Review: Le choix de la défaite
Annie Lacroix-Riz analyses the portentous orientation of influential sections of the French elites towards Germany in the 1930s and the fluid transition to collaboration.
“The day will come,” wrote the French historian Marc Bloch in April 1944, “and perhaps quite soon, when it will be possible to shed light on the machinations that took place in our country from 1933 to 1939 in support of the Berlin-Rome axis so that it could rule over Europe.” Shortly beforehand, on 8 March, Bloch, who had joined the Resistance to fight against the German occupation regime, had been arrested, imprisoned and severely tortured by the Gestapo in Lyon. Facing death, he was gripped by a question that he had already addressed back in the summer of 1940, shortly after the German Reich’s rapid military conquest of France. In his essay L'étrange défaite (Strange Defeat), he concluded that the French elites – military leaders, politicians, journalists, and above all industrialists – were prepared to “single-handedly destroy the entire edifice of our alliances and our partnerships” and enter into open collaboration with the Germans. Bloch, too, like so many others, fell victim to that collaboration: the Nazis murdered him on 16 June 1944. Read more
Review: ‘Mutiny’
Peter Mertens analyses the revolt of the Global South against Western dominance and the parallel revolts within the South and the West against poverty and exploitation.
The world was in disorder, said Fiona Hill, former member of the United States National Security Council, in a speech delivered in the Estonian capital Tallinn in May last year. In numerous countries of the Global South we were witnessing the emergence among “elites and populations” of growing resistance to Western hegemony and, above all, the hegemony of the United States. Gaining ground is the conviction that the West has “imposed” an international order on the South “at a time of weakness”, a system that fails to meet its needs and its interests. Instead, they were seeing, she noted, how the transatlantic powers “dominated the international discourse”. The war in Ukraine was, Hill concedes, the most recent example. According to many in the Global South, it was not about defending Ukraine but, rather, securing the global dominance of the West, which Russia had openly called into question with the war. This was why the sanctions on Russia had received no support in the Global South. Instead, “a mutiny” was currently raging there: a “mutiny against what they see as the collective West”. Read more
Review: “Les Origines du plan Marshall”
Annie Lacroix-Riz analyses the “Myth of the US American Aid” to Europe following the Second World War and the path to the imposition of US hegemony.”
The Marshall Plan? That was, according to the belief widely held in the West, and semi-officially supported in West Germany, an unselfish reconstruction program by the United States after the Second World War. The program publicly presented on June 5, 1947, by George C. Marshall, US Secretary of State, at the time, was aimed at helping the economies of Europe – still floundering under the destruction of the war – to get back on their feet, while simultaneously “preventing the spread of communism.” This is how it is explained, for example, on the web portal “Lebendes Museum Online” (LeMo), which is sponsored by the German government’s Foundation ”Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.” According to this, from 1948 to 1952, Washington, altruistically made enormous sums available, at the time, – around US $12.4 billion – in current values €157 billion – to improve living conditions in Western Europe. The Marshall Plan – a humanitarian miracle? Whoever is skeptical about this semi-official historiography, will find comprehensive background information in the recently published book by French historian, Annie Lacroix-Riz on “The Origins of the Marshall Plan” or, as described in the subtitle, “the Myth of the American Aid.” Read more
Book Review: "Ami go home!"
Stefan Baron (former Head Editor of the German weekly, WirtschaftsWoche) analyses the struggle for hegemony between the USA and China.
"Ami go home"? That is not the sort of title one would expect to see on a book by an author like Stefan Baron. Baron, an economics graduate - who in the course of his professional career has worked as financial correspondent for "Der Spiegel," Editor-in-Chief of the "WirtschaftsWoche" and most recently, as the Director of Global Communication for the Deutsche Bank - certainly would not want his book to be considered anti-American. In his book, the publicist, who for years had been a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies and who still enjoys good relations with the United States, focuses his attention on the major shift in the global balance of power, shaping our present, with China's rise and the USA seeking to hold the People's Republic of China down, to preserve its global dominance. The consequences are a dangerous escalation of the conflict, which could lead to a Third World War, which as Baron notes, which must urgently be prevented. This concern leads him to harshly criticize the United States' current situation and to suggest ways of preventing the escalation of the transpacific power struggle. Read more
Vom Drang nach Osten zur peripheren EU-Integration (From the ,,push to the East"to peripheral EU integration) Wien 2003, Promedia Verlag ISBN 3-85371-198-7 17,90 Euro Read more
Democrat Publications 2002 57 Green Lane Merseyside CH45 8JQ Great Britain ISBN 1 904260 03 9 Translation: Edward Spalton Read more
Zur Legende vom Werden der Nationen. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer (Tb.), 2002 ISBN 3596601118 12,90 Euro Read more
Einblicke in das Netzwerk der reichsdeutschen Subversion Neundorf: Edition Krautgarten orte, 2001 ISBN: 2-87316-006-3 24,54 Euro Read more
Aktuelle Analysen zu Paneuropa, Revanchismus, Ostexpansion Wuppertal 2002 80 Seiten, 4 Euro Read more
Die blutige Spur der 117. JägerDivision durch Serbien und Griechenland 556 Seiten Zahlreiche Karten Mannheim 2002 ISBN 3-933925-22-3 Read more