While consumers are losing interest in Tesla’s Cybertruck, the armed forces are on the hunt for a few.

The War Zone, a news site that covers the defense industry, reports [that] the Air Force is planning to buy two Cybertrucks to use as targets for “live missile fire testing.” The testing is set to take place at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico (an Army base the Air Force also uses).

Typically, when the armed forces collect vehicles to practice blowing them up, they don’t seek out specific brands. And while the Trump administration and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have been sniping at each other on social media for the past couple of months, this brand-name exception is more the result of expected actions by the nation’s enemies.

“In the operating theater, it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cybertrucks, as they have been found not to receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact,” the Air Force wrote in a justification document supporting the purchase order. “Testing needs to mirror real-world situations. The intent of the training is to prep the units for operations by simulating scenarios as closely as possible to the real-world situations.”

The Air Force notes that the trucks it is looking to buy do not need to run, but the body, glass, and mirrors must be intact, with little to no damage. It’s a safe bet that officials won’t be buying them from the company.

Not a lot of people are these days. Tesla sold just 4,300 of the trucks in the second quarter of the year, a 51% drop. Last year, Tesla sold just 39,000 of the vehicles, a number it’s unlikely to match this year.

In addition to the Cybertrucks, the Air Force is looking for 31 other cars, including sedans, bongo trucks, pickups, and SUVs, all of which will likely be blown up.

For the longest time, historians have glossed over the relations between the Eastern and Western Axis powers as shallow and unimportant. This perception has only been reinforced by disgruntled Axis officials theirselves, some of whom denied the alliance’s importance so as to ease their prosecutions, and it is all too easy for casual observers to agree with this conclusion after spotting instances of poor teamwork, like when Berlin failed to notify Tōkyō in advance about the German–Soviet Pact in 1939.

Au contraire, historian Daniel Hedinger published a book in 2021 titled Die Achse: Berlin-Rom-Tokio, 1919–1946: an iconoclastic reassessment of the supposed ‘hollow alliance’ between the Axis powers. Unfortunately for us, Herr Hedinger’s book is unavailable in English as of this writing, but I still have reasons to offer that the relations between the Western and Eastern Axis are, if nothing else, worth reexamining.

For example, quoting Rotem Kowner’s ‘When economics, strategy, and racial ideology meet: inter-Axis connections in the wartime Indian Ocean’:

During the first years of the war in Europe, economics and the settlement of economic disputes formed the crux of Japanese–German relations. Upon the [Fascist] conquest of the Netherlands and France, and even more so after the [Imperial] takeover of Southeast Asia almost two years later, the two nations were still grappling with various forms of economic discord, especially over their respective rights to exploit the natural resources of the French and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia.

However, as the fighting in Europe continued, economic issues (notably shortages of certain raw materials) became a growing motive for improving relations between the two nations. During their negotiations, both sides had pressing needs that could not wait for the conclusion of the imminent agreement. Tōkyō required certain military technologies and some raw materials that its main European ally already possessed, and also needed new markets for its Southeast Asian products in order to keep the local economies alive.

Berlin, in contrast, was desperate for certain raw materials that its Asian ally monopolized in Southeast Asia. These materials included, among others, tungsten, which was used for hardening metals (in items such as turbines and armour-piercing munitions) and for making wear-resistant abrasives; tin, which was used in alloys, as a solder, and for plating steel containers meant for food preservation; bauxite, for the production of aluminium used in various forms of military equipment such as tanks and industrial machinery; and, most significantly, natural rubber.¹²

Rubber had been used in all complex weapon systems since the early twentieth century, and thus became an indispensable raw material for wartime economies. Its military importance, alongside its growing scarcity in [the Third Reich] and its availability in the newly gained territories of the Japanese empire, made natural rubber the prime raw material present in the economic exchanges carried out by these Axis powers during the war, as well as providing an indirect impetus for the enhancement of their military cooperation.

Before the Second World War, Germany was a world leader in the development and production of synthetic rubber, primarily from coal and limestone, and later from natural gas too.¹³ Synthetic rubber was nonetheless the product of an emergency, produced because of the insufficient and unstable supply of natural rubber, and as a rule inferior to the latter.

However, the production of synthetic rubber did not meet [the Third Reich’s] projected and actual military demands. Critically, it was also inadequate for the production of high-performance engineering and military components.¹⁴ For instance, synthetic rubber tyres with large cross-sections tended to crack, especially at low temperatures. Hence, natural rubber remained an essential material for the production of many military articles from gas masks to large tyres.¹⁵

Natural rubber had one major disadvantage, however, as far as the European Axis countries were concerned. It could not be produced in Europe or in any other territory occupied by Germany or Italy. Extracted mostly from the tropical Pará rubber tree, it was mainly produced in Southeast Asia (85% of world production in 1939). Its largest producers were British Malaya (present-day Malaysia and Singapore), with 39% of world production, and the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), with 38%.¹⁶

[…]

A major turning point in the [Third Reich’s] quest for Southeast Asian rubber occurred on 7 December 1941, with the [Axis] onslaught on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent outbreak of the Pacific War. In the following months, [the Empire of] Japan took over both Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, the world’s leading exporters of natural rubber. [The Chancellor] could not conceal his delight at the abundant ‘rubber, oil, zinc, tungsten, and a number of other products’ which fell suddenly into [Axis] hands, remarking that ‘Japan will be one of the richest countries in the world. What a transformation!’²⁵

The joy over the presumably easy access to rubber was short-lived as the Allied powers did their utmost to prevent [Europe’s Axis empires] from obtaining natural rubber and other raw materials. Soon, a bitter struggle for the procurement of natural rubber began to take shape on both sides.²⁶

Loading their cargo directly in Southeast Asian ports, blockade-runners remained the only means for transporting rubber and other raw materials to [the Third Reich]. They usually circumnavigated Africa and carried back from Asia badly needed materials for the European Axis powers’ war effort.

Known in the Imperial Japanese Navy (Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun, henceforth IJN) by their code name Yanagi-sen (‘willow ships’), between 1941 and 1944 these ships delivered 43,983 tons of natural rubber to the [European Axis empires’] war industries. They also carried 68,117 tons of other essential materials, mostly from Southeast Asia, such as tungsten, tin, and quinine, and altogether about two-thirds of the [Third Reich’s] annual requirement for these items.²⁷

These figures nonetheless conceal a dramatic development. Although by mid-1942 [the Western Axis] had unlimited access, at least in theory, to natural rubber, shipping it safely to Europe became extremely dangerous.²⁸ This situation prompted increasing cooperation between [Western Axis] commercial representatives in East Asia, but their options were limited.²⁹

While the only viable route was now via the sea, the Allies’ blockade became so effective, especially after the introduction of the Checkmate System on 8 June 1943, that fewer and fewer Axis blockade-runners succeeded in reaching Europe.³⁰ By late 1942 and early 1943, only one of the six ships that left for Europe reached its destination.³¹ As the toll of using surface ships became unbearable, this route was virtually terminated by the end of 1943.

Adding to this, the Empire of Manchuria supplied the German Reich with soybeans, the IJN inspired the Kriegsmarine’s only aircraft carrier, the Third Reich supplied the Empire of Japan with 25,000 trained dogs by December 1941, supplied it with twenty thousand Karabiner 98ks, supplied it with MP 34s, supplied the model for its E27 radar detectors, inspired the Nakajima Kikka, and more. Were it not for Allied activity, the Eastern Axis would have also acquired 20mm guns, torpedo data computers, radar blueprints, radar equipment, and a Naxos radar detector.

As we can see here, it was not a sheer lack of trying that inhibited cooperation between the Eastern and West Axis powers. There was plenty of trying, and not all of it unsuccessful: in particular, the Axis powers exhibited good teamwork when it came to conquering certain European Allied powers with colonies in Asia. When the French and Netherlandish republics fell to the Third Reich, the colonies of French Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies were ripe for the Empire of Japan’s taking.

Pictured: Fascist propaganda depicting a Regio Esercito soldier, a Wehrmacht one, and one from the IJA standing together with rifles in their hands. The text reads, ‘Three folks, one war!’

Pictured: Fascist propaganda depicting a Regio Esercito soldier, a Wehrmacht one, and one from the IJA standing on a battlefield with tattered Allied flags thereon. The text reads, ‘To conquer!’

True, the Eastern and Western Axis armies never fought side-by-side on the same battlefield (unless you count the submarines Luigi Torelli and Comandante Cappellini), but such close coordination was rare between the Eastern and Western Allied armies, too. Now, there is a rumour that Berlin had a plan for South Asia after defeating the Soviet Union: Operation Orient, wherein the Wehrmacht and the IJA would have shaken hands in India, but such a plan probably never existed.

On the other hand, Kantokuen, a plan wherein the Empire of Japan would have invaded the far eastern Soviet Union, was indeed something that Tōkyō seriously contemplated. This possibility, incidentally, explains Berlin’s infamous decision to declare war on Imperial America. Quoting Jacques R. Pauwels’s The Myth of the Good War, pages 71–72:

On December 7, 1941, Hitler, in his headquarters deep in the forests of East Prussia, had not yet fully digested the ominous news of the Soviet counteroffensive in front of Moscow, when he learned that, on the other side of the world, the [Eastern Axis] had attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbor. We will soon deal with the background and significance of this attack, which brought the U.S. into the war.

At this time it ought to be pointed out that it caused the U.S. to declare war on [the Empire of] Japan, but not on [the Third Reich], which had nothing to do with the attack and had not even been aware of the [Eastern Axis’s] plans. Hitler had no obligation whatsoever to rush to the aid of his [Imperial] friends, as is claimed by some American historians, just as the [Imperial] leaders had not felt an obligation to rush to Hitler’s side when he went to war against Poland, France, and the Soviet Union.

However, on December 11, 1941 — four days after Pearl Harbor — the [Reich’s] dictator suddenly declared war on the U.S. This seemingly irrational decision must be understood in light of the [Axis] predicament in the Soviet Union. Hitler almost certainly speculated that this entirely gratuitous gesture of solidarity would induce his Far Eastern ally to reciprocate with a declaration of war on the enemy of [Fascism], the Soviet Union, and this would have forced the Soviets into the extremely perilous predicament of a two-front war. (The bulk of the [IJA] was stationed in northern China and would therefore have been able to immediately attack the Soviet Union in the Vladivostok area.)

Hitler appears to have believed that he could exorcize the spectre of defeat in the Soviet Union, and in the war in general, by summoning a sort of [Imperial] deus ex machina to the Soviet Union’s vulnerable Siberian frontier. According to the German historian Hans W. Gatzke, the Führer was convinced that “if Germany failed to join Japan [in the war against the United States], it would […] end all hope for Japanese help against the Soviet Union.”²⁵

But [the Eastern Axis] did not take [Berlin’s] bait. Tōkyō, too, despised the Soviet state, but the Land of the Rising Sun, now at war against the U.S., could afford the luxury of a two-front war as little as the Soviets. Tōkyō preferred to put all of its money on a “southern” strategy, hoping to win the big prize of Southeast Asia — including oil-rich Indonesia and rubber-rich Indochina — rather than embark on a venture in the inhospitable reaches of Siberia. Only at the very end of the war, after the surrender of [the Western Axis], would it come to hostilities between the Soviet Union and [the Empire of] Japan.

(All emphasis added.)

Now, this was undeniably a costly mistake, and Tōkyō’s refusal to take the gamble may indicate poor teamwork, but one could also argue that it was exactly because of the Third Reich’s faith in the Empire of Japan that Berlin joined it in its war on Imperial America, hoping to encourage Tōkyō to redeclare war on the Soviets. Besides, the IJA had defeated the Imperial Russian Army in 1905, and for a while the Soviet regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin were under Imperial occupation until 1925. With all of this context in mind, Berlin’s declaration of war on the Yankees was not as reckless as it first seemed.

Further reading: Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936

Transnational Encounters between Germany and Japan: Perceptions of Partnership in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Ultranationalism in German–Japanese Relations, 1930–45

Japanese–German Business Relations: Cooperation and Rivalry in the Inter-war Period

Japanese–German Relations, 1895–1945

Japan and Germany: Two Latecomers to the World Stage, 1890–1945

‘The German and Japanese Empires: Great Power Competition and the World Wars in Trans- Imperial Perspective’

‘Shaping Japanese Fascism by European Cultural Transfer’

‘Colonial crossovers: Nazi Germany and its entanglements with other empires’

‘The fascist new–old order’

‘Germanisation of Japan and a little viceversa: A time of mutual promotion and National Socialism’

‘Creating Japan’s Propaganda: Shaping the Nation by Implementing Methods of German–Italian Fascism’

‘Japan’s Renouncement of the West: Using Methods of German–Italian Fascism’

Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese–German Relations, 1860–2010

Griffin’s comments walk back legal concerns he previously expressed about the whites-only settlement. Earlier this month, Griffin told TMZ that Return to the Land — a community where prospective residents must verify their “ancestral heritage” in a written application and interview — raises “all sorts of legal issues, including constitutional concerns.”

The Forward reported in June about Return to the Land’s hopes of replicating its whites-only settlements across the country, with the stated aim of “trying to put land back under the control of Europeans.” Eric Orwoll and Peter Csere lead the group, which Morgan Moon of the Anti-Defamation League described as one of the most established white supremacist residential communities in the United States today.

In a June 30 email obtained by the Forward through a public records request, Gary McGee, an investigator with the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission wrote that “as of today, AFHC has not discovered any actual property owned by this organization or its founder, nor any advertisements for housing.”

Records show that a limited liability company in both Csere and Orwoll’s name, “Wisdom Woods LLC,” owns adjacent parcels of land totaling 157 acres near the town of Ravenden, where Sky News reporter Tom Cheshire visited the group and spoke with residents of the whites-only community in July.

Griffin did not respond to the Forward’s request for clarification about why the office believed Return to the Land had not broken any laws and whether it had considered the property owned by Wisdom Woods LLC.

McGee’s email appears to echo arguments made by Return to the Land about the legality of the arrangement.

“There is no actual change of real estate title occurring, nor are they renting the land,” Csere wrote in a message to the Forward, differentiating between directly owning land versus purchasing membership units of the LLC that owns the land. “The land stays under the ownership of the business entity that they are becoming a part-owner of.”

Since the Forward’s article was published in June, Return to the Land updated their website with a “legal disclaimer,” writing that “RTTL does not engage in the sale or rental of real estate,” and earlier this week they posted similar information on Substack in response to, “Is RTTL legal?” RTTL says it’s exempt from the Civil Rights Act because it’s a private club, and housing is not the group’s primary purpose.

Arkansas’ attorney general has not contacted Return to the Land, Csere wrote in a message to the Forward, adding that the group continues “to work with legal professionals to explore all facets of our organization, to ensure that we are operating in a lawful manner.”

The North Carolina Federations’ statement not only blatantly misrepresents the state Democratic party’s resolutions by falsely implying that they are apologists for Hamas, but also misleadingly implies they speak for all or most Jewish North Carolinians. A November 2024 J Street poll of Jewish Americans found 61% support an arms embargo against Israel. As of June 2024, according to a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 30% of Jewish Americans believe that Israel is committing genocide, a number that has undoubtedly risen since then.

[…]

When a local Jewish Federation, synagogue or youth movement chapter releases statements claiming that they stand fully with Israel in the conflict, they are isolating and ignoring those of us who offer critiques of Israel’s actions and policies. If these actions continue, millions of American Jews across the country will be pushed out of Jewish institutions, excluded from Jewish spaces and have their Jewishness questioned over their stance against Israel’s actions in Gaza. This is, unfortunately, already happening.

The reality is that in 2025, most American Jews do not stand unconditionally with Israel anymore. If Jewish federations and other institutions want to be the inclusive spaces for all Jews that they claim to be, then they must adapt to this reality.

If groups such as the Jewish Federations cannot reflect American Jewish opinion in 2025 or acknowledge the isolation from Israel that more and more American Jews feel, then millions of Jewish Americans with perspectives such as mine will be erased from the institutions designed to make us feel most at home.

Zoe, one of those taking part in the demonstration, said: “I along with hundreds of ordinary people have had enough of our government’s collusion in genocide.

“You can hear the claps and it’s got like a family-friendly environment here. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. It’s completely peaceful and there’s nothing vaguely terrorist right now. We’re just being ordinary peaceful people saying we oppose genocide,” she said.

She wore a large patch with the words “Jews Against Genocide”. She said: “I wear it clearly and with pride to make sure that other people recognise that there are many many Jews who do not support genocide of any nature.”

“I’m holding a piece of paper for goodness sakes, that’s not a terrorist act. A terrorist act is intentionally starving 2 million,” she said. “I don’t know what to say to [Palestinians], I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I wish we could do more but we’re trying our best.”

Officers searched the bags of those arrested. In one backpack handled with blue forensic gloves, they uncovered some bread and a milk carton filled with water.

Robert Del Naja, from the band Massive Attack, joined the sign-holders and said: “UK civil liberties are trapped in a manufactured crisis. Peaceful citizens of conscience — including pensioners — have become terrorists, at the will of a human rights lawyer turned authoritarian who now lunges at opinions that expose the moral vacuum of his unrecognisable government.”

Some of those arrested were publicly processed on the street outside Scotland Yard, near the main demonstration, where crowds gathered and shouted “‘shame on you” at officers.

Amnesty International called the mass arrests “deeply concerning”.

“The protesters in Parliament Square were not inciting violence and it is entirely disproportionate to the point of absurdity to be treating them as terrorists,” said Sacha Deshmukh, the organisation’s chief executive.

“We have long criticised UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. These arrests demonstrate that our concerns were justified.”

Although the French Republic was headed by self-identified socialists in 1936–1938, it would be more accurate to categorise them as social democrats; Prime Minister Léon Blum denounced the R.S.F.S.R. as a ‘dictatorship over the proletariat’ and refused to have communists participate in his cabinet. (That did not stop the Fascist press from attacking him, of course.) His deputy Édouard Daladier collaborated with Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in appeasing the Third Reich, and his Minister of Foreign Affairs signed a declaration with Ribbentrop.

Bafflingly, Léon Blum permitted all of this despite taking pride in his Jewish heritage. It is shocking that a Jewish adult with his amount of political power would appease the Third Reich at all, but it feels less shocking after learning that he was a Herzlian.

Let us now examine this dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’s economic relations with the Third Reich:

The two governments tried to stabilize trade by a convention of July 28, 1934, which established a clearing mechanism to pay for commercial exchanges. As a result, in 1934, for the only year in the interwar period, [the Third Reich] ranked as France’s top overall customer and supplier.²⁴

Relations deteriorated, however, in the next year. In June 1935 [Reich] officials demanded [that] the replacement of the clearing mechanism with a less restrictive payment accord. A French delegation in Berlin agreed to discuss replacing the clearing accord only on the condition that [the Third Reich] make good on its commercial payments in arrears, which totaled 300 million francs.

The French and German governments, however, found it impossible to negotiate on these terms, and the French and German negotiating teams in Paris in July received orders from their governments simply to liquidate the clearing mechanism.

As a result of the termination of the clearing system, the value of German exports to France rose slightly from 124.1 million marks in the first half of 1935 to 125.4 million marks in the first half of 1936, while the value of German imports from France fell dramatically from 104.1 million marks in the first half of 1935 to 43 million marks in the first half of 1936.²⁵

By the time [that] negotiations resumed in January 1937, France and [the Third Reich] had been without a commercial accord for a year and a half, to the detriment of French exporters.

The Blum government, which took office on June 4, 1936, made the first steps toward closer economic ties to [the Third Reich] through the governors of the central banks of [the Third Reich] and France. It was evident in these steps that the government had on its agenda a general reconciliation with [the Third Reich] through economic cooperation. On June 24, 1936, the French financial attaché in Berlin, Marcel Berthelot, discussed the possibility of an arms limitation pact with Schacht, who declared that he favored the idea.²⁶

[…]

Schacht’s propositions were political as well as economic and must have appealed to the French ministers’ principle that through economic collaboration political tensions and conflict could be reduced. He proposed that [the Third Reich] participate in a system of international security, provided that it was not based on the Treaty of Versailles, and in a disarmament agreement in return for French economic cooperation and the reconstitution of a German colonial domain.

In his meeting with Schacht on August 28, Blum replied that it would be possible to open conversations along these lines from the French government’s point of view.²⁸

[…]

Besides liberalizing the system of commercial payments, facilitating trade between [the Third Reich] and the French empire, and providing for the payment of German debts to France, the commercial accords of July 10, 1937, adopted Schacht’s proposal for exchanging French iron for German coke. In fact, before the definitive accord, the director of commercial accords in the ministry of commerce, Hervé Alphand, arrived at a temporary arrangement with [Fascist] officials at the end of February 1937.

Alphand agreed, with the approval of the ministry of public works, to an increase in the monthly exports of French iron ore to [the Third Reich] from 515,000 tons in January 1937 to 620,000 tons for March and April in return for the maintenance by [the Third Reich] of its monthly coke shipments at their January 1937 level of 271,000 tons.

The SICAP handled these exchanges of coke and iron, which [Fascist] officials insisted on treating in pounds sterling. The volume of exchanges between March and June was such that the SICAP had accumulated over 800,000 pounds from them by July 8, 1937.

A confidential protocol to the commercial accord of July 10, 1937, fixed the level of French iron ore exports to [the Third Reich] at 601,000 tons per month in exchange for 275,000 tons of monthly German coke exports to France. This level of French iron ore exports to [the Third Reich], over 7.2 million tons per year, represented an increase of one million tons over the level of French iron ore exports to [the Third Reich] for 1935.

The new level of German coke exports to France represented almost the entirety of France’s needs in coke. Thus, the French government tightened the link between French and German heavy industry, to the detriment of Belgium, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR, each of which had coke to offer for iron at the time of a world iron shortage.⁵⁰

[…]

For the most part, the accords of July 10, 1937, yielded happy results for trade between France and [the Third Reich]. The monthly value of French exports to [the Third Reich] increased dramatically from 8 million marks in 1936 to 15 million marks in the last months of 1937, while that of [Reich] exports to France rose from 22 to 26 million marks. For 1938 the value of French exports to [the Third Reich] rose another 435 million francs over 1937 to 1.9 billion francs—almost triple the level of 1936—while [Reich] exports to France fell slightly. The trade balance, then, became less detrimental to France, and what was left of it paid off German debts owed to France. Moreover, the backlog of commercial payments owed to France disappeared by the beginning of 1939.⁶¹

Needless to say, France’s capitalists were alive and well throughout this era, and continued exerting a powerful influence on politics:

Although business leaders were not solely responsible for the accords, it is significant that the government under the Popular Front, which had pledged to reduce the influence of business on government, allowed business organizations access to trade policy as previous governments had. It allowed the Paris Chamber of Commerce to continue its crucial rôle in the formulation and implementation of trade policy; it allowed the SICAP to continue its monopoly over the handling of coal imports and to exercise decisive influence over the approval of specific barter operations between [the Third Reich] and the French empire; and it allowed the Association Nationale des Porteurs Français des Valeurs Mobilières to negotiate the implementation of the transfer accord with [the Third Reich], despite this organization’s resistance to the government’s directions.

So much for the Popular Front’s ‘socialism’.

Some sources such as this U.S. Department of Commerce survey from January 1940 indicate that U.S. exports to the Third Reich dropped by as much as 97% in late 1939. Such data are highly misleading. On the contrary, U.S. capitalists employed tricks and structures in 1939 and elsewhen to prevent any possible scandals or legal action against their transactions:

The cloaking techniques in hostile countries or countries perceived to be potential enemies resembled those in neutrals. Here, too, [Fascist] firms transferred ownership to holding companies whose ownership was nominally in the hands of other institutions and individuals, who pledged, at times with written agreements, at times supported merely by oral assurances, to run the subsidiaries on behalf of the [Fascist] parent.

There were two main differences, however, between perceived neutrals and potential enemy nations. The first is that the holding company structure for companies in countries such as Britain sometimes went through a second neutral country, a cut-out, so to speak, to further confuse regulators.

The second was that [Fascist] companies, understandably, avoided holding ‘excess’ assets in those countries. In contrast to friendly or neutral countries, political issues, such as the threat of boycotts or even expropriation, provided the driving force for cloaking activities in hostile countries. This evolution will be discussed in greater detail below.

However, in all three cases, it is important to remember that the German companies depended on the approval of the Reich’s authorities. Even though it is difficult to distinguish between economically and politically motivated cloaking activities, we will show that in times of crises the latter aspect prevailed and determined the degree to which the Reich’s authorities got involved in the camouflaging process.

The holding company structures usually entailed three ‘layers’ of camouflage. First, the ownership of foreign subsidiaries was transferred to Swiss holding companies. Second, the shares of the holding company were placed in the hands of a ‘non-German’ trustee, who pledged to act in the ‘interests’ of the ‘original’ owner and transfer back the shares to the [Fascist] company or anyone else designated by the [Fascist] company.

Lastly, the [Fascist] company set up supply and royalty agreements among the subsidiaries, usually centred in the United States, which would allow the foreign subsidiaries to act independently should they be cut off from Germany. The ‘trustees’ took on this rôle with [Fascist] companies for many reasons. Some had long-standing business relationships (there are examples of [Fascist] companies doing the same for foreign firms),⁴² some hoped to develop a long-term relationship with the [Fascist] firms; others were merely paid for performing a service.⁴³

In some respects, too, these structures were remarkably successful. Even in the United States, where German assets had been seized, during the 1920s many German companies continued to get value from their trademarks and patents by working with American companies and trustees.⁴⁴ Also, in countries where foreign ownership was restricted, such as Czechoslovakia, German companies created subsidiaries.⁴⁵

After September 1939, when war broke out [against Poland], for over two years foreign subsidiaries of [Fascist] companies continued to function, sometimes even in combatant countries and their colonies, due in large part to the cloaking and supply structures set up in the United States.⁴⁶

The cloaking activities of [Fascist] firms involved a substantial amount of that country’s investment in foreign countries, but the sources are not clear about when amounts were transferred into camouflaging structures and exactly how much wealth was subject to camouflaging. The latest estimations speak of approximately 775 camouflage cases approved by the [Third Reich’s] authorities during the first six months after the war started. Around 200 to 300 of these companies can be found in Switzerland, the majority of the rest in the Netherlands.⁴⁷

In 1938, the Reichsbank estimated, however, that approximately two-thirds of the nearly U.S. $16 million in [Third Reich] assets in the United States were already cloaked. By 1940, that had climbed to U.S. $20 million of cloaked property in the United States, but this figure seems to have excluded those [Fascist] assets still officially owned by neutral parties and cloaked in the U.S. According to Reichsbank and U.S. government official estimates, by 1943, a total of approximately 130 [Reich] companies had employed camouflaging techniques accounting for U.S. $40 million in assets.⁴⁸

Some estimates are much higher (one in the U.S. Memo talked about U.S. $500 million), but it is not clear whether the Reichsbank or U.S. authorities shifted from book value to market value and to what extent they integrated the assets of companies outside of the United States. In 1945, the U.S. Alien Property Custodian administered 469 [Reich] companies, worth approximately U.S. $110 million.⁴⁹ Even in Argentina, whose overall economy was by comparison far smaller, the British Embassy estimated that the value of [Reich] assets in 1945 was around U.S. $100 million.⁵⁰

According to Aalders and Wiebes, who quote a 1947 source, Switzerland was holding U.S. $250 million in cloaked assets, Sweden U.S. $105 million, Spain U.S. $90 million, and Portugal U.S. $27 million, but given the overlapping and integrated holding structures, it is impossible to know the basis of the valuations and how much double counting was involved.⁵¹

Content warning: the linked article contains video and descriptions of violent ICE arrests

ProPublica recently published a piece outlining the growing trend of violent immigration-related arrests involving masked agents, who consistently refuse to identify themselves, smashing vehicle windows and dragging people into the street to arrest them.

Footage from L.A., Baltimore, Massachusetts, and elsewhere shows agents using weapons to break car windows and violently dragging people out of their cars. More than one situation involves children, infants, or pregnant people. The agents don’t seem to care; no person’s vulnerability mitigates the alleged government agents’ willingness to threaten or commit violence.

No person deserves such treatment, regardless of status or any other factor. ICE agents seem to disagree: some of these violent incidents involve damaging the vehicles of American citizens and arresting or detaining them, in spite of the fact that ICE has no jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. This should alarm all of us.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action. Emphasis original.)

According to the Guardian, Stephen Miller, lead xenophobic ghoul in Trump’s cabal, has championed the idea of paying a bonus for every person detained by the Department of Homeland Security. Also this week, ICE announced [that] they are getting rid of any and all age restrictions on hiring. Truly a model of professionalism and standards. Trump and his [neo]fascist pals swore up and down that they had no plans for a bounty of any kind. Later reporting in the New York Times confirmed The Guardian’s report, and noted that the only reason that the bounty didn’t happen was because of the spotlight from journalists and activists.

Bounties create perverse incentives for ICE agents to further break the law in pursuit of Trump’s ethnic cleansing project. Let’s stay vigilant that this grotesque bonus structure never gets put in place.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

Despite concerted efforts by advocates and progressive journalists to replace dehumanizing terms for immigrants with neutral terms like “undocumented (person/worker/etc),” recent data from Google Trends indicates a resurgence of dehumanizing terms to describe children and adults traveling from one country to another in search of a better life. This includes the use of dehumanizing language among self-identified liberals like Joe Biden and Trevor Noah.

Lindsay Schubiner, director of programs at Western States Center, an advocacy group that recently published guidelines for journalists on responsible immigration coverage, explains that such language “flattens” people into a caricatured category, mainstreaming language that originates in the hate speech of the far right.

To be clear, language that designates some people as “legal” and some as “illegal” falls into a right-wing trap, implying that some humans deserve human treatment and some do not. In the ongoing struggle to achieve freedom of movement for everyone, we must ensure that our language reflects our commitment to decriminalizing immigration.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

The Trump administration is trying to roll back student loan forgiveness for most people currently seeking it, from the debt forgiveness that organizers pushed Joe Biden to do, as well as for nonprofit and public service workers. But there’s one group of people to whom the Trump administration is happy to extend student loan forgiveness: new ICE Agents.

DHS announced this week that along with a 50k signing bonus, newly hired ICE agents will have options for both loan forgiveness and repayment. Life is poised to become much harder for millions of folks with debt across the country, except for those interested in becoming ICE agents. “It is hypocritical to provide additional funding for debt relief for certain categories of workers while seeking to deny it to everyday Americans,” said Sara Partridge, director of higher education at the Center for American Progress.

While the rolling back of loan forgiveness for people in public service will likely be challenged in court, it remains to be seen where DHS will get the money to pay off ICE agent’s student loans.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

My earliest memory involving dogs in the Third Reich is perhaps from trying the shareware version of Wolfenstein 3D, where the weakest foe is a German Shepherd who tries to compensate for its pitifully low health by zig‐zagging towards the protagonist. Although undoubtedly unnerving to first‐time players, they’re otherwise only menacing to somebody who is out of bullets and low on health.

Pictured: The attack dog from Wolfenstein 3D.

Most other adults, however, are likelier to think of Blondi: the German Shepherd whom the Chancellor received as a gift in 1941 before he used her as the unwilling test subject for cyanide in April 1945. Media portrayals of Blondi’s little rôle in history range from the accurate depiction in the motion picture Downfall to being parodied in the series Danger 5 — to name only a few examples.

While most of us are going to be at least slightly familiar with the Third Reich’s mass deployment of dogs as camp guards, we rarely wonder about the fuller extent of their usage. The reality is that the Fascists deployed many dogs (especially German Shepherds) for a variety of purposes in addition to guarding camps. Quoting Susan Bulanda’s Military Dogs of World War II, pages 115–122:

By the time [that Adolf Schicklgruber] came into power in 1933, the [Fascists] had already formed training camps which included the Sturmabteilung (SA, the “Brownshirts”) K9 units. These camps provided trained men for the new […] Army and because the [Fascists] had masked the training programs so well, by the time [that it invaded Poland, the Third Reich] had over 200,000 dogs trained and ready for war. If that wasn’t enough, [the Third Reich] then publicized a call for more dogs which added another 100,000 to the ranks.

Primarily, the [Third Reich] used German Shepherds, Dobermans, Airedales, and Boxers. These dogs were trained to act as sentries, scouts, guards, and messenger dogs. Patrol dogs worked with their handler, accompanied by a patrolman who would check identity papers or perform other routine duties.

The dogs in the Bahnschutz K9 units were also used to round up Jews and were used in ghettos as well as concentration camps to control, herd, and attack Jewish prisoners. Some 90 percent of the dogs used in this unit were German Shepherds. Throughout the war, prisoners, soldiers and Jews alike were forced to march in file, and dogs were used to keep them in line. If someone lagged or got out of formation, the dogs would nip them. These dogs were used in France, the Soviet Union, Italy, Poland, and North Africa in the same manner.

The [Fascists] also used ambulance dogs. These dogs were trained to ignore any soldiers standing or walking. If a dog found a soldier lying on the ground, he would grab a short, detachable leather strap attached to his collar—called a bringsel—and go back to the handler. The handler would put the dog on a leash and the dog would lead the handler to the wounded soldier.

For messenger dogs, the [Fascists] used only the smartest dogs. They taught the dog to follow a scent trail using a molasses‐type scent that would be dispensed in a few drops every three feet. These dogs had one handler.

As dog lovers know, sometimes a well‐trained dog will show a talent, or adapt to a task that goes beyond its training. There is an account of such an incident in North Africa that transpired between Allied and Axis troops, where, it seems, the [Axis] had taught pure white dogs to act as pointers. The [Allies] controlled the western part of a small valley in Ousseltria, Tunisia, while the [Axis] controlled the eastern side.

During the ensuing battle, dogs played an important part on both sides. When an [Allied] lieutenant and two sergeants were sent out to reconnoiter enemy positions, they spotted a pure white dog standing quietly and pointing. Within a few minutes, the [Allies] were raked with machine‐gun fire.

Later, when a patrol was sent out to look for the beleaguered [Allied personnel], the dog was gone. The dog’s job had been to show the [Axis] where the enemy soldiers were located. This was not the only time [that Allied] soldiers saw pure white dogs pointing out their positions and then returning to the [Axis].

Sadly, when the [Axis powers] had to withdraw quickly from Africa, they abandoned most of their dogs. Throughout the war, the [Axis] used so many dogs that there were few left for breeding stock after it ended.

Pictured: Waffen‐SS volunteer Kalju Jakobsoo with his dog Caesar in 1944.

Before [the Imperial Japanese] attacked Pearl Harbor, they had already built up their army to a war footing and were engaged in a war of conquest with China. Their [Western] allies had supplied [the Empire of] Japan with about 25,000 trained dogs. Most were German Shepherds, the breed that the [Eastern Axis] seemed to prefer. The [Eastern Axis] then set up several dog training schools in [the Empire of] Japan and one in Nanking, China.

The [Eastern Axis] used dogs for patrols, as scouts, and as sentry dogs. [It] also used them as suicide dogs. Instead of trying to blow up tanks as the [Soviets] had tried to do, the [Eastern Axis] had the dogs pull small carts loaded with bombs onto [Allied] positions. Once the carts were close enough, the [IJA] would detonate the cart. The [Eastern Axis] also used untrained, vicious dogs in various campaigns and let them attack soldiers and civilians alike, as was the case in Hong Kong.

Interestingly, the [Eastern Axis] had also tried to use small mixed‐breed dogs to locate enemy troops, in much the same way as the [Western Axis] used the white dogs trained to point. Instead of pointing, the small dogs would search an area and once they located the enemy, would run back to [their masters] to alert them to the [Allied] positions. These dogs were not vicious, but the [Allies] soon figured out what the dogs were doing and would instead follow them back to the [Axis] positions.

The soldiers who encountered [Eastern Axis] war dogs often commented that the dogs were, for the most part, poorly cared for; they were not well groomed, were half‐starved, and had not been well trained. The [Eastern Axis] used the typical village street mongrel as patrol and messenger dogs. Not many of the purebred dogs that were owned by the more affluent members of [Imperial] society were donated for the war effort.

Quoting Robert Tindol’s The Best Friend of the Murderers: Guard Dogs and the Nazi Holocaust in Animals and War: Studies of Europe and North America:

Though the [Fascists] utilized dogs in various wartime rôles, they also trained and employed canine guards for use in most if not all of the concentration camps and death camps. In fact, most of the eyewitness accounts of the camps mention and sometimes even focus on the guard dogs that terrorized, often mauled, and occasionally killed the camp prisoners.

Moreover, the reports seemingly indicate that the dogs were not necessarily trained and brutalized as indiscriminate and uncontrollable killers, but often were friendly companion‐dogs from breeds not normally known for their unpredictability and viciousness.

[…]

Although Höss would have us believe [that] he is merely describing cruel and crude attempts at self‐amusement, dogs were also used for garden‐variety sadism at Auschwitz. Such was the case with Otto Moll, who was in charge of the Auschwitz crematoria and who was executed after the war. Moll’s psychosexual predilections had a particularly gruesome twist, for he “had a preference for setting his German shepherd loose on young, attractive Jewish women.”²⁰

The most notorious of the [Axis] camp guards’ canine companions was a St. Bernard cross named Barry, who served commandant Kurth Franz at both the Sobibór and Treblinka death camps. Contemporary photographs show that the dog was scarcely the type of animal that would normally elicit terror in adults or even children, and at least from outward appearances looked more like a docile and loving family companion than a killer. But Barry’s credentials are well‐documented:

[T]here was a dog named Barry who was trained by the SS men to bite the Jews, especially when they were naked on the way to the gas chamber. The beatings, the biting of Barry, and the shooting and shouting of the guards caused the Jews to run through the “tube” and push themselves into the “baths,” hoping to find some escape from the hell around them.²¹

Barry was not used merely to herd victims into the gas chambers, either. Other reports indicate that Franz often walked through the camp, unleashing his dog on hapless victims in an arbitrary fashion:

When Franz and his dog Barry would approach the group of prisoners, they would all instantly be on their guard, for they knew [that] his tour always ended with someone being victimized.²²

The Third Reich also inhibited the friendly relations that Jews, Roma and Sinti could have with canines and other animals, though the results were not always successful. Quoting Boria Sax’s Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust, page 119:

The [Third Reich’s] animal protection laws contained little aspiration toward universality. Both legal documents and public announcements repeatedly emphasized their specifically German character, and violations were ‘sometimes referred to as “foreign to the spirit of the people” [Volks‐fremd]. The [Third Reich] tried to deny the comfort offered by animals and nature to many people.

[Roma and Sinti], living on the fringes of European society for centuries, had learned to exploit sources of food that were shunned by the majority; at times they hunted hedgehogs. These were protected (Giese and Kahler, p. 242), and Hermann Göring had given them special status as “useful animals.” To make the hunt for hedgehogs more difficult, [Roma and Sinti] were forbidden to own dogs. This regulation, which had precedents before [1933] (Wippermann, pp. 195–96), was among the earliest that restricted the contact of despised groups of people with animals.

Laws were designed, whether consciously or not, to confirm the identification of Jews with the decadence of urban civilization. A decree of February 15, 1942, prohibited Jews, whom the [Axis] considered naturally cruel to animals, from having pets (Wippermann, p. 196). The decree was a preliminary step toward deportation of the Jews to concentration camps, where conditions would not be compatible with the animal protection laws.

Since there was a lack of shelters, the pets confiscated from Jews were almost always euthanized. Jews were also forbidden to hunt, a favorite activity of rural people. The literature of the period, especially that of victims, documents how precious contact with animals often became for those living under [Axis] domination.

The Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, forced to work under severe conditions as a French prisoner of war, reports that friendship with a stray dog reaffirmed the humanity of the prisoners. The prisoners named the dog “Bobby.” “He would appear at morning assembly,” Levinas writes, “and was waiting: for us as we returned, jumping up and down and barking with delight. For him, there was no doubt [that] we were men” (p. 153).

As with humour, canines could be instruments of healing as well as oppression. For example, Sharon Peters wrote a book titled Trusting Calvin: How a Dog Helped Heal a Holocaust Survivor's Heart, and Isaiah Spiegel’s A Ghetto Dog indicates that these quadrupeds could be of some consolation to the people stuck in ghetti.

Further reading: Breeding Racism: The Imperial Battlefields of the “German” Shepherd Dog