Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Nazis,Communists and Islamists - The Extremes Often Touch
Nazis,Communists and Islamists - The Extremes Often Touch
November 10, 2008
Nazis, Communists and Islamists - The Extremes Often Touch
By EMERSON VERMAAT
November 10, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Seventy years ago, on November 9, 1938, the Nazis burnt down synagogues and smashed windows of Jewish shops. It was the notorious "Night of Broken Glass" ("Kristallnacht"). Nearly one hundred Jews were murdered, about 25,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps. There was a commemoration service in Berlin's grand synagogue on November 9, 2008. In her speech German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a strong warning against resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe: "We cannot be silent, we cannot be indifferent when Jewish cemetries are desecrated and rabbis are insulted on the street. This year alone there were some 800 anti-Semitic incidents."
In most cases, those who were responsible for these incidents were Neo Nazis and radicalized Muslim immigrants. What must also worry us today are the many alliances between Neo Nazis and Muslim extremists or "Islamists."
One of these Muslim extremists is Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In May 2006, Ahmadinejad wrote a personal letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel denouncing "the wicked victors of World War II." (Merkel ignored Ahmadinejad's ignominious letter, of course.) At a press conference in April 2006, Ahmadinejad even claimed that Iranians and Germans were both part of a common "Aryan race." In December 2006, Iran's president invited Neo Nazis to Tehran to attend a conference on how "to review the global vision of the Holocaust." Neo Nazi Holocaust deniers from all over the world participated in the conference.
While Chancellor Merkel refuses to talk to Ahmadinejad (she once compared him to Hitler), American president-elect Barack Obama still seems to believe that we should talk to our enemies, even to a man like Ahmadinejad. It was Jimmy Carter, another idealist from the Democratic Party, who in 1979 was largely responsible for the fall of the Iranian Shah, an American ally. Carter was correct in denouncing the Shah for his poor human rights record. However, in his shortsightedness and idealism Carter failed to recognize that the Shah's rule was far to be preferred to the kind of Islamist fascism and totalitarianism embodied in a leading cleric like Ayatollah Khomeini.
Enforcing morality wordwide is fine, but in the real world of international politics, "political realism" sometimes demands a different approach - unfortunately. As Hans J. Morgenthau - long forgotten by now! - correcty observes in his "Politics Among Nations": "How often have statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended by making it worse? Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired by good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal power than were many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned. Yet, his policies helped to make the Second World War inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions of men."
Aggressive totalitarian rulers have no moral inhibitions, and those who try to appease them are regarded by these rulers as inferior weaklings. The ultraconservative Iranian president is a very close ally of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, a Castro admirer who supports the Marxist Colombian guerrilla movement FARC. During a visit to Venezuela in September 2006, Chávez awarded Ahmadinejad the "Libertador Medal," the highest medal of honor Venezuela bestows on visiting dignatories. And during a visit to Tehran Chávez was equally awarded a high Iranian medal of honor.
The Nazis often cooperated with radical Muslims from the Middle East. At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, many Muslims sympathized with the Nazi cause and hoped for a Nazi victory. Nazi Germany granted asylum to two important Arab leaders, Grandmufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini and former Iraqi Prime Minister Rachid el-Kailani. Al-Husseini subsequently closely cooperated with Heinrich Himmler, the so-called "Reichsführer SS," and Adolf Eichmann, the fanatical Jew hater who coordinated the Holocaust. Al-Husseini was among those who were responsible for sending more than 19,000 Jewish children to the gas chambers. Back in the 1930s the grandmufti also actively supported the Nazi cause receiving money from the Nazis. Not only was he responsible for the death of numerous Jewish immigrants in the former British mandate of Palestine, he also clashed with moderate Palestinians who rejected his views on sharia and jihad.
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories abounded in Hitler's "Third Reich." The most notorious conspiracy theory was expounded in a booklet called "The Protocols of the Wise Men of Sion." This book was introduced to the Nazis by Alfred Rosenberg, a refugee from Russia and Estonia. The book was later widely distributed by the Nazis. It was claimed that Jewish "Elders" or "Wise Men" were conspiring for world domination and that their plan had been laid down in secret "Protocols" during the first Zionist congress held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. The so-called "Protocols" were first published in Czarist Russia. They continued to play an important role in Russia after the Communist Revolution of 1917. Today, these obscurantist "Protocols" are widely distributed by Russian Orthodox bookshops and taken seriously by Russian Neo Nazis, nationalist extremists and former Communists. They are equally popular in the Muslim world, especially in Syria, Egypt and Iran.
It was during the German Weimar Republic in the 1920s and early 1930s that Nazis and Communists occasionally formed alliances against moderate Social Democrats. German Communists did not hesitate to depict Social Democrats as "Social Fascists," enemies worse and more dangerous than the Nazis themselves. They even continued to do so for some time after Hitler came to power in January 1933 and the Nazis began to persecute both Communists and Social Democrats.
It was in August 1939 that Stalin and Hitler decided to conclude a "Non Aggression Pact" followed, at the end of September, by a "Border and Friendschip Treaty." Between 1939 and June 1941, Communist Russia supplied Nazi Germany with oil and all the other commodities Germany desperately needed to continue the war. Stalin's Foreign Minister Molotov even agreed with the Nazi conquests of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. Between September 1939 and June 1941 Communist Parties all over the world were instructed by Moscow to drop criticism of Nazi Germany. In France, a few young Communists were involved in acts of sabotage with a view to weakening the French defense effort.
Neo Nazis, Marxists, so-called anti-globalists and radical Muslims also often share common views on "9/11 conspiracy theories" claiming that those who were responsible for this major terrorist operation did not belong Al-Qaida. Instead, all the blame should be laid on the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and/or George Bush. ("It was an inside job.") Thierry Meyssan's book "The Big Lie" was partially inspired by people close to the extreme right. Meyssan himself is a leftist Socialist who has given frequent media interviews to Arab and Iranian TV stations. The same applies Dr. Andreas von Bülow, a controversial author from Germany.
Liberal American theologians like David Ray Griffin and William Sloane Coffin also believe that "9/11" had nothing to do with Al-Qaida. Even as late as 2007, Griffin propounds the theory that some of "the alleged 9/11 hijackers" are still alive (see his book "Debunking 9/11 Debunking"). Today, this theory of the so-called "zombie terrorists" is taken seriously only by wacky fringe groups and eccentrics. An important article published in September 2003 in the German weekly "Der Spiegel" clearly refutes the zombie terrorists theory showing that none of the 9/11 hijackers are alive today. This lengthy article was also published in English (see www.spiegelonline.de/international/ "Panapoly of the Absurd"). Yet, a biased writer like David Ray Griffin obviously never read it. Griffin's friend and fellow theologian William Sloane Coffin sympathized with the Iranian hostage takers (1979/80) as well as Russian Communists.
©2008 Emerson Vermaat. All rights reserved.
Emerson Vermaat is a Dutch investigative reporter specialized in terrorism and crime. He is author of the new book "Nazi's, Communisten en Islamisten. Opmerkelijke Allianties Tussen Extremisten" ("Nazis, Communists and Islamists"), Aspekt Publishers, Soesterberg, Netherlands, 2008, 312 pages). Preface: Prof. Dr. Bob Smalhout. This article is an outline of that book.
Author's website: www.emersonvermaat.com
Notes:
On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, see: Kasra Naji, Ahmadinejad. The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader (London/New York: I.B. Taurus, 2008), and: Daniel Pipes, The Mystical Menace of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York Sun, January 10, 2006 (www.danielpipes.org).
Quotation from Morgenthau, see: Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations. The Stuggle for Power and Peace (New York, Alfred Knopf, Fifth Edition, 1973), p. 6.
On William Sloane Coffin and David Ray Griffin, see: Emerson Vermaat, Nazi's, Communisten en Islamisten (Soesterberg: Aspekt Publishers, November 2008, p. 257-262. "In 1990/1991 las ik dat voormalige Amerikaanse gijzelaars in de door Iraanse religieuze fanatici bezette Amerikaanse ambassade in Teheran ernstige bedenkingen tegen Coffin hadden. Eind 1979 hadden de nieuwe revolutionaire machthebbers in Iran Coffin toestemming gegeven om de kerstdagen bij de Amerikanen door te brengen. Bij die gelegenheid toonde de predikant, tot grote ergernis van van de gijzelaars, nogal veel begrip voor het Iraanse standpunt."
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