On a dreary summer day in 1944, SS Gruppenführer Baron Otto Wächter and Nazi Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler paced in front of the men of the 14th SS-Volunteer Division “Galicia” they had created. Wächter, who escaped the Nurenburg tribunals via the infamous Catholic Church rat lines, would later die in Italy before he could reach Argentina.
The killer who created the notorious Kraków Ghetto also formed the Waffen-SS Galizien, which would become the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army. There is no official record from that June day when these two diabolical men reviewed Ukrainian SS troops, but it seems sure that the pass and review ended with Heil Hitler and “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine).
“Some of our German passengers on the ship would be crying. The Brits were the same way. They were crying, because they realized a new war was about to break out across Europe, with Hitler at the head of the goose-stepping parade.” – Frank Buckles, the last known surviving American-born veteran of the First World War
In May of 2021, hundreds march in Kyiv in celebration of Ukraine’s Nazi past and soldiers of the SS. The parade, or so-called Embroidery March, took place in the capital on April 28, the 78th anniversary of the establishment of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, created by one of Hitler’s henchmen. Interestingly, Israel’s Foreign Ministry and thousands of Ukrainian Jews, have protested the glorification of the 1st Galician and other collaborators, but since the 2014 Euromaidan, the popularity of this SS group has soured.
In her keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Ukraine Recovery Conference, EU President von der Leyen at the opening ceremony of the Ukraine Recovery Conference talked as if Russia has already been defeated by the west. At the end of her rousing announcement of banking and investing moves to come in Ukraine, she signs off with Slava Ukraini!
The blood of Russians and Ukrainians has not yet soaked into the ground and the daughter of the Hanseatic elites is moving the financiers into position. This quote from her address tells us the real mission of NATO nations and the coming reconstruction phase:
“The platform will bring together countries, institutions, the private sector and civil society; our partners from around the globe, from Switzerland to the United States, European and international organizations – from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – that is already working in Ukraine and I really commend you for that – to the European Investment Bank; from the IMF to the World Bank. And of course, it will involve business and business associations with all their incredible know-how, we need that know-how, we need that expertise.”
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi introduced Zelenskyy, invoking the former SS salute Ukrainians now look for. Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson raised their voices in salute and pledged their unwavering support for Ukraine with this slogan. The Catholic community in Philadelphia held a parade on the 4th of July where marchers changed “Slava Ukraini” just as if preparation is underway to create new “rat lines” just in case Ukraine and this strange Fourth Reich fails.
This excerpt from a Financial Times story “My father, the good Nazi,” by researcher Philippe Sands from an interview with infamous killer’s son Horst von Wächter, speaks volumes about today’s crisis in eastern Europe:
“In January 1942, Hitler appointed him [Otto Wächter] governor of the recently conquered Galicia, describing him as “the best man” for the job (the same month that, in Berlin, the Wannsee Conference endorsed the “final solution”, largely to be carried out on Hans Frank’s Polish territory).”
What’s always fascinating for me as a researcher, is how easy it is to find today’s connections to Europe’s diabolical Nazi-makers. Take a company Schoeller-Bleckmann, for instance. The reader may be interested to know that the wife of Otto Wächter was the daughter of the Styrian steel magnate who was key to the success of a company that once supported Hitler’s war effort.
The names and businesses have changed, a little, but profit in anything and everything remains the same. The Schoeller-Bleckmann of today, long since removed from its jaded past, is into things like directional drilling technology, oil, and natural gas (see the company’s interest in Ukraine). Imagine that. I’ll just tease the reader here, a bit with the connection of an Austrian entrepreneur named Norbert Zimmermann (Schoeller-Beckmann is now run by Berndorf AG), Davos, and your EU President Ursula von der Leyen.
Finally, back in 1995, then President of the United States Bill Clinton hailed the nationalists in Ukraine using “Slava Ukraini” in the same sentence as “God bless America” at a speech in Kyiv. The 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine was orchestrated by the west, as part of the broader plan to incorporate former Soviet states as satraps. Then came the Euromaidan of 2014, when “Slava Ukraini” began to mean “death to Russian speakers” again. Then, by 2019, members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists were granted veterans benefits like those received by former Red Army soldiers.
Hollywood stars have joined in. NGOs have been created. Facebook censors anyone not rendering the salute, and promotes instructional videos on sabotaging Russian troop formations. America’s technocrats hail Ukraine and Zelensky using the SS slogan. US Embassies are chanting it. Himmler’s ghastly legacy is now echoed from the Hague to Michigan State University, and as far off as the Thornbury Bowls Club outside Melbourne, Australia.
Germany is rearming. NATO threatens peace in job preservation mode. A global pandemic and looming economic collapse mirror 1930s foreboding. Glory to the most corrupt government in Europe, by far! And Zelensky now wants almost a trillion to ‘rebuild’ the home of the Waffen-SS Galizien!
Why were the Russians forced to act? Keep asking yourself this question. The answer is right in front of us.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
