Jig Heil! The free-born Irish who saluted the Führer

By Kim Bielenberg

Saturday February 13 2010

By all accounts it was a most jovial gathering in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin in December 1937. Out in the lobby, visitors to the hotel would have heard the booming sound of "Deutschland! Deutschland! Uber Alles!"

The leader of the Nazi party in Ireland, Adolf Mahr, was joined by local dignitaries -- including senior civil servants and the enthusiastic editor of The Irish Times, Mr RM Smyllie -- at the German Association's Christmas party.

Swastikas draped the balconies and small flags bearing the fascist emblem decorated the tables as Dr Hempel, Germany's top diplomat in Ireland, welcomed guests.

And then Dr Hempel asked all present to rise and salute the Leader and Chancellor of the Reich, Adolf Hitler.

With right arms raised in the Nazi salute, the Gresham gathering sang the German anthem and Horst Wessel Lied, a song which celebrated one of the Führer's bully boy commanders.

"Clear the streets for the brown battalions!

Clear the streets for the storm- troopers!"

With apologies to Mel Brooks, writer of the spoof Nazi musical The Producers, it was Springtime for Hitler on O'Connell Street.

So how could senior Irish civil servants and other local worthies show their faces at a meeting with such flagrant Nazi overtones in a Dublin hotel?

Taoiseach Eamon de Valera could hardly complain, since the Irish Nazi leader Mahr was himself a senior civil servant, as director of the National Museum.

There you go, straight from an Irish Mainline Newspaper.

We Irish like to tell it as it happened.


Howard Zinn wasn't covered by the NYT or the WP I bet with his

A Peoples History of The United States.

O'Duffy and his Irish Fascists


de Valera's beloved Fuhrer

Well, he was a card carrying communist during the Cold War and his book is a poor example of historiography, so it's no surprise really.