German Store Changes Name After Anti-Nazi Protests

The Thor Steinar clothing store in Chemnitz, eastern Germany, is shown in this March 6, 2012 photo. The German company whose clothes are popular among neo-Nazis says it’s changing the name of a new store to Brevik. (Michael Klug/dapd/AP Photo)

ABC | March 7, 2012

By DRAGANA JOVANOVIC

A German clothing brand accused of capitalizing on the notoriety of confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik by naming a new store “Brevik,” dropping only one letter from the right-wing extremist’s last name, has bowed to public pressure and changed the name.

Thor Steinar, a clothing company popular with Neo-Nazis and once banned by the German government for using Nazi imagery, opened its Brevik store in the eastern German city of Chemnitz earlier this week. Thousands of protestors took to the streets to demand the name be changed.

On Wednesday, the company that owns Thor Steinar said the connection with Anders Breivik was unintentional and that the name would be changed. A sign above the front door with the name Brevik has already been removed and replaced with a sign reading Tonsberg, the name of another Norwegian town.

Hanka Kliese, the local politician who led the protests, called the decision a “partial victory.”

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“We are pleased to have had some impact,” Kliese, a representative to Saxony’s state parliament, told Reuters. “But we will not stop our protest because a company that considered using such a name and with such an ideology has no place here.”

Breivik, who has confessed to twin July 2011 attacks in Norway that killed 77 people, was indicted on terror charges in Oslo today. Breivik said he detonated a bomb and shot nearly 70 people to protest Muslim immigration.

The company had initially defended its choice to name its latest store Brevik by noting that each of their 13 stores is named for a town, and Brevik is a small town in Norway south of Oslo.

Thor Steinar had already used the name Brevik for a store three years before the Norway massacre made the name Breivik synonymous with right-wing violence. In 2008, the company opened and quickly closed an outlet called Brevik in Hamburg.

“The linguistic similarity of the names Brevik and Breivik is awkward but not deliberate and in no way must be seen as a provocation,” said Mediatex, which owns Thor Steinar, in a written statement.

The brand also uses other Norwegian imagery in its marketing, including the national flag and other town names.

“We consider it very regrettable,” said Anne-Kirsti Wendel Karlsen of the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin, “that Thor Steinar uses Norwegian place names in order to associate Norway as such with Thor Steinar and the extreme right-wing scene. Acting at the request of a number of communities, we have asked that Norwegian town names not be used. But we unfortunately have no legal recourse to pursue it through the courts.”

The company has previously been in trouble for the alleged use of Nazi imagery. It was banned by the German government in 2004 for similarities between its logos and SS symbols, but then changed its products to make them legal under German law.

Whatever Thor Steinar’s motivation, its choice of Brevik as a store name had sparked outrage in both Germany and Norway.

“Such a thing is shocking and completely unacceptable,” Katja Uhlemann, a spokeswoman for the city of Chemnitz, told German media. “For us, as a town, it’s clear, we do not want such a shop,” she added, saying that all legal possibilities for action against the store were being examined.

A Saxony-based neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Underground hid in Chemnitz and a nearby town for more than 13 years before it was broken up by police in November 11. The cell allegedly killed 10 people, nine immigrants and one police officer, in cities throughout Germany between 2000 and 2006, and several members are awaiting prosecution.

Anders Breivik will go on trial April 16. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 21 years on the terror charge, but can be detained indefinitely. He may not to go prison at all, since prosecutors believe he is psychotic and will seek to have him committed to a mental hospital, where he can also be held indefinitely.

More about Anders Breivik

 

Finnish sci-fi Nazi movie is hot ticket at Berlin film festival

Iron Sky, which imagines Nazi invasion from secret moon base, sells more tickets than Werner Herzog and Angelina Jolie films

guardian.co.uk | Feb 8, 2012

by Helen Pidd in Berlin

Among the worthy films being premiered at the Berlin film festival over the next 10 days are an epic tracing China’s history; three documentaries about the Fukushima nuclear disaster; Werner Herzog’s look at death row; and Angelina Jolie’s take on the Bosnian war.

But one of the most popular films on the day that tickets went on sale was a Finnish sci-fi comedy about Nazis living on the dark side of the moon.

Iron Sky tells how Hitler’s top scientists moved to a lunar military base known as the Black Sun shortly after the end of the second world war. For more than 70 years boffins beavered away on a fleet of spaceships that one day would return to Earth and finish what the Nazis started. In 2018 the invasion begins.

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The Finnish-German-Australian production was the second most popular film when the box office opened, according to Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper. It was beaten to the top spot by Don 2 – The King is Back, the latest from the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. Fans of the Indian heartthrob camped out in a shopping centre for three days and nights to get tickets for the film, which sold out in minutes.

Iron Sky Official Theatrical Trailer

Marines posed with flag resembling Nazi SS logo in Afghanistan

Scout snipers in the Marine Corps shown with a flag bearing an “SS” similar in design to one used in Germany by the SS, a paramlitary force that operated under the Nazi party.

NBC News | Feb 9, 2012

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed Thursday that a sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS.

Use of the SS symbol is not acceptable, and the Marine Corps has addressed the issue, Lt. Col. Stewart Upton said in a statement. He did not specify what action was taken.

Upton said the Marines in the photograph, posted on an Internet blog, are no longer with the unit. The picture was taken in September 2010 in Sangin province, Afghanistan.

The photo shows a flag with what appear to be the letters “SS” in the shape of jagged lightning bolts. The symbol resembles that used by SS units in World War II.

Another photograph, which showed a stylized “SS” on a rifle held by a Marine, also recently began circulating, the Marine Corps Times reported.

The SS, or Schutzstaffel, was the police and military force of the Nazi Party, which was distinct from the general army. Members pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. SS units were held responsible for many war crimes and played an integral role in the extermination of millions of Jews along with gypsies and other people classed as undesirables. The SS was declared to be a criminal organization at the Nuremberg war crime trials.

The Knights Armament Company blog published the photo in May 2011, and attributed it to Tayler Jerome, of the 1st recon BN Charlie Co.

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The Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Washington D.C., which found the picture online and alerted the Marine Corps Times, said it was outraged and wants a full investigation.

Foundation officer Mikey Weinstein said he has been flooded with calls from former Marines offended by the photo and from one member of his organization who is an Auschwitz survivor.

“This needs to be fully investigated. This is a complete and total outrage,” he said.

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Weinstein said his organization was sending a letter to the head of the Marine Corps and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Master Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva, a spokesman at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said the photo was brought to the attention of the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force inspector general in November, and he found there was no intent on the part of the Marines to identify themselves with a racist organization.

Oliva said the investigation found that the SS symbol was meant to identify the Marines as scout snipers, not Nazis, but it was nonetheless not acceptable.

This is the second time this year the Marine Corps has had to do damage control for its troops’ actions.

The Marine Corps is also investigating a separate group of Marines recorded on video urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters.

Here is Upton’s statement on the SS symbol, also called “runes.” It was emailed to msnbc.com by Capt. Gregory Wolf, Marine Corps spokesman:

In November, the I MEF Inspector General became aware of the “SS” flag photo.  They then received confirmation from the 1st Recon Battalion Commanding Officer in Afghanistan in November 2011 that several of the personnel in the photo were from 1st Recon Bn from the OEF 10.2 deployment (Afghanistan deployment in 2010).  These Marines are no longer with the command.  1st Recon Bn is deployed forward again, but none of the personnel in the photo are still in the unit.

Certainly, the use of the “SS runes” is not acceptable and Scout Snipers have been addressed concerning this issue (“SS runes” are prohibited from use as a symbol or any other use).

German tax levy on Belgian Nazi slave labourers provokes fury

A decision by Germany to levy a tax on pensions received by Belgians who were slave labourers for the Nazi regime during the Second World War has provoked fury among survivors.

Telegraph | Nov 21, 2011

By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels

Last week demands for hundreds of euros from tax authorities in the German state of Brandenburg began to land on the doormats of surviving “dwangarbeiders” or their widows.

“It hits me not only financially but emotionally,” Simone De Vos, 84, the widow of a forced labourer told the Gazet Van Antwerpen.

“My late husband had anxiety attacks for decades after his time in Germany. It is outrageous that the Germans now want money back.”

According to media reports in Belgium, the German authorities last year passed a law stating that pensions for former slave labourers would be taxed at the rate of 17 per cent.

The tax has been applied retroactively from 2005 meaning those Belgian survivors of Nazism or their widows awarded pensions by Germany as a form compensation now face large bills.

Tony Vandersteen, the ombudsman of the Belgian pension department, confirmed that dozens of former forced labourers or their widows have complained.

He has advised the pensioners that “there is not a lot he can do” and recommended that people “contact the German authorities in order to try to obtain a discount”.

In late 1942 the Nazis launched a programme of forced labour in the occupied countries in order to keep the German war industry going. Millions of people were forced to work in Germany, including 200,000 Belgians, in slave labour conditions.

It is not known if French, Dutch, Italian, Polish or other survivors will face tax bills on their pensions.

Ahmed Laaouej, a Belgian senator, has demanded that Didier Reynders, Belgium’s finance minister, registers a protest over the “unacceptable” tax demands with Germany.

“The minister must immediately contact the German authorities. And I would also like to know if the Belgian government has been informed in advance of the decision,” he said.

Doctor turned grisly serial killer in WWII Paris

Marcel Petiot, pictured during his trial in Paris in March 1946. He was convicted of killing 27 victims, sentenced to death and beheaded in a guillotine. AFP/Getty Images

Respected physician ‘savagely dismembered’ victims, including many desperate Jews lured by false promises of escape

MSNBC | Nov 9, 2011

Nazi-occupied Paris was a terrible place to be in the waning days of World War II, with Jews, Resistance fighters and ordinary citizens all hoping to escape.

Disappearances became so common they often weren’t followed up.

And one man used the lawlessness for his own terrible purposes, killing perhaps as many as 150 people and dismembering and burning their bodies.

It wasn’t until thick black smoke seeped into buildings in a fashionable part of the city that firefighters and police found body parts scattered around an elegant townhouse — setting off a manhunt that led them, eventually, to Marcel Petiot.

The crime was very much of its time, said David King, who chronicled the hunt for Petiot in the new book, “Death in the City of Light.”

“Paris was not a good place to be. A lot of people were trying to leave Paris, a lot of people just disappearing. He had it plotted out, a very devious plan,” said King, in a telephone interview.

“Respect for the law was tarnished under the Nazis. Even if you suspected something, a lot of people were very, very reluctant to go forward, especially if they were Jewish.”

Petiot, as it turned out, was a respected physician who turned serial killer by night, preying largely on Jews desperate to leave Paris by luring them in with promises of escape. He was accused of murdering “only” 27, but authorities suspected his real toll was far higher.

King, a former history professor, first stumbled across reference to the killings while browsing in a bookstore and picking up a World War II memoir by a spy. At first, he couldn’t believe what he read.

But the grisly details stuck with him, and after he confirmed the story was true, he finished his other projects and came back to it.

“Here’s a guy — Marcel Petiot, who was accused of all the murders. Obviously very intelligent, charismatic, has a respected position, is into collecting antiques, interested in the arts,” he said.

“And yet, you get to the other side, when he’s accused of some of the most disturbing things you can think of: savagely dismembering bodies.”

Through years of research, including perusal of Parisian police archives closed since the crimes took place, King pieced together the story of how Petiot claimed to be a member of the resistance and lured many of his victims in by promising them safe passage to South America in return for payment.
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Once in Petiot’s hands, the victims were told to write letters to their relatives, telling them that they were fine and would return once times had settled down. Then they were killed, most likely by lethal gas, and dismembered or burned.

“It’s a microcosm of the whole Nazi terror and Paris being a bad place to be. There’s got to be more than just exploiting peoples’ hopes and dreams and desperation, but that’s what he does,” King said.

Though Petiot eluded police on at least one occasion, after appearing amid the crowd that gathered after the initial grisly discovery and speaking with a patrolman before riding off on his bicycle, he was eventually captured, tried and – in May 1946 – executed by guillotine.

King, the author of several other books, said this one was particularly hard to immerse himself in due to the content, however horrifically fascinating the story.

It also had an impact on him personally.

“I’m generally a pretty outgoing person, but I’m probably a little bit more reluctant about things now,” he said.

“Dr. Petiot seemed like the nicest guy — charming, intelligent, friendly. You could just strike up a conversation with somebody like this … I found myself on my guard more.”

Family dynasty behind BMW admits to using 50,000 slave labourers during Nazi era

Family ties: Herbert Quandt, Guenther’s son, was also aware that slave labour was being used in the family’s factories. Right, Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Guenther Quandt divorced Magda Behrend Rietschel, who went on to become Goebbels’ wife (pictured right)

Guenther Quandt was a member of the Nazi party and benefited from its ‘Aryanisation’ programme by taking over Jewish firms

His wife, Magda Behrend Rietschel, later divorced him and married Joseph Goebbels, with whom she died in Hitler’s bunker in 1945

Quandt factories employed 50,000 slave labourers to churn out weapons and ammunition for the Nazis during World War Two, making the family very rich

Daily Mail | Sep 28, 2011

By Allan Hall

The dynasty behind the BMW luxury car marker has admitted, after decades of silence, using slave labour, taking over Jewish firms and doing business with the highest echelons of the Nazi party during World War Two.

Gabriele Quandt, whose grandfather Guenther employed an estimated 50,000 forced labourers in his arms factories, producing ammunition, rifles, artillery and U-boat batteries, said it was ‘wrong’ for the family to ignore this chapter of its history.

He spoke out after an in-depth study by Bonn-based historian Joachim Scholtyseck, commissioned by the family, that concluded Guenther Quandt and his son Herbert were responsible for numerous Nazi injustices.

It found Guenther acquired companies through the Nazi programme of ‘Aryanisation’ of Jewish-owned firms.

Herbert Quandt was ‘part of the system’, son Stefan Quandt said after the conclusion of the three-year study – forced on the family by public outrage over a German TV documentary – compiled using company files from the 12-year period of the Third Reich.

The Quandt family bought into BMW 15 years after the War.

The study shows Guenther became a Nazi Party member on May 1, 1933, a month after Adolf Hitler achieved supreme power in Germany.

But he had long used a network of party officials and Wehrmacht officers to build up contacts for lucrative state contracts.

Married to Magda Behrend Rietschel, Guenther was divorced by her in 1929 although they remained on friendly terms.

She went on to marry the ‘poison dwarf’ of the Nazi party, the propaganda maestro Joseph Goebbels, and would die with him – after murdering their six children – in Hitler’s bunker in 1945.

The company grew rich in the Nazi era. In 1937, Hitler bestowed on Guenther the title Wehrwirtschaftsführer – leader of the armament economy – and his business supplied weapons using slave labourers from concentration camps in at least three factories.

Hundreds of these labourers died.

An execution area to murder those who displeased their masters was found in one of his plants in Hannover and the study mentions the fate of a Polish man who was hanged at another plant in front of 50 other inmates.

The study showed that the Quandt firms also used Russian POWs as slave labourers and that Guenther and Herbert knew about them, detailing their dispersion among their empire from the company HQ in Berlin.

Herbert even employed Ukrainian slaves on his weekend retreat outside the Reich capital.

Guenther was described as an ‘opportunist’ who enthusiastically helped the regime to rid Berlin industries of Jewish workers before the start of the war.

This was despite his numerous contacts with Jewish bankers in the years before the Nazis began their climb to power.

He was also ‘unscrupulous’ in his take-overs of Jewish firms which were forcibly sold for a pittance to loyal German industrialists such as himself.

‘The family patriarch was part of the Nazi regime’, judged the historian in the 1,200 page study.

‘The Quandts connected themselves inseparably with the crimes of the National Socialists.’

The Quandts were pressured into commissioning the study after a 2007 TV documentary in Germany entitled The Silence Of The Quandt Family.

Five days later, as the press headlines about a fortune built on blood piled up, the reclusive family announced its full backing for the research project.

At the time it said: ‘The accusations that have been raised against our family have moved us.

‘We recognize that in our history as a German business family, the years 1933 to 1945 have not been sufficiently cleared up.’

BMW, of which the Quandts became major shareholders 15 years after the war, was not implicated in the documentary.

‘We were treated terribly and had to drink water from the toilets. We were also whipped,’ said Takis Mylopoulos, a forced labourer who worked in Quandt’s Hannover plant.

In 1946 Guenther Quandt was arrested and interned. To the surprise of many, he was judged to be a ‘Mitlaufer’, or fellow traveller -  namely someone who accepted the Nazi ideology but did not take an active part in crimes.

He was released in January 1948.

One of the prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials, Benjamin Ferencz, now says that if today’s evidence against him had been presented to the court at the time,’Quandt would have been charged with the same offences as the directors of IG Farben’ – the makers of the gas used to murder the Jews at Auschwitz.

Quandt was able to re-install himself in the supervisory boards of various German firms such as Deutsche Bank. He also became an honorary citizen of the University in Frankfurt in 1951.

He died on holiday in Cairo on December 30, 1954.

Thai school’s Nazi-themed parade sparks outrage

Another student opted to dress up as Adolf Hitler for the parade to mark the school’s sport day

CNN | Sep 28, 2011

By Greg Hughes

A Jewish human rights organization on Monday called for Thailand’s Christian leaders to condemn a parade at the Sacred Heart School in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in which participating students wearing Nazi uniforms performed “Sieg Heil” salutes.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization based in Los Angeles, denounced the event, saying it was “glorifying Nazis.”

Photographs of the parade show participants carrying a Swastika flag, performing Nazi salutes and wearing SS uniforms, while others dressed as Adolf Hitler complete with toothbrush moustache.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the images made it clear that the event could not have taken place without the knowledge and cooperation of the school administration.

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“It is difficult to calculate the hurt such a display inflicted on survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and the families of all victims of Nazism. There can be no justification for such an outrage to emanate from place of learning,” he said.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged those responsible for the school to take immediate action against the individuals who promoted and facilitated the event.

Cooper said that a similar parade took place in 2007 at a school in Bangkok in which 200 students participated, and that more recently, members of Thai rock band Slur donned Nazi uniforms in a music video. On Wednesday, the school’s website posted a letter by its director expressing an apology. “We, the entire Sacred Heart School [personnel] are deeply saddened by this incident.” The letter explained that the sports day activity involved groups being differentiated by colors — the “Red” group having used Nazi symbols.

West German Intelligence Protected Fugitive Nazi

SS Colonel Walter Rauff (l.) during his arrest in Italy in 1945. AP

spiegel.de | Sep 29, 2011

By Klaus Wiegrefe

Newly-released files have uncovered evidence that the BND, West Germany’s international intelligence service, sheltered former SS officer Walter Rauff and made him an agent after the war, even though he was a key perpetrator of Nazi crimes.

The hunt for the mass murderer led investigators literally to the end of the world; to Punta Arenas, Chile, one of the southernmost cities on the planet. But when Walter Rauff was arrested by the local police on Dec. 5, 1962, the former SS colonel had already been forewarned. His employer, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), had instructed him to destroy all documents and instruments of espionage that could have exposed him as an agent.

The BND assumed a portion of Rauff’s legal fees, just as though he had been an old friend. In return, the former Nazi made it clear that he would “never expose” the relationship.

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“Never” is a big word, and there are journalists who claim that Rauff told them about his work as an agent in the 1950s. However, there has been no solid evidence to date — at least until the end of last week, when the BND released more than a dozen documents relating to Rauff. They are part of about 900 pages of documents that will soon be made available to the public at the German Federal Archives in the western city of Koblenz.

The release is part of a new policy approach which BND President Ernst Uhrlau is pursuing in an effort to come to terms with the agency’s past. The liaison between the BND and Rauff is a particularly dark chapter in that history.

Preparing Rauff for His Arrest

In 1961, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the former officer, born into a solidly middle-class family in Köthen near the eastern German city of Dessau, on charges of the murder of more than 90,000 people. But this didn’t stop the BND from training Rauff at its headquarters in Pullach, near Munich, in early 1962 and, a few months later, preparing him for the arrest in Chile.

Rauff had worked in the Reich Security Head Office, the nerve center of SS terror, where he headed the group that developed the so-called gas van in 1941. In the end, he was in charge of more than 20 of the mobile gas chambers, which were trucks outfitted with a box-like body that was about six meters (20 feet) long and 1.7 meters tall. A hose as thick as an arm fed the engine exhaust fumes through a hidden opening in the floor into the interior, so that they would suffocate the victims.

The device was first used to gas prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the fall of 1941. In the ensuing months, the SS murdered more inmates with the mobile death chambers in the Latvian city of Riga, at the Chelmno death camp in Poland and the Poltava camp in Ukraine. According to historian Mathias Beer, Rauff coordinated the effort. Later, in Italy, he committed further crimes as the commander of a unit fighting partisans.

The BND was familiar with Rauff’s history when it recruited him in 1958. According to a later memorandum, the agency knew with whom it was dealing “from the beginning,” because “Rauff made no secret of his past.” However, the BND was allegedly unaware of the former SS officer’s involvement in murder.

Rauff’s entry into BND service occurred at precisely the time that Pullach was expanding its network of agents worldwide, and the amiable family man was seen as a well-travelled intelligence expert. After the end of the war, he escaped from an Allied prison camp in Italy and went to Syria. According to CIA records, he attempted to build a Syrian intelligence service based on the Gestapo model. He later fled to Ecuador and eventually settled in Chile.

An Old Nazi Acquaintance

When the BND approached him in South America, Rauff agreed to cooperate immediately. His willingness to work with the agency probably had something to do with the fact that the BND agent who recruited him was an old acquaintance from the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA).

The man was Rudolf Oebsger-Röder, who held a doctorate in journalism and was once a fanatical SS official. After the war, he spent a few years working as a journalist for the Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung and even for SPIEGEL. He also worked as a so-called tipper, helping the BND headquarters in Pullach identify suitable agents.

Oebsger-Röder was put in charge of a BND field office in 1958. Rauff was probably one of the first agents he recruited in his new position. He was given the alias Enrico Gomez and, from then on, traveled throughout the region for the agency. He was paid a princely fee of more than 70,000 deutschmarks while serving as an agent.

But the BND was apparently less than satisfied with the results. Rauff’s main job was to obtain information about Fidel Castro’s Cuba, but as a BND employee noted, the German failed to “open up access points in the direction of Cuba.” In February 1962, his monthly pay was even cut in half because of his “poor performance.”

By this point, West German investigators were already tracking Rauff. An extradition request led to his arrest at the end of the year.

Recruitment “Absolutely Unconscionable”

According to the BND records that are now open to public view, Rauff seriously believed that he was innocent, which could explain why he did not flee, even though he knew that he was on the verge of being arrested. Or perhaps he had merely done his homework, because in Chile murder comes under the statute of limitations after 15 years. In other words, Rauff could not be extradited for his Nazi crimes, and so he left the prison in the capital Santiago a free man after a few months.

If the information in the now-released BND records is complete, this marked the end of cooperation between the intelligence service and Rauff, which the BND doesn’t try to justify today. Rauff’s recruitment was “absolutely unconscionable, both politically and morally,” concludes Bodo Hechelhammer, director of the History Research Group and Task Force at the BND. Hechelhammer says that it was regrettable that the agency employed Nazi criminals like Rauff.

Rauff died in 1984, at the age of 77, after having lived out the rest of his life unmolested in Santiago de Chile. At his funeral, some of the mourners reportedly raised their right arms and shouted “Heil Hitler.” Some even shouted “Heil Rauff.”

Kaiser Wilhelm II heir marries with royal pomp

Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Prince of Prussia, left, and Princess Sophie of Isenburg leave the church after the wedding celebrations in the church in Potsdam, Saturday Aug. 27, 2011. The Prince of Prussia is is the current head of the Imperial House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling dynasty of the German Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia. He is the great-great-grandson and historic heir of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, who was deposed and, initially, went into exile upon Germany’s defeat in the Great War in 1918. ( AP Photo/dapd/ Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert)

AP | Aug 27, 2011

BERLIN (AP) — Prince Georg Friedrich Ferdinand of Prussia, great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, married Princess Sophie of Isenburg Saturday, a royal wedding that has rekindled German interest in the nation’s long-defunct royals.

The couple were married in a church in Potsdam, outside Berlin, the former seat of the prince’s family that ruled much of Germany until the monarchy was abolished in 1918.

After Saturday’s ceremony, the couple traveled by horse-drawn carriage to Sanssouci Palace for a dinner and ball. Several hundred onlookers lined the streets outside of the church to see the couple, who were relatively unknown until the announcement of the wedding. Both work as consultants in Berlin.

The 33-year-old bride wore a dress designed by Wolfgang Joop, and a diamond tiara belonging to her family. The 35-year-old groom was dressed in a top hat and tails.

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The event was broadcast live on local public TV, sparking protest from members of the former communist Left party, and was splashed across the pages of newspapers and glossy magazines. The couple held a civil ceremony on Friday.

From 1871, the Kings of Prussia also served as German Emperors, with Wilhelm II being the last. He abdicated in 1918, following World War I, and the German monarchy was dismantled.

Descendants of German royal families still carry their titles, although they have no meaning and are legally considered part of their names.

Germans view their own aristocrats skeptically, but many ardently follow the royal houses of their European neighbors. Both this year’s major royal weddings, in London and Monaco, were broadcast live on German TV, attracting millions of viewers.

Book adds details on IKEA founder’s Nazi links

The founder of Swedish furniture chain was in contact with Nazi sympathizers until at least 1950 — two years longer than he had previously acknowledged. The book also mentions a wedding invitation Kamprad sent to a renown Fascist, Per Engdahl, in 1950, in which he underscored how proud he was that the two belonged to the same circle.

Associated Press | Aug 24, 2011

By LOUISE NORDSTROM

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A new book claims IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad’s youth ties with Nazi groups extended beyond what he has previously admitted, saying Sweden’s intelligence agency even set up a special file on him.

Respected Swedish author and journalist Elisabeth Asbrink says Kamprad joined the Swedish Nazi party in 1943 when he was 17, prompting the security police to set up a file on him the same year.

Asbrink also claims in her book, “And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain,” that the founder of Swedish furniture chain was in contact with Nazi sympathizers until at least 1950 — two years longer than he had previously acknowledged.

She writes that Kamprad’s letters were secretly opened by the security police, and their contents, including information about his effort to recruit new members, were noted on his file, in which the police wrote the word Nazi. “They were steamed open, copied, and closed again,” Asbrink writes in the book.

The intelligence agency is also quoted as having noted that Kamprad “had some sort of functionary position” in a youth Nazi organization that sent him newsletters.

Per Heggenes, a spokesman for the IKEA icon, on Wednesday told The Associated Press that Kamprad had never been aware of the file’s existence until now, and reiterated that Kamprad sees his Nazi involvement as the “biggest mistake” of his life.

“There are no Nazi-sympathizing thoughts in Ingvar’s head whatsoever,” Heggenes said.

The Swedish intelligence service refused to comment on the book’s content and referred the calls regarding the documents to the national archives. Calls to national archives went unanswered.

Based on a dozen interviews, official documents and more than 500 letters, the book recounts the true story of one of Kamprad’s best friends, Otto Ullmann, an Austrian Jew sent to Sweden as a young boy just before the outbreak of World War II.

While he worked for the Kamprad family in 1944, Ullmann’s parents were killed by Nazis in Germany. He learnt about their deaths two years later.

The book also mentions a wedding invitation Kamprad sent to a renown Fascist, Per Engdahl, in 1950, in which he underscored how proud he was that the two belonged to the same circle.

In 1988, Kamprad admitted his past involvement with Nazism in a book about his life and asked for forgiveness for his “stupidity.” He also admitted to Swedish media that he had attended meetings of Nazi groups between 1945-48.

Kamprad has attributed his early sympathies to Nazism to his upbringing, saying he was greatly influenced by his grandmother, a native of the current Czech Republic region of Bohemia, who introduced him to Nazi propaganda magazines at an early age.

In a statement, The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants demanded that a probe be opened into Kamprad’s past.

“Holocaust survivors are shocked at the reports of the depths of Kamprad’s Nazi involvement which he previously had dismissed as mere ‘teenage confusion’,” it said. “It is time for Kamprad to come clean. Swedish intelligence files describe his recruitment of others to the fascist movement and his involvement with it well after World War II. This can hardly be characterized as youthful confusion.”