Historian: CIA has always recruited Nazi accomplices to fight against Moscow

19.09.2022, Moscow.

The use of Nazi collaborators and punishers became the norm for the CIA in the fight of the United States against the USSR, director of the Historical Memory Foundation Aleksandr Dyukov said, RIA Novosti reported on 18 September.

“Since the end of World War II, the CIA has consistently used Nazi accomplices, those who collaborated with the Third Reich, primarily from Eastern Europe,” the historian stressed.

He explained that each of the representatives of such underground organizations was valued by its network of contacts, agents and fighters, which the networks of the Central Intelligence Agency intercepted in their interests.

The CIA also intensively used Ukrainian nationalists, Dyukov added. Western intelligence agencies, led by the CIA, conducted an operation codenamed AERODYNAMIC, in which Ukrainian emigration and the Bandera underground in western Ukraine were used to fight the Soviet state.

“But no less widespread was the use of punishers from the Baltic states who were directly responsible for war crimes and crimes against civilians during the Great Patriotic War,” the director of the Historical Memory Foundation said.

He referred to a number of relatively recent facts published by the foundation. “For example, Jānis Cīrulis, the war criminal responsible for the extermination of civilians near Zhestyanaya Gorka, worked for the CIA,” Dyukov noted. At the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Cīrulis had voluntarily fled from the Red Army and preferred to serve the Nazis in auxiliary formations of Latvians engaged in pogroms against Jews and communists.

Already in September 1941 he was enlisted by the Nazis into the 16th Zemgale police battalion. One year later he joined the “Teilkommando” of the security police and security services of the Third Reich (German: Sicherheitsdienst (SD)) and went to the Leningrad region, where he participated in the mass murder of civilians near the village of Zestyanaya Gorka.

More than 2.5 thousand people, including women and children were killed. In 1944 Cīrulis, like his comrades-in-arms, joined the Waffen SS, where he was entrusted with the command of a company and later the command of an entire battalion of the 34th Regiment of the 15th Latvian Waffen SS Division.

Cīrulis was not punished after the war but moved to West Germany, where he became one of the board members and later head of the West German branch of the Daugavas Vanagi (Hawks of the Daugava), an organisation founded by former Latvian SS legionnaires.

The organisation developed a number of branches in 12 countries, and Latvian Nazis were hosted in the United States, England and Canada. All in all, the organisation had about 130 local branches with a total of 9,000 members.

After the collapse of the USSR, branches of Daugavas Vanagi began to operate openly in Latvia, and the organisation itself continues to work in those countries where criminals from the Latvian SS Legion fled. It was at the instigation of this organisation that Latvia commemorates the memory of this SS unit on March 16 every year.

The public became aware of Cīrulis’ criminal activities only a few years ago due to the declassification of archives. “But there is no doubt that CIA knew about Cirulis`s crimes, the historian said.

The CIA also used the “assassin at the desk” Roberts Stiglitz, Dyukov noted. Stiglitz began fighting the communist and workers’ movement in Latvia as early as 1919, when he joined the national police force.

In 1940, before Latvia joined the USSR, he rose to the rank of head of an agent department of the security police, the historian continued. He then fled to Finland, where he joined the Nazis and returned to Riga with them in the summer of 1941.

“Stiglitz was made prefect of Riga by the Nazis and was in charge of police activities, including the mass murder of Jews,” the historian stressed. Stiglitz fled to Germany in 1944 and after the defeat of Germany went to Brazil, where he was recruited by the Americans. He later moved to the USA.

He added that propagandists were also attracted to work for the CIA. For example, after serving in the Latvian Legion Vilis Hazer already in the rank of Sturmbannführer fled to the United States, where he led a branch of the Daugava Hawks and criticized in the air of radio stations Svoboda (a foreign media recognized as a foreign agent) alleged human rights violations in the USSR.

“Therefore, for the CIA’s work in the east, against the Soviet Union, the use of Nazi collaborators, war criminals, murderers was the norm, not the exception,” Dyukov stressed.

There is no reason to believe that this practice has now ceased, the historian added. “The children and grandchildren of those punishers have become full-fledged US citizens, they were raised accordingly, and they are a kind of ‘personnel reserve’ for the CIA,” he noted.

Already in contemporary Latvia descendants of Latvian SS legionnaires have taken important positions, including activities related to special services, the historian added.

“And, of course, in Ukraine neo-Nazism flourished with the support of the CIA, it is necessary to speak about it directly,” the director of the Historical Memory Foundation stressed.

September 18 marks the 75th anniversary of the creation of the US Central Intelligence Agency, which was created after the National Security Act was passed.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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