A disturbing aspect of Ireland's history has been uncovered by research finding that leading Nazis were sheltered and welcomed by the Irish establishment after the war.

A rogues' gallery that included fascists, Nazi collaborators and war criminals came to Ireland, including some who flourished and became respected members of the community.

A documentary to be screened on Irish television tonight illustrates growing willingness amongst mainstream public opinion to face up to Ireland's role in providing a haven for war criminals.

In the past, there has been a tendency to overlook stories of Hitler's henchmen being protected while they made their homes in Ireland or using it as a staging post to escape to America.

"It is very interesting that there is now much more willingness to raise these issues about those sections of the Irish population, who were sympathetic to the Nazi cause," said Paul Bew, Professor of Irish Politics at Queen's University, Belfast.

"I am glad people are focusing on this now. It has been a repressed theme in Irish history," added Prof Bew, who also deals with the subject in his book The Oxford History of Ireland, which is to be published later this year.

Otto 'Scarface' Skorzeny, once described as Hitler's favourite soldier and the most dangerous man in Europe, was feted by the Dublin social glitterati.

Fourteen years after he had rescued Mussolini from a hilltop fortress in 1943, Skorzeny arrived at a reception in his honour held at Portmarnock Country Club.

The cream of Dublin society attended the event, including a young politician, Charles Haughey, who was later to become Ireland's most controversial Prime Minister.

Skorzeny made his name by raiding an Italian castle where Mussolini was held captive. Descending on the fortress in gliders, Skorzeny's men succeeded in freeing the dictator.

A year later, Skorzeny was involved in rounding up and torturing members of the German resistance after their failed attempt on Hitler's life.

He was acquitted of war crimes by a US court, but remained a prisoner because other countries wanted to prosecute him.

He escaped from prison, fleeing to Spain before buying a farm Martinstown House, near the Curragh, where he lived for a decade.

believed between 100 and 200 people with Nazi connections passed through Ireland during the Cold War.

Albert Folens, who died in 2003 at 86 after founding Ireland's leading academic text-book publisher, was involved in the Gestapo and Waffen SS.

The documentary claims he was a volunteer in the Waffen SS Flemish legion, serving on the eastern front until he was wounded.

After treatment in an SS hospital, he joined the Gestapo and claimed to have worked at its Brussels headquarters as a translator.

His name is said to have appeared on the US army's Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. Folens always denied any involvement in torture or inhumane treatment.

Arrested by the British Army in Germany, he was sentenced to 10 years after a military trial. But he escaped after 30 months and fled to Ireland on a false passport.

The so-called 'Butcher of the Balkans', Andrija Artukovic, was another who sought and found sanctuary in Ireland, spending his time in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar in 1947.

According to the programme, Artukovic, a Croatian Nazi, was given safe passage to Ireland with the help of a Franciscan order.

Artukovic served as interior minister in the Nazi puppet regime in Croatia. He was provided with immigration papers under a false name before arriving in Ireland, where he posed as a history professor before moving to the United States.

Decades later he was extradited to Yugoslavia and was sentenced to death for opening concentration camps and being involved in the genocide of up to one million innocent people. The sentence was not carried out because the authorities deemed him too ill.

Pieter Menten, a Dutch Nazi war criminal, moved to a Co Waterford mansion in 1964 before he was eventually tried and imprisoned. After his prison term, the Irish government would not allow him back.

Helmut Clissmann was a World War II German spy involved in failed missions with the IRA. He later became a successful Dublin businessman.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plDL43UDjuQ

Ballyseeedy massacre...Irelands hidden history...

"Ireland became a Nazi state in 1922. Germany’s Nazi state lasted twelve years. Ireland’s descent into Nazism was brief, and was localized inside Ireland. For ten months, June 1922 to April 1923, all hell broke loose in Ireland. We can’t blame the British for this one. Irishmen did this to other Irishmen.

We Irish cherish our martyr status as victims of British imperialism. Those ten months, June 1922 to April 1923, stripped us of our martyr status. As soon as the British withdrew from southern Ireland, Irishmen immediately started oppressing other Irishmen ten times worse than the British ever oppressed us.

The same thing happened in other British colonies in Asia and Africa. As soon as the paternal hand of imperial control was withdrawn, the local indigenous factions gave hell to each other, much worse than the British had ever done. We need to straighten out our thinking on this.

Cecil Rhodes declared: “We, the British, are the best people in the world." In view of what the colonized peoples started doing to each other as soon as the British withdrew, we are prompted to ask: was Cecil Rhodes right? I’m not saying he was right. I’m saying there is food for thought here.

The Irish educational system understandably bypasses those ten months of June 1922 to April 1923 in its history lessons.

The massacre at Ballyseedy Cross has come to symbolize those ten months.

Operation "Paper Clip" is proof that America also welcomed Hitler's henchmen.



Sorry, I think America has them beat on that subject.

Oh Goody!!! It's a competition!!

If I've learned anything in the past year, it's been how little is real about everything I've been taught. It's equally possible that the NAZIs were actually the lessor of 2 evils. As it stands now, it's likely that the US government is the most evil on this planet.

Hyperbole noted, and it is ridiculous.

Is it? How many did Stalin kill? How many have the US killed?

Yes it is ridiculous. Are you saying that the US government is worse than the Nazi regime? If so, how is it that you can even post such a statement without being executed? I think you underestimate the brutality of a Totalitarian regime.

you've GOT to be kidding!

Hitler and Stalin were equals when you factor in the WWII Wardead which you have to lay squarely at Hitler's Door!

I think you had better read up on PAPERCLIP!

And not on SOTT either!

The only reason people who say such things are not "executed" is because the United States waves a flag and makes the claim that it represent FREEDOM. They have to keep up appearances, after all.

And yet did you know that our United States CEO/president of this corporation has in his hands to power to execute or assassinate or murder anyone he wants? He has a kill list.

If and when martial law is declared the people on said "kill list" will quickly disappear.

I disappeared once but came back. Does that count?

Actually that would be Russia.

Ridiculous.

Can we use preposterous this time?...

How many have the US killed?

Quite a few I would Imagine

1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony
5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia
17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism
19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine
22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA
25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others
East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie
34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
35. Greece - 1964-1974: "**** your Parliament and your Constitution," said
the President of the United States
36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat
37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"
38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2
39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum
44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington
46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust
53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad
54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
56. The American Empire - 1992 to present

Is that why Ireland loves Hitler?

Or, is it because of this?

Where did you cut & paste this hyperbole from? It's priceless!

he's probably had it for years.