What Albert Speer Knew about the Holocaust

Sept. 25 2015

The German architect Albert Speer was a favorite of Adolf Hitler, who put him in charge of the Third Reich’s building projects and later made him minister of armaments. Speer was spared the death penalty at Nuremburg, consistently denied he had any knowledge of the extermination of the Jews, and earned himself a reputation as the ex-Nazi with a conscience. A recent biography by Martin Kitchen sets the record straight, as Daniel Johnson writes:

It was [Speer] who evicted and expropriated the Jews of Berlin—an audacious crime that had no basis in law and which made thousands of Jewish families homeless—and he who engineered their deportation—of which he later disclaimed all knowledge. It was he who, working closely with [Heinrich] Himmler’s SS, played a key role in the creation of the Nazi concentration-camp system, initially to provide stone for his building projects, later to make arms. The building of crematoria at Auschwitz was “Professor Speer’s special program.” Not only did Speer know what lay in store for the Jews in the camps: he was one of the key individuals who made the genocide possible.

His own anti-Semitic outbursts may have been less crude than [those of] other leading Nazis, but his empire employed millions of slave laborers, thousands of whom were deliberately worked to death. Speer lied about almost every aspect of his role in the Third Reich. But the biggest lie was that he had tried to prevent its worst excesses. Speer had been closer to Hitler, and had more opportunities to stop him, than anybody else. He never even tried.

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Read more at Standpoint

More about: Adolf Hitler, History & Ideas, Holocaust, Nuremberg Trials, World War II

Europe Must Stop Tolerating Iranian Operations on Its Soil

March 31 2023

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.

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Read more at Newsweek

More about: European Union, Iran, Palestinian terror, PFLP