War brings out the best and the worst out of people, that is just a fact. It is easy to acknowledge the good but there is often a struggle acknowledging the bad, even to the extent of trying to completely erase it from history.
When it comes to the Holocaust there is no question about it that it was caused by Germany and Austria and their Nazi regimes, however they could never have succeeded without the help of others in the occupied countries, and even from people who were not in occupied countries.
Some collaborators were driven by fear and a sense of self survival but there were some who saw an opportunity to gain from the misery and horrors of others.
In the Netherlands there were people like Dries Riphagen and Wim Henneicke, who were both members of the Column Henneicke. They would hunt Jews for the SD and SS for a reward of 7.5 Dutch guilders per Jew, which is the equivalent of $50 or €42 today.
Rip Drieshagen would sometimes befriend some of his Jewish victims prior to selling them out to the Nazis, he would tell them to give him their valuables and he would save it for them and return it to them after the war. He escaped being captured after the war, He fled to Argentina where he became friendly with Juan and Evita Peron, He died in Montreux,Switzerland on 13 May 1973.
On November 19, 1940 in Warsaw Poland someone who called himself Ewald Reiman, blackmailed a family he believed was Jewish, threatening to reveal their identity if not paid hush money.
“”Ladies and Gentlemen.
On the basis of accurate investigation, we have determined the truth about your Semitic origins. In view of the above, we request that you deliver to the bearer of this note the sum of 2,000 zlotys (two thousand zlotys) in a sealed envelope. … In return, we will destroy the incriminating evidence that is in our possession. Otherwise, we will immediately hand over the evidence to the German authorities.”
These type of blackmailers made life extremely difficult for Jews who had false identification documents enabling them to hide in plain sight and evade German orders to move into ghettos.
The Nazi regime often drew upon some Polish agencies, such as Polish police forces and railroad personnel, in the guarding of ghettos and the deportation of Jews to the killing centers. Individual Poles often helped in the identification, denunciation, and hunting down of Jews in hiding, often profiting from the associated blackmail, and actively participated in the plunder of Jewish property.
But this wasn’t only the case in Poland but in most of occupied Europe.
I know that I will get a lot of comments and emails about me suggesting there was even one Polish collaborator, but I am basing my research on facts and research of historians.
It is such a pity that so many ,mainly former Eastern European communist countries are trying to whitewash their Holocaust history. To suit their own narrative but it is an insult to all the victims Jewish and Non Jewish. It is also not necessary . No one will accuse or judge anyone born after the war or those who were still children during the war for the sins of their parents,grandparents and great grandparents. In fact most people will think it is courageous when you face up to a part of a darker part of history .
However people will judge you for denying or trying to erase that part of history rather then highlighting it and learning from it. You owe to the victims and future generations to face up to all aspects of your history.
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The NSNAP could be considered a NSDAP wannabe. However it would be foolish to trivialize their existence.
The Nationaal-Socialistische Nederlandsche Arbeiderspartij (National Socialist Dutch Workers Party were founded in 1931 by Ernst Herman van Rappard(seen below in an SS uniform)
He was born in the Banyumas Regency, Central Java, Dutch East Indies.His educative years he spent in the Hague and later in the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands.He subsequently studied economics in Berlin and Munich and there became supportive of Nazism.
The NSNAP-advocated the incorporation of the Netherlands into the Third Reich.Unlike its bigger counterpart, the NSB, the NSNAP’s main focus was anti-Semitism Although the NSB soon followed with anti-Semitic policies.
The party failed to make any headway in the Dutch political scene, at the 1937 election it only achieved 998 votes. Soon the party was split in 3 smaller parties ,none of them were successful.
The German invasion of the Netherlands didn’t benefit the NSNAP at all.
By December 14 all political partied with the exception of the NSB were banned in the Netherlands. van Rappard joined the Waffen SS and most of the remaining members joined the NSB.
One of these members would become one the nation’s most evil and devious*if not the most evil) collaborators.
Dries Riphagen was a Dutch criminal involved in prostitution and jewelry fraud.During the war, Riphagen continued his clandestine businesses by working with the Germans as an intermediary agent of the Sicherheitsdienst (or SD), in Amsterdam.
He was very manipulative and would gain the trust of many Jews by promising them either a hiding place or escape abroad. In return they would have to handover their valuables, again he promised that he would only a small bit of the valuable as a sweetener for th SD, he would keep the majority safe for and return it to them after the war.
In fact he kept most of their belonging for himself and betray the whereabouts of the Jews to the SS. He betrayed hundreds of Jews and would also receive a reward for every Jew captured.
Riphagem was also responsible for recruiting Jews in helping find more Jews or infiltrate i the resistance network. He would blackmail the Jews,often young attractive Women, by threatening to send them and their families if they wouldn’t co-operate.
One of these women was Beje Wery.
Betje aka Bella Tuerlings ,agreed to work for the Devisenschutzkommando(part of the SD) as a so-called Vertrauens-Frau (V-Frau), or as a spy, in order to safe her mother who was Jewish and her Father who was half Jewish/ She had been arrested for not weaing a yellow star and spent a day in Westerbork, her Husband ,Frans Teurlings, managed to get her released. He died in 1943 in a car crash. In 1944 she infiltrated in her late husband’s network who created fake ID’s and other documents and traded in black market bonds. She handed over several of the network to her Riphagen, they were executed.
Riphagen was arrested after the war but he managed to escape , he ended up in Argentina where he became a oersonal friend to Juan and Evita Peron.
Not only was he friend ,Riphagen also worked for Perón’s secret service as an instructor in anti-communist tactics.
After Peron was overthrown, Riphagen returned to Europe. The Dutch government were not aware of this. In 1988, they asked for Riphagen to be extradited from Argentina but he had died in 1973 in Switzerland from cancer.
Beje Wery was arrested after the war and sentenced for life, but she was released in the 1950’s . She died in 2006.
Ernst Herman van Rappard died of a brain hemorrhage in the central prison hospital in Vught, on January 11,1953.
In 2016 ,director Pieter Kuiper shot the movie “Riphagen: The Untouchable” about Dries Riphagen. Which is currently available on Netflix.
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Not an easy man to miss, Skorzeny stood 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighed 250lbs. And he was known as “Scarface” for a reason. He had a long, distinctive scar on his left cheek.
P/J 7
Skorzeny achieved ‘fame’ during the war for rescuing deposed Italian leader Benito Mussolini from an Italian hilltop fortress.
Born in Vienna in 1908, Skorzeny joined the Austrian Nazi party in the early 1930s. At the outbreak of the war he was involved in fighting on the Eastern Front, taking part in the German invasions of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
By April 1943 he had been made head of German special forces, in charge of a unit of elite SS commandos.
In July 1943, he was personally selected by Hitler from among six German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and German Army (Heer) special agents to lead the operation to rescue Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who had been overthrown and imprisoned by the Italian government.
Almost two months of cat-and-mouse followed as the Italians moved Mussolini from place to place to frustrate any rescuers. There was a failed attempt to rescue Mussolini on 27 July 1943. The Ju 52 that the crew was aboard was shot down in the area of Pratica di Mare. Otto Skorzeny and all but one of his crew bailed out safely. Mussolini was first held in a villa on La Maddalena, near Sardinia. Skorzeny was able to smuggle an Italian-speaking commando onto the island, and a few days later he confirmed Mussolini was in the villa. Skorzeny then flew over in a Heinkel He 111 to take aerial photos of the location. The bomber was shot down by Allied fighters and crash-landed at sea, but Skorzeny and the crew were rescued by an Italian destroyer. Mussolini was moved soon after. Information on Mussolini’s new location and its topographical features were finally secured by Herbert Kappler. Kappler reported Mussolini was held in the Campo Imperatore Hotel at the top of the Gran Sasso mountain, and only accessible by cable car from the valley below. Skorzeny flew again over Gran Sasso and took pictures of the location with a handheld camera. An attack plan was formulated by General Kurt Student, Harald Mors (a paratrooper battalion commander), and Skorzeny.
On 12 September, Gran Sasso raid (a.k.a. Operation Oak and Unternehmen Eiche), was carried out perfectly according to plan. Mussolini was rescued without firing a single shot. Flying out in a Storch airplane, Skorzeny escorted Mussolini to Rome and later to Berlin.
The exploit earned Skorzeny fame, promotion to Sturmbannführer and the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Mussolini created a new Fascist regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana).
Skorzeny’s unbelievable story is made all the more shocking because the former Nazi SS storm trooper remained unapologetic and showed no remorse for his actions following the war. He was tried for war crimes in 1947 but was acquitted.
He was a pioneer of what is now known as special operations warfare and in the early 1950s he served as an adviser to the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser, training his army in guerrilla tactics. During this period he also trained Palestinian refugees in these tactics and was the mastermind behind the early terrorist raids into the newly re-established state of Israel. Among his trainees was Yasser Arafat, who later became the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and for much of the 1960s and 1970s was the world’s most prominent terrorist.
His exploits were followed by the media and, on the back of this friendly publicity, Skorzeny traveled to Madrid, Spain, where he ran an import-export business. This was believed to be a front for shuttling escaped Nazi war criminals to Argentina.
For many years Skorzeny lived in Argentina and served as a bodyguard to Eva Peron, wife of the Argentine dictator Juan Peron. It is rumored that he had a romantic affair with her.
In July 1957 he traveled to Dublin where he was met with a gala reception by members of Parliament and celebrities. Following his warm welcome he purchased Martinstown House, the 160-acre farm estate in The Curragh, County Kildare.
Kim Bielenberg, a Dublin-based journalist whose own grandfather, Fritz von der Schulenburg, was captured and tortured by Skorzeny due to his involvement in plot to kill Hitler, reflected on his Dublin welcome. He told the BBC, “He was feted by the Dublin social glitterati, including a young politician, Charles Haughey, who was later to become Ireland’s most controversial prime minister.
“According to the Evening Press account, ‘the ballroom was packed with representatives of various societies, professional men and, of course, several TDs [parliamentary representatives]’.”
Bielenberg believes this warm reception prompted the Nazi war criminal to buy the Kildare estate.
He continued, “He could be seen driving across the Curragh in a white Mercedes and would visit the local post office for groceries.
“Reggie Darling, a local historian, told me he remembered coming across Skorzeny on the Curragh.
He recalled him as a big man who stood out because of the scar across his face (which was the result of a dueling contest as a student), but that he wasn’t particularly friendly and he didn’t really mix with local people.
Skorzeny was allowed temporary visas to stay in Ireland under the proviso that he was not travel to Britain.However, in post-World War II Europe the specter of Nazism and the fear they would once again rise to power caused concern.Although Skorzeny could not be refused entry without due cause, he was refused a residency visa by the Irish government and had to limit his stays to six weeks at a time, during which he was monitored by G2,the military intelligence branch of the Defence Forces.
Former Irish Minister for Health Noel Browne raised concerns over Skorzeny’s “anti-Semitic activities” in the Dail (Parliament) in 1959.He rarely visited after 1963 and sold Martinstown House in 1971.Skorzeny also owned property in Spain on Majorca.
Skorzeny was recruited by the Mossad conducting operations for the agency from 1962, where he worked with Avraham Ahituv and Rafi Eitan (as has been confirmed by Eitan).
On Israel’s request, Skorzeny flew to Egypt and compiled a detailed list of German scientists and their addresses. Skorzeny also found for Mossad the names of many front companies in Europe that were procuring and shipping components for Egypt’s military projects. Skorzeny agreed to work with Israel on the condition that Simon Wiesenthal erase his name from the list of wanted Nazi war criminals and act to have an arrest warrant against him cancelled. Though Wiesenthal rejected this request, Skorzeny decided in the end to cooperate with the Mossad anyway. According to Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, Skorzeny was recruited after Mossad visited his home in Spain, where he expected he would be assassinated. After instruction in Israel, his work for the Mossad included assassinating a German rocket scientist Heinz Krug who was working with Egypt, and mailing a letter bomb which killed five Egyptians at the Egyptian military rocket site Factory 333. Skorzeny never explained his precise reasons for helping Israel. It is speculated that Skorzeny’s motives for working for the Mossad may have been his desire for adventure and intrigue, as well as to ensure he would never be assassinated by them.
In the 1960s Skorzeny set up the Paladin Group, which he envisioned as “an international directorship of strategic assault personnel [that would] straddle the watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniform and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents”. Based near Alicante, Spain, the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas, and its clients included the South African Bureau of State Security. It also carried out work for the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and some of its operatives were recruited by the Spanish Interior Ministry to wage a clandestine war against the terrorist group ETA.
In 1970, a cancerous tumour was discovered on Skorzeny’s spine. Two tumours were later removed while he was staying at a hospital in Hamburg, but the surgery left him paralyzed from the waist down. Vowing to walk again, Skorzeny spent long hours with a physical therapist; and, within six months, he was back on his feet. Skorzeny died of lung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid. He was 67.
He was given a Roman Catholic funeral Mass in Madrid on 7 August 1975; his body was cremated afterwards, and his ashes were later brought to Vienna to be interred in the Skorzeny family plot at Döblinger Friedhof. His funeral was attended by dozens of German military veterans and wives, who did not hesitate to give the Nazi salute,coffin was draped in the Nazi flag.
Donation
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
History of Sorts 
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