Final installment from The Fatherland—Germany enforces total U-boat blockade
ON FEBRUARY 1, 1917, THE GERMAN HIGH COMMAND resumed submarine attacks on neutral ships in British waters. Their goal was to so devastate neutral shippers that they would become unwilling to trade with the Allies. Germany hoped that would inflict on Britain the same pain Germany itself had been suffering and force the Allies to come to terms. The Germans knew that this was a risky gamble because it could draw the United States into the war, but they hoped to bring the Allies to their knees before US involvement became significant.
In the map above, the shaded portion shows the extent of the German war zone.
Vol 6 no. 2 Feb. 14, 1917 Page 6
THE GERMAN BLOCKADE OF THE ENTENTE COUNTRIES
By the Naval Expert of THE NEW WORLD
The counterstroke by Germany against the illegal British “blockade” of the North Sea, predicted as probable and necessary in our last article, has come. It is of vital consequence to the Allies; it also involves the freedom of shipping of the neutral nations. Every blockade does that and we see in Germany's new measure something far more effectual than the British danger zone.
The German blockade zone is distinct from the British danger zone in various important respects.
1. The British zone obstructs access of neutral shipping to German coasts to which it has a right, since no effective and universal blockade against Germany is maintained. The Baltic ports are open.
The German blockade is complete around all of the British Isles, and the entire coastlines of France, Italy, as well as the French and Italian possessions on the north coast of Africa. Yet Germany concedes access for neutral ships carrying no contraband even to enemy ports to the degree compatible with the requirements imposed by her perfectly legal measure of retaliation.
2. The British zone extends over coastal stretches of clearly neutral countries, viz., Holland and Denmark.
The German blockade zone carefully avoids barring any neutral coasts in Europe and Africa. It affords access even to one port of Greece, which country, being under duress of the Allies, is almost equivalent to belligerent territory.
The details of the German blockade zone and the zones kept open for neutral shipping can be gathered from our map. [Click on above link to article to see this map.]
President Wilson has taken the new blockade measure as cause for breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany. Yet he hopes that Germany will not go to extremes in the application of the new order. Of this we feel equally hopeful. Germany will do her utmost to avoid the loss of life of neutrals. Her naval policy is not directed against the neutral world, as Mr. Bryan clearly recognizes when he characterizes the harm which has been done to the rights and interests of the United States as unintended incidental injuries which should not be made the basis of war.
How unwilling Germany is to harm neutral rights, how anxious to avoid the killing of neutral citizens is clearly shown by her amendment of the blockade zone in the interest of Dutch shipping; by her reported offer of greater facilities to American shipping extending the stipulated one-ship-per-week-proviso to all American ships; and last, not least, in the measure in which her new policy was applied to the case of the American ship Housatonic. This ship, the first to fall a victim to the German blockade, was treated with all the consideration that a blockade breaker carrying contraband could possibly expect. An hour's grace was given to the crew who were towed towards the coast and even entrusted to the care of a British patrol boat.
We are convinced that Germany will do all in her power to stay her hand against neutrals wherever she can, but there clearly are cases where she cannot. These are the cases that continue to be created by the diabolical intrigue of Britain's policy aiming at the active participation of the United States in this war. There are rights on which America should insist because they are valuable, but there are “rights” the insistence on which is both harmful and wicked. The World newspaper on the 3rd instant printed the following shameless confession of English intrigue and English impressment of American citizens, clearly proving that there is a scheme on foot to drag this country into the vortex of war:
AMERICANS WANTED ON BRITISH VESSELS
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Father of Boy Taken From Rutland Says Agencies Supply One for Each Ship.
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Shipping agencies in New York have been furnishing American boys and men to British ships, so that there would be at least one American in a crew while passing through the war zone, according to Joseph Fornabio of No. 367 East One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Street.
He took his fifteen-year-old son Frank off the British ship Rutland on Thursday. The boy said he had been held prisoner aboard since Tuesday afternoon. He declared that he had agreed to sign as cook's mate at the shipping agency of Nelke & Gatjen, No. 12 Pearl Street, last Monday.
When the boy's father demanded his release, he says he was told that the Captain of the British ship wanted to have an American in the crew, and that the boy had sworn he was of age.
At the offices of the agency yesterday no one would discuss the matter, and other agencies said that they never had had such requests.
Of course, they would not discuss the matter, nor admit that they had had such requests. These things are done under cover, and only an accident will bring a case to the light.
Germany has further shown her good will towards America in the release of the American crews brought to Germany on the Yarrowdale. All along we meet with German yielding and German conciliation. How can we fear that Germany will go beyond what Mr. Bryan describes as unintentional injuries and which British wile may make unavoidable. Nothing is eaten as hot as it is cooked, and as far as American and neutral rights generally are concerned we feel sure that Germany will continue to meet all reasonable demands half-way.
Against their enemies Germany and her faithful ally, Austria-Hungary, will, as they are entitled to in their fight against starvation and hypocrisy, proceed as ruthlessly as they are being proceeded against. Germany is reported to have at her disposal 500 submarines. Austria's preparation will not have been lagging. These figures have been ridiculed and it has been said that if 500 German submarines were at Germany's disposal, they would have been employed before now. They have been employed pretty busily we should think. To sink from 400,000 to 500,000 tons per month is no small matter even for a great number of U-boats.
German reports from various sources speak with confidence of the possibility of sinking up to one million tons of shipping a month, and a member of the Reichstag, Mr. Stresemann, authoritatively informed a German audience that the German submarine weapon is now so well in hand that within the last six months not one U-boat was lost despite the active campaign that was being pursued.
The English boast of vast preparations which they have made against the U-boat danger. Is it not appropriate here to enter an expression of doubt as to the efficiency of the reported fleet of submarine destroyers which during the last six months have not been able to prevent the sinking of a million tons of shipping or to destroy one single submarine?
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This is the last article from George Sylvester Viereck's The Fatherland weekly that I can post here. It has been a pleasure and an education for me. As we know, Germany did not prevail because of the entry of the United States into the war, and was subsequently very badly treated by the French and British in the so-called Peace Talks of 1919. Woodrow Wilson completely failed to ameliorate the harsh conditions with his much-touted Fourteen Points which the Germans had counted on. It turned into the disaster called the Versailles Treaty that Europe will never live down because of all the harm it did. This war was the beginning of the end of White Man's rule in the world, brought to us compliments of the British Empire. -Carolyn Yeager
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The fatherland and many more articles
Dear Carolyn,
many, many thanks for your extraordinary efforts in the history of my fatherland - and that of your ancestors.Whether your America or my Germany will ever rise again, we can only hope so.
One last word: Unfortunately, whites have done so much damage to each other that can no longer be overcome.
All the best for you
Glück auf
Klaus Borgolte
Yes, great damage has been
Yes, great damage has been done. But it CAN be overcome if we remember who and what we are, and gain the WILL to fix our problems, and make ourselves even greater than before. We have the strength to do it, we just have to decide to start using our strength once again.
I don't mean to put you on
I don't mean to put you on the spot, Powell, but where would you start?
Here I will provide an epic comment on
Here I will provide an epic comment on what has been an epic journey.
I think the Fatherland series has, as a whole, proved three things:
1) The points of resemblance between WWI and WWII. I could run off around a dozen military and political, one of them, e.g., being the fact that in both wars America was led by a Democrat president who belonged to a party which would nowadays be described as 'white nationalist' and who won an election on the back of isolationist promises (promises which he didn't keep and had no intention of keeping).
One could bracket WWI and WWII together, with the continuing de facto war on Germany today - this war could be called the 100 years war against Germany.
The advantage of this bracketing, or enclosure, is that you see, for the first time, that the Anglo-Saxons (and Russians) in WWII didn't wage war against the 'Nazis' or 'Hitler' but against the Germans as such, and that they're still doing this to the present day. That conclusion is to be drawn once you realise that the Kaiser and Hitler, the Second Reich and Third Reich, are interchangeable.
One side effect of this is that Hitler and the National Socialists look 'normal', that is, within the continuity of the German tradition. They no longer stand as what Nick Griffin - a British nationalist - sees as an exception, a criminal deviation. The impetus behind much of the anti-German, anti-Nazi propaganda today can be traced back to the anti-German, anti-German empire propaganda of 1914 and after. British and American propaganda today against Germany has only built upon the polemics of 1914 to 1918.
2) England / Anglodom as the main enemy. In the struggle for German freedom today, against whom should the main blow be directed? Britain and its colonies (including America), according to Viereck and the writers of the Fatherland: opposition to German nationalism and German ascendancy pivoted upon England and Anglodom in WWI and in WWII, and pivots upon it today.
Much uncertainty exists as to who is the master and who is the servant in the 'special relationship'. Yockey and National Socialist propagandist argue that Roosevelt and his Jewish 'Brain's Trust' pushed England, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1939, and that by the 1940s, England had become an unsinkable aircraft carrier for America. I've stuck to that line for years, but the Fatherland posts have made me reconsider it. Is it possible that England was the main villain all along, and that it tricked and manipulated America to enter the war both times?
Viereck and the other writers say yes, England should be held responsible, and should be the main target of the German nationalist propaganda offensive.
Many in the movement today don't agree with that. It divides people, they say, and white countries shouldn't attack other countries (!). Apart from this white nationalist sentimentalism (which really is unhistorical and unreal), I think the main reason for resistance against holding England to account is that most of us in the movement have only read Mein Kampf and no other works of German nationalist literature. And in Mein Kampf, as we know, Hitler praises the British to the skies. (Most of Mein Kampf and its sequel, Zweites Buch, is written against the French, who were Germany's strongest enemy in the 1920s).
When we encounter WWII and Holocaust Revisionism, one of the first things we encounter is the thesis that Hitler wanted nothing but peace with Britain, at least in the early years, and that he regarded Britain as very commendable. He comes across as very pro-British. Perhaps the Revisionist movement, and the National Socialist movement in the Anglo countries, want to give that impression so as to make Hitler more palatable to the Anglos. 'See, he's not that bad!'.
After doing a control-F search of Hitler's collected speeches, I see that Hitler in fact began to lay into the British around late 1938 to early 1939. He speaks of them very much in terms of Viereck and the Fatherland. And he makes reference to the British in WWI - a lot.
3) Reluctance of movement people to explore German history. Yes, the Fatherland posts haven't attracted as much attention as the other ones, and I think this is because movement people don't really appreciate the breadth of German nationalism. In its modern form, German nationalism really got going after August 1914: that's when the German intellectuals and publicists began their campaign against the British, and their defining of a unique German Idea, German Soul, German way of going about things in contrast to the British.
Most of the German material quoted in this massive anti-Nazi work comes from the period between 1914 and 1933. Much of the foundations for the Third Reich were laid well before 1933, and not by necessarily members of the NSDAP.
We in the movement don't understand this (at present) and are content with our copies of Mein Kampf and Dennis Wise. Having said that - don't let this prevent you, Carolyn, from plugging away.