Great Programme on SS and Ireland on RTE

vesp

There was a great programme on RTE tonight , Tuesday 9th. It went in to great detail about how ex SS murderers were able to escape to Ireland after the war....and how they achieved this / their route along the way / who co-operated with them etc. It named individuals who between them were responsible for over a million deaths. It also shone the light on our extremely poor record towards Jewish refugees before, during and after the holocaust.

damienom

Was that the Hidden History show?? Am raging I missed it, had to work!!!

mike65

Agh! I meant to watch that. Any repeats?

Mike.

Dundalk Daily

I missed it also completely forgot about it, damn it.

constitutionus

missed it too myself but matt cooper was doing a spot on it on his last word show tonight (11th) and revealed that even though he wasn't going to name anyone a solicitor was on to him just in case he did. apparently some of these guys got very high up in the establishment once they settled in and their families still got some clout. starts to put the old de valera controversy of signing hitlers book of condolences in a different light doesn't it

vesp

Think part two is on RTE next Monday or Tuesday night. Excellent.

Alun

I saw it and thought it was fascinating. In the next part they're going to be looking at how some of these people later integrated into mainstream life here, some of whom went on to become successful businessmen. A certain [mod edit]businessman[/mod edit] apparently was a Belgian collaborator, for instance.

tbh

careful now. RTE got whacked with an injunction for saying the same thing.

flogen

Alun's post edited out of legal concerns.

As always, posters are asked to refrain from making comments and accusations that have not been proven in a court of law - this should be a no-brainer when said comments have already landed others in legal trouble.

mike65

Tomorrow nights second programme will be screened as the Folens family have lost the injunction appeal sort of (or is it a victory?!)

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0115/folens.html

Mike.

flogen

Looks like an in-court settlement/agreement.

Some content edited out, and Mrs. Folens' statement is added to the programme.

constitutionus

yup, something along the lines of " he never was a member of the gestapo" at least thats according to RTE six one news. looking forward to this, been a long time when something this contentious been broadcasted.:)

mike65

Great so far, apart from the loud music. I had no idea this country was so awash with Nazis.

Mike.

lostexpectation

what the f*** was haughy doing at a party for a world infamous SS general????

****ing catholic church going beyond reason to protect itself again...

I dunno I would like to have known just how many did come over? they mosltly seemed to be not german, but nazi from other countries...

hidden history is great prog, this one links in nicely with the one about fine gael nazi man a few weeks back


slightly off topic but what happened in germany after the war we compare to iraq, I presume germany and its people were devastated and sick of war but no insurgents fight the allies after Vday?

flogen

lostexpectation wrote:

slightly off topic but what happened in germany after the war we compare to iraq, I presume germany and its people were devastated and sick of war but no insurgents fight the allies after Vday?

Might be best to bring this up in the History/Heritage forum - interesting question all the same.

Dundalk Daily

Just heard that there is a great review in Sundays Bus Post pulling this programme apart, havent seen it myself yet though.

Snickers Man

Here's a few things to ponder:

of the five people named in the second part of the show, three were Belgians, and only one of the other two Germans stayed in Ireland long term. The other, Skorzeny, came to Ireland briefly in the 1950s and did so quite openly. His record was well known, he was one of the most brilliant Special Forces soldiers of the war and it was hardly a case of his having been spirited here to evade capture. He was already famous because of his operation to rescue Mussolini from captivity.

One of the posts called these men murderers. Where's the evidence for that? What murders did any of them commit?

All of them seem to have lived blameless and productive lives in Ireland, whatever they might have been involved in hitherto. OK so Luykxx got roped in by Fianna Fail to buy arms in Germany, seemingly because he was 'Continental'. Turned out he knew so little about the arms trade that the Germans laughed at him.

The fact that three of the men were Belgians who had joined the SS following the German invasion of that country is interesting. As Flemish nationalists, and representatives of a community that sees itself as being subjugated by the French speaking majority their interests in joining the SS were almost certainly pro-Flemish rather than anti-Jewish. Certainly, such sentiments would not have been popular in post war Belgium which is why they wanted to get out after the war. Is there any evidence that they were involved in 'crimes against humanity' while serving in the war?

Maybe it's just because the organisation of which they were members was so reprehensible. In which case bear in mind that the chief accuser in the program was a former member of the RAF. Baby burners incorporated.

Mr O'Shannon whinged that he was not able to wear his RAF uniform while on leave in Dublin. If he wants to hold the likes of Folens, Luykxx and the old hippy living in the west of Ireland responsible for Auschwitz because of their membership of the SS then he should accept his own common cause with the organisation that bombed defenceless Iraqi, Indian and Palestinian villages in the 1920s, not to mention the fire bombing of Hamburg, or the mass destruction of many German cities which took place for the most part in the last few months of the war when they were to all intents and purposes defenceless.

None of this is to justify the actions of the Nazi party. But World War II was, despite what British popular TV would have you believe, a hugely complex series of issues with all sorts of people having all sorts of different agendas. Just because some ended up as allies of the eventual losers, who had a rotten ideology, does not mean that we should automatically hold them in opprobium.

mike65

Hmmmmm all of that overlooks the most pertenant fact, the Irish state has never been willing to acknowledge the presence of NAZI facists (whatever thier nationality) I bet if a clean breast was made of this era there would much to ponder. As for cheap shots about the RAF - they were on the side of goodness even if certain policies were in retrospect wrong (and of little practical value too). There's many a dumb Irishmen who would have welcomed the Nazis machine into this state - just be glad they never turned up.

Mike.

Snickers Man

mike65 wrote:

Hmmmmm all of that overlooks the most pertenant fact, the Irish state has never been willing to acknowledge the presence of NAZI facists (whatever thier nationality) I bet if a clean breast was made of this era there would much to ponder. As for cheap shots about the RAF - they were on the side of goodness even if certain policies were in retrospect wrong (and of little practical value too). There's many a dumb Irishmen who would have welcomed the Nazis machine into this state - just be glad they never turned up.

Mike.

What's to "acknowledge"? Five men, only one of whom was of any consequence and he only maintained a house here for a couple of years (Skorzeny). That's hardly a country 'awash with Nazis' as you put it.

And as for cheap shots about the RAF and their being on the right side. Does that hold for their practice of 'Air Control' in places like Iraq Palestine and India in the 1920s? How were they in the right there? Who were they bombing? Nazis or natives?

Or do you just want to 'write that out of history'?

JWAD

What disgusted me was the underhand shennanigans going on in the deValera govt and its depts regarding the limiting down to ridiculous levels of Jewish refugees into the country with talk of apparently not fitting in with the "religious ethos" of the country at the time. Barely 60 were allowed in and to stay.
:mad:
The 'emergency' was a disgrace and is an embarrassing blemish on this country's history.

vesp

What was interesting in the programme was how many of these Nazis had escaped after the war - they did it with the co-operation and collaboration of the Roman Catholic church. Even after the war, after Hitler and Mussolini ( who incidentally were both Catholics ) were dead, and after the horrors of the concentration camps had been totally uncovered, the Catholic Church still aided SS men.

mike65

Catholicism was clearly of greater importance than facism in Ireland.

Mike.

vesp

mike65 wrote:

Catholicism was clearly of greater importance than facism in Ireland.

Mike.

And also of greater importance to those clergy in Europe who collaborated with the Nazis in helping them to escape....according to that programme anyway.

Snickers Man

JWAD wrote:

What disgusted me was the underhand shennanigans going on in the deValera govt and its depts regarding the limiting down to ridiculous levels of Jewish refugees into the country with talk of apparently not fitting in with the "religious ethos" of the country at the time. Barely 60 were allowed in and to stay.
:mad:

I agree.

And I despise those in today's Ireland who use more or less the same argument about 'different cultures' etc to drum up hatred of those of minority faiths (in an Irish context) who are making their homes here.

Read the Sunday Independent, substitute Jewry and Jew for Islam and Muslim in many of the opinion pieces and you'll see that the same attitude (with a slightly different target) is alive and well in the secular Celtic Tiger.

JWAD wrote:

The 'emergency' was a disgrace and is an embarrassing blemish on this country's history.

Apart from that reluctance to let in Jews, how so?

Snickers Man

mike65 wrote:

Catholicism was clearly of greater importance than facism in Ireland.

Mike.

vesp wrote:

And also of greater importance to those clergy in Europe who collaborated with the Nazis in helping them to escape....according to that programme anyway.

Wipe the po from your faces, people.

Rocket technology was clearly more important to the Americans after the war than locking up fascists like Wernher von Braun. The guy who used slave labour to build the rockets with which he pulverised the civilians of London was warmly welcomed into the American ICBM and Space Exploration industries. business is business after all.

And the same Americans and British were only too willing to use former Nazis to put down the left wingers who had done most to defeat the Nazis/Fascists in Italy and Greece. And even in France.

Not to mention all those Nazis that remained in vital administrative positions in Germany after the war.

After all, there was a new enemy to fight, namely the country that had done most to defeat Nazism, the Soviet Union.

mike65

Snickers Man your kinda missing the point of the Free "Sure are'nt we Neutral!" State, the US used WVB to achieve a particular end and why would'nt they? The Russians did likewise ("our Germans are better than their Germans" was the quip in The Right Stuff)

The Irish had no earthly reason to sully themselves with Nazis or thier collaboraters -certainly not after the war anyway!

Mike.

Snickers Man

mike65 wrote:

Snickers Man your kinda missing the point of the Free "Sure are'nt we Neutral!" State, the US used WVB to achieve a particular end and why would'nt they? The Russians did likewise ("our Germans are better than their Germans" was the quip in The Right Stuff)

The Irish had no earthly reason to sully themselves with Nazis or thier collaboraters -certainly not after the war anyway!

Mike.

I would have thought the proper attitude for a properly neutral state would be to be even handed to parties of both sides. Of course that is not the case. The Irish were 'neutral for the Allies' as has so often been said. But we were quite right not to get involved in any war involving Britain, France and the other great colonial powers. I am VERY PROUD of the fact that we didn't and think little of those who regard our neutrality as a source of shame.

And how far do you want to take this vendetta against anybody who fought wiht the Germans into the post war age? Do you shun Nokia phones for example, on the grounds that the Finns were active allies of the Germans in their war against the Soviet Union (the "real" war, incidentally) which piece of supposed "aggression" on their part caused the United Kingdom to declare war on Finland in 1941? Not that any British soldiers actually fought against the Finns, even though a legal state of war existed between the two countries for nearly four years.

Snickers Man

Saw this rubbish again last night on the History Channel. It's even worse watching it the second time.

The presumptuous supercilious tone of O'Shannon throughout is truly nauseating. And his choice of language is extremely biased and disingenuous.

For instance his use of the word "infiltrate" to describe the Belgians' participation in Irish business. One became a publisher, one became a restaurateur. Running their own businesses. Under their own names. How on earth can that be "infiltration"?

And I note that an earlier poster says we only let in 60 Jews after the war.

Well, that's a disgrace if true, but this program could only point to five Nazis who came here, one of whom only stayed for a short while.

So we let in twelve times more Jews than Nazis, on the evidence of this program. And there was NO evidence to suggest that these men were involved in any war crimes at all. Apart from treason to a country (Belgium) that many of them felt no loyalty to at all.


And what did they do when they came here? One of them helped to form the local Amnesty International. (Fascist pig!!)

Another became the biggest publisher of school books in the country.

Another became a tree hugger who fought to save Wood Quay.

The restaurateur (Luyckxx) got too close to Fianna Fail and was sent off to buy guns for the provos in Hamburg on the grounds that he could speak German. What a qualification that was!!!

It would be like the Iraqi resistance sending Jamie Oliver off to buy some Stinger missiles on the grounds that he could like rap with the boys down a depot in fluent Essex speak.

Utter drivel of a program.