Customer Reviews

Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic fascist networks and their effect on U.S. cold war politics

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At the end of World War II, the U.S. government secretly brought many Nazis into the U.S. As detailed in "Quiet Neighbors" and other books examining the U.S. government's program for infiltrating Nazis into the U.S., these Nazis quietly integrated themselves into the American socio-political system. Bellant examines the penetration by Nazis and fascists of the American political system, focusing specifically on how Nazis and fascists have gained influence and leadership positions in the Republican Party. While the book needs to be revised and updated, it is excellent in presenting the underlying foundation of the Reagan and Bush presidencies. Valuable reading for anyone seeking to understand the agenda of the Republican right.

This book is very understandable. It draws a direct connect between the fascist ideology and today's radical right. I recommend this book so people can understand just how dangerous the far right is in the U.S.A.

In this book, Russ Bellant looks into the links between old Nazis and other extremists and the fringes of the Republican party during the Cold War.

My concerns about this book are not at all with its subject, but with the book's lack of seriousness. Extremists, violence, and terrorism have no place in democracies; unfortunately this book is so short that it leaves its readers pretty confused.

Many people in Eastern Europe were trapped with only disgusting options; the Communists had genocided millions in the Ukraine in the 1920s during the Holodomor and eventually screwed up all of Eastern Europe, but their only nearby rivals, the Germans, also had disgusting politicians. Some of the Eastern Europeans jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire not because they were right-wing thugs at heart, but because they were deathly afraid of Stalin and his concentration camps. However wrong their politics, it's inaccurate to insinuate that they got caught up in those circles because they were true-believing Fascists. Some were dangerous, some were kooky, and some were in a really rotten neighborhood at the wrong time, and treating all of them as the same sort of menace misrepresents the subject of this book.

In my opinion, this book is a polemic that would be a useful resource for more research, but it is most definitely not a judicious exposé.

Its readers - and this topic - deserve more and better.

The book, as the names suggests, attempts to link the Republicans Party to diehard old Nazis and their ideological kindreds bent on recreating a new Fourth Reich in America. Personally, I have no doubt that there are, or rather, were Nazis in the Republican Party following World War II (and just as likely in the Democratic Party too). After all, thanks to declassified documents, we know the US Government, following the end of the Second World War, and the onset of the Cold War, aided hundreds, if not thousands of former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers escape the punishment they would have otherwise faced. Some of these were spymasters whom the US Government thought could be useful in the anticipated conflict to come against Russia.

Operation Paperclip, for example, began under President Truman (a Democrat), and was responsible for bringing out Nazi scientists to work on missile development, and later, the American space program. Other secret US Government programs, however, brought out engineers, military planners and designers, other scientists, and simple bureaucrats. At the same time, the US Government turned a blind eye as other high ranking Nazis making their way to places such as Egypt, Syria, Iran, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Frankly, I found the author's attempt to somehow demonize the Republican Party overly transparent. Saying there were Nazis, or even a influx of Germans in the Republican Party after 1945 is like a conservative writer trying prove that there were Socialist in Labor Movement in the 1920's or 1930's or Communists in the Democratic Party during the 1930's through the 1950's. That these old Nazis continue to ply their efforts at turning the Republican Party into a Nazi front to be on the absurd.

I personally know most of the people who were involved in the Republican Heritage Groups Council that helped to elect Reagan and none of them were Nazi's.

Some of them were teenagers when they came to the United States and were not involved in any way with Nazi's in their countries of origin except to try and not be killed by them.

The horrible desecration that communism visited on the Eastern European countries these people were from led to a life long and well justified hatred of communism. And their embrace of American freedom and their fight against communism certainly doesn't make them Nazi's or Nazi sympathizers.

Bellant's flagrant attempts to make bizarre leaps of logic to fit an agenda cast him as the Art Bell of the left.