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A Walk in Berlin: Anti-Semitic and Anti-American Conspiracies Believed by Average Germans

James DeMeo, Ph.D. - 4/6/2005

Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychiatrist and a 1930s-era anti-fascist author, once wrote that the Big Lie gets lots of public attention and is carried forward as in a big parade, with many hungry listeners, while the truth must come limping behind on crutches, struggling to catch up, panting with it tongue hanging out. It thus appears that a similar situation has recently developed internationally with respect to historical events, especially after the World Trade Center attacks. Big Lies do not originate from "The Establishment" or "Mainstream". There are many examples where "little lies" which begin far outside the mainstream grow and gain acceptance to become a new "Truth". Both Stalinism and Hitler's Nazism had such modest origins, eventually leading to the greatest social destructions and genocidal slaughters of recent history.

So it seems the first years of the 21st Century offer us yet another set of tempting falsehoods, with large numbers of hungry listeners. Several articles in mainstream newspapers have recently highlighted the uncritical and eager acceptance of 9-11 conspiracy theories. Among the conspiracy books are "Anti-US books find an eager audience among German youth" (Christian Science Monitor, 10 Dec. 2003), "9/11 Conspiracy Theory Books Dominate Debate at Frankfurt Book Fair" (Deutsch Welt, 10 Oct. 2003), "Conspiracy Theories about Sept.11 get Hearings in Germany" (Wall Street Journal, 29 Sept. 2003).[1]


Among the claims made by these and other conspiracy books are charges that:

* Bush, the CIA and Israel's Mossad conspired to destroy the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon; this was accomplished either with or without the help of Osama Bin Ladin (OBL) and the various Islamic hijackers, whose names were artificially inserted into the passenger lists, or by duping them into the action.

* Alternatively, the WTC Twin Towers were exploded by demolition charges from the inside, and that is how they crashed down to the ground. The airplanes have been flown into the towers by remote-control, having been taken over electronically by the CIA or some other government agency. Among the charges is that it was done by the Jewish landlord to collect insurance money.

* No Jews were killed in the terrorist attacks, as Mossad radioed secret instructions to all of them.

* No jet crashed into the Pentagon, nor into the rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania farm field. A cruise missile or something similar hit the Pentagon, and the farm field.

* All of the above, or parts thereof, is evidence of a wider plot by the Bush Family, working secretly with the Bin Ladins and other high-up wealthy Texas and Saudi oil barons and corporate elites, and/or with the Jews, to control the world.


While the casual observer might consider these charges to be rediculous, especially considering that most are recycled plots from the Nazi era -- and given all the eye-witness testimony and photographic evidence, and all the evidence which has since been made public by investigative journalists, government officials and in court records, plus the willing video- and audio-taped boasting confessional speeches of various al-Qaeda operatives, including OBL himself -- it is nevertheless a fact that books presenting these ideas are best-sellers, translated into many languages with hundreds of thousands of copies being snapped up. Nearly a third of Germans under the age of 30 believe these charges to be true. During my trips to Europe, I saw a lot of proof that people truly believe these conspiracy theories. In fact, my own e-newsletter, OBRL-News Bulletin at Yahoo Groups occasionally receives hot and angry emails from readers who object to my posting information which is critical of these theories, or which documents the very real conspiracy -- that of Al-Qaeda planning mass-murder of Americans. Part of the problem is that the 9-11 conspiracy books do not stand alone in making such fantastic charges. In fact, they are what might be called the "icing on the cake" of a larger onslaught of historical revisionist accusations, circulating for many years since even before 9-11 and originating from within neo-fascist, far-Left and far-Right political groups, which attempt to tarnish the USA and Israel as engaged in a much larger and ongoing conspiracy of conquest and empire. For those who already have accepted the various outrageous accusations over some years, then the 9-11 conspiracy material is only an additional small step.

The above-cited newspaper articles rekindled personal observations made during a trip to Europe in September 2003. While in Berlin, I was casually window-shopping on Kurfuerstendamm, a magnificent tree-lined street with shops of every description, and wandered into the Hugendubel bookstore. There, I was immediately confronted with a display table at the front of the store, on which were piled perhaps 40 different books specializing on the subjects of America, Israel, 9-11 and terrorism. About 90% of them were anti-American and anti-Israel, easily determined by the cover materials and descriptions. Many conspiracy-theory books filled with speculative assertions about international plots to control the world, about the US attacking itself on 9-11. The books were deliberately located in the most prominent place, indicating a privileged significance and high sales. A few of the books were rational and well-constructed reports by historians or journalists who had done a lot of leg-work and homework, such as the very important work by Fouda and Fielding entitled "Masterminds of Terror" which documented the voluntary and quite boastful confessions on al-Jazeera TV of the top two Al-Qaeda 9-11 plotters, Ramsi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The latter had shadowy connections to Ramsi Yousef and Abdul Rahman Yasin, and the Iraqi-supported terror attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Abdul Rahman had actually fled to Iraq and received protection and support from Saddam Hussein after 1993 bombing. The book detailing that evidence "The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks" by Laurie Mylroie, was not to be found at Hugendubel, and truth be told it is hard to find in the USA as well. These and similar books provide an abundance of factual details and documentation on the very real conspiracy of al-Qaeda and related Islamic groups undertaking a long string of terrorist actions against both American and Israeli targets, over many decades, and getting big money, logistical support, recruits and considerable encouragement from behind the curtain from various terror-supporting states, to include Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other wealthy Islamic sheikdoms awash in petro-dollars. Sometimes this support is not concealed at all, as one finds among the international system of Wahhabist Mosques, supported by the Saudi Royals, which spew forth hatred of everything Western and modern and non-Muslim on a daily basis, openly asserting that such influences and people should be wholly subjugated or wiped off the face of the Earth. This is a very real and quite dangerous conspiracy, which finds support also from the radical Left and Right wing extremists in both Europe and the USA. More frequently, such political support within the Western nations is expressed by spreading disinformation which tries to "blame the victims" of 9-11 for their own deaths.

But this is not the "conspiracy theory" being disseminated by the various books I saw at Hugendubel, or read about in the above-mentioned newspaper reviews, the ones which claim Bush did it, or that no Jews were killed. Most of the 9-11 conspiracy books were derived from the various internet sites of questionable credibility, composed mainly of cherry-picked "facts", or half-truths and undocumented claims that are used to support wholly speculative accusations against America and Israel, and which systematically excluded any contrary evidence or eye-witness observation which went against their prefabricated conclusions. Some also carried the stench of Jewish conspiracy theory. In fact, many of the front-table conspiracy books are propagated by authors who hold concealed or quite open sympathies for Stalinist communism and/or neo-Nazi Holocaust-denial, often with a considerable sympathy and apologism towards the Islamic radicals and terror bombers -- this is the background emotional-ideological foundation for the awful hatred directed against the USA and Israel, to "J'accuse" where the evidence is slim or non-existent, blaming the victims, and to willfully ignore where the evidence is abundant and solid.

Continuing my walk in Berlin, around the corner to Kantstrasse at the Zweitausendeins bookshop, known for many excellent and unusual books which often cannot be found at other publishers, a literal shrine had been created in the bookstore display window for a best-selling book (with DVD and fold-out poster) by Mathias Broeckers[2], which accused the USA of undertaking the 9-11 attacks upon itself. A special "flow-chart" of the conspiracy was also on display, included with the book, showing a little President Bush cartoon at the top, fitted with a Hitler mustache and hair-cut. Bush is, according to Broeckers, the "true reincarnation of Hitler" -- not Saddam or the Iranian Mullahs, nor Kim Jung Il or the Chinese dictators of the Tienanmin Square massacres. From that statement alone one can gauge the intensity of emotional rage and contactlessness behind the widespread international social hysteria about "Bush" (put into quotation marks, because it really isn't about "Bush" at all). The Zweitausendeins internet web page featuring the Broeckers book also carries other books on similar themes, including a conspiracy book on Pearl Harbor, and a missive targeting the American/Israeli "oppression of Palestine" by Noam Chomsky, and so forth.[3] Items once marginal and which no serious historian would reference now are best-sellers, though one can search in vain for equal presentation and publicity of the rebuttals to such propaganda. They simply do not get published, or if so, don't sell as well.