Introduction: I am deeply honored and grateful to Dagmar Henn for allowing me to publish here an email she sent me recently. Let me immediately say that I do not agree with her main thesis (that the German government is not a vassal but an accomplice) but my personal views on this topic are irrelevant. What matters is that she makes a very interesting case and that if she is right, then my own analysis and, possibly, the Kremlin’s, are wrong and that, in turn, could have major consequences on the future of this war on Russia (the Ukraine really being only a battlefield in a much wider attack on Russia).
It has been and will continue to be my policy to post documents on this blog even if I do not agree with them, as long as they are fact-based, logical and well written and they contribute to a more interesting analysis and discussion.
Dagmar Henn’s piece definitely meet all these criteria and I am delighted to post it today.
As to those, especially in Germany, who might disagree with her, I invite them to send me a rebuttal which I will also post as long as it is substantive and contains absolutely no personal attacks on Henn or anybody else.
Kind regards,
The Saker
——-
by Dagmar Henn
The EU-association contracts the Kiew Junta signed binds the Ukrainian economy to the zone of German hegemony (the EU is now completely submitted to German interests). Signing the IMF contract was an EU demand. So the economic trap that actually forces the junta towards exterior aggression (just to save their own skin) is not a US invention, but a German one…
Steinmeier, the German minister of exterior, was head of the chancellery and therefore coordinator of secret service activities from 1999 to 2005. So he was deeply involved in Kosovo already. Later he pushed the association of Ukraine to EU. He is neither innocent nor someone interested in peace. He was the first one to talk about “territorial integrity” immediately after the coup.
Everybody remembers that Nuland in her famous phone-call demanded Jazenjuk for government. Nearly everybody forgot that she also said “no Swoboda”. It was Steinmeier who opened the door for Swoboda. And if US media are silent about ukrainian Nazis, German media are mute. Even though it should be much easier for a German journalist to recognize them than for an American.
Not only in this blog, also in Russian media (as far as I manage to decipher them through Google-Translator) Germany is seen as a US vassal that could be a potential ally. (Putin repeated this idea in a speech to various ambassadors). If this position is aimed at the German public, it might work as a propagandistic idea, but it doesn´t even reach this public (there is no German channel of RT until today). If it is aimed at German politics, it is based upon a flawed analysis. It might be possible to create a split between Germany and it´s european neighbours (after they have been sucked dry economically in the last years to stabilize German industry and German banks); it is wasted effort between Germany and the US, because this is complicity, not dependancy. Like it was in Jugoslawia – the US gets the military bases, Germany gets the colonies.. (and if you remember the role of Croatian fashists, guess where they were stored all those decades before their reuse? Yes, in Munich).
German political rhetoric rarely tells the truth. Ask the Greek about it, who got “saved”. Nothing that is said can be trusted. It´s just the deeds that tell the truth. And if there were any serious intention from the German side to move from escalation to diplomacy, there would be a breach in the information blockade to legitimize it. There isn´t. Not the slightest one. Just once there was a single information that went through – when Bild, Germany´s most awful journal, wrote about PMCs in Ukraine. They referred to a source in the BND. I think that was some kind of internal retaliation for the fake OSCE-show.
The relative stability of German economy is based upon a consequent “beggar-thy-neighbour”-policy. It´s result is the transformation of the EU into a semi-colonial structure with just one political and economical center: Germany (and just think of Hollande no longe being allowed to phone without Merkel). But this structure is far from stable, because it ran out of neighbours that are not yet beggared, and the fundamental economical crisis is far from over. So both sides of this partnership in aggression share the same problem, and no trade balance with Russia can fill this gap. Both need a real destruction of real values on a large scale, and they need it soon.
When the Wehrmacht started losing in 1943, they tried to analyse their errors. They came to the conclusion that before they ever started a war against Russia again, they should take care to secure all of Europes economic potential under their control. So it is a bit spooky to see that exactly this has been achieved during the last years.
It´s impossible to prove how tight the connection between German authorities and the Ukrainian Nazis are. German archives are tightly closed; all the dirt accumulated since 1945 is still hidden. As the CIA documents are accessable, US acts are public, while German ones stay hidden… But there are strong indications that the worst parts of the Ukrainian forces are German puppets, not American (starting with Timoshenko and Klitschko, but continuing into the full Bandera spectrum). They don´t need to be controlled directly. They run like on a track into the right direction, as soon as they are called on stage.
Around Munich there were more Nazis in official positions and more Bandera exiles than ever reached the US. German secret service BND (located in Pullach, a few kilometers from Munich) never dropped the old connections and it was formed out of the same people that held those connections during the war. There was a Ukrainian exile government in Munich, residing in Zeppelinstraße, there still is a ukrianian university; Munich was the headquarter of the ukrainian terrorists after 1945.
Right from independence there was a strong German influence in Ukraine. 1992 the German embassy in Kiew employed more personel than all other western embassies together (including the American). While British and American government officials at that time warned of strengthening nationalist tendencies in ex-SU-countries, the German government did everything to do exactly that (not only in Ukraine, by the way, but also in the Baltic states and…). So a floor full of CIA agents in Kiew might be not a sign of US strength in this drama, but rather the opposite, an attempt to catch up with German connections.
There is one strange historic resonance in the list of ukrainian events. Up to the 9th of May everything followed a timetable that somehow aimed at a reversion of WWII (culminating in what would have happened in Mariupol, if local police hadn´t rebelled). This timetable was mainly based upon historical events in Ukraine. But there is one exception. The Odessa massacre has two historic resonances; but both are not placed in Ukraine, but in Germany. On May 2 1919 Munich was conquered by the counterrevolution , followed by several days of massacre with up to 3 000 victims; the bloodiest event in German interior politics until the Nazis came into power. And on May 2 1933 the Nazis stormed the buildings of the German unions. That might be a coincidence; but if it isn´t, it is a strong indication of a German mind behind it.
(German Nazis are obsessed with historic references. Do you know why the first Concentration Camp was built in Dachau? The Bavarian Red Army won a battle there early in 1919… they wanted to extinguish even the memory; and they succeeded)
And then there is the basic question – the whole story looks too much like an attempt to revert WWII not to be exactly that. Now why would the US be tempted to revert WWII that lay the base for their present position? No reason at all. The ones who want to revert this war are the ones that lost it.
Even the new scandal about this NSA-spy in BND won´t have any consequences, as the whole NSA story didn´t. And won´t. Why? Just imagine it were the other way round, Germany being the country eager for war – what would be the consequence in relation to the USA? They are needed as nuclear shield… so they would have to be involved one way or the other, even if it were an exclusively German plan.
I might be wrong. I would love to be wrong. But Russian strategy at the moment seems to be aimed at a split between Germany and the US, and if I´m right, this strategy is completely futile. I see no plan B. Not even a serious attempt to reach German public. It preoccupies me profoundly.
German governments like to talk of peace. Until 5:44 in the morning.
To Nora:
I agree with your assessment, and would strongly recommend to those who haven’t read it Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine”. This classic of our times describes the reach of the Chicago Boys into every nation, and was preceded by a short article she wrote describing the invasion of Iraq in the early part of that ongoing crisis.
Our rulers may not be Nazis but they most definitely are Fascists, and it is an oligarchy which no doubt other national figures have glommed onto. I don’t know if you’d call them puppets, enablers or co-conspirators, but I’m ashamed to say we here are the masterminds. And in my native land, New Zealand, Prime Minister John Key is a prime example of this. He even has a vacation home in Hawaii.
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Your contribution is timely and I surmise sharing a rigorous if condensed response with hypotheses may have present utility. I apologise for the vocabulary in English which is used for brevity and rigour.
The world and phenomena in it are laterally interactive, consequences of which include but are not necessarily limited to the following hypotheses:
Change is constant.
Full spectrum dominance cannot exist.
Wishes cannot always come “true”.
Essences cannot exist merely changing alloys.
Homogeneity cannot exist.
Omniscience cannot exist and consequently neither can self-evidence.
“Apparently” contradictory perceived phenomena can co-exist simultaneously.
Non apparent phenomena can exist simultaneously with the apparent.
A lateral “answer” forms the basis of a related question/hypothesis.
A critique of statistical methods is operational intelligence so I will limit my observation to correlation is not necessarily causation.
It has been shown experimentally that humans have a tendency to conflate “an” answer with “the” answer.
Complexity can be unsettling for some people.
Doubt like silence can be uncomfortable for some people.
Belief systems can be ways to assuage and bridge doubt – a type of displacement precluding lateral progress.
Scientific method embraces doubt as a necessary catalyst for lateral change .
In the light of all of the above let me respond to your hypotheses by sharing other related hypotheses.
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You cite the notions of Germany, German banks, German economy, German media etc. as if some homogeneity exits in these “organisations” or in fact they exist as distinct entities.
The bundesrepublic includes various lander including Baden-Wurtemburg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, and North Rhein Westphalen in cooperation/competition, within which are populations in cooperation/competition. Some are of the view that “Germany” as a coherent entity does not exist, nor do the lander.
The banks registered in Frankfurt are international and their efforts in the “East” from 1990 onwards have been in co-operation/competition with other international organisations including
in Ukraine BNP, Commerzbank, Dresdner, EBRD, The European Commission, Raiffeisen.
In Russia BNP, Commerzbank, Deutsche, Dresdner, EBRD, the European Commission, Raiffeisen.
Raiffeissen was particularly keen to reconstitute a mutated form of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and some of the others remembered Bismarck and Bleichroder, suitably modified to reflect subsequent unfortunate experience.
The organisations including banks whose activities may be said to constitute the economy operating in the bundesrepublic are largely international even Small and Medium Enterprises, and the larger entities in some form have been from before 1871. Throughout this period the constituent organisations have been in cooperation/competition.
The media operating in the bundesrepublic do not have homogenous audiences but ocassionally have similar interests and consequently are subject to a dialectical process of cooperation/competition.
Some contend that World War two never ended but mutated, some others that World War one never ended but mutated. To assign sequential numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 suggests not only a linear spectrum but simultaneously seeks to assign notions of distinct and seperate entities – closure and catharsis if you prefer.
Just as in the period of National Socialism – choose your dates – the linear trajectory in my view, rather than your designation “relative stability of German economy “, of all capitalist “economies” is as you say, “Both need a real destruction of real values on a large scale, and they need it soon.”
but would add amongst other reasons to underpin their fiat currencies.
That is and has been the purpose of the European Union including Phare and TACIS “aid” programmes.
The intended beneficiaries were not restricted to one nation state, even the member states of the European Union, but largely to a certain class; as Orwell rightly remarked, “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”.
This has caused tensions both within the intended beneficiaries and between and within the “nation states”, especially since these purposes in Russia and Ukraine as of 2012 had failed to deliver adequate results – Wishes cannot always come true.
The European Union was still try to recover influence in Russia in 2007 through projects such as advising on the Russian banking sector, especially energy and commodity sectors impacting on Euro and Petro-dollar issues amongst others.
The European Union projects in Ukraine also failed to deliver “expected” results and hence the new strategy is a linear projection of the old – increase the possible beneficiaries – the “oligarchs”.
An early step of the junta was to export the Ukrainian gold reserves and reportedly the Scythian Gold treasures initially to New York for safe keeping – the likely first installment of the vigorous – vig- to use an old phrase beloved in Little Italy., as well as establishing bona fides. Some in Russia were amused by the historical allusions.
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All good hypotheses try to include the known unknows to use Rumsfeld’s phrasing – in your case I suggest the missing elephants are class and divergent interests perceived and unperceived.
Celebrations can perform many functions including redifining locational references, displacing memories of other celebrations for example 911 displacing any residual memory of the Pinochet coup on 11th September 1973 with direct US involvement; bonding “communities” ; placing importance of “communities” in historical context/reference, affording the opportunity to engage in joint ritual and spreading responsibility in behaviours that some deem “abberant” – like blooding in hunting.
The “Americans” have particularly amused me in this regard; like Romans they seek to redefine time through calendar and celebration.
National Socialism, any nation state or even Pravy Sektor knew/know they were not/are not homogenous – or of the same class or having constant mutual interests- and this understanding and fear derived there from leads, to certain behaviours including probably the “bloodletting” in various locations. However certain behaviours are only possible if you have the power to implement them, and celebrations only possible if others celebrate with you.
However these behaviours will likely catalyse reaction to ensure that their wishes do not come true.
Given all of the above your posed dichotomy of vassal or accomplice is probably incorrect.
The so called nation states do not exist as homogenous or coherent wholes of populations with either external or internal mutual interest.
However the populations within these notional entities may be simultaneously vassals and accomplices but to a different degree at different moments in the lateral inteactive process – “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others?”
Orwell of course was subject to the hypotheses which prefaced this response.
Orwell’s notion that “He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.”
No one controls the past nor can the past be controlled even when it was the present, the past can merely be re-interpreted.
Interpretations change in interaction, omniscience does not exist.
As to your use of the word “seems” in your last paragraph I would posit that flowers bloom before they die.
Is this blooming an appearance of health or ensuing death.?
Are appearances always what they seem?
Are ares always apparent or are they sometimes not perceived?
As above lateral answers are only catalysts for future questions so let me share two:
1. What is the name of Munich Airport and why?
2. Whatever happened to Stepan Bandera?
and a piece of advice that another correspondent gave on this blog – broadcasting is better than correspondence, electronic or otherwise.
All of the above may be of some relevance to why the Anonymous option is beneficial to the blog.
@Anonymous 07 July, 2014 08:23
“Regrettably what was intellectual discussion on the prevention of war crimes against Russian East Ukrainians has degraded into German bashing […]”
“We Russian Communists, German Nazis & Krauts, French Escargots & Eastern Russian Ukrainian Terrorists should start our own Caliphate & Tea Party.”
I have seen the net unite people from different countries. It is us against them, the elite, the octopus. Whatever we call it, it is evil. Germans, Russians, Americans, everybody, please disregard comments that are obviously meant to divide us.
Btw, sauerkraut, “kapusta”, is delicious and liked in Russia and Eastern Europe, too. Also in France, I think. Instead of a Caliphate, lets form a kapusta/sauerkraut/choucroute alliance :-)
It’s German revanchism. In the war against Yugoslavia the former Nazi Party member(sic!) Genscher also liked such historic references:
“12 You read out today that on the 6th of April, 1992, the European
13 Union recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was done under the
14 influence of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Genscher,
15 because the 6th of April is the day when, in 1941, Hitler attacked
16 Belgrade. The desire was to symbolise a change of the outcome of the
17 Second World War. I would never attribute that to the German people, but
18 some statesmen have kept alive the evil that we fought against together,
19 and they have achieved more than a revenge because they have managed to
20 kill us with the hands of our allies, the Americans, the British, the
21 French, with whom we fought together during two world wars against that
22 same evil.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20040302052850/http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/011211MH.htm
UN Special Envoy Cyrus Vance called it “Genscher’s war”.
Background information on Germany’s third attempt to conquer Ukraine:
http://german-foreign-policy.com/en/map/country/30
In 1990 Bush termed US-German collaboration: “partners in leadership”.
I am a retired German engineer and I have
some time on my hands and am feeling bad not to have done anything yet, but here I am ! If you can get a German language webiste of “The Saker” going, count on me for about 10 hours a week + to translate articles from English and French into German.
In case – and let us very much hope so – there will be a Spanish Saker-site some day (soon, I hope!!!) contact me as well- I know many people here and as there are many Mexicans who have worked/lived/some even grown up in the US, I might be of some help there, too.
bajadtb..(at)..yahoo..co..uk
Pesniametos it is good you chose the absolute best e-mail company to ensure fast transmission of your e-mails to GCHQ, NSA and others who apparently assert they have one eye each.
However let me suggest that subject to purpose broadcasting is better better than correspondence – at the very least complication not only increases potential work and hence employment opportunities, but has some effect on meta-data analysis.
Larchmonter445 @ 06 July, 2014 21:03
You answered the where and a small detail the how and hence shared in the process, but you didn’t respond to the why and the more important details of the how.
Whatever happened to Stepan Bandera likely has immediate operational relevance.
Interview with Hillary Clinton for German TV from yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Urld2T-H8
There were quite good questions about NSA spying. Hillary was trying to do same damage control but mostly unsucessfully. Her main defence was that she or Obama didn´t know about spying. Even if it was true (which isn´t), I don´t quite understand how the fact that NSA spies without consent of president should be reassuring. From the expresions on the faces of the audience you can tell they weren´t bying it either. Then there was also a brief part of interview I would call “meeting of Putin-haters club” (bare chested Putin included). Suggestive questions and expected answers – agressive Putin trying to restore Russian empire.
I don´t know who is going to run for a president for republicans but it´s hard imagine a candidate who could put this fake woman in a position of lesser evil.
Anonymous 15:42 with the 3 part post – interesting and insightful ruminations you wrote. They are worth reflecting on as we try to understand our present and future.
As someone who studies a certain kind of history I can say that the past, our past on this earth, is an immutable path, not subject to revision. While our perceptions may indeed change and shift the events themselves do not. Moreover and similar to the tension in physics between particles and waves as doors to understanding our universe, the river (or ocean) of time is continuous, without beginning or end (at least for our purposes here). While we can speak about ‘discrete events’ in fact this is a convenient fiction to enable discussion, as everything is interconnected and flowing along – whether we will or no.
As for the topic of the post I agree that we should not imagine that there is a unified ‘German vassal state’ that can be steered under all circumstances as if it were a rowboat (and even a rowboat can be upset in rough water and its occupants dispersed to fend for themselves). No more than there is a monolithic elite in the US – or Russia for that matter.
@Anon Re: Bandera in a nutshell.
” After the war Bandera lived in Munich. British intelligence used him to help run agents into Ukraine to gather intelligence and to help the Ukrainian underground against the Soviets. The CIA used some of Bandera’s former cronies for similar reasons, but never used Bandera himself, owing to Bandera’s infatuation with his own legend. “Bandera,” said one CIA report from 1948, “is by nature a political intransigent of great personal ambition [who] has…opposed all political organizations in the emigration which favor a representative form of government in the Ukraine, as opposed to a mono-party, OUN/Bandera regime.”
Ukrainian sources confirmed that “fighting people in the homeland … [were] not prepared to accept [Bandera] as a dictator,” and that Bandera’s program “was unacceptable to the resistance movement inside [Ukraine].” In 1952 Bandera temporarily resigned as head of the OUN, pressured “by the growing opposition to his leadership among … top-ranking nationalist leaders who opposed him on the grounds of his totalitarian tactics….” Bandera’s subsequent petulance and his insistence on directing all facets of the Ukrainian underground at home and abroad led the British to drop him in 1953. With no high level contacts to listen to him, Bandera was now on the outside looking in.
Owing to his self-promotion in print and on West German radio, Bandera remained popular with thousands of Ukrainian émigrés in West Germany. His superficial effectiveness prompted West German intelligence (the BND) to establish contact in 1956. By 1959 the BND was helping Bandera to run a new generation of Ukrainian agents from West Germany into the USSR. General Reinhard Gehlen, the head of the BND, had lead German Army intelligence in the USSR during the war. He and his subordinates were surely familiar with Bandera’s wartime record. They were less familiar with the fact that the BND was by now thoroughly penetrated with Soviet agents. On October 14, 1959, Bandera had lunch with senior BND officials to discuss the expansion of operations in Ukraine. The next day the KGB assassinated Bandera in his apartment building.
Because Bandera effectively promoted his own legend, and because the Soviets were behind his death, émigrés who did not know any better labeled him as the martyred leader of Ukrainians abroad. Fifteen hundred attended his funeral in Munich. US officials, on the other hand, noted that Bandera’s “strong arm tactics” and “competition with other émigré groups” meant that “many émigré figures clearly do not personally lament his passing.” His death meant nothing for CIA operations against Soviet rule in Ukraine, which depended on the very same émigré leaders who, though followers of Bandera during the war, had dumped their former chief as a self-promoting caricature. They continued their work under CIA tutelage until the USSR collapsed. Such is another story.
It is a sad comment on Ukrainian memory that the man declared a Hero of Ukraine in January headed a movement that was deeply involved in the Holocaust. It is more gratifying to know that by the time of Stepan Bandera’s death, most Ukrainian leaders had long rejected him as a dangerous charlatan who harmed his own cause. By the time of his death, Bandera was reduced to dancing with the Cold War’s most compromised intelligence agency, where the Soviets could watch his every move. Those who label him a hero today, in other words, are as foolish as they are offensive.”
– See more at: http://www.hnn.us/article/122778#sthash.UJ5yaahq.dpuf
Germany’s problem for a long time was what to do with its surplus population. In the period 800-1300, Germans were encouraged to migrate into Austria, Bohemia, Slovakia, Transylvania, Silesia, Posen, and Prussia. Post 1300, this migration moved into Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Galicia. In the 1600’s, the surplus population problem was “solved” by the depopulation of the 30 Years War, but by the 1700’s, the same old problem was back again. This time recent success against Turkey opened up Banat and Hungary to new settlements and the Germans flooded in, but by the mid-1700’s, those areas were full too. Moreover, these areas weren’t necessarily open to Protestant Germans from the north. Needing its own lands to settle, Prussia/Brandenburg began a campaign of reclaimation of river bottom land along the Oder and coast land on the North Sea for internal settlement, but this had its limits.
How convenient, then, that shortly after that time the Partition of Poland occured, a German became Empress of Russia and opened up the land to free migration of Germans, and Russia conquered the Crimean Khanate, opening up the Black Sea Coast. A veritable flood began, with Germans washing across the Vistula valley, Volhynia, Moldavia, Novorossiya, and the Volga. These Germans were a mix of conveniently exiled religious dissidents and a vanguard of Prussians from the Prussia/Brandenburg state that eventually became the core of the German Empire.
By the time of the First World War, these Germans formed two prongs of settlements in the Russian Empire which matched the economic ambitions of the Treaty of Brest – NW from Poland to Latvia and Estonia, and due west through Ukraine to the Volga. To this was added the Caucusus and its oil. Whether the settlements and the geopolitical economic interest underpinning the waging of war being identical is a coincidence can be debated. It was certainly convenient that the resources desired by Germany in the Russian Empire were under land with a large vanguard of Germans already inhabiing them..
It is not an accident that Hitler’s real ambitions in Russia lay in exactly these same two directions – the Baltics to St. Petersburg as a natural extension of the Prussian arm of Germany and its mastery of the Baltic Sea, and the Ukraine, Volga, and Caucusus as the economic extension of Silesia and the “limitless” grounds for the future settlement of millions of new Germans (the existing Slavs being displaced, enslaved, killed, or Germanized, depending on their evalulated racial quality). In his view, the conquest of Moscow (and its rear in Kazan to complete the Astrakhan-Arkhangelsk line) was a necessary evil to destroy the Communist system based there, but this land northeast of Smolensk was of little interest to Hitler and should best be thought of in Nazi plans as a Russian preservation providing future slave labor elements, not a serious area of German settlement. The Germans had apparently no serious understanding of the mineral and hydrocarbon resources of the Urals and Siberia – the economic war aims of the Astrakhan-Arkhangelsk line were all Dnipr-Donbass-Baku (read iron/coal/farmland-oil) and Estonia-Murmansk (read oil-minerals).
When I sit and ponder today why Germany and NATO pursue the same goals as in 1914 and 1941 – Baltics/Ukraine/Caucusus, I think to some extent it is based on a realization that the vast spaces of Russia and Siberia are simply “too much” for a foreign power to handle, and that today leaving the Russians focused on exploiting these regions will always leave them stuck selling gas to Europe. On the other hand, the little peoples of the two prongs of the German attacks are small enough to be subordinated and manipulated if only Russia will allow it to happen.
One other point on Germany and its ambitions. It should be remembered that Germany is effectively two parts – Prussia and Austria/Bavaria. German ambitions in Russia primarily represent the ambition of Prussia. German ambitions in Yugoslavia are the ambitions of Austira/Bavaria.
When you start making parallels of the Slovenia/Croatia uprisings and the Nazi background especially of Croatia with the Maidan uprising and the Nazi background of Galicia, its good to keep in mind that Slovenia was a consitutent part of Austria until 1918 (and the German Empire until 1871), while Croatia and Dalmatia was under Austrian rule or domination (via Venice) from the time of the rise of the Hapsburgs in the middle ages. These areas are considered the backyard of South Germany and their inclusion under Serb rule in Yugoslavia an oddity of history coming out of WWI.
On the other hand, Austria always had limited ambitions in Russia, its 145 year occupation of Galicia in 1772 almost an accident of history which was followed up eagerly by the Vatican, but not by Vienna.
The intervention in Yugoslavia was a CDU/CSU/OPP ploy all the way to reassert German/Austrian dominance in what is considered its traditional sphere of influence. The area is of no real economic value, it was just a chance to stick it to Serbia and reassert dominance, and the Croatian/Bosnian Nazi/Nationalists were a convenient bunch with which to do so.
Ukraine, on the other hand, is a long term ploy of the Prussian Junker/Business classes going back to the 1700’s. It has significant economic value to Germany and the German leaders pushing this feel it is of enough value to balance off headaches it creates with Russia and the German gas supply. Its worth noting that the Germans have secured their gas supply from Russia via Nordstream before the Maidan push began in Ukraine, so that the countries that will be harmed by the disruption of gas are Poland to some extent and primarily the Balkans, giving Germany leverage over them for the duration of the crisis. This alows the Ukraine crisis to serve multiple purposes in terms of expanding German dominance in the structure of the EU, which as noted here, closely parallels many German proposals for continental economic association from Nazi times and earlier.
Andrew,
Your information is like going to college again. Very, very good background for us who have little but general knowledge of the history and empires.
I’d like to get an idea of what you think are the territorial ambitions of Putin are. Does he need some new borders, or just regions of influence. It seems he wants to leave Ukraine whole, weak and dependent.
Strategically, wouldn’t he want Odessa to freeze out permanently any base for US or NATO?
And the Baltics? What do you see is the future there?
@German-Russian relations 2,
I will give some quotations from a “forgotten” book by the British historian J.W. Wheeler-Bennet “Brest Litovsk. The Forgotten Peace. March 1918”. Written in 1938 its conclusions remain perfectly valid nowadays.
From the Preface to 1966 reprint:
“It is a matter of historical fact that the overall pattern of German-Russian relations over the past two hundred years has been on of alternating bitter estrangements and warm rapprochements… After the re-emergence of Prussia in the ‘sixties [of the 19th Century] there appeared within here counsels two warring schools: one thought of Russia as the natural ally of Prussia in the coming struggle with France and Austria; the other thought in terms of a Greater Germany which include Austria and her traditional hostility to Russia…It was the triumph of the Greater Germany School during the First WW which found its ultimate expression in the predatory Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which it was intended to eliminate Russia as a political factor in European affairs…
Hitler fell heir to both of those conflicting policies and did not scruple to exploit both of them [viz. the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 vs the invasion of June 1939]”.
Now, both alternatives could have lead to the situation in which “an industrialized Russia exploited by the organizing genius of Germany conjured up a vision which no Western European could contemplate with equanimity” (in the words of Wheeler-Bennett of 1938).
Therefore the Western diplomacy, especially British, maneuvered to increasingly sour the German-Russian relations, with the view of pushing them to war with each other with an aim to provoke a revolution in Russia which would result in the reconfiguration of Eastern Europe (remember that the first option for a Zionist state was the “Pale of Settlement”! later on Crimea!)
Anonymous Larchmonter445 said…
@Anon Re: Bandera in a nutshell
You cite the well known story of Bandera and make a well known assertion namely,
“the KGB assassinated Bandera in his apartment building.”
You omit his relationships and that of organisations with which he was associated, with Germans and others, especially between 1941-43.
The Bagration offensive, especially the Battle of Brody is open to various interpretations and perhaps you wisely drew a veil over this.
Then there is Gladio and its various manifestations.
It may or nor be the case that the KGB played some role in the hit, but hits are more than pulling a trigger.
Your regrets are just this your regrets i.e. a mapping of your considerations which have little or no operational utility.
To some Bandera’s involvement in the holocaust may seem a recommendation and so has no leverage, the leverage lies in more details including pre-hit history, collusion and logistics.
Some may even ponder whatever happened to Benjamin Seigel.
The films of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese were very popular in the 1990’s in some circles in Russia and Ukraine.
@Juliania
Rightwingers…. Leftwingers…..
If you really fall for that narrative, my dear, then you are NOT paying attention!
They are like your left and right hands: different, but both pursue the same job.
You Americans should give more attention to a multifaceted talent living there: Miles Mathis.
Apart from science and art, where he also excels, his political papers are very well argued, probed and ever more refined in their conclusions.
http://mileswmathis.com/updates.html
What he misses is just the last mile, because he is not Christian, so he is not able to understand that “we do not wrestle with flesh and blood…..”
But you know, nobody is perfect.
As I have said, the degree of occupation varies…. and the US is for sure the most occupied Country, to the point that the only real struggle there is between bad guys and worse guys.
Anyway, if I shold bet a dime, I’d say that London is the very capital city of the D-Empire, the capital of the devil’s kingdom of this world.
Larchmonter:
Purely my subjective opinion.
I don’t think Putin has territorial ambitions in the Baltics. This is not to say that if the opportunity to annex Narva or Daugvilpils presented itself, he would not do it, only that it is unlikely to happen, and there is no active to push to make it so. The annexation of the Baltics and especially Lithuania by Stalin was a mistake that has created nothing but headaches since then, like the annexation of Galicia.
Putin clearly has interest in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan was the least persuaded SSR to leave the embrace of Russia, and it would not surprise me in the least if Kazakhstan and Belarus rejoin Russia formally after the passing of their current President’s for life Nazarbayev and Lukashenko. Especially with Kazakhstan, such considerations as the passage of the Trans-Siberian Railway and M51 Highway through the country, the location of Baikonour in the country, and the huge Russian population are all factors of interest.
In Ukraine, I agree with your assessment of interest all the way down the coast to Odessa. I would also add back into the interior through Kiev to Zhitomir. Putin expressed his understanding in the past to President Bush “You have to understand, George, Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine? Part of its territory is Eastern Europe, but part of it – a considerable part – was gifted by us!” I.e. the Russian half is really a part of Russia that is temporarily separated by circumstance and happanstance, and the Galician/Ukrainian half is really properly its own little country among the statelets like Poland and Romania and Hungary. When Putin said this, it was during the 2008 NATO precipitated crisis, and was allegedly in the context of Putin threatening to invade and annex the Russian half of the country.
Many have written and commented about German dealings and confirmation from “ordinary Germans” such as in this email is always chilling. German readers please understand: this is nothing against German citizens, it is about German officialdom (State and corporate), who seem to be able to get away with anything, and little known aspects of post WWII history where wide collaboration occured with elements of the 3rd Reich from Western powers. This is one of the reasons for the mess we’re in now. To take an example, it is a little known fact that there were seven German nationals in the close entourage of Mohammed Atta while in Florida pre 9/11, one of which was confirmed to be an agent (see the fascinating Welcome to Terrorland by D. Hopsicker). The site spitfirelist has a lot of material on the subject.
The majority of commenters here agree with Dagmar Henn’s warning and position.
You cannot discount the BND’s active connivance in pushing the Maidan Coup. The main thing that separated Nuland and the BND in this ‘operation’ was tactics, not the immediate objective (to take over Ukraine). Nuland’s “Fuck the EU” comment had to do with her arrogance and assessment that the EU (i.e. Germany) was incompetently managing this ‘operation’, and that she was there to clean it up and speed it up. It is noteworthy that Nuland did not want to include Svoboda-Nazis in the planned Ukie Junta, but that Germany DID want this Ukrainian-Nazi party in power. That makes the BND’s intentions orders of magnitude more malicious than any action by the US or Nuland. It is thanks to German-sponsored Svoboda and Yarosh in the Kiev Regime that the massacre, abuse and ethnic decimation of ethnic Russians is completely unchecked. A Kiev Junta without Svoboda and other Nazi elements would have proceeded more cautiously. As it stands now German malfeasance and duplicity in Ukraine mirrors their modus operandi in Yugoslavia: pretending to be helpless stooges of the US while covertly and massively supporting the most murderous Nazi-elements in the conflict.
The number one danger to Russia is the EU & Britain (as well as European 5th column infiltrators in the US who have more loyalty to their ethnicity and their old world [European] grievances than they do to the United States: Scum traitors like Brzezinski [proud of his role in supporting the torturous murder of 3 million Cambodians so that his Polish ‘brethren’ could be free of the Soviets] , closet-Brit-Hillary-Clinton [vicious Russophobe and contemptuous of REAL Americans] and murderous Madeleine Albright [the one who said that killing 600,000 Iraqi children was worth it]).
Any attempt by the US to keep the EU on a tight leash is GOOD thing and commensurate with maintaining global stability. Despite the completely unfair and wrongful support of the US of a Fascist Ukrainian Junta, the US is infinitely better than any equivalent that would arise if European and German elites had their way.
Note: the US has never directly invaded and slaughtered Slavs on a massive scale, but Germany and other European powers have done so repeatedly and recently; keep that in mind when comparing the 2 power blocks vis-a-vis their track records against Russia and Other Regions that were pillaged and mass-murdered by the Europeans (India, China & Africa).
Saker if you truly care about Russia, Russian culture and the ordinary people of the world, then you should never drop your defenses and trust any power on this world based on emotion, especially Europe with it’s most murderous & genocidal record, but also all other rising powerblocks: Japan-et-al, ASEAN, India, China, the neo-Persian-Block, and, in the future, even Africa. That’s the ENTIRE point of having a multipolar world: to have a global setup were no one powerblock can dominate and conquer other areas; where the megalomaniac tendencies of any elite will be held in check by the power of competing elites.
Kudos to Dagmar Henn for manifesting a spark of divinity in trying to expose the evil being done by her own government. And Kudos to you (Saker) for printing her article.