reich; it vended [85,350](https://books.google.com/books?id=Tg0hAQAAIAAJ&q=85,390) copies of the [Astra 300](https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=RcvjTQG3jI8), for example, to the Third Reich during the 1940s. > > **Sweden** > The Swedish ruling class was [not only complicit in ‘Aryanisation’](https://hexbear.net/post/3248306) but also built some of its wealth on supplying the Third Reich’s war effort with scarce essential resources (such as iron ore) for weapons, possibly prolonging World War II by one year. ([Source.](https://books.google.com/books?id=sx3JAH0LiMEC&pg=PA167)) Despite its neutrality policy, the Swedish ruling class smuggled Fascist weaponry to Finland, used scores of thousands of railroad cars to transport over a million military personnel on leave to the Reich and another million to Norway from 1940 to ’43, and at least a hundred Swedish anticommunists directly assisted the Axis in warfare. They, [like some of the Baltic anticommunists (*Baltutlämningen*) who took refuge there](https://hexbear.net/post/3582747), never suffered either extradition or prosecution when they returned to the Kingdom of Sweden. > > **Switzerland** > Some have written [entire books](https://hexbear.net/post/1541641) on how Swiss banking benefited the Third Reich. In short, this was the most frequent client among all of the so‐called ‘neutral’ countries [due to its liberal policies](https://books.google.com/books?id=ltZ3IvwZCTwC&pg=PA151) and willingly supplied the Third Reich with loans, gold reserves, munitions, machines, [oil](https://books.google.com/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA233), [electricity, aluminium](https://books.google.com/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA450), and much more. Additionally, [the Swiss ruling class collaborated with the Fascist bourgeoisie in inhibiting the movement of Jews and legally ‘Jewish’ people.](https://hexbear.net/post/3567095) > > **Turkey** > Turkish chromite was essential for the Third Reich’s defence industries, particularly for hardening steel for armour. It was so critical, in fact, that the Reich’s war production probably would have shut down in only ten months if Turkey’s ruling class stopped giving any to the Reich. [The Turkish ruling class signed the Treaty of Friendship with the Reich’s in June 1941](https://hexbear.net/post/3582761) (it almost officially joined the Anti‐Comintern Pact) and it did not cease shipping chromite ore to the Reich until international pressure overwhelmed the Turks in April 1944. ([Source.](https://books.google.com/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA318)) Although the Turkish government did declare war in 1945, it appears that this was simply a diplomatic maneuver and it meant nothing in practice militarily.

Capitalism in Decay AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

The Lebanese opposition to Fascism

>On 9 April 1933, **a few weeks after Adolf Hitler’s nomination as Reich Chancellor, a group of communist activists tore down the German flag of the German general consulate in Beirut and wrote explicit slogans on its walls: “Down with Hitler, the tyrant, the executer of the German workers! The German workers and their heroic Communist Party shall live!”⁸** > >For a broader, left‐leaning spectrum, including not only the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party but other non‐party‐affiliated workers, students, and intellectuals as well, opposition against fascism gradually shifted to the center of ideological and strategic debates.⁹ > >[…] > >The threat of fascist coups in Europe, the formation of Popular Fronts in France and Spain, and [Fascist] preparations for an attack against Abyssinia in 1935 ever more highlighted the need to revise the [Communist] party’s isolationist strategy. In close contact with the Comintern and the French [Communist Party], **the communist movement in Lebanon and Syria set up a Committee for the Popular Struggle in Defense of Ethiopia explicitly meant to raise public awareness and to create broader alliances against fascism in the Arab world itself.¹⁴** > >In addition to the publication of the clandestine newspaper *Nidal al‐Shaʻb* (*People’s Struggle*) and the takeover of the renowned monthly cultural magazine *Al‐Duhur* (*Ages*), the organization of strikes and manifestations extended the popular basis of its activities—and further shifted its political priorities to questions of Arab independence, national unity, and the struggle for Palestine.¹⁵ > >Internationally, the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, held in July–August 1935 in Moscow, marked a turning point for Communist strategies vis‐à‐vis Italian Fascism and German [Fascism], confirming the gradual revision of past tactics whose devastating consequences had become all too visible in the ultimate defeat of political opposition in [the Third Reich]. > >**The proceedings of the conference and the speeches by representatives of the national communist parties highlighted these changes, drawing particular attention to the need to unite mainstream nationalist forces in an attempt to thwart further fascist successes.** Summarizing recent developments in Syria and Lebanon, Yusuf Khattar al‐Hilu, the delegate of the Syrian Communist Party, outlined the menaces posed by several imperialist powers striving to extend their influence into the Arab world: >>Italian Fascist propaganda has greatly increased in recent times. Each year Mussolini’s agents organize free trips to Italy for young Arabs. The station Radio Bari broadcasts Arabic‐language programs three times a week about “Italian–Arab friendship” and “fascist well‐being” in Italy. It is the same with German fascism. **Hitler has purchased the largest bourgeois newspapers in Syria which every day are full of photographs and articles about Hitlerism, which they represent as the “saviour of the German people.” Nazi agents try to use the national hatred the Arab people have for French imperialism to obtain their fascist goals.¹⁶** > >The resulting strategy to confront [Fascism] echoed the dilemma of the communist movement under French mandate rule. The congress’s decision to form broad popular fronts in Europe and national fronts in the colonies further emphasized the national struggle of the colonized populations, shifting attention from local “reactionary” powers and social and political rights to imperialism and European fascist régimes. The [Fascist] invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935 gave credibility to these needs. > >As in the case of Libya, Italy’s latest aggression illustrated the immediate dangers posed by European fascism. The struggle against fascism as a threat to independence increasingly served to mobilize popular support and helped link the [Communist Party] to mainstream nationalist currents. While larger sectors of the local population continued to voice fascination for the [German Reich], **Italy’s brutal policies in Libya and its attack against Abyssinia had fostered the image of fascism as an imperialist power.** > >Notwithstanding significant efforts to ameliorate its standing in the Middle East, **suspicion of [Fascist] ambitions was shared—as in Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq—by many in Lebanon and Syria.¹⁷** > >[…] > >The [Fascist] advance against France in summer 1940 left the Levantine public in a state of shock. On 22 June 1940 the German–French armistice agreement was signed. Three days later, on 25 June, a similar agreement was concluded in Rome between Italy and France. > >The agreed‐on conventions were intended to regulate France’s relations to the Axis and to set preliminary rules for cooperation and the administration of territories affected by the French defeat. Both armistice conventions called for the demobilization and disarmament of French forces not required for an immediate preservation of public order and territorial defence.²⁹ > >Despite the immediate influence of the Axis and the rule of Vichy forces in the mandates, **opposition to rapprochements to the Axis and its agents had not completely ceased. Local communist circles were among the most outspoken objectors of the Axis’s growing influence.** The publication of the clandestine newspaper *Nidal al‐Shaʻb* in the name of the party was part of their activities.³⁰ > >As a handwritten pamphlet consisting of a few pages, **the paper provided one of the rare opportunities to voice uncensored criticism of the local government and its Axis partners.** Demands for an amelioration of the economic and social conditions were linked to calls for neutrality of the mandates in the international conflict. Despite its explicit criticism of the Axis as an immediate threat and the most aggressive expression of imperialist rule, such a position did not imply concession to the Allied powers. > >On the eve of the Iraqi–British conflict, in March 1941, the paper strongly criticized not only Axis ambitions in Africa and the Arab Middle East but British intentions as well, with its slogan “No British, no Germans, no Italians, but bread, freedom and independence!”³¹ Under current conditions, neither European power could count on sympathies among the local population. As imperialist states driven by shared interests in the region, they were no allies in the struggle for independence, political rights, and economic prosperity. > >[…] > >**News of the Soviet army’s encirclement of Berlin had reached the Levantine public in the early evening of 24 April 1945. Soon after, large crowds took to the streets. People gathered spontaneously in Beirut and other Lebanese and Syrian cities.** From a local perspective, the war against [the Western Axis] had effectively come to an end. (Emphasis added.) Quoting Harvey Henry Smith’s *Area Handbook for Lebanon*, [page 299](https://books.google.com/books?id=JvWPPs7dADQC&pg=PA299): >Upon the surrender of the Vichy […] troops in [West Asia] in July 1941, volunteers from the Troupes Spéciales du Levant were enlisted in the [Allies] and saw action in north Africa, Italy, and Southern France. > >In June 1943 the [Allies] reconstituted units of the Troupes Spéciales du Levant, which then operated as part of the British forces in the Middle East. In 1945, as a result of continuing pressure by Lebanese leaders for control of their own forces, [Paris] turned over to them the Lebanese units of the Troupes Spéciales du Levant. These units totaled about 3,000 men and became the nucleus of the present Lebanese Army. [In 1942, these troops participated in the Battle of Bir Hakeim against the Wehrmacht.](https://books.google.com/books?id=JM1xpHXZumAC&pg=PA41) --- :::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (September 30). **1883**: Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister of Science, Education and Culture, was unkind enough to exist. [**1934**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1934): Erwin Rommel met Adolf Schicklgruber for the first time, and Reich Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht reported to his Chancellor on his progress of planning the German Reich’s economy for another war. [**1935**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1935): The Third Reich commissioned *U‐12* into service under the command of Kapitänleutnant Werner von Schmidt. [**1936**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1936): *Mutsu* completed her reconstruction at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal. [**1937**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1937): Imperial flightcraft bombarded Chinese coastal battery positions overlooking the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province. [**1938**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1938): Shortly after midnight, Adolf Schicklgruber, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini, and Édouard Daladier (in that order) signed the Munich Agreement at the Führerbau building in München, which ceded Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich (the actual document was backdated to the previous day). Upon returning to the United Kingdom, Chamberlain announced outside 10 Downing Street in London that ‘I believe it is peace for our time’! [**1939**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1939): As General Władysław Sikorski became the Polish government‐in‐exile’s prime minister, Reinhard Heydrich became the leader of new Reich Main Security Office, RSHA, and *U‐23* completed her twoth war patrol. Additionally, Walther von Brauchitsch received the Clasps to his Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class medals as well as the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1940): Four Axis raids, each consisting of sixty to two hundred bombers and escorted by large numbers of fighters, crossed into southern England at 0900, 1000, 1300, and 1600 hours; some got through to London, but some did not drop their bombs as they had little visibility due to low clouds, overshooting their targets as radar operators misread the Knickebein radio beacon signals. Meanwhile, two groups of about one hundred bombers each attacked cities on the southern coast. On that day, the Axis lost fourteen bombers, twenty‐eight Bf 109 fighters, and one Bf 110 fighter (while the Allies lost 19 fighters and 8 pilots). The daylight attacks would represent the last major raids of such type conducted by the Luftwaffe. Overnight, the Axis bombed London, Liverpool, and several others cities; the aircraft factory at Yeovil was only lightly damaged as most bombs fell on the town instead. Apart from that, Axis submarine *U‐37* sank Allied ship *Samala* west of Ireland at 1013 hours, massacring everyone aboard (65 crew, 1 gunner, and 2 passengers). At 2156 hours, in the same area, *U‐37* sank Allied ship *Heminge*, killing somebody. Axis mines laid by destroyers *Eckholdt*, *Riedel*, *Lody*, *Galster*, *Ihn*, and *Steinbrinck* two days earlier off Falmouth in southwestern England destroyed two Allied vessels, resulting in twenty‐nine and fifteen deaths, respectively. Elsewhen, Karl Dönitz inspected the Axis submarine *Alessandro Malaspina* at Bordeaux, and *Alpino Bagnolini* ended her third war patrol arriving there. [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1941): The Axis finished the Babi Yar massacre, but the Jager Report noted that the Axis exterminated 366 Jewish men, 483 Jewish women, and 597 Jewish children in Trakai, Lithuania (for a total of 1,446 people). As well, Operation Typhoon got an unofficial start when Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 attacked two days ahead of schedule, and Axis bombers attacked shipyards at Tyneside in northern England, severely damaging submarine HMS *Sunfish*. [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1942): The Third Reich’s head of state publicly repeated his forecast of the annihilation of Jewry while a transport containing 610 Jews arrived at Auschwitz from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; the Axis registered 37 men and 118 women into the camp but exterminated the remaining 454. As well, Axis bombers attacked Lancing and Colchester, England, and Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss forbade his SS guards to consume raw fruits, raw vegetables, and raw milk due to the typhus epidemic in the camp. On the bright side, Hans‐Joachim Marseille, Axis pilot, died falling to his death. [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1943): On the eve of the Jewish New Year, the Gestapo and Danish fascists began rounding up Danish Jews. A Danish businessman passed the news of the operation and passed the information to the Danish resistance, which then arranged fishing boats to ferry a large number of Danish Jews to Sweden. Meanwhile, SS‐Hauptsturmführer Eduard Weiter became the commandant of Dachau (replacing Martin Wei), and the Wehrmacht began evacuating Naples amidst continued fighting, leaving behind a burning city historic archive and many traps. A ‘wolfpack’ consisting of Axis submarines *U‐703*, *U‐601*, and *U‐960* also attacked Soviet convoy VA‐18 near the Sergey Kirov Islands in the eastern Kara Sea and sank freighter Arhangelsk. [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1944): The Third Reich commenced a counteroffensive to retake the Nijmegen salient, this having been captured by the Allies during Operation Market Garden. Likewise, a V‐1 flying bomb caused five deaths and many injuries when a row of houses was demolished at Ardleigh in Essex, England. The USAAF base at Thorpe Abbots, home of the 100th Bomb Group (‘The Bloody 100th’) reported buzz bombs flying over the airfield at one hundred fifty feet before exploding in the farm fields surrounding the base. A U.S. 8th Air Force 750‐bomber raid on Munster and Handorf in the Greater German Reich killed the Staffelkapitän and the training officer of Axis Air Force 7/KG3; records captured by the Allies showed that the Staffel had launched one hundred seventy‐seven flying bombs during thirteen nights of sorties in Sept. 1944. [**1945**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1945): The Western Allies disbanded *I‐401*’s crew, and all of the officers and other men went back into the civilian population, including the few who had committed war crimes! [**1946**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1946): Takashi Sakai, Axis governor of Hong Kong, died at the hands of a Chinese firing squad. :::

history AnarchoBolshevik • Now • 100%

On this day 86 years ago, Britain, France, and Fascist Italy gave part of Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2121750 > Quoting A.J.P. Taylor’s [*The Origins of the Second World War*](https://annas-archive.org/md5/8249b1b105ab8cd697dbf5ec950f671c), page 262: > > >It was no doubt disgraceful that Soviet Russia should make any agreement with the leading Fascist state; **but this reproach came ill from [the statesmen who went to Munich.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Munich_Agreement) […] [The German–Soviet] pact contained none of the fulsome expressions of friendship which Chamberlain had put into the Anglo‐German declaration on the day after the Munich conference.** Indeed Stalin rejected any such expressions: “the Soviet Government could not suddenly present to the public German–Soviet assurances of friendship after they had been covered with buckets of filth by the [Fascist] Government for six years.” > > > >The [German–Soviet] pact was neither an alliance nor an agreement for the partition of Poland. **Munich had been a true alliance for partition: the British and French dictated partition to the Czechs.** The Soviet government undertook no such action against the Poles. They merely promised to remain neutral, which is what the Poles had always asked them to do and which Western policy implied also. > > Andrew Rothstein’s [*The Munich Conspiracy*](https://archive.org/stream/TheMunichConspiracy/mode/1up) is the perfect resource for learning more about this. Pages 70–2: > > >On September 26 [the Third Reich’s head of state] prepared the way for this by a speech at the Sportpalast in Berlin, in which raving abuse of Czechoslovakia and Beneš, with denunciations of the U.S.S.R. and threats of war, was interspersed with assurances that this was “the last territorial claim which I have in Europe”, **expressions of friendship for Britain, France and Poland, and of personal gratitude to Chamberlain.** > > > >This was well calculated to impress: since the British Ambassador in Berlin, at any rate, had freely revealed the same train of thought passing through his mind for many months, and Hitler knew from many sources that Nevile Henderson was not alone. > > > >He followed up the speech with a personal letter to Chamberlain on the 27th (which the Prime Minister received the same evening), arguing in the most reasonable tones against various criticisms of his terms, offering to guarantee the independence of the remainder of Czechoslovakia once the German, Polish and Hungarian minorities had gone, and finishing with an invitation to Chamberlain to “continue your effort, for which I should like to take this opportunity of once more sincerely thanking you”—in order to prevent “Prague” from bringing about a general war.⁷² > > > >The calculation was correct. Chamberlain snatched at the opportunity, and telegraphed next day to Hitler proposing an immediate Four‐Power Conference (i.e. including Italy). He had already informed the French Government, whose leaders were mainly concerned to get in ahead of Chamberlain (on the morning of the 28th) with an even more eager offer of co‐operation against Czechoslovakia—that it should be required to agree (on pain of losing any French support) to the immediate occupation by German troops of “all *four* sides of the Bohemian quadrilateral”.⁷³ > > > >Hitler had only to choose: **and he preferred the British precisely because it involved the public participation of Britain and France in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, at his dictation. Mussolini, who feared that a war might end in disaster, supported Chamberlain in a series of messages to Hitler.⁷⁴** > > > >He sent the necessary invitations on the morning of the 28th; and the conference—Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier—met on the afternoon of the 29th, sitting until the early hours of the morning of the 30th. Mussolini already had the draft of a settlement, which had been drawn up the previous day by the Germans, and passed on to him by the Italian Ambassador at Berlin: and at a suitable moment, after a preliminary statement by Hitler on the usual lines, Mussolini produced it as his own. > > > >The draft provided for evacuation of the “Sudeten–German” territory, according to a map drawn up by the Germans, between October 1 and 10 and without the destruction of any existing installations: an international commission (of the four Powers with Czechoslovakia) to supervise the evacuation: a plebiscite to be held in “doubtful territories”, which until then would be occupied by international forces: and German troops to begin occupying “predominantly German territory” on October 1.⁷⁵ > > > >After argument about the drafting of various passages, with intervals for meals, **these points became the essential features of the Munich Agreement, signed on September 30.** There were several additional points, designed to make the document more palatable to the public in Britain and France—since none of those present could have supposed that they would make the “carve‐up” more acceptable to Czechoslovakia. > > > >Such were the provisions that the international commission should determine one particular zone which was to be occupied, the boundaries of which were doubtful at Munich: that there was to be the right of option for individuals: that **Britain and France maintained the offer of an international guarantee of the new boundaries, made on September 19, and that [the Third Reich] and [Fascist] Italy would join it** once the Polish and Hungarian minority questions were settled. > > (Emphasis added in all cases.) > > Further reading: [*The Munich Crisis, Politics and the People: International, Transnational and Comparative Perspectives*](https://annas-archive.org/md5/0370457f210a04bfb0ce95a51a1c5095) ([interview with author](https://historymatters.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/blog-archive/2021/mining-the-munich-crisis-for-meaning-crises-past-and-present)) > > --- > :::spoiler Click here for other events that happened today (September 30). > **1883**: Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister of Science, Education and Culture, was unkind enough to exist. > [**1934**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1934): Erwin Rommel met Adolf Schicklgruber for the first time, and Reich Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht reported to his Chancellor on his progress of planning the German Reich’s economy for another war. > [**1935**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1935): The Third Reich commissioned *U‐12* into service under the command of Kapitänleutnant Werner von Schmidt. > [**1936**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1936): *Mutsu* completed her reconstruction at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal. > [**1937**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1937): Imperial flightcraft bombarded Chinese coastal battery positions overlooking the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province. > [**1939**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1939): As General Władysław Sikorski became the Polish government‐in‐exile’s prime minister, Reinhard Heydrich became the leader of new Reich Main Security Office, RSHA, and *U‐23* completed her twoth war patrol. Additionally, Walther von Brauchitsch received the Clasps to his Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class medals as well as the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. > [**1940**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1940): Four Axis raids, each consisting of sixty to two hundred bombers and escorted by large numbers of fighters, crossed into southern England at 0900, 1000, 1300, and 1600 hours; some got through to London, but some did not drop their bombs as they had little visibility due to low clouds, overshooting their targets as radar operators misread the Knickebein radio beacon signals. Meanwhile, two groups of about one hundred bombers each attacked cities on the southern coast. On that day, the Axis lost fourteen bombers, twenty‐eight Bf 109 fighters, and one Bf 110 fighter (while the Allies lost 19 fighters and 8 pilots). The daylight attacks would represent the last major raids of such type conducted by the Luftwaffe. Overnight, the Axis bombed London, Liverpool, and several others cities; the aircraft factory at Yeovil was only lightly damaged as most bombs fell on the town instead. > > Apart from that, Axis submarine *U‐37* sank Allied ship *Samala* west of Ireland at 1013 hours, massacring everyone aboard (65 crew, 1 gunner, and 2 passengers). At 2156 hours, in the same area, *U‐37* sank Allied ship *Heminge*, killing somebody. Axis mines laid by destroyers *Eckholdt*, *Riedel*, *Lody*, *Galster*, *Ihn*, and *Steinbrinck* two days earlier off Falmouth in southwestern England destroyed two Allied vessels, resulting in twenty‐nine and fifteen deaths, respectively. Elsewhen, Karl Dönitz inspected the Axis submarine *Alessandro Malaspina* at Bordeaux, and *Alpino Bagnolini* ended her third war patrol arriving there. > [**1941**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1941): The Axis finished the Babi Yar massacre, but the Jager Report noted that the Axis exterminated 366 Jewish men, 483 Jewish women, and 597 Jewish children in Trakai, Lithuania (for a total of 1,446 people). As well, Operation Typhoon got an unofficial start when Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 attacked two days ahead of schedule, and Axis bombers attacked shipyards at Tyneside in northern England, severely damaging submarine HMS *Sunfish*. > [**1942**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1942): The Third Reich’s head of state publicly repeated his forecast of the annihilation of Jewry while a transport containing 610 Jews arrived at Auschwitz from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; the Axis registered 37 men and 118 women into the camp but exterminated the remaining 454. As well, Axis bombers attacked Lancing and Colchester, England, and Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss forbade his SS guards to consume raw fruits, raw vegetables, and raw milk due to the typhus epidemic in the camp. On the bright side, Hans‐Joachim Marseille, Axis pilot, died falling to his death. > [**1943**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1943): On the eve of the Jewish New Year, the Gestapo and Danish fascists began rounding up Danish Jews. A Danish businessman passed the news of the operation and passed the information to the Danish resistance, which then arranged fishing boats to ferry a large number of Danish Jews to Sweden. Meanwhile, SS‐Hauptsturmführer Eduard Weiter became the commandant of Dachau (replacing Martin Wei), and the Wehrmacht began evacuating Naples amidst continued fighting, leaving behind a burning city historic archive and many traps. A ‘wolfpack’ consisting of Axis submarines *U‐703*, *U‐601*, and *U‐960* also attacked Soviet convoy VA‐18 near the Sergey Kirov Islands in the eastern Kara Sea and sank freighter Arhangelsk. > [**1944**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1944): The Third Reich commenced a counteroffensive to retake the Nijmegen salient, this having been captured by the Allies during Operation Market Garden. Likewise, a V‐1 flying bomb caused five deaths and many injuries when a row of houses was demolished at Ardleigh in Essex, England. The USAAF base at Thorpe Abbots, home of the 100th Bomb Group (‘The Bloody 100th’) reported buzz bombs flying over the airfield at one hundred fifty feet before exploding in the farm fields surrounding the base. A U.S. 8th Air Force 750‐bomber raid on Munster and Handorf in the Greater German Reich killed the Staffelkapitän and the training officer of Axis Air Force 7/KG3; records captured by the Allies showed that the Staffel had launched one hundred seventy‐seven flying bombs during thirteen nights of sorties in Sept. 1944. > [**1945**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1945): The Western Allies disbanded *I‐401*’s crew, and all of the officers and other men went back into the civilian population, including the few who had committed war crimes! > [**1946**](https://ww2db.com/event/today/9/30/1946): Takashi Sakai, Axis governor of Hong Kong, died at the hands of a Chinese firing squad. > :::