BNP official arrested during campaign

Whitehaven police arrested a BNP official in King Street on Saturday.

The Copeland organiser for the BNP, Clive Jefferson, had been giving out BNP literature to town shoppers as part of the by-election campaign for the Copeland Council Harbour ward poll later this month.

Mr Jefferson was arrested after a member of the public alleged he had been threatening or abusive.

Police press spokesman Ben Meller confirmed to The News that: “A 40-year-old man from Cockermouth was arrested for an alleged Section 4 public order offence. There had been reports the BNP had set up a stall in King Street. We saw copies of the literature and it was not regarded as being of a racist or hate crime nature. However there was a complaint from a member of the public of that he had been threatened or abused by a person at the stall.”

He said the arrested man was released without charge but will have to return to Workington police station to answer bail on September 21.

Mr Jefferson later said: “The complainant was not a passive member of the public, he was aggressive and accused us of being fascists.”

Whitehaven News

Hatewatch for the week of September 5th 2007

Skinhead Violence Spikes In Rural Community
Three random attacks on non-whites by skinheads in Lakeside, Calif., this summer occurred in the midst of an increase in racist graffiti and local youths donning white supremacist garb...

National Alliance Member Arrested For Anti-Semitic Graffiti
John Rocissano, 20, a member of the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance, was charged for painting swastikas and anti-Jewish slurs on a synagogue, a school bus and a private home...

Vanguard Leader Pleads Guilty To Resisting Arrest
Vanguard News Network operator Alex Linder pleaded guilty to resisting arrest for scuffling with police officers at a white supremacist rally in May that Linder organized...

Swastikas Burned Into Country Club Fairways
Vandals used chemicals to burn swastikas and the message "Kill niggers" into six spots on the golf course grass at Holly Tree Country Club...

The BNP purge continues: Griffin to discipline/expel Mike Easter?

In a move that is so full of irony that the BNP had better check it for rust, news is emerging that Mike Easter, election agent to leadership-challenger Chris Jackson, is to be disciplined for late submission of the challenger's election expenses to the party treasurer.

One would expect a party that is a couple of months late with its own accounts submission to the Electoral Commission to have had more sense that to make itself a target for ridicule in this way but Nick Griffin is presumably so anxious to punish those who assisted the challenger that he is prepared to ignore the laughs to get his revenge.

Regular readers will no doubt recall his description of Chris Jackson's supporters as cranks, Hollywood Nazis, congenital losers, thieves and vermin - and all this in a single blog post - despite the fact that they included five founder-members, two advisory council members, three councillors, eight branch organisers and 20 election candidates. Not a great deal of respect there then.

The response from other 'nationalists' is predictably angry though as usual the nazi Stormfront forum (run by Griffin's friend, ex-Klansman Don Black and ably assisted by the forum's pro-Griffin UK moderators) is keeping a lid on any discussion by disabling the accounts of anyone who shows any sign of having a go at the BNP leader under any pretext. A couple of other sites are displaying their anger though, one of them with this classic comment posted to it;

'...this comes from a party of THEIVING BASTARDS and INEBRIATE LOSERS who can't even get their accounts IN ON TIME. WHERE ARE THE BNP ACCOUNTS AND WHY ARE BNP MEMBERS SUCH A BUNCH OF BRAIN-DEAD IDIOTS? WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY SCARED OF, EH? Surely they cannot be scared of the one eyed wonder of a sheep farmer and his pervert security chief?'

along with the omnipresent Sharon Ebanks, a former supporter of Griffin, sticking it to him thus;

'Do you think it ok to allow a jumped up twat with a 3rd rate degree and an insecurity complex larger than Snowdonia national park to just go around chopping people willy nilly? When you cease kissing Griffins arse you'll be next. The very idea that such a man even dreams of running this country makes me want to take up shooting practice.'

One angry contributor asks the same two questions that many others have asked;

'What I can't get my head around is why the BNP election process (that's to say the terms imposed by Griffin, etc) weren't challenged legally. It still can be. Likewise all the trumped up expulsions.'

These are reasonable questions though the first one is really only answerable by Mike Easter himself and the challenger Chris Jackson. When Nick Griffin dictated the terms of the election, it was suggested that a legal challenge to the terms was likely. Sadly this never materialised (though it certainly should have). To have completely ignored the ludicrous restrictions placed on campaigning was tantamount to agreeing to lose, and lose Jackson subsequently did.

The second part of the question is far more dangerous to Griffin - that those expelled from the party could legally question their expulsions. This is not only true but has happened a couple of times before, following Griffin's repeated expulsions of the late founder of the British National Party John Tyndall for being a 'disruptive influence'. Tyndall was reinstated by the courts, the embarrassment caused to Griffin was profound and it cost the party a small fortune, also having the distinct advantage of showing Nick Griffin up as the pompous buffoon that he is.

Of course, disciplinary action isn't necessarily the same thing as expulsion and it may be that Easter will just take what's coming and carry on doing whatever he does but judging by Griffin's words above, he's determined to force all of his opposition out of the party by using any means that are available to him. Simon Smith and Jonathan Bowden have already been forced out, Easter's turn has come and we confidentally expect Jackson-supporter Richard Edmonds (another one to have been expelled then reinstated) to be in the firing line before long. One only wonders how long it will take for Griffin to expel all 337 party members who supported Chris Jackson.

MEP jailed for benefit fraud

A British MEP was jailed for nine months today for falsely claiming more than £65,000 in benefits.

Ashley Mote, an independent MEP for south-east England who formerly represented Ukip, was found guilty of 21 charges of deception at Portsmouth crown court. Despite the sentence, Mote will retain his seat in the European parliament. MEPs are only disqualified from office if they receive jail terms of more than 12 months.

Mote, 71, was found guilty of eight charges of false accounting, eight of obtaining a money transfer by deception, four of evading liability and one of failing to notify a change of circumstances. He was acquitted of a further four charges.

The judge, Richard Price, said he had taken into consideration the defendant's age in determining the length of the jail term, as well as sentencing advice provided by the government because of prison overcrowding. The judge told the MEP that his situation was a "tragedy" and, despite his work in the European parliament, the charges of which Mote had been found guilty could "only be met by a custodial sentence - nothing else would be appropriate".

The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, said he was "disgusted and horrified" by what he called the "leniency" of the sentence.

"If he had been jailed for more than a year, the seat could have been reassigned to Ukip. As it is, the voters in the south-east will see taxpayers' money going to a man serving a prison sentence, unable to represent them."

Mr Farage said Mote, who earns £60,277 a year as an MEP, should step down.

"I know it's far too much to expect, but if this man had a shred of decency or integrity left, he'd resign."

The four-week trial heard that Mote ran a once successful business which collapsed in 1989.

He began to claim income support, housing benefits and council tax benefits but failed to notify the benefits agency when he began earning money through various enterprises, including spread betting on currency markets from February 1996 to September 2002, during which time he received £73,000 in benefits.

The court heard he used this money to pay off credit card debts that he had run up funding an "extravagant lifestyle", including restaurant dinners, private healthcare and holidays to the US, France and the Caribbean.

Mote, who was elected in 2004, came to attention early in the year when he signed up to the neo-fascist "Identity, Sovereignty and Tradition" European parliament grouping, which also includes Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the French National Front, and similarly far-right groups from Italy, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.

Ukip had already withdrawn its whip by then because of the impending benefit fraud trial.

Guardian

Far-right given election boost by Greek fires

Concerns are mounting that the political fallout from devastating wildfires in Greece could open the door to far-right extremists in elections to be held a week on Sunday. Public anger at the response to the fires is fuelling discontent within the country's two main political parties and pushing many voters into the arms of fringe groups who could enter parliament for the first time.

Among those seeing a significant bounce in opinion polls is the extreme-right Orthodox Rally (Laos) party who are expected to break the 3 per cent threshold needed to gain seats at the 16 September elections.

"These fires have seen the popularity of the smaller parties rise," said Dimitris Sotiropoulos, a senior analyst at the regional think-tank Eliamep. "This is as a result of the incapability of the state to prevent the fires, then to deal with them and finally to resolve the situation."

Greece is set for one of its tightest elections in recent memory with as many as 20 per cent of voters undecided and a legal blackout on opinion polling in the closing fortnight of the campaign. The final surveys before the blackout gave Laos 4 per cent of the projected vote, narrowly ahead of the left-wing Syriza party. The two main parties, conservative New Democracy and socialist Pasok, both polled less than 40 per cent, with neither claiming a substantial advantage. The uncertainty has raised the prospect of a coalition government, which could hand a key role to a minority party able to gain even a few parliamentary seats.

The far right has traditionally struggled to get an electoral foothold in a country that has suffered under a military dictatorship as recently as the 1970s. But Laos with its mix of xenophobia, nationalism and Orthodox Christianity, may have struck a chord with a country shocked both by the scale of the destruction and the torpid response of mainstream parties.

In the past fortnight, Greece has been plunged into a state of emergency as the worst wildfires for a century decimated forests and farmland, consumed villages and killed more than 60 people. Several smaller fires were still burning yesterday when the first rain fell in after a scorching summer of record-breaking temperatures.

The ruling conservatives have been roundly condemned for their lethargic response to the crisis but Pasok, their perennial opponents, do not appear to be attracting disgruntled voters either.

In a bid to avoid accusations of profiting from the fires, both parties suspended campaigning during the crisis but that has afforded precious breathing space to the fringe parties who have festooned Athens with aggressive election posters.

Taking centre stage in the battle of the minnows has been the Laos party leader George Karatzaferis who is to be seen all over the city wielding a boxing glove and calling for all Greece to become "one fist".

The country has been gripped by conspiracy theories and Mr Karatzaferis' aggressive and simplistic campaign featuring a scantily-clad bleach blonde nightclub performer, Effi Sarri, singing a party anthem about Christ and country has gained unexpected traction. The increasingly rattled government has sought to deflect critics by placing the blame for the wildfires on arsonists but it has done little to help its own cause by making confusing statements about "asymmetrical terrorist threats" and an "organised plan" to destabilise the country.

Independent

BNP supporters disrupt school with demo and picket at gates

Monday morning saw the disruption of the first school day of the new year as the British National Party and two of its many front groups, Civil Liberty and Solidarity, gathered together outside Sunnydale Community College in County Durham to protest at the suspension of teacher Mark Walker.

Walker, BNP election candidate and agent for the former BNP's Andrew Spence in the recent Sedgefield by-election, was suspended from Sunnydale for 'misuse of school computer equipment', rumoured to be related to his visiting far-right websites during lessons while the children were getting on with their work.

The idiotic Phil Edwards, ever available to distort the facts on behalf of the BNP, was quoted in news reports as stating; 'The reason he's had this action against him was because he allegedly looked at the BNP website on the school's computer. It is disgraceful that anyone should be suspended for looking at the website of a perfectly legal political party. We are certain this action would not have been taken against someone who had looked at the websites of the Commission for Racial Equality or the Green Party.'

Well no, but neither the Commission for Racial Equality nor the Green Party attack Muslims using any pretext (or lie if a pretext isn't available), despise our multicultural society, seek the 'repatriation' of people with different skin colours who could be third or fourth generation UK born, oppose sexual diversity, demand the return of both corporal and capital punishment, have a Hitlerite background, a record of anti-semitism, an astonishing collection of criminals, liars and thieves in its ranks nor constantly steal money from its supporters.

Although both Edwards and the General Secretary of the hijacked Solidarity trades union both claimed that Walker's suspension was because of his political views, the school's head teacher, Sue Byrnes, said the claims of political persecution were untrue.

'We are happy to state categorically that Mr Walker has not been suspended because of any political affiliations he may hold. Any suggestion that this is the case is wholly false. Beyond that we cannot comment because of our respect for Mr Walker's rights to confidentiality with regard to the terms of his employment.'

The demonstration and picket only managed to attract 'up to 50 people', according to the BBC, even though it was heavily advertised on the BNP, Solidarity and Civil Liberty websites, and the extreme nazi forums Stormfront and Vanguard News Network (VNN).

The Secret Agent - the reality of the BNP

Following a negative response to a comment made following a recent article to the effect that most members of the virulently racist National Front would feel at home in the average BNP meeting, we decided to post the video of the excellent Secret Agent programme from the BBC.

This programme, apart from allowing the viewer to see what kind of deeply offensive rubbish the BNP leader Nick Griffin comes out with on a regular basis, also shows a good deal of the moronic Hitlerite Mark Collett, an unaccountably long-term figure in the BNP despite numerous gaffes and endless embarrassment for the party wherever he opens his mouth (particularly at the recent Red, White and Blue annual BNP booze-up).

Better than that though, it also shows that the BNP is packed with people who are violently racist, who will happily exchange their insane fantasies over several pints of beer in the pub. This is the reality of the British National Party. While we're sure that there are many people in the party who have believed the lies and deluded themselves into the belief that it is simply another party, this video shows that there are plenty of extremely dangerous people in and around the BNP who, when they believe themselves to be free to speak, will horrify any decent person with their views.

If you haven't seen it before, it's well worth a watch. If you have, it's worth watching to remind yourself what we're fighting.

Loughton result confirms BNP's downward trend

Ever since the May local elections, when eight out of nine of its sitting councillors lost their seats, the BNP has looked in vain for electoral cheer in a series of summer by-elections. They thought they'd find it in Nuneaton and Bedworth's Slough ward, and shamelessly hyped their chances of winning the seat, only to find themselves broken against the in-built strength of the Labour vote in a former mining town with deep Labour (not New Labour) and trade union traditions.

The BNP were further disappointed when one of its sitting councillors resigned his seat on Loughton Council, Essex, necessitating a by-election in the town's Alderton Ward.

The racist party needed this by-election like it needed a hole in the head. It needed to retain the seat to save face and to bolster the sagging morale of its supporters, and was perhaps heartened by the fact that the history of municipal by-elections shows that it is more difficult to lose a seat than it is to win one.

The BNP duly fought the Alderton ward by-election last Thursday, and won. Since then the party has been crowing to the high heavens with news of its 'victory', its members gleefully posting the result wherever they can on the Internet.

But this wasn't a 'victory'. The BNP did not increase its vote - if it had, some serious questions would need to be asked. As it was the result passed off without a great deal of comment for the simple reason that nobody seriously expected the party to lose its own seat.

What is worthy of comment is the fact that even though they retained the seat the BNP vote fell by 5% - a pretty steep drop in anybody's book and one that would have most political parties seriously worried.

To the BNP, retaining the seat on a reduced vote represents an apparent success. Well, all political parties spin bad election results, and nobody has more reason to spin than the BNP, especially in the case of its Alderton ward result, since here we (and they) have ample confirmation of what we saw in May - that the BNP has stalled and that its vote is falling.

No amount of spin can disguise the party's continuing downward electoral trend, though you'd never know there was such a trend if you were to read its own report of the by-election at its style-challenged website. Here we read that the result is an 'unprecendeted win' made against overwhelming odds - according to the whinge-prone BNP just about every other party ('who invariably choreograph their campaigns') fighting the by-election attacked it, and there is an attempt to link the party's only serious challengers in Alderton ward, the Independent Residents Association, with the anti-racist organisation Redbridge and Epping Forest Together.

Add in a few swipes at the rump UKIP, the busted flush against which the BNP likes to measure its supposed success, don't mention the massive resources the BNP poured into its campaign, and you have a long piece of nonsense designed to bolster internal morale by creating the illusion of a great victory gained in the teeth of the massed ranks of the party's opposition.

It's so much whistling in the dark. If there had been the slightest evidence of any increase in BNP support we would have seen it in Alderton ward. We did not. We saw a 5% slump in their vote, and nothing at all to justify the BNP's hyperbole.

There's still a long way to go and there may be some nasty surprises to come, but the BNP's May results, its summer by-election results, and latterly the Alderton ward result all irrevocably point to the slow but steady evaporation of the BNP's vote.

But the business of spin extends beyong simple vote-juggling. The need to bolster the seriously-flagging morale of the average BNP branch is forcing the party to madly applaud anything that can be manipulated into some show of success, no matter how ephemeral. A couple of days ago, its Regional Voices page had one example of the puffery that has become necessary to blow any little event up into something that the leadership hopes will dispel the gloom.

'Hot on the heels of the Epping Forest victory comes new [sic] of yet another recruit to add to [the] Eastern Region’s tally of local councillors. Sitting Parish councillor Simon Deacon has formerly joined the BNP and notified his parish clerk of the change...'

Simon Deacon is the only councillor in the 40-year history of his former party, the National Front. He took his position of Parish councillor completely unopposed, not a single vote being cast to let him take the seat because nobody else could be bothered to stand given the political inconsequence of the average Parish councillor.

Such is the reality of the BNP's much-vaunted recent 'successes' - a seat kept but with a 5% drop in the vote and the gain of an unelected Parish councillor from one of the most virulently racist parties in the UK. The Emperor has no clothes and these are certainly no great successes, no matter how hard they are spun.

(Article by Denise G and Antifascist)

The German heroes who helped Allies against Hitler

A new book reveals the bravery of the men who joined the British forces to liberate Europe

He was born Claus Ascher in Berlin in 1922. His patriotic father had fought for Germany in the First World War. His blonde mother 'couldn't have been more Aryan if she tried'. When the Second World War broke out, Ascher, then 18, was quick to volunteer.

But he was not fighting for Hitler. His name was now Colin Anson and he was a Royal Marines commando who swore allegiance to king and country. It was the same for Horst Herzberg, now Bill Howard; Ignaz Schwarz, now Eric Sanders; and Helmut Rosettenstein, now Harry Rossney.

They were among more than 10,000 Germans and Austrians who fled Nazi persecution, took refuge in British territories and volunteered to join the struggle against Hitler. These 'enemy aliens', as they were known, became soldiers, sailors and airmen, took part in operations behind enemy lines, carried out vital intelligence work and participated in the D-Day landings. In every case their objective was the defeat of their own country to rid the world of fascism.

More than 60 years later, the veterans, many Jewish or considered 'degenerate' in Hitler's Germany, will come together this week for their first reunion. More than 100 will gather at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, south London, to be welcomed by Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former chief of the general Staff, at a private event to mark their contribution to the allied victory. The meeting coincides with publication of a book, The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens, which reveals many of the veterans' remarkable stories for the first time.

'The war had broken out and we felt it was our affair as much as anyone else's,' recalled Anson, now 85 and speaking in a crisp English accent. 'We were very aware of the generosity and compassion of Britain. We owed a debt to this country for saving our lives. I wasn't opposed to Germany, but I certainly was interested in fighting the Nazis.'

Anson's father was a German First World War veteran who was disillusioned by Hitler's rise to power. He was identified as a political subversive, interned at Dachau concentration camp and murdered in 1937. Anson escaped to Britain just before his 17th birthday, although his mother was unable to follow him. In 1940 he volunteered for the armed forces, joining the only unit open to the refugees - many of whom were in internment camps - the non-combatant Pioneer Corps, known as 'the king's most loyal enemy aliens'.

Many took English names. Anson said: 'My old name began with an A and, when I had to choose a new one, an Avro Anson twin-engine flew over, so I thought right, I'll have that.'

In 1942 the enemy aliens were allowed to enlist in fighting units, and Anson was eventually attached to 40 Royal Marine Commando. During the invasion of Sicily his assault ship came under attack from German bombers.

'There were a lot of casualties and I was knocked out by the blast,' he recalled. 'I asked for bandages and the medical sergeant told me to sit against the wall and not move. Boats came alongside to evacuate the wounded and I was among the last. I thought it was because my injuries weren't serious, but I later learnt it was because they didn't expect me to last the night.'

Shrapnel remains embedded in his skull. After the war he was reunited with his mother in Frankfurt and brought her to live in Britain. In 1951 Anson married Alice Gross, a refugee from Vienna who had joined the British war effort, working in the photographic section of Bomber Command HQ at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. She will also travel from their home in Watford, Hertfordshire, to attend the reunion.

Helen Fry, the book's author, estimates that 85 to 90 per cent of the Germans and Austrians who fought for Britain were Jewish - many lost family members in the Holocaust - with the remainder consisting of anti-Nazis and the 'degenerate artists'. She said: 'They knew what Britain was up against. Some had come out of concentration camps and they were determined to liberate Europe.

'They all say they felt German first, not Jewish. This is the paradox: they found themselves fighting on the other side. But once they had the army uniform they were determined to be British. The general public don't realise their contribution. Some of those I interviewed for the book haven't even told their families about it. The nation should be grateful to these silent heroes.'

The risks were high: Germans caught behind enemy lines were tortured and executed as traitors. Many of those who survived helped rebuild their homelands and hunt for Nazi war criminals before settling in Britain for good. They included Sir Ken Adam, the only German fighter pilot in the RAF, who became a production designer on more than 70 films, including seven James Bonds; Lord Claus Moser, former chairman of the Royal Opera House; Martin Freud, the eldest son of Sigmund Freud, who worked as a lawyer; and John Langford, who was Churchill's bodyguard.

The man who caught Britain's most notorious traitor was also German. Geoffrey Perry, born Horst Pinschewer to Jewish parents in Berlin, was a British army intelligence officer when he apprehended William Joyce, the propagandist 'Lord Haw Haw'. Perry, who witnessed fighting in Normandy and the horrors of Belsen concentration camp, said that, despite his nationality, he had met no hostility from fellow soldiers.

'The uniform was a common denominator. Whether you were born in Manchester or Berlin then was of little importance. They knew what you did for the army.' He added: 'The army changed my name for me. At 85, I have Perry grandchildren and my other name is long gone. If you asked my grandchildren I don't think they'd be able to spell it.'

Observer

Swiss party accused of racist campaigning

Switzerland's biggest political party has come under fire for racist and xenophobic campaigning after its posters featured black sheep and its proposals to deport immigrants were likened by anti-racism campaigners to Nazi practices.

The nationalist People's party, which controls the lower house of the Swiss parliament, has run an advertising campaign showing three white sheep on a Swiss flag kicking out a black sheep with the caption "For more security".

The party, which controls the justice ministry and is part of Switzerland's coalition, is proposing a scheme to deport immigrant families if their children are convicted of a violent crime, drug offences or benefit fraud. It claims immigrants, which make up 20% of the population, are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss nationals.

The party is trying to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to force a referendum on the scheme. If approved, the law would be the only one of its kind in Europe. The party is also preparing for October elections, in which it is likely to retain its position as Switzerland's leading party.

Üli Maurer, the party's president, said: "As soon as the first 10 families and their children have been expelled from the country, then things will get better at a stroke."

Ronnie Bernheim, of the Swiss Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism, said the proposal was similar to the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft, or kin liability, whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for their crimes and punished equally. He said the majority of Switzerland's immigrants were law-abiding. "If you don't treat a complicated issue with the necessary nuance and care, you won't do it justice," he said.

The UN special rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diène, asked the Swiss government for an explanation over the adverts. Earlier this year, Mr Diène published a report criticising the "racist and xenophobic dynamic" in Switzerland and warning that political parties were taking advantage of tensions over national identity.

The Swiss president, Micheline Calmy-Rey, a Social Democrat, called the posters "irresponsible" and liable to incite racial hatred.

The city authority in Geneva, where the UN has its European headquarters, has also protested. But the People's party's hardline stance on crime and immigration is likely to boost its vote.

Guardian

Secret tapes of top Nazis

Richard Overy reviews Tapping Hitler's Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942-45 ed by Sönke Neitzel

From 1942 onwards the British kept a number of captured German staff officers, most of them from the army, at Trent Park house in the north London suburb of Cockfosters. Here they lived a boring but relatively free-and-easy existence, chatting, exercising, enjoying an occasional ramble.

What they did not know, though several seem to have guessed at it, was that a dozen of the rooms were bugged so that their private conversations (there was nothing strictly 'secret' about them) could be overheard by British Intelligence officers and, if useful, employed for Allied operations.

The conversations were, as it turned out, of very limited help to the conduct of the war, though they did supply a wealth of evidence on the nature of the National Socialist system which seems to have been largely ignored or poorly exploited when it later came to putting German generals on trial for war crimes.

Sönke Neitzel, a professor at the University of Mainz, has edited a volume of key extracts from the tape-recorded discussions and there is no doubt that they are of much more service to the historian than they ever were to British Intelligence.

After a brief introduction, where Neitzel explains with great clarity and detachment why the conversations matter, the book deals first with the officers' views of German politics and strategy, then their discussions of war crimes and atrocities and finally a shorter section on their reaction to the July Plot, the failed attempt in 1944 by a small coterie of army officers to assassinate Hitler.

Not surprisingly there is no clear unity on any of these issues. Some of the officers were inclined to dismiss atrocity stories as Allied propaganda until confronted by a fellow-general whose detailed description of some of the terrible horrors he had witnessed made the stark truth all too clear ('18,000 Jews killed in one morning', one Eastern Front commander told a doubter).

Some thought the July Plot a trick of Hitler's, to secure popular support for a last-ditch war effort. On politics the group remained divided: some unambiguously blamed the German people and their blind loyalty to the dictator, others thought Hitler a good thing, but badly advised. All detested Heinrich Himmler and the SS, and in that repugnance lay the root of the post-war myth that atrocities were the work of the black-shirted security corps and not of the army.

The 167 extracts, though well supported with extensive notes and a helpful 'who's who', will be hard going for anyone not already familiar with the territory. For the wider public the most revealing and accessible of the documents concern the issue of war crimes.

Although some of the officers found it hard to imagine that regular soldiers had committed crimes, there are simply too many instances exchanged between them for the idea of a 'clean' war to hold up. Over the three years during which the recordings were made, the whole panoply of crimes (the mass murder of Jews, the shooting of hostages, burning down churches filled with victims, and so on) is acknowledged and described.

Some of the nastier generals clearly disliked the Jews, although few would admit that murdering them en masse was a good thing. But at least one thought that killing 100 hostages for the death of a single German was quite justified - 'that's military law'.

At one point one of the prisoners remarks to a confidant that when it came to crime, the Allies had no idea of 'what really happened'. Little did he know that the British knew exactly, because they listened in to every confession. The question that remains is why so few of the officers were ever tried afterwards - despite the things to which they privately admitted - or why, on reading accounts from as early as 1942 and 1943, the British did not expose more fully the horror of what was going on on the Eastern Front.

To their credit a number of the prisoners were simply aghast at what they heard, and thought German defeat a punishment from God. But others hoped for German victory, or at the least the idea that even in defeat the German armed forces had fought a 'war with honour'. After 1945 it was this view that prevailed. By the 1960s the idea of the 'clean war' undermined by party fanatics was dominant.

These extracts exert a grim fascination. They represent a unique and unmediated window into the minds of a military elite, brutalised by the First World War, embittered by what they saw as Germany's unjust treatment, and finally ensnared in the seductive coils of Hitler's radical nationalism. The strange blend revealed here of resentment, racism, political innocence and professional arrogance is a cocktail that leaves a nasty aftertaste.

Telegraph

Racist graffiti causes uproar

Race tensions have been re-ignited in Windsor after racist graffiti was found scrawled on the walls of an underpass.

Residents were shocked to find racist threats and swaztikas painted in black paint along the entire length of the underpass which runs beneath Goslar Way between Vansittart Road and Green Lane. 'BNP' and 'KKK' also featured in the intimidating display which was produced sometime over the Bank Holiday weekend.

The incident comes just weeks after a string of convictions for racially aggravated crimes at the Medina Dairy site in Windsor.

Cllr Eileen Quick (Clewer East) said: "It's a big problem and the police are aware of it and they have been liasing with our officers on this. It is worrying that there might be people who are associating with Nazi groups. There's been stuff on the news about the big rally they're having in Germany, so it could be that someone has seen it and copied it. If it continues and people are determined to get their message across then we'll have to deal with it."

Residents in nearby York Road and Springfield Road have been shocked by the racist slurs and say it is the most extreme graffiti they have ever seen in the area. A woman from Springfield Road, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "Never in the 20 years I have been here have I seen anything as bad as that. It's Ku Klux Klan stuff. I'd be frightened if my son saw it. My son has Asian and black friends and I would be embarrassed if one of his friends saw it."

The underpass is used regularly by children to access Oakfield First School along with Vansittart skate park and playground on the other side of busy Goslar Way.

Sheila Quinlan, 46, from York Road said: "I have three kids aged eight, nine and 10 and we have to go down that under-pass every day, so I'm having to explain to them what it means and why do people do it. It's such a shame. It infects the whole community. I have seen graffiti there before but nothing racist."

She continued: "There are a lot of English people here but I'm not aware of any racism. Perhaps it is more subtle. I grew up with racism in Slough and I don't want my kids to be exposed to that."

Roger Robertson, south-east regional officer for the BNP party alleged that anti-racism groups were responsible for the graffiti in their quest to blacken the BNP's reputation.

He said: "We know full well that it is the UAF (United Against Fascism) who are responsible for these occurrences. They do this and everyone's up in arms and blaming the BNP. I would like to see the people who did this very severely punished."

The police commented: "This graffiti was reported to police by a police enquiry centre member of staff. It has been photographed and categorised as a crime and the council's team has been asked to clean it off. ."

The Royal Borough's street care department painted over the graffiti on Wednesday morning.

Ascot, Windsor and Eton Express