The CIA's Neo-Nazis

(May 25, 2000) - Formerly one of the youngest members of the Hitler Youth, Friedhelm Busse,  roused the crowd with anti-foreigner and anti-American vitriol that elicited loud cheers from shaven-head teenagers and 20-somethings who waved illegal imperial German black-and-white flags. Violence erupted after Busse ended his pep talk with a line from an old Nazi song: "We're marching for Hitler day and night because of the need for freedom and bread."

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Busse's status as an elder statesman among hard-core neo-Nazis in Germany is all the more troubling given that his checkered past includes a controversial stint with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.Back in the early 1950s, Busse joined the Bund Deutscher Jugend (BDJ), an elite, CIA-trained paramilitary organization composed largely of ex-Hitler Youth, Wehrmacht and SS personnel in West Germany. Busse and his fellow Bundists were primed to go underground and engage in acts of sabotage and resistance in the event of a Soviet invasion. But instead of focusing on foreign enemies, Busse's "stay behind" unit proceeded to draw up a death list that included future Chancellor Willi Brandt and other leading Social Democrats (West Germany's main opposition party), who were marked for liquidation in case of an ill-defined national security emergency.

The Bund's cover was blown in October 1952, when the West German press got wind that U.S. intelligence was backing a neo-Nazi death squad. Embarrassed State Department officials, who tried to cover up the full extent of American involvement with the youth group, admitted privately that the scandal had resulted in "a serious loss of U.S. prestige."

[Note: The author Martin Lee is an award-winning investigative journalist who documents the rise of right-wing extremists and fanatical militia movements in the U.S., Europe and Russia and identifies the crucial factors aiding their growth. Co-founder of FAIR, (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), Lee is the author of "The Beast Reawakens" a new non-fiction thriller about resurgent racism and neofascism in the U.S. and Europe.]

BDJ | Operation Gladio founded by Paul Lüth

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