-Caveat Lector- Sunday Times May 30 1999 BRITAIN http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/ Nazis put Britain's Scouts on hit list by York Membery THE Gestapo intended to take no chances when the Nazis invaded Britain. It drew up plans to control or eliminate the most dangerous institutions underpinning the British Empire. Among its targets: the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, public schools and the Church Lads' Brigade. A 200-page handbook for the occupation of Britain, written by Adolf Hitler's secret police, reveals how Germany perceived its enemy in 1940. Titled Informationheft Grossbritannien, it is both chilling and comical. In the eyes of the Gestapo, the Scouting movement was a "disguised instrument of propaganda" set up to breed future defenders of the British Empire. Men who had spent time as boys learning to tie knots and sing round a campfire were also thought likely to have strong links with British intelligence. Public schools were depicted as bastions of blimpishness. "It is here the future English gentleman is educated," says the handbook. "The gentleman who has never thought about philosophical issues, who has hardly any knowledge of foreign culture, and who thinks of Germany as the embodiment of evil but accepts British power is inviolable." Some Britons might argue that this assessment was not inaccurate. To the Nazis, members of the Young Men's Christian Association were also suspect. The YMCA was "entirely in the hands of the freemasons" - and Britain was the "world centre of freemasonry", which was, in turn, in league with "Jewry". The Church of England was "an instrument of British imperial power" together with the Church Lads' Brigade and the Student Christian Movement which, the Gestapo noted, had "made sharp criticisms of Germany". Norman Stone, the historian and professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, said: "I am not altogether surprised by what the handbook suggests. But bizarrely for a nation that in many respects was remarkably similar to us, they completely misunderstood the British." The guide, to be published in Britain later this year by St Ermin's Press, was found in the archives of captured German documents held at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University in California. Linda Wheeler, a librarian at the institute, said last week it had lain in the vaults forgotten since the war. Robert Harris, author of Fatherland, the thriller set in Berlin after Germany had won the second world war, said: "As far as I'm aware, some of the handbook was classified because it contained sensitive information about Britain's intelligence service." The Gestapo captured two British intelligence agents in Holland and drew on their knowledge in compiling the handbook; information also came from an Australian, Dick Ellis, who had links with British intelligence. In some instances the book's detail is highly accurate - it maps every police phone kiosk in London and also lists BBC transmitters. The Gestapo, headed by Heinrich Himmler, put Professor Klaus Six, a leading counter-intelligence figure, in charge of compiling the handbook. Much of it concerns the Nazis' preoccupation with race: the Gestapo identified Jewish figures in business and claimed that "to a large extent the food industry is in Jewish hands". The addresses of prominent Jewish emigrés were listed and Jewish directors of the Bank of England were named. Who would have survived had the Nazis invaded? Among those who stood a good chance were Lord Rothermere and his acolytes at the Daily Mail, which flirted with fascism in the 1930s. While the handbook disparaged most of the British press for "decades of liberal management", the Nazis declared of Rothermere: "His friendly attitude towards Germany makes him an exception among the press tycoons." It was clear, however, that many people would have suffered and treasures would have been looted - as they were in Poland and other occupied countries. Our museums contained, according to the handbook, "certain documents and works of art from Germany history in which the Reich must have a special interest". DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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