||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||| ||| ||| A N T I F A ||| ||| ||| ||| I N F O - B U L L E T I N ||| ||| _____ ||| ||| ||| ||| * News * Analysis * Research * Action * ||| ||| ||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ***** ||/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\||/\|| || * -- RESEARCH -- * -- May 14, 1996 -- * -- RESEARCH -- * || ||\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/||\/|| ***** RESEARCH SUPPLEMENT ----- {Editor's Note: The post below is from an antifascist active in the continuing battle against cybernazis. His analysis of Nazi disinformation is salient today, given the long history of manipulation of communications media by fascists, both in and out of power. Since the deadly effects of Nazi propaganda are not historical artifacts, the Internet like the street, is a terrain that will also be contested by anti-racists. The fact is, Nazis _kill_; but before they do so, they objectify and dehumanize their victims; the "Big Lie" is predicated by a series of "small lies" unchallenged. Those today who peddle the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," "Hunter," the "NS-Kampfruf" or the anti-abortion "Army of God" terror manual, do so in preparation for their role as executioners tomorrow. We should have no illusions that the corporate State will "defend" us from attacks by these pit-bulls (just ask the German Autonome Antifa (M) for evidence of the State's "good" intentions!). Nor should we cultivate illusions that "banning" the Nazis from the Internet will miraculously cause fascism to disappear; hitting the "delete" key won't make them go away. "Whenever injustice is concerned, the proper form of politeness is attack."} ***** Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 13:14:56 GMT From: tallpaul@nyc.pipeline.com (tallpaul) PATTERNS OF PAST NAZI PROPAGANDA AND THEIR RELEVANCE FOR TODAY'S INTERNET by tallpaul@nyc.pipeline.com Cybernazi campaigns for "rec.music.white-power" and against "soc.politics.marxism" saw many examples of disinformation occur. Some, like that from "Skipper's Hammer" came from individuals. Others were reports, widely spread, of "thousands" of illegal spams by antifascists. Many people who were new to politics (and the history of fascism) were confused by these actions. Their understanding was made more difficult by the ahistoricism to antihistoricism of right wing forces on the internet. The cybernazis have announced they are not giving up or even reducing their activities in cyberspace. It is thus beneficial for antifascists to have at least a brief understanding of past fascist patterns of disinformation to better understand how fascist propaganda and dirty tricks function today. THE REICHSTAG FIRE The Nazis, with a minority of the popular vote, convince German President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to form a government. The German Reichstag [Parliament] building burns and Hitler accuses the German Communist Party of arson as a signal to start a communist revolution. During the manufactured hysteria Hitler gains dictatorial powers. CRYSTAL NIGHT The Nazis begin the next stage of their anti-Jewish campaign by mobilizing their thugs to smash Jewish shops in a campaign known as Crystal Night from the broken glass left in the streets. The shopkeepers, reasonably, file insurance claims. The Jews are then accused of smashing their own shops in order to "defraud" German businesses. The Jews, collectively, are accessed a penalty of one billion Deutsche Marks to reimburse the insurance companies. _NACHT UND NEBEL_ (NIGHT AND FOG) The Nazis secretly decide that major opponents of their regime are not to be formally arrested and formally tried in any way that would permit a legal defense and the mobilization of popular resistance. Instead, in a decision that preceded the Latin and South American death squads of today, the Nazi opponents were simply to "disappear" into the night and fog. SEXUAL MOLESTATION IN THE DANZIG CORRIDOR Shortly before the Nazi invasion of Poland, the German newspapers ran hysterical stories. As Toland put it, "... Ribbentrop warned Warsaw that Polish outrages against the German minority were becoming intolerable. This pronouncement was followed by a press campaign with Goering's newspaper, _Die Zeitung_, charging that German women and children were being molested in Polish streets...." (Of course Nazis aren't the only group to use "molestation" as a political issue; the recent C.D.A. featured the need to control the internet to prevent "kiddie porn.") ARSON IN THE DANZIG CORRIDOR Immediately before the Nazi invasion the German newspapers ran headlines on how the Poles had torched German houses in the Danzig Corridor. (This is of special interest to internet people who read "news.groups" where many of the arguments on "rec.music.white-power" occurred. To observers in the Danzig Corridor, the Nazi journalists who wrote the arson stories must have appeared "clueless." So also the "news.groups" observers who saw the cybernazi propaganda developed and similarly pronounced the writers "clueless." Both groups would have missed the fact that the propaganda was not written for either set of observers who knew the truth, but for people *outside* the Corridor and the news group who did not.) THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST, 1939 The immediate Nazi disinformation campaign that formally "started" WW II is of such interest as to let Toland describe it himself. "At 4 PM the executive order to begin the invasion was confirmed; troops and equipment began moving up to forward positions near the frontier. Simultaneously special orders were transmitted to a secret German unit on the Polish border by the chief of the SS Security Service. Reinhard Heydrich had concocted a diabolical scheme -- Operation Himmler -- to give Hitler a perfect excuse for launching his attack. SD detachments disguised as Polish soldiers and guerrillas would create incidents along the border the night before the invasion. In exactly four hours they were to attack a forestry station, destroy a German customs building, and, most important, briefly occupy the German radio station at Gleiwitz. After shouting anti-German slogans into the microphone the `Poles' would retreat, leaving behind a number of dead bodies as proof that a fight had taken place. The bodies presented no problem. Heydrich had already selected the victims -- they were called `canned goods' -- from concentration camps." [pp. 776-777] SUMMARY Nazi disinformation techniques thus served three roles: 1) They mobilized Nazi and proto-Nazi support; 2) They provided conservative non-Nazis with a motive to support Nazi activity. ("I hate war but I'm supporting the Nazi invasion of Poland to teach the Poles not to attack other countries." "I'd never vote for `rec.music.white-power' but I'm voting for it to teach antinazi spammers they can't manipulate me.") 3) They paralyzed center political elements. ("Are the accounts of atrocities against the Jews true stories or Jewish propaganda to get the U.S. involved in the war? We really don't know and until we do we shouldn't do anything." "Was the Joe Fraud spam against `rec.music.white-power' a nazi spam or an antinazi spam? We can't do anything until we figure it out.") While the paralyzed liberals discussed, the Nazis acted. Frequently point three was the most important for furthering Nazi ends. That was true in Europe in 1939 and it is true on the internet today. * * * * * Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) 750 La Playa # 730 San Francisco, California 94121 Voice: (415) 437-4032 E-Mail: On PeaceNet visit BACORR's conference. For subscription information e-mail Wendi Jones, BACORR text files can also be found on the following sites: Arm The Spirit WWW:gopher://locust.cic.net:70/11/politics/Arm.The.Spirit/BACORR FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/politics/Arm.The.Spirit/BACORR FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/politics/Arm.The.Spirit/Antifa/Antifa.Info-Bulletin Institute For Alternative Journalism (AlterNet) http://www.alternet.org/an/demworks/html gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:70/00/orgs/alternet ***************************************************************** BACORR: DEFENDING CLINICS, EXPOSING TERRORISM -- BECAUSE NO ONE'S GONNA DO IT FOR US! ***************************************************************** ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++ ++++ see: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++