Tag: Nazis

Hate Crime Law Discussion Sparks Fierce Debate

Call for disguised Nazis to counter anti-hate rally, verbal punches thrown in mainstream editorials  

By C.S. Hagen
FARGO – Moments before Makruun Hagar lost his nose, he tried to settle a domestic fight between a married couple, which began in the back of his taxi cab.

But when he intervened, he said he was called racial slurs, and then Dominque Martinez attacked — punching his head then biting off his nose, permanently disfiguring him.

A struggle with police later ensued, but not before Martinez’s wife was struck and bit as well, the West Fargo Police Department’s incident report stated.

Police reports indicate Hagar might have saved the woman’s life.

“She was pretty sure that if she had not had help that Dominque would have more than likely have killed her that night,” West Fargo Police Detective Greg Warren stated in the police report.

Makruun Hagar – photo by C.S. Hagen

The incident was labelled as an assault case, and Martinez was later found not criminally responsible in August 2015 by a Cass County judge, because he suffered from PTSD after duty with Marines in Afghanistan. He was remanded to the custody of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center for five years, according to court documents.

Nearly three years later, Hagar’s nose has healed, but a dark brown patch stands as a stark testimony to the assault. He keeps the bloodstained t-shirt he wore that day in November 2014 close, as a constant reminder of hate, and as a warning to his five young children.

“He brought a lot of problems for me and my family,” Hagar said. “Nobody can help, doctors can’t do anything anymore.”

In the winter months, he has difficulty breathing. He’s still on medication, but the long term effects aren’t just physical.

“Everyday, when I pick up people, sometimes people ask me about my religion, and then they ask if I’m a terrorist,” Hagar, who escaped the wars and famine in Somalia in 2005, said. “If someone bit my nose, and if I was white, the community would help.”

Days after a local white woman, Amber Elizabeth Hensley, threatened to kill all Muslims in a Walmart parking lot while being filmed, the incident was swept under the rug after apologies were made. But rising local civil rights leader, Hukun Abdullahi, founder of the Afro American Development Association, spoke before the Fargo City Commissioners meeting this week saying that city leaders were partly responsible for the recent uptick in hate-related crimes: five incidents so far in 2017.

(left to right) Rowda Soyan, Sarah and Laleyla Hassan prepare to speak about their encounter with racism at the local Walmart – photo by C.S. Hagen

“Time has come to address the elephant in the room,” Abdullahi said. “As much as me and my organization have tried to bolster confidence among refugees and immigrants and have focused on integration efforts and unity over the months, we have started realizing it has just been a one-way process. The state and the city asking for how much it cost to have refugees in the communities, while is a sensible question from the financial standpoint, it has negatively impacted our image in the community, and might also have increased the number of hostile incidents geared towards refugees.”

Hagar, like many new Americans who have settled in the Fargo area in recent years, is black skinned, and speaks with an accent. He is different from the predominantly white community North Dakota has fostered since its inception in 1889.

Some in Fargo, don’t like the change, and think inquiries into costs behind refugees, initiated by Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn, are warranted. A battle of words ensued.

“Abdullahi has branded perfectly legitimate inquiry into public policy as tantamount to inciting racially-motivated incidents,” Rob Port, The Forum editorialist of Say Anything Blog said. “That’s not something a person interested in comity and sound public policy does.”

When confronted about the editorial as race baiting by Kade Ferris, social media director for Unity-USA, Port denied the claim on  Facebook.

“No. Just not willing to let a rank opportunist sideline an important debate,” Port said.

“So you do this by being a rank opportunist yourself?” Ferris said.

“No more anti-white speech,” Fargoan Pete Tefft, wrote on his Facebook page. Tefft was identified by Fargo resident Luke Safely as a Nazi sympathizer in February after an incident with a lone pickup truck waving a Confederate flag cruised Broadway.

“We should fight rhetoric with rhetoric,” Tefft said in a Facebook post. “The ‘refugee’ resettlement program is anti-white policy. Multiculturalism to this degree will never work unless draconian laws are passed. Policies that hinder birth rate[s] of one group (the major ethnic group), and strengthen another is the definitely [definition] of genocide.”

On the Daily Stormer website, Tefft, who also goes by the name Chad Radkersburg, said Hensley did nothing wrong, and that he is planning on speaking out.

“Rally to support her is planned. Working on meeting organizer. She is no Chad, so she cucked and apologized.”

Mike McFeely, a radio personality and editorialist for The Forum, took the first shot on July 27 saying North Dakota Nice is more like North Dakota Nasty.

“The Band-Aid started to be peeled back a few years ago when some in the media began to target refugees and immigrants as a problem and, with Facebook and talk radio at our disposal, we began to hear some of the ugliness that previously hadn’t crawled out from under the rocks,” McFeely wrote. “More recently, a city commissioner and a county commissioner began to question the cost of refugees to the almighty taxpayer—hey, they were just innocently asking questions and most certainly not playing to a base of racists and xenophobes—and the warts were exposed some more.”

Nazis called to Fargo
For a few minutes early Monday morning, an advertisement appeared on Facebook entitled “Anti-white Speech Discussion,” organized by Hal Resnick, scheduled for August 2, at 5:29 p.m., at the Fargo Civic Center, which coincides with the North Dakota United Against Hate rally.

Resnick is listed as the new unit leader for the Nazi party, or Nationalist Socialist Movement of North Dakota, according to the Nationalist Socialist Magazine, or NSM88. The numerals stand for the letter H, short for “Heil Hitler.”

The advertisement was quickly taken down, but during the few minutes it was online, it attracted at least 12 people who identified with “white identity,” and “civil rights.”

A description for the event sponsored by the Flyovers, FEHU, and the National Socialist Movement of North Dakota, condemned anti-white speech, calling civil rights workers today as guilty participants in white genocide.

The Flyovers short-lived logo while advertising to counter rally August 2 rally against hate crime

“All attendees are encouraged to come incognito,” the description reported. “In the last few months it has become increasingly clear that any and all pro-diversity, pro-refugee, pro-hate speech laws is [are] implicitly anti white. Pro-diversity speech to many people means less white people.”

Pro-hate speech was linked to thought policing, for which there are laws called conspiracy laws, the description continued. “Passing policies that lower birth rates and negatively affect the majority ethnic group for the interests of another group is classified as genocide. Pro-white speech is not hate speech. Censoring pro-white speech is a civil and human rights violation.”

The organizations involved pinpointed the need to show support for recent victims, to ensure no one is singled out because of race, religion, but also called attention to the need to bring awareness for “white rights.” Organizers also called on state and federal agencies to investigate recent incidents of anti-white policies and crimes of conspiracy and for those found offending to be brought up on crimes against humanity and conspiracy to commit ethnic genocide.

“Attempts to silence us will be seen as admittance of guilt to our charges,” the description reported. “We call upon Fargo leaders to vow to uphold free speech laws to further discuss these issues and to denounce ‘hate speech law advocates’ as anti-American.”

In February, posters were stapled to telephone poles around the downtown area promoting white power, and were reportedly sponsored by “The Flyovers,” which depicted the communist hammer and sickle, the Jewish star, a syringe, and a marijuana leaf as rain falling on a family under an umbrella emblazoned with a symbol reminiscent of a swastika. Other posters were reportedly supported by VDare, Counter-Currents, American Renaissance, The Right Stuff, Redice.TV, and The Occidental Observer, all of whom are listed as nationalistic and racial purist hate organizations.

The Flyovers is a reference to the areas usually looked over by national politics, or the flyover states, and their support for Trump and predominantly white heritage, according to Unity-USA, a nonprofit hate watch organization.

City challenged on hate
“This has been a very trying week for the Fargo-Moorhead community, following the incident of Islamophobia which took place at the Fargo Walmart,” Ferris said. “The fact that there could be an amicable resolution to this sad event gives us hope. However, we cannot overlook the fact that this event is just a real-world manifestation of racist and prejudicial feelings that are bubbling beneath the surface here in this community.”

Ferris defended Abdullahi’s speech before the Fargo City Commissioners, saying current laws or lack thereof, the mainstream media, and certain city leaders have guided the tension to a boiling point.

“When local politicians publicly vilify entire groups, such as the growing immigrant population, to score cheap points in their upcoming election, or when local media personalities post leading and biased news stories to drum up ratings, it can only end in a case such as this,” Ferris said. “Just look at any story about immigrants on some of our local news outlets. Go to the comment section to get a sense of the real feelings of some of the people out there. The words of Amber Hensley are pretty much par for the course for many who haunt these stories for a chance to spew their own nativist and prejudiced bile.”

“In the past year, North Dakota has become the laughing stock of the global community, Andrea Denault, legislative coordinator with North Dakota Human Rights Coalition, said. “Our cartoonish militarized response to unarmed water protectors at Standing Rock, recent FBI statistics revealing we are second in the nation for hate crimes, and now viral videos recording xenophobic hate speech from a Fargo parking lot, there is no hiding. We have earned a reputation for ourselves.”

Fargo City Commissioner John Strand asked Abdullahi to speak before the city commissioners’ meeting, saying that it’s no secret that the diversity issue has been an important one for the city for the past year. Days before the Walmart incident occurred, the Human Relations Commission was discussing how the city would move forward when confronted with hate crimes and hate speech, Strand said.

“Who would have thought the next day that the community would be challenged with something of that nature that really put Fargo on the map in a way that is not very much what we would like to see,” Strand said.

“We’ve had an interesting week,” Mayor Tim Mahoney said. “We really need to look at hate crime legislation in our state.”

Barry Nelson, of the Human Relations Commission and of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition, asked the question is there more hate crime in Fargo now, or are people reporting more? North Dakota ranks second in the nation for hate crime incidents, he said.

“Are we a community in a position to respond appropriately?” Nelson said before the city commissioners meeting. “Is the crime being charged out appropriately? Is our judicial system in a position to make sure that justice is being served? I do have some serious questions about all of these aspects. Is any level of hate crime and hate speech acceptable in our community?”

To combat hate crime, laws must be in place, Nelson said. North Dakota does not recognize hate crimes, citing that state legislation already protects victims of assault.

Nelson cited an example of hate crime, an assault on a refugee while moving into an apartment, in which one of the perpetrators was released from jail and fined $250.

Education and hate crime laws are the answers to combat hate crime, Nelson said.

Chair of the Human Relations Commission, Rachel Hoffman, and Nelson said the rally on Wednesday was meant to raise awareness about hate crime, help raise financial support for victims, such as Hagar, and to once again put hate crime legislation on the state’s agenda.

“The Walmart incident is an example of what is wrong with our community,” Abdullahi said. “Ethnic communities like ours are losing our battles to integrate communities and no help appears on the horizon. Fear, anger, superiority, religion, differences, hostile media- all these negatives have consumed people, and sadly, it is a shame that the city has basically stayed quiet.”

“If we are to move forward as a community we need to make sure to stand up whenever we hear or see discrimination of any sort,” Ferris said. “For a long time, North Dakota nice has been putting on a smile for the public and pretend to be welcoming, while holding tight-lipped deep feelings of passive-aggressiveness and prejudice for fear of insulting our neighbors and publicly humiliating ourselves.  However, since the last election cycle, such niceness has gone out the window. We need to reclaim nice. We need to make it mean something. It cannot just be words. It must be action, and it is the responsibility of everyone.”

Denault said that the year-long investigation into the costs of refugees is inappropriate.

“I don’t often like to talk about ‘just the numbers’ though because these are people who are more than just a unit of labor,” Denault said. “They are human beings fighting for their lives.”

“We live in an agricultural state,” Denault said. “Think of how many farmers are receiving farm subsidies. You don’t see anyone accosting them at Walmart and threatening to kill them. It would be preposterous. The same goes for these random acts of racism towards Natives and New Americans. The xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, it all comes from fundamentally misguided notions about other groups of people, particularly the misinformation about how much these groups ‘cost’ us.”

“When you get to know a lot of the members of the New American community you’ll realize that they are not just refugees. Many of them are second and third generation North Dakotans, people whose parents, after obtaining legal U.S. citizenship, still decided to stay in North Dakota because they love it here. They’ve opened businesses, bought homes, they are paying taxes. They are literally contributing to the economy in the exact same way everyone else is. None of them deserve this type of treatment.”

The North Dakota United Against Hate rally is scheduled for Wednesday, August 2, at 5:30 p.m. by the Fargo Civic Center.

 

White Supremacist Fliers Hit Fargo Streets

Alt White: The Siege of North Dakota. Part five in the series on racism in North Dakota. While Pioneer Little Europe and the Creativity Movement form hit lists of North Dakota small towns, a new white supremacist group surfaces in Fargo. 

By C.S. Hagen
FARGO
– Three days after white supremacists advertised for a like-minded gathering at Lindenwood Park, posters depicting hate speech were posted on telephone poles along downtown back alleys.

FEHU BBQ Ad – online sources

The posters went up in time for the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar, Monday, April 24, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The posters also went up shortly after the Fargo Human Relations Commission announced findings of a six-month study that showed refugees and immigrants in Fargo are good for the city. 

One of the posters signed by “The Flyovers” depicted the communist hammer and sickle, the Jewish star, a syringe, and a marijuana leaf as rain falling on a family under an umbrella emblazoned with a sign reminiscent of a swastika. Another poster featured a man wielding a sword on a horse in a battle scene. 

“This country is your birthright,” the poster said. “Don’t give it up.” 

A third poster found near the Downtown Fargo Fire Department, said “Trump was the first step. We’re the Next,” and supported by VDare, Counter-Currents, American Renaissance, The Right Stuff, Redice.TV, and The Occidental Observer, all of whom are listed as nationalistic and racial purist hate organizations. 

A fourth flier posted by AltRight.com in Roberts Street alley said, “White people have a right to exist.” 

White right poster – photo provided by Christopher A. Smith

A fifth flier listing Bible verse John 2:13 pictures a whip and tells “Real Christians, drive out the parasite class.” 

Parasite poster – photo by Christopher A. Smith

Christopher A. Smith frequently walks through Downtown, and discovered some of the posters over the weekend and on Monday evening. 

“I thought, when I saw the posters, that it was interesting timing with the upcoming Black Lives Matter Banquet at Minnesota State University Moorhead and the Holocaust Remembrance,” Smith said. 

“My first impulse was to rip them down, but then I thought it would be better to document the signs and share them on social media to perhaps bring up awareness that such things are in the area.” 

Birthright poster – photo provided by Christopher A. Smith

Unity-USA, a nonprofit local hate watch group, alerted netizens early Tuesday morning. 

“According to sources, several fliers have been posted by an unknown hate group in selected locations in downtown Fargo,” Unity-USA reported. While it is unknown which group is directly responsible, Unity-USA is conducting research and trying to track down suspected groups/group members.” 

VDare was established in 1999 as a nonprofit by the Center for American Unity in Virginia, and is “dedicated to preserving our historical unity as Americans into the 21st Century,” according to its website. 

Trump poster – photo provided by Christopher A. Smith

American Renaissance was founded in 1990 and promotes pseudo-scientific studies and research to show minorities in language that avoids open racial slurs, according to Unity-USA. It is best known for its American Renaissance magazine and website, which regularly feature eugenics and racist articles. 

The Right Stuff blog is a racist outlet hosting podcasts including The Daily Shoah, and popularizes the use of “echoes,” or Anti Semitic markers using triple parenthesis around names to identify people of the Jewish faith on social media, according to Unity-USA. 

Counter-Currents is a website popular among “hipster racists,” according to Unity-USA, and pushes fake news and memes that are considered popular to young adults. 

The Occidental Observer is a far-right online publication that covers politics and society from a nationalistic and Anti Semitic perspective, according to Unity-USA. 

Redice.TV is an online hate video service with a formal media infrastructure, Unity-USA reported. 

The Flyovers is a term designating “Red States” that voted for President Trump. “It is unclear if this is the term they are using to designate this particular group, but it seems that this might be the case,” Unity-USA reported. 

The First Annual FEHU BBQ was hosted by a person identifying himself as Chad Radkersburg at Lindenwood Park on Saturday. FEHU is a Futhark rune representing a new beginning. 

“It seems likely that the use of FEHU in this case means the start of a new supremacist group in the Fargo-Moorhead area,” Unity-USA reported. 

Reportedly twelve people attended the First Annual FEHU BBQ, according to netizens. Radkersburg was contacted for comment, but did not respond.

“Tientsin’s List” – Tientsin at War – Part III

TIANJINThis is the third article in the “Tientsin at War” series,which uncovers evidence Gestapo agents were working undercover in Tientsin during World War II.  Taken partly from “Top Secret” Office of Strategic Services records now declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency, their typewritten interrogations conjure a musty , dimly lit room inside the Tientsin Municipal Police Station.  Outside, it’s night.  World War II is coming to a close.  An ashtray on a wooden table can’t possibly take another butt, but a Chinese police officer finds a hole while OSS agents face a known Gestapo man, five thousand miles from his Fatherland.   

By C.S. Hagen

TIENTSIN, CHINA – One carelessly sealed letter through diplomatic pouch made Nazi Germany’s Consul-General Fritz Wiedemann aware the Gestapo were working in Tientsin.

Four letters betrayed the Nazi spy – “EMME.”

A picture of Wiedemann, Tientsin's former Nazi general-consul, and a Adolf Hitler in a frame - by online sources

A picture of Fritz Wiedemann, Tientsin’s former Nazi general-consul, and Adolf Hitler in a frame  – online sources

“We had not the right to read these letters,” Wiedemann said in his testimony to Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agents on September 29, 1945.  “But once a letter was delivered open; that’s how we got the name.”  Agents were investigating in part if rumors that Werwolfs, Nazi Germany’s underground partisans sworn to kill anti-Nazis, were active in Tientsin.

Fritz Gunther Emme, born to Richard and Goyke Emme on March 13, 1913 in Danzig, was a Gestapo agent living at 202 Edinburgh Road, currently named Changde Road, which is not far from Chateau 35, a Western eatery established in 2010.  Officially, Emme was an engineer working for C. Melchers & Co.

Described as a thin, gaunt-faced near sighted man with glasses, standing no taller than five feet six inches and head of Tientsin’s Gestapo, he was a private in the German Reserves before being recruited into the Gestapo. “The S.D. took me away from the Army,” Emme said during his interrogation.  “I felt I had to do it.  Just another patriotic duty.”

Despite being newly married to Elvira Wormsbecher, a woman he met in Tientsin, Emme had no identification of any kind after he was captured in Tientsin, according to the OSS secret report, now declassified.  His front was as an engineer working at Melchers & Co., Number 16 Bruce Road, but he was an agent of the S.D., an affiliated sister organization of the dreaded Gestapo.  Emme reported to Gestapo man Charles Schmidt in Peking (Beijing), who reported to Colonel Josef Meisinger, the “Butcher of Warsaw” in Shanghai, according to Wiedemann.

Inside the Tientsin Municipal Police Station, a nervous Emme tripped on his answers saying he was simply excited, many times refusing to answer questions fired fast as a MG 34 machine gun.  He was confronted with a list of names and checkmarks in his own imitation leather notebook.  Agents feared it was a blacklist.

The list of names is not short.  “Will you explain these entries?”  Captain Coulson of the OSS pointed to page number ten.

“These are acquaintances of mine.  Mr. M. Stahmer.  These are check marks for Christmas cards.”

“When did you send that card, last year?”

“No, must have been the first Christmas I was out here in 1941.”

“Why did you preserve this book – a record of Christmas cards sent in 1941?”

“I forgot about it,” Emme said.

“You tore out many pages.  The entries in it are all in your writing.  Did you tear these pages out?”

“Yes I did.  It was used in the office as the book was not used any more after 1940 or 1941.”

“But you have preserved these pages.  These names are of people you did not send cards to?”

No direct answer, and then the captain squeezes the trigger again.

“You entered these names here.  For what purpose?  Did you put these names in the book?”

“I put my acquaintances in the book to remember so that they would not be offended.”

“How does it happen that the check marks against the names are in ink and these names are in pencil?”

“I don’t know.”

Glass√      

E. Wolf

J. Mueller

Rosochatsky

Kirshbaum

“Why did you not send him a Christmas card?”

No answer.

Fritz Selieneyer

Dr. Richard Brieuer

Wener Koelin

Steneck 

Podgoretney

Captain Coulson made a note to show Podgoretney had died in Shanghai, then showed Emme a business card for Dr. Bongarten found inside the notebook.

“Did he know you were a Gestapo man?” the captain said.

“No.”

Caught.  The captain turned pages.

“I show you the entries made upside down on page 73, will you explain?”

“These are weather entries of barometer readings.”

“When did you begin making these weather reports?”

“I got the barometer as a present and I started making them on June 16, 1945.”  The captain purposefully relaxed, asking Emme about hobbies, and then fired again.

“Did you ever own a radio sending or receiving set?”

“No, have no knowledge of radio.”

“Do you remember this?  You went to S.D. school to study radio for three months, and you learned how to make radios.”

“Studied code sending and receiving; I don’t remember any more of these signs.”

“Are you an experienced radio man or not?”

“I am not.”

You did study it for three months.”

“Yes, sending and receiving.”

Emme is caught in another blatant lie when asked about hidden property and jewelry, much of which, he said, belonged to his wife, which he pawned for money.

“Have you made any effort to conceal your property?”

“No.”

The captain waved a receipt for personal property stored at the residence of Mr. L. Julian, in Tientsin. “You know what this is?”

“No.”

“I will ask you again.  Did you deposit any of your property with friends for safe-keeping?”

“Yes, I have.”

“This receipt.  Mr. L. Julian. Where does he live?”

“I don’t know – he works in our company.”

“Have you left other property with other people?”

“Yes, Mr. Chi.”

“What is his first name and where does he live?”

“He has his office on the corner of Bristow Road and Rue Du Chaylard.”

“What did you leave with him?”

“I left one case of cutlery, a case of books, all together four cases.”

“Where has your wife left her jewels?”

“She has them with her.”

Emme was caught in deeper lies saying he never reported to the Abwehr Group, another Nazi intelligence-gathering agency that dealt exclusively

A house formerly owned by a Nazi general in Hexi District, in the old German Concession area - photo by C.S. Hagen

A house formerly owned by a Nazi general in Hexi District, in the old German Concession area – photo by C.S. Hagen

with human intelligence, and then conveniently remembered he had filed a report about Japanese forces in Qingdao, a Shandong Province coastal city and former German Settlement.

Nothing else is known about Emme’s imprisonment or release, but when Germany surrendered Wiedemann quickly called OSS agents and negotiated his own surrender. He didn’t want to be captured by the quickly encroaching Soviets to the north and feared retribution from vengeful Werwolfs.

“There were some Germans who were really anti-Nazi in China,” Wiedemann said, “but I don’t know if Meisinger really gathered information about these people.  Once I was told that one of these businessmen in Tientsin is accused to be anti-Nazi and acting against the interests of the Reich and regime and said … [there were] files about this businessman.”

 

Tientsin’s Nazi Past

According to a 1946 U.S. War Department document entitled “German Intelligence Activities in China During World War II” declassified by the CIA in 2001, many of China’s German businessmen were considered a threat to US interests because they had entrenched themselves deeply into both Chinese society and business venues.

Before the First World War Germany had a lease for a concession area in the southwest section of Tientsin for ninety-nine years.  The area was taken over by the Japanese in 1917.  Despite the lack of an official concession, Germany continued trade and furthered political and business interests within the country and by the start of World War II the Nazi party had branches in Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Hankow, Tsingtao, Canton, Tsinan, Chefoo, Foochow and Kunming, (respectively Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Hankou, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Jinan, Yantai, Fuzhou and Kunming).  The branches were small, and out of 4,300 Germans in China at the time, the Nazi Party boasted 575 members.

Hitler Youth and League of German Girls in Tientsin - online sources

Hitler Youth and League of German Girls in Tientsin – online sources

Tientsin had ninety-eight registered Nazis of the total 700 German residents, costing the Fatherland 45,000 Deutschmarks a month (an actual 25,000 in real expenses), Wiedemann said.  Funds were transferred through companies, sometimes directly from the German-Asiatic Bank (Deutsche-Asiatische Bank) until the end of the war, which included subsidies for the German Deutscher Zeitung newspaper for North China.  Tientsin’s most popular Nazi publication was the Twentieth Century magazine, known as the “slickest piece of propaganda disseminated by any government.”   Another newspaper in Tientsin was the Deutsh-Chinesische Nachrichten, run by Waldemar Bartels, who died in a Japanese Prison, charged with activities defying Berlin and Tokyo.  Tientsin also had access to radio station XGRS, which was operated on direct orders from Berlin’s Propaganda Ministry.

Other German companies in Tientsin at the time included the Defag on Victoria Road, another front for Nazi activists, and Siemens on Taku Road.  There was also the German School on Yunnan Road, which was founded by German businesses, but was later taken over by Nazi Germany in the 1930s.  Germans built a park at Woodrow Wilson and Soochow roads, and a German-American Hospital between Ningpo and Tanchu roads.  The German Lutheran Church with its picturesque cemetery – now gone – was located on Shensi Road.  The German Concordia Club, still standing today, was a popular meeting place for Germans before and during World War II.  The main library was British, called Tientsin’s British Municipal Library, and local Chinese were not allowed entry.

Tientsin’s German companies Melchers, Defag, Kunst & Albers, the Deutsche-Asiatische Bank , among others, are on file with the “Records Pertaining to Axis Relation and Interests in the Far East” stored at The National Archives in Washington D.C.

Melchers, the company Emme and other Nazis used as a front, was a trading company established in Tientsin in 1898.  After both the first and second world wars the company was liquidated, according to a company booklet commemorating Melchers 175 operational years in 1981.  The U.S. War Department reported the most important feature during the war years for Melchers and Defag in China, and Illies & Co. in Japan was transferring funds and financing various Nazi intelligence groups.  Although Japan and Germany were allies, trade suffered immeasurably.

After World War II German companies liquidated, according to the U.S. War Department.  Proceeds from the sales of businesses, houses and properties were distributed to German citizens as payroll.  Swiss francs or US dollars were purchased through collaborationist friends known as “straw men,” which then went to purchasing gold bars, later hidden in cellars and backyards.  According to the Melchers’ booklet, Carl Gerhard Melchers, fifth generation of the family involved in company management at Tientsin, tried to continue the business but left China in 1951.  Melchers reentered the China market through Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and had a liaison office in Peking (Beijing) at the time the booklet was published.

Mellchers

Newspapers and foreigners’ accounts who lived in Tientsin during the 1930s and early 1940s report Tientsin’s different nationalities mingled, sometimes bickered at local nightclubs and cabarets.  Excluding White Russian and Japanese funded gangs and hit squads roaming the concessions, racial or political violence was rare, but occurred on occasion.  On September 6, 1939 a German fired upon a patrol in the British Concession, according to the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper.  There were no casualties, but a group of local members of the British Defense Force stormed a German Tennis Club and arrested the shooter.  Each concession lived by its own sets of laws and customs, rarely venturing past the safety of its own barricades, and were impervious to Chinese law.

Isabelle Maynard in her book Growing Up Jewish in Tientsin says that as a child she remembers Hitler Youth marching down Victoria Road, swinging swastikas and singing “Horst Wessel” at the top of their lungs.  “Englanders” fought back with patriotic songs of their own.  Once, written on the Tientsin Jewish School’s wall, someone scrawled the word Djid, meaning dirty jew, which instantly electrified the high school boys into a search for the culprit.

Anti-semitic activity in conjunction with Hitler’s Final Solution was not high on the Nazis’ and German consul-general’s to do list.

The Kiessling's Cafe - established in 1906 as a bakery. Herr Kiessling set up another restaurant in the German Concession called Kiessling and Bader's Cafe. The restaurant was staffed by White Russian girls and Chinese waiters and was considered a "guide to European Tientsin and a source of great pleasure to its inhabitants." In the 1990s copies were attempted in Tientsin, which failed.  The first floor is now a KFC, leaving only the upper floors as a bar and restaurant.

The Kiessling’s Cafe – established in 1906 as a bakery. Herr Kiessling set up another restaurant in the German Concession called Kiessling and Bader’s Cafe. The restaurant was staffed by White Russian girls and Chinese waiters and was considered a “guide to European Tientsin and a source of great pleasure to its inhabitants.” In the 1990s government-operated copies were attempted in Tientsin, all of which failed. The first floor is now a KFC, leaving only the upper floors as a bar and restaurant. – photo by C.S. Hagen 

As a high-ranking representative of Nazi Germany’s government, Wiedemann, who lived at Number 1 Detring Court, spent most his mornings at the Kiessling’s Café, talking to friends, employees, agents and contacts.  Although Wiedemann had been “banished” to Tientsin, he immediately accepted the posting when it was offered.  He wanted to remove himself as far from Nazi Germany as he could.

“As I greeted my subordinates in my office in Tientsin I told them I didn’t come out to Tientsin to work,” Wiedemann laughingly told OSS agents.  He laughed frequently during the interrogation.  “It was the same for me as in the old Roman Empire – send somebody across the Mediterranean – away from the capitol.”

Wiedemann’s duties as the consul-general were to give lessons, called Zellenabende, once a month to Tientsin’s German residents, hold celebrations on Hitler’s birthday and holidays, donate clothes and food for the poor, give speeches, pass faulty information to Japanese through Chinese employees and relay information.  He did not admit to being a spy, and said his interests in Tientsin were mostly of a commercial nature.  Wiedemann also attended and maintained the “German-Italian-Japanese Friendship Organization” which was an obligatory social gathering where plays and concerts were performed in the name of mutual friendship.

Despite the Tripartite alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan, nothing in Tientsin was easy, Wiedemann said.  Communication was the most difficult aspect of his duties as the Japanese military authorities would not allow any direct transmissions to Berlin.  He was aware of messages being coded with secret ink or photographed as microdots, then sent through drop boxes or by slow courier or with Italian assistance by radio, but he said he had nothing to do with espionage.

Nobody trusted anybody, he said.  The alliance was a superficial one in Tientsin, at best.  Despite the existence of Hitler Youth, few Germans, if any, actively followed Nazi protocol or attempted to stem the growing flow of Jewish refugees in the city. Mostly, German nationals were concerned with lining their pockets, like any other businessman or woman.

In a 2003 story made public by the OSS Society, Inc., Grant “Barney” Fielden says the Federal Bureau of

The German Concordia Club - online sources

The German Concordia Club – online sources

Investigation expressed great interest in debriefing Wiedemann.  When the OSS plane was landing in Tientsin,

Japanese soldiers surrounded the plane with their swords drawn, they were surprisingly allowed to land and take Wiedemann into custody.  He was flown to Kunming for debriefing.

“You had to like the guy,” Fielden wrote.  “Remember, he was a Nazi official for years, but he was ever the diplomat: suave, black homburg, very sophisticated.”

According to interrogation records from the Office of US Chief of Counsel for the Persecution of Axis Criminality, Wiedemann was in Hitler’s “Inner Circle,” but Allied negative opinions of Wiedemann lessened after the Swiss Consul in Tientsin spoke up for his anti-Nazi attitude.  While in Tientsin, Wiedemann’s speeches were mostly against Hitler, which nearly cost him his job, and he feared for his life.

 

The German Concession formerly on Wilhelmstrasse Avenue - then Woodrow Wilson now Jiefang Road

The German Concession formerly on Wilhelmstrasse Avenue – then Woodrow Wilson now Jiefang Road – online sources

“In Tientsin my views were well known before very long,” Wiedemann said in the report.  “I was opposed to Hitler’s policies.  I was opposed to the war.

“[I was] put into the doghouse.”

Wiedemann was a royalist.  He believed in the power of the monarchy and saw Nazism and Bolshevism as “two sides to the same coin.”  As a socialite and opportunistic spy, he enjoyed his women, his schnapps, his thick German beer, Kiessling Cafe’s fresh bread and Wiener Schnitzels and decided the Nazi ship would sink long before Victory in Europe Day.  He contacted the OSS not only because the Soviet invasion was looming, but also because he feared retribution from the Werwolf Underground.

From men like Emme.

When asked about other potential Werwolf Underground members Wiedemann listed Peter Meinss of Tientsin as the most fanatical; Charles Schmidt of Peking; Major Huber of Shanghai; Franz Marks, chancellor of the Tientsin Consulate who according to OSS records was the most fanatical long term Tientsin Nazi, and lastly Ulbrecht, Hitler Youth leader in Tientsin.  Such men, Wiedemann thought, disguised themselves as businessmen and were financed through banks such as the German-Asiatic Bank.  Through secret letters sent directly from Colonel Meisinger, they were capable of partisan work such as spreading leaflets and making threats, after Nazi Germany’s surrender.

No matter how the Gestapo might have denied their careful scrutiny of its citizens at home and abroad, every spy had a card index file with photos of residents under police surveillance, and kept a blacklist of all German undesirables, Wiedemann said.

The OSS records do not confirm, nor do they deny the “Tientsin List” was either a candid Christmas card notes or a lethal hit list.  The truth will never be revealed, but it was proof enough for Wiedemann, an opportunistic former adjutant of Hitler’s, the consul-general of Tientsin, to surrender to American agents.

After World War II he testified at the Nuremberg Trials, and spent twenty-eight months in prison before returning to the farming life in Upper Bavaria.  He died January 17, 1970.  In 2012 news agencies around the world reported Wiedemann helped save Ernst Hess, Hitler’s commandant of the List Regiment during World War I.  Although Hess, a decorated war hero, survived the Holocaust, the Jewish Voice from Germany and other news sources report Hess was sent to a labor camp in Munich where he suffered terribly.

 

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