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Defunding the Myths and Cults of
Cold War Canada:
Ongoing state support for East European
émigré groups with deep fascist roots

(Collaborators, Crusades and Coverups in an era of “truth and reconciliation”)

Issue #70, Press for Conversion! (Spring 2021)
Publication
of the
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
Read a summary of this issue            See articles on the state funding of fascist-linked groups

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Defunding Cold War Canada

Table of Contents

Canada’s anti-Red, Cold War propaganda in context
L.B.Pearson: Godfather of Cda’s Cold War on the new "Red" enemy
Pearson College and NATO’s United World Colleges
The CBC’s “Voice of Canada” --  Weapon of Cold War propaganda
‘Voice of America’ & the CIA’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ & “Radio Liberty’
L.B.Pearson: Groomed by King, St. Laurent & the ‘Big antiRed Machine'
King gave shocking praise for Hitler until the eve of war in 1939
Liberal immigration: "None is too many" and Too many is not enough
Why did King have such adoring admiration for Nazi Germany's dictator?
King loved Hitler’s hate speech against “Jewish international Bolshevism”

“Captive Nations” and their "Black-Ribbon-Day" crusade
The ignored historical context of “Black Ribbon Day” (Aug. 23, 1939)
“Captive Nations”: Nazi trope to CIA meme to Cold-War trump card
The “Captive Nations” conceit in Nazi propaganda
John Diefenbaker: Strong voice at the UN for “Captive Nations” bloc
The BRD campaign: Canada’s top Cold War propaganda export
The late Cold War context of the BRD crusade
Ongoing propaganda of the former "Captive Nations":
    (1) Canada’s anti-communism monument and (2) the Magnitsky laws

Far-right roots:
East European émigré groups in Canada & abroad

Estonian Central Council in Canada
   Estonia glorifies Nazi veterans as ‘freedom fighters’
Estonian World Council
Lithuanian Canadian Community and the Lithuanian World Community
   Lithuanian nationalists now have 'freedom' to glorify Nazi heritage
Latvian National Federation in Canada
World Federation of Free Latvians
Slovak World Congress and the Canadian Slovak League
Council of Free Czechoslovakia & Czechoslovak Nat'l Assoc. of Cda.

Ukrainian linchpin of Cda’s postwar, far-right diaspora
Krakow and Ottawa, 1940: "A Tale of Two Cities," and two UCCs:
(1) Germany’s Ukrainian Central Cttee. and (2) Canada's Ukrainian Canadian Cttee.

The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations & World AntiCommunist League
Yaroslav Stetsko: Leader of proNazi Ukraine, 1941

State-funded centres of Canada’s Bandera cult and its Bandera youth
Roman Shukhevych: Assassin, terrorist, war criminal and cult hero

Getting them young: Instilling Ukrainian patriotism in children and youth
Plast recruited for Nazi’s Waffen SS Galicia; now recruits for Ukraine
From Chomiak to Freeland: “keep that flame alive”
Chrystia Freeland: “Accidental journalist” or groomed for the job?
Myron Kuropas: Downplaying Holocaust; Exaggerating Holodomor
Turning from same page: Freeland wrote for pro-fascist publications
Yuri Shymko: From Bandera youth leader, MPP & MP, to elder statesman
Lisa Shymko: In the footsteps of family, community & far-right, war heroes
Rubbing political shoulders with the ABN in Toronto

The struggle continues...                                            Abridged Index

Mackenzie King gave
shocking praise for Hitler
until the eve of war in 1939


By Richard
Sanders

(Click here for a PDF to see this article as it appears in print)



Even before the Russian revolution, and the first Red Scare (1917-20) Canada’s Liberal and Conservative elites targeted leftwing activists and unions that might threaten corporate power. Besides being rabidly anticommunist, major Canadian institutions (political, academic, religious, economic and media) were riddled with violently racist, classist and antisemitic imperialists. This was quite normal at the time for such ideologues who were sympathetic to the rise of fascism, and therefore happy to support it.

King embraced all of these ideas. Bred by a wealthy family loyal to British imperialism, King was a top civil servant by 1900 and an MP by 1908. Studying political economy at Harvard, he is Canada’s only prime minister to have earned a PhD.  His doctoral thesis, “Oriental Immigration to Canada,” was based on a 1908 report that he had written as Deputy Minister of Labour. In it he said what was blatantly obvious to the Canadian white-power elites that he served:

That Canada should desire to restrict immigration from the Orient is regarded as natural, that Canada should remain a white man’s country is believed to be not only desirable for economic and social reasons but highly necessary on political and national grounds.1

After losing his seat in 1911, King did Liberal Party lecture tours across Canada. Then, when WWI broke out, he avoided the draft by moving to the US and working for J.D.Rockefeller Jr. (1914-18). (JDR, Sr., an oil tycoon and notorious robber baron, was America’s first billionaire.) As the Rockefeller company’s labour consultant, King was paid the 2021 equivalent of $420,000 per year.  JDR, Jr., hired King to help them deal with the outcry in 1914 when 75 workers were murdered by their company. In the Ludlow Massacre alone, Rockefeller’s thugs used machine guns to kill 21 strikers and family members. After leaving the company, King guided labour relations for other huge US firms, earning him the 2021 equivalent of $34,000 a week.

Blind Faith in Crystal Balls and Adolph Hitler


King received this
crystal ball in 1937
.

However, it did not help
him to see through
Hitler, even though the
Nazi leader had very clearly exposed himself as a
fascist in the 1920s.


Etta Wriedt, a medium from Detroit, who conducted séances for King in the 1930s was exposed as a fraud in 1920. Photo at King's cottage, Kingsmere,
circa 1934
.

King was gullible and naive. Some might call him a political simpleton. He not only had trust in spiritualists, but also put faith in the Rockefellers, Mussolini, Hitler and other fascists.

King’s confidence in ouija boards, crystal balls, palm readers and spiritualist mediums reflects his mental capacities. Between 1920 and 1950, King hosted many seances where he communed with his dead siblings, father, grandfather and mother. King also suffered from the foolhardy delusion that he was conferring with the ghosts of Leonardo da Vinci and such deceased leaders as Wilfrid Laurier, Teddy Roosevelt, Lord Earl Grey, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. That King also communicated with three of his dead dogs, speaks volumes about the sanity of Canada’s longest serving prime minister.

King’s well-meaning but simple-minded foolishness would have been inconsequential had it not been for the tremendous power that he wielded as Canada’s prime minister for 22 years. King’s leadership before WWII exhibited his fawning adulation for Mussolini2 and Hitler, whom he met and greatly admired. 

King’s Man Date with der Führer

In June 1937, King went to Berlin to meet Hitler. He also met a slew of other Nazi war criminals, like Gestapo founder Hermann Göring and SS Gruppenführer Konstantin von Neurath, who were both executed after the Nuremberg trial.3 King had wonderful things to say about them all, but was most effusive about Hitler, who he lovingly respected and revered.

King was overjoyed to meet Hitler, calling it “the day for which I was born.” His diary describes how he praised Hitler on “the constructive work of his regime, and said that I hoped that that work might continue. That nothing would be permitted to destroy that work.” King said he also told the Führer that his wonderful effort “was bound to be followed in other countries to the great advantage of mankind.” King says he also congratulated Hitler for “what he was seeking to do for the greater good of those in humble walks of life” and told him he “was strongly in accord with it, and thought it would work.” Saying Hitler “would be remembered” for his good work, King told him “to let nothing destroy that work.” King concluded his naive praise by saying “I wished him well in his efforts to help mankind.”

King was easily seduced by the elitist trappings of power and dazzled by conspicuous displays of wealth. After being greeted by a “guard of honour” at Hindenburg Palace and “conducted upstairs, preceded formally by attendants” “attired in court dress,” King was awed by Hitler’s entourage of diplomats, and men wearing Nazi uniforms and “Court dress.”

                King was also impressed by Hitler’s personal love of mountain landscapes, because “he needs the quiet and nature to help him to think out the problems of his country. It seems to me that in this he was eminently wise.”

                King took Hitler at face value and read much into his “smooth skin” and facial expressions. Saying that the Nazi leader “smiled very pleasantly,” he remarked on the “appealing and affectionate look in his eyes.” Hitler’s “eyes impressed me most of all,” cooed King. “There was a liquid quality about them which indicate keen perception and profound sympathy.” Hitler, King said confidently, “is really one who truly loves his fellow men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good.”

Hitler as King’s personal ‘guide’
on ‘path of peace and progress’

Prime Minister Mackenzie King in Berlin during his state visit to Nazi Germany in June 1937. National Archives of Canada, PA-119013.

King called Hitler a “very nice,” “sweet,” “calm, passive man” and said “one could see, how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man.” King’s own  love for Hitler was quite clear. “As I talked to him,” King said, “I could not but think of Joan of Arc. He is distinctly a mystic.”4

                In March 1938, King told his diary: “I believe ... the world will yet come to see a very great man-mystic in Hitler” and he “will rank some day with Joan of Arc among the deliverers of his people, and if he is only careful may yet be the deliverer of Europe.” Besides seeing Hitler as the potential saviour of all Europe, King also saw Hitler as his own personal “guide.” Hitler, King said, was

meant to guide me at this time to the purpose of my life—...to help men to know the secret of the path to peace, in industrial & international relationships.5

In 1937, King told Hitler that he "could do more than any other man living to help your own and other countries along the path of peace and progress." In another doting letter to Hitler (Feb. 1, 1939), King told the Führer that he wanted

to express anew the hope that regardless of what others may wish, or say, or do, you will, above all else, hold firm to the resolve not to let anything imperil or destroy what you have already accomplished, particularly for those whose lives are lived in humble circumstances .... I hope that you will think not only of the good you can do for those of your own country, but that you will remember, as well, the good that you can do to the entire world.6

King ended this adoring 1939 letter to Hitler by saying his message was an “expression of the faith I have in the purpose you have at heart, and of the friendship with yourself which you have been so kind as to permit me to share.”7 Hitler replied in July by inviting King to send an official delegation to Germany. King immediately wanted to “head the party.” Hitler’s letter, says historian Allan Levine, “lead King to conclude ... that Hitler wanted to work through him to restore peace in the world.”8 King’s diary reveals his delusion that he was at the centre of a divine plan. With the help of deceased “loved ones,” King said “God” was using him and his “mutual faith” with Hitler to build “peace on earth, good will to men.” King wrote in his diary that:

"Canada was being used as a screen to let friendly relations develop in a manner that would ‘save face’ as between Germany & Britain: ... it was a sincere gesture based on mutual faith in each other on the part of Hitler & myself, – ... I felt that ‘forces unseen’ – loved ones in the beyond, – were working out these plans, that there were no accidents, or chances in this but all part of a plan in which God was using man to effect his Will in answer to prayer, the Mediums being those in the beyond who were working for peace on earth, good will to men.... [I]t is a part of the plan for which we are chosen as instruments."9

Throughout the 1930s, King had faith that Hitler did not want war with Canada’s close allies in western Europe. King was so confident in this that he supported Hitler until the eve of war in August 1939. (See: "King supported Adolph Hitler throughout the 1930s.  Why didn't he know better?")

After WWII, King began a flood of immigration that welcomed some 150,000 antiSoviet East Europeans. Among the Nazi collaborators allowed in were thousands of veterans from Waffen SS divisions created, armed, funded, trained and led by Nazi Germany.

References and notes

1. Mackenzie King, Report, "Immigration to Canada from the Orient and Immigration from India in Particular," 1908. http://bit.ly/KingRacist

2. Diaries of WLM King, Sep. 27-28, 1928.  http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca

3. Both were found guilty of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Göring (right) was executed in 1946. Nazi foreign minister, Baron von Neurath (left) received 15 years but was released in 1954.

King said Neurath told him "that I would have loathed living in Berlin with the Jews.... He said there was no pleasure in going to a theatre ... filled with them. Many ... were very coarse and vulgar and assertive. They were getting control of all the business, the finance, and had really taken advantage of ... the people. It was necessary to get them out...." Unphased by this, King praised Neurath as "a man whose confidence I would continue to enjoy through the rest of my days…. Neurath whom I like exceedingly .... is, if there ever was one, a genuinely kind, good man." Ibid., June 30, 1937.

4. Ibid., June 29, 1937.

5. Ibid., March 27, 1938.

6. J.Eayrs, In Defence of Canada, Vol.II: Appeasement & Rearmament, 1965. http://bit.ly/Eay65

7. Ibid.

8. Allan Levine, King: a Life Guided by the Hand of Destiny, 2011, p.297. http://bit.ly/Levine2011

9. Ibid.

Learn more....  You may also be interested in these resources...


Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Captive Canada
Renditions of the
Peaceable Kingdom at War,
from Narratives of WWI
and the Red Scare to the
Mass Internment of Civilians


(Or, how we learned to stop worrying,
keep calm and carry on loving the
myths that define and confine us.)

 

Read the introductory article:
"The Canada Syndrome,
a Captivating Mass Psychosis
"
 


Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Fictive Canada
Indigenous Slaves
and the Captivating Narratives
of a Mythic Nation
 


Read the i
ntroductory article:
"
True Crime Stories and
the Politics of Literary Escapism:
Canada as a Fiction in the
Imperial Genre
"


 

Watch the COAT website
for news about....


  (1) an upcoming book
by Richard Sanders

with the
  working title...

The Grooming
of a Liberal
War Hawk
:
Chrystia Freeland

(2)  PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION to
Stop Canadian government
funding of groups that
glorify Nazi collaborators

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