By Derrick Broze

A historian has published a new article revealing that the Associated Press news agency cooperated with Hitler’s Nazi regime during the 1930s, allowing the Nazi propaganda ministry to select material for publication.

Hitler’s Nazi party came to power in 1933 in Germany and quickly worked to limit and ban press that painted the party in an unfavorable light. Many national and international media outlets were forced to close after coming under attack from Nazi sympathizers. The Associated Press would be the only Western news agency open in Hitler’s Third Reich, until the U.S. officially entered the war in 1941. During that time period, the AP was the only source for information related to Hitler’s brutal genocide.

Historian Harriet Scharnberg has published an article in the academic journal Studies in Contemporary History, stating that AP was only able to maintain access by entering into a “mutually beneficial” agreement with the Nazi regime. The AP agreed to sign up to the so-called Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law), promising not to publish any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.” The Guardian reported:

This law required AP to hire reporters who also worked for the Nazi party’s propaganda division. One of the four photographers employed by the Associated Press in the 1930s, Franz Roth, was a member of the SS paramilitary unit’s propaganda division, whose photographs were personally chosen by Hitler. AP has removed Roth’s pictures from its website since Scharnberg published her findings, though thumbnails remain viewable due to “software issues”. AP also allowed the Nazi regime to use its photo archives for its virulently antisemitic propaganda literature. Publications illustrated with AP photographs include the bestselling SS brochure “Der Untermensch” (“The Sub-Human”) and the booklet “The Jews in the USA”, which aimed to demonstrate the decadence of Jewish Americans with a picture of New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia eating from a buffet with his hands.

Scharnberg also told the Guardian that AP printed pictures that ignored Jewish victims of the Nazis, instead, “showing the victims of the Soviet police and ‘brute’ Red Army war criminals.”

“To that extent it is fair to say that these pictures played their part in disguising the true character of the war led by the Germans,” said Scharnberg. “Which events were made visible and which remained invisible in AP’s supply of pictures followed German interests and the German narrative of the war.”

The AP has previously come under fire for similar arrangements with North Korea. AP has maintained the only Western new agency bureau in North Korea since January 2012. In 2014, NK News alleged that top executives at AP “agreed to distribute state-produced North Korean propaganda through the AP name,” so that they may gain access to exclusive images from within the North Korean regime.

While these stories are worrisome, we should note that the American media and government have a history of supporting and helping Nazis. Only three years before America entered World War 2, Hitler was still being celebrated by institutions like Time Magazine. Even after the war, America’s leadership was quick to forgive any potential crimes by German scientists and leaders if it meant they could have access to brand new technology. Business Insider commented on this phenomenon:

As World War Two drew to a close, the United States rushed to collect as many former Nazi scientists as possible through a secret mission called Operation Paperclip. As some had been branded war criminals at Nuremberg, the U.S. military whitewashed the backgrounds of many scientists in an attempt to justify hiring them. Knowing that trouble was brewing already with the Soviet Union, these scientists were employed by the U.S. in a wide variety of roles — including, at times, experimenting with LSD. Wernher von Braun was a member of various German political organizations, including the SS. He was the chief developer of the V-2 rocket. This rocket was the first ballistic missile ever created.

Operation Paperclip ran from 1949 to 1990, originally launched by the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The program helped bring more than 1,500 German scientists, engineers, and technicians to the United States from Nazi Germany following the end of World War II. The United States wanted to keep the German technological advances out of the hands of the Soviet Union, the U.K. and post-war Germany.

But, the story doesn’t stop there.

According to Jim Marrs, a New York Times-bestselling author and former professor at the University of Texas-Arlington, Nazi science was not the only import by the United States. Marrs has written several books on the forces that operate in the shadows, cleverly manipulating events in American politics and life. In The Rise of the Fourth Reich, Marrs proposes that the Nazis’ fascist ideology has taken over American politics, Academia, Media, and other powerful positions. Marrs writes:

From the days of Lyndon B. Johnson to those of George W. Bush, there has been talk of “Amerika” turning “fascist.” Most people, this author included, dismissed this as radical rhetoric. Unfortunately, as shall be seen, this might not be so far from the truth. The Germans were defeated in World War II . . . but not the Nazis. They were simply forced to move. They scattered to the four corners of the world. Many of them came to the United States and penetrated what President Dwight D. Eisenhower termed “the military-industrial complex.” Both Nazi science and ideology were brought to America in the aftermath of World War II with the aid and assistance of the very same self styled globalists who created National Socialism in the first place. Their agenda matches that of the old Bavarian Illuminati, who were long thought to have perished soon after the time of George Washington. But if the order died, its credo lives on—power and control through wealth by any means possible. From the seeds of Nazism planted in America during the Cold War sprang a whole new nation, one that today has become the greatest superpower in history but has also incurred a growing hatred among the nations of the world as well as alienation and dissension among its own citizens.

Whether or not you are drinking the same Kool-Aid as Jim Marrs, it should be absolutely clear that the American government has created a massive police and surveillance state that Hitler could only dream of. America is quickly becoming divided between those who want to use the force of government to enforce their worldview, and those who are willing to use the government to suppress their enemies. America in 2016 might not yet be Germany of 1941, but fascism and totalitarianism can only fester and grow into a murderous regime when the people choose to stand by and do nothing.

Image Credit (AP Photo)

Derrick Broze is an investigative journalist and liberty activist. He is the Lead Investigative Reporter for ActivistPost.com and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com. Follow him on Twitter.

Derrick is available for interviews.

This article may be freely reposted in part or in full with author attribution and source link.