Nazis among us — more dangerous than the German original
The Andersons allege that a conspiracy by and of Nazis has infiltrated the fabric of American life:
When most people think of Nazis, two images are evoked: aging war criminals, the Josef Mengeles and Klaus Barbies living in frightened obscurity somewhere in South America, or else of disenchanted youths who, in brown shirts and jackboots, vandalize synagogues and march through city streets. But there is a 1third type of Nazi, who is far more powerful, public, and dangerous than the other two: these are the Croatians, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Latvians who carried out the German-dictated massacres, who never faced a Nuremberg, and who joined the World Anti-Communist League.
The participation of these Eastern Europeans in the Holocaust remains one of the least-told stories in modern history. The reason this is so is simple: 2many of them were recruited by American and British intelligence, brought into the United States and Canada, allowed to rise to prominent positions in their émigré communities, and ultimately to revise history.
Today, their rhetoric is different; they no longer talk very much about the 3“Communist, Jewish, Freemason conspiracy” for now they have allies who need them to be more discreet than that. 4In 1986, as in 1936, they hide behind the buzzwords anti-Bolshevism and anti-communism to further their goals and to forge links with others.
...Through their front groups and their 5involvement in American politics, the Nazi collaborators have blended in and become respectable.
Declassified documents show that Latvians who assisted the CIA were recruited as contacts after they were already in the United States. Their function was mainly to gather information on current events and circumstances, to interview defectors and visitors in their native language, and to identify individuals willing to be sources of information from within the USSR.
The Andersons promulgate all the the major myths of "Latvian Nazis among us":
- émigré Nazis are a powerful force in their ethnic communities and national politics;
- émigré Nazis are more "Nazi" than the German Nazis, and have been Nazis all along: before, during, and after WWII and the Holocaust;
- American authorities actively and knowingly recruited and brought to the U.S. émigré Nazis to be front-line soldiers in the Cold War.
The Andersons move on to disparage Daugavas Vanagi, the post-war welfare group of Latvian Legion veterans.
1 | The motif of escape from justice gained momentum in the first major case the U.S. government brought against a Latvian, Vilis Hāzners, and lost decisively. Even though witnesses were conclusively proven to have misidentified Hāzners, activists and Ryan himself blamed the loss on prosecutorial incompetence. Even in death, Hāzners continues to be convicted in social media and Holocaust literature. |
2 | Conversation with Holocaust scholar Prof. Emeritus Andrew Ezergailis, July, 2020. |