Welcome back, and welcome to 2003

Fredrick Töben

As we enter our 10^th year of operations, we can look back with some satisfaction and conclude that generally all has gone according to plan. We have forced the issues, we have received clarifications: the liars and hypocrites had to come out of the woodworks and do their deeds in public rather than continue a game from behind the scene. We do not blanket condemn groups, for example the Jews, but rather we mention names, and we point out the individuals whose objectionable behaviour attempts to destroy our world view.

Some would say we have paid a heavy price for all this. Perhaps. But if we regard our life’s journey as a unique one-time-only journey, then we have practised what we preach, and we have lead by example. That is what Revisionism is all about, to think reflectively as independently as possible, and at the same time attempt to uphold our moral and intellectual integrity. I don’t think there is much else that we as individuals can do.

We welcome on board our new New Zealand Associate, Mr Kerry Bolton, who has for many years covered the New Zealand scene. He has in particular closely watched the Hayward and Kupka academic scandal that so outraged the New Zealand Jewish community, and more so those who cherish defending the hallmark of our civilization’s crowning glory: objective knowledge with truth as its guiding light. The hurt feelings that the Hayward and Kupka affairs generated ring hollow because they have been elevated above the academic ideal of free and unfettered research. In New Zealand the ‘Holocaust’ is firmly off-limits to critical analysis. The anti-Revisionists have embedded it within their deep-felt resentment against anyone who values truth above all. Interestingly, it is only a small minority who feels threatened by fearless Revisionists.

How long this Dark Age will last in New Zealand, I don’t know, and whether we can draw some comfort from the following is questionable. On 30 October 2002, I requested clarification from Waikato University’s Vice-Chancellor:

Dear Professor Gould

As I am summing up this matter for an article that focuses on the Hayward thesis, and Prof Bing's incessant attempt at finding anti-Jewish sentiments, I would be pleased to hear from you whether you think the so-called 'Holocaust' period of history ought to be excised from academic research.

Also, if research is delicately done, and still offends, should it be stopped, even if the truth-content of such research is mentally liberating?

Are you aware that any form of censorship could bring academia into disrepute as it was in the former Soviet Union where dogma ruled, and where the label of 'Revisionist' was a criminal matter that sent recipients to the Gulag for re-education, if they were luck?

Your considerate response would be much appreciated.

Most sincerely

Dr Fredrick Töben

Professor Gould replied on 8 November 2002 thus:

Dear Dr Töben

Thank you for your email of 30 October about the Kupka Affair. As you may have seen from the Report I commissioned on the matter, I attempted throughout to maintain the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression. I believe that on the whole the University managed to strike the right balance between that principle and the abhorence which was felt by so many at the views which Mr Kupka is alleged to have expressed. I entirely agree that there should not be areas of discussion which are prohibited, however strong the revulsion that some may feel at what is said.

Yours sincerely

Bryan Gould

Vice-Chancellor

A million dollar anti-German arson attack lights up Adelaide’s night sky

By Fritz the Cat, 11 November 2002

On Friday 8 November, at around 11 pm, South Australia’s German Club in Adelaide was torched. Damage is estimated to be over a million dollars.

“Priceless Wotan scrolls have been destroyed, “ wailed Pastor Hans Glaubegut, “and this has happened just because someone hates Germans. This senseless act is just beyond belief.”

Dr Siegfried Wohlgelernter, president of the Executive Council of Australian Germans, said the unique Walhalla Swastika collection housed in the basement was “utterly destroyed and we cannot even replace them. This is a horrible day for all Germans in the World.” He said he couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing. “This is beyond belief. We have always been good law-abiding Australian Germans,” he said.

The director of the Wotan Anti-Defamation League, Professor Herbert von der Katz said, “This is a gross act of anti-German terrorism, a blatant racist attack perpetrated by German haters. They do this just because we are Germans and they hate us for what we are. It is frightening to see this rise of anti-Germanism breaking out in Australia at this stage in the global war on terrorism. We must stop the haters from functioning so that they cannot spread their vile arson message anywhere else in the world.”

Adelaide’s Lord Mayor, His Worship Jakob Jacob said, “This blatant anti-German terrorist attack is an outrage. We will immediately make available to the German community a $66,000 grant so that the many priceless German treasures that were retrieved from the ruins can be restored to their original mint condition.”

Marlene Andersen, immediate past president of The National Council of German Women (SA), in an interview from Jerusalem, said that anti-German hatred in Israel is still quite strong. “What can you expect from a small, disaffected minority group of exploited individuals who just will not lie down and die,” she said.

South Australia’s premier, Richard von Kluge, said that not before The Advertiser began to spread anti-Germanism did he become aware that something was wrong at the Flinders Street Club house. “We will do everything in our power to get our law enforcers to hunt down and eliminate once and for all the German hating terrorists. We are a multicultural society and we don’t need fires in our streets to fuel this xenophobia against Germans. Such hate speech is bad for our world image as a tolerant society.” The premier said he is making available a grant of $666,666 for immediate use by the German Club’s Charity Committee.

The director if the Institute for Germanic Studies, Dr Goldreich Becher, said it is disgusting that a small number of racists, terrorist-deniers, haters and anti-Germanics have caused so much damage to his much-loved club. “The club never did anyone any harm,” he said, choking on his tears.

The South Australian Parliamentary Friends of Germany Group, Dr Dieter Hammer, said he would immediately demand State Parliament observe a minute’s silence at its first meeting next Monday. He would also demand an apology from any suspect terror arsonist the police take in for questioning. “It doesn’t matter whether they did it or not. The fact is that it happened, and any suspect haters had better be ready to apologise for the things they may have in mind doing some time in the future.” He would also demand that Parliament adopt a bi-partisan resolution condemning and future anti-German aggression. “I did not think anti-German, racist, hate terrorism would strike so close to home. There must be lots of evil people about who really hate Germans. That is intolerable and intellectually quite unacceptable.”

Australia’s Prime Minister, The Hon. Graf Adolf von und zu Adolph, said he would speak with the Treasurer, Johannes Goldberg, to see if the German club is eligible for an immediate grant of $6 million so that a complete refurbishment of the premises can be made as soon as possible. “We also need commemorative plaques at the arson site so that our tourists will become aware what a terrible tragedy befell the German community on the night of the 8^th November 2002.” The Prime Minister said he and his wife extend their heartfelt condolence to all those who had lost valuables in the arson attack. “This is a tragedy, the mother of all tragedies and a unique event in world history. “I am particularly saddened at the loss of the unique Walhalla Swastika collection, the finest in the world. We must never forget and we must never forgive,” Adolph said.

Australia’s Governor, His Excellency Sir Pastor Nick Gut said, “the whole Australian nation feels the loss of the Walhalla Swastika collection and prays for all Germans wherever they are in their hour of spiritual need. Not only Germans in Australia have been touched by this disgusting act of German hatred but Germans the world over have been touched by this horrendous act of German hatred perpetrated right here in Adelaide. I feel so guilty and I’m getting quite emotional about all this. What pain, what suffering these brave Germans have now to endure!” he said wiping away tears of anguish.

United Nation’s head, Suggar Dadday, expressed his loathing at this callous act of hatred. “We must ensure it never happens again. We will not forget; we will not forgive. We shall support the Australian government’s attempt to keep the memory of this unique event alive. To lose the whole Wotan Swastika collection in an arson hate attack is beyond belief. The UN Security Council will order that the Adelaide German Club be given an unconditional grant of $66 million so that a Hate Museum of Arson is built next to the German Club. “This,” Said Suggara Dadday, “will forever warn the world that anti-Germanism is an unacceptable and undemocratic, and it will not be tolerated in our civilised world where democracy rules supreme.

Philip Apfelbaum, alumni president of The Führer Adolf School, wished the club members a speedy recovery from their traumatic experience. “Our Germanic Choir will hold a free concert in Victoria Square next Saturday. We hope to see the public attend and donate not coins but big notes,” he said wiping away tears of grief.

Graf Helmut von und zu der Wiese, chairman of the Executive of the German Agency for Germany, welcomed the strong condemnation of anti-Germanism made by political leaders around the world. “We are truly one large family and now we know the world loves us. Those that hate us will be hunted down and disarmed. We will enact laws that ban outright the carrying of more than three matches at any one time. Only in this way can we stop such arson attacks from ever happening again.”

The World Germanic Organisations vice president, Wolf Biermann, welcomed the full support extended to all Germans by the President of the United States of America. “We’ll be up and running again in Flinders Street in no time. This terrorist attack is just a mishap that gets us up to date, but we’ll still be on schedule to centralize our world operations from our Flinders Street base.”

Werner Weiner, spokesman for the United German Appeal of South Australia, said, “ I am truly devastated. All our Needy German Registers are lost forever. These registers gave us priceless information on all Germans in need, and now we ourselves are in need of help. This is all beyond belief. Why, oh Why, oh Why did this hate arson happen?” Mr Weiner received counseling from a team of expert hate arsonist counselors specially flown in from the USA.

German Care of South Australia director, Bruno Braun, said he was lucky to be alive. “I am a hate-arson survivor,” he said. “Was just counting our cash reserves when I heard a loud bang. I fled my office, but I managed to fill my pockets with last month’s donations. I saved a little of the donations from the flames. I’m all right now, just a little traumatized by it all. I’m so emotional right now. I feel so sorry for the people who now have become needy because we can’t help them out right now. And to think that the priceless collection of Wotan Swastikas has been lost. It’s beyond belief.” Mr Braun then sobbed hysterically until two female arson counselors embraced him.

Adelaide CIB said the cause of the fire is suspicious but as yet unknown. At the moment no proof exists to suggest racist anti-Germanism started the blaze.

Investigations are continuing.

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The above is an obvious satirical look at the persecutionist mindset that cries out perpetual victimhood when, in fact, there is no reason to be paranoid. If one has become a little emotionally and intellectually mature.

Below follows the actual somewhat subdued report as published by the Sunday Mail on 10 November 2002, page 7.

Club to rebuild after fire

South Australia’s close-knit German community has vowed to work together to rebuild their Flinders St Club, which was partly destroyed in a $1 million fire on Friday night.

Costumes, decorations and flags were destroyed along with tables and chairs set up for 300 guests booked to attend a Carnival celebration last night.

“We worked everything up in preparation for it but there was nothing we could do about it,” Carnival organiser Horst Beier said.

As members gathered outside the premises yesterday morning to survey the damage to the function hall and stage, president Elke Pfau said everyone was absolutely devastated: “Members rang me crying because they had read that the place was gutted – it’s not but it’s pretty bad.”

About 30 people were still drinking in the ground-floor public bar when the fire started about 10.40 pm on Friday – alerted by the lights going out.

MFA spokesman Peter Hall said 28 firefighters had the blaze under control in 20 minutes.

Police fire investigators were also on site yesterday morning. Detective Senior Constable Huppatz, from Adelaide CIB, said the fire is considered to be suspicious.

On 13 November 2002, The Advertiser followed up with this article by Christopher Salter:

'Grudge' led to German Club fire

A person with a grudge was responsible for a $1 million fire which destroyed the German Club on Friday, president Elke Pfau said yesterday.

"It was a deliberate attack," she said. "There's no doubt about it."

Ms Pfau said police had told her the offender lit the fire using plastic chairs and a lectern on a wooden stage as fuel.

She said the arsonist had removed fuses from the fuse box, ensuring lights were out during the blaze.

"We were very lucky the vice-president was leaving when all the lights went out," Ms Pfau, a former police officer, said. "He put all the fuses back in and noticed the fire burning."

The fire, which began in the club's function room about 10.45pm, gutted parts of the three-storey building and caused significant smoke damage throughout the club.

Witnesses said there were about 60 people partying in the first floor bar at the time.

Ms Pfau said the club had received "overwhelming" support from its members and other ethnic clubs, and hoped its first-floor bar would be open for trading this week. "My home phone and my mobile have been running hot from people offering to help."

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We remind the reader that had the arson occurred at a Jewish establishment, then we would have heard international howls for retribution, as was the case in 1995. We reference the following from our archives, Newsletter No 34, January 1996. The heading is that of Adelaide Institute’s Online Newsletter.

A Grave Matter

Anti-Semitic hate claims not proven

When in July 1995, vandals desecrated Jewish and Catholic graves in Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery, an outcry from world Jewry, et al, condemned Adelaide as a hate-city. All sorts of odd persons from Britain and the USA flew in to condemn the citizens of Adelaide, nay, all Australians stood condemned. Adelaide Institute remained a lone voice of dissent in this frenzy, which only settled down when money was promised to fix up the damage. When the culprits responsible for the damage were hauled before the Adelaide Magistrates’ Court in December 1995, The Advertiser, the leader of this pack of ‘blood-money hounds’, featured the results of the trials in tempered language. The first item, by Michelle Weidenhofer, appeared on page 2 of its 13 December edition, while the second, by Phillip Coorey, appeared a day later, tucked away on page 22.

… [The articles are not reproduced here. The two suspects, Robert William Sherlock, 18, and Raymond Joseph Searby, 23, confessed and pleaded guilty to causing the damage.]

Where did the money go?

West Terrace Cemetery manager, Mr McGowan, is a jovial man who knows what is at stake. He welcomed our questions:

Q: Who paid for the five damaged Catholic graves?

A: One family paid for its own damaged grave and our Restoration Fund paid for the others.

Q: What happened to all the donated money? [Federal government, $15,000; State government, $15,000; City of Adelaide, $10,000; Jewish Community, not known.]

A: The total damage cost was just on $21, 000 and the rest is being held in trust – not with us!

Q: Why did you initially quote a damage amount of $60,000?

A: There were 62 graves and I had three different contractors doing the job. Each contractor worked on 20 graves.

By this time we had lost interest in this matter. Our own count nof damaged graves did not rise above 20 and now it seemed we would have to do a re-count. Alternatively, we would have to ask Mr McGowan for a view of the paperwork which Sherlock and Searby generated when they went on their drug-induced damage-spree through West Terrace Cemetery. We may follow up this matter at a later date.

Headstone smashed

The Advertiser, 17 November 1995

Six gravestones and a religious statue have been smashed at a disused cemetery near Birdwood, South Australia. Gumeracha Council workers discovered the vandalism in the Cromer Cemetery, in the Mt Crawford forest region about 4 km from Birdwood. The German cemetery, containing about 12 graves, was established more than 100 years ago.

Our comment: No comment!

A Reader’s Response: From: Haroldvan77@netscape.net

Hi,
In response to the subject of your e-mail, I would like to share with you a recent example I have seen of racism against Germans.

A well-educated friend recently stated to me that he ‘hates Germans’. He even thought that Germans today still maintained their hatred for Jews.

At 40 years of age my friend is too young to claim any experience from WW2. He is however very interested in documentaries and literature about WW2. He also enjoys computer games about war etc. A couple of his favourite games depict Nazi Germans as part of the demonic forces challenging the player of the game.

These various sources share a common theme of Germans as evil. My friend has an unbalanced view due to this saturation of anti-German propaganda he places himself under. I am tempted to tell him that he is no different to the Nazi Germans of WW2 who likewise were manipulated by propaganda.

Although not all people end up as extreme cases as my friend it's disappointing enough that much of the Australia media and politicians etc are almost as bad.

By the way, as you suggested, my local Federal member has not bothered to answer my query about Justice Branson's attack on free speech. Regards, Harold.

We have requested leave to appeal against Justice Branson's 17 September 2002 Judgment before the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. A date for the hearing will be set sometime after 22 February 2003.

We have engaged a Solicitor, Junior and Senior Counsel who will prepare the matter, and if leave is granted to appeal, then this test case will clarify how much free speech we still enjoy in Australia.

We presented the matters of fact on which our view is founded before the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), then before a single judge before the Federal Court of Australia (FCA). But all this was ignored as irrelevant because the only thing the Applicant, Jeremy Jones, needed to prove was 'a hurt feeling'. He did not have to prove, through medical reports, the 'hurt' suffered on account of having read our material on Adelaide Institute's website.

Usually in such damages cases, an Applicant needs to produce extensive medical evidence to prove that he has suffered some mental damage. The HREOC commissioner and the FCA judge merely accepted his word as evidence that he has been 'offended' by reading our material. Neither the commissioner nor the judge advised Jeremy Jones to ignore the material, thereby avoiding experiencing a hurt feeling, and thereby exercising his willpower, maturity and moral courage to turn away from our website.

His claim before HREOC and the FCA made him a 'Holocaust' affirmer. But he did not have to provide any proof that the alleged murder weapon existed, or about the alleged six million Jewish deaths. The judge accepted his claim without asking him to substantiate his claims in any way whatsoever.

Instead, the judge handed out a gag-order, which categorically states that certain historical matters — the gassings and the 'Holocaust' — must not he doubted and questioned. The judge has sent a chilling message to any Australian who refuses to blindly accept the orthodox version of an historical event, thereby creating an historical dogma from which no-one may deviate even if this dogma contains factual errors.

In effect the judge has adopted a censorship form that prevailed in all former Soviet Union countries where dissenting individuals were sent to the Gulag prison camps for being 'Revisionists'.

We are at the beginnings of this process in Australia, and Justices Branson and Hely willingly complied with the implementation of such persecution of dissenting opinions.

Australia does not have a First Amendment that guarantees free speech, as the USA enjoys.

Now, at the appeal stage, matters of fact become almost irrelevant and it is now matters of law that will be illuminated, to see whether the judge has erred in law.

We shall also attempt to test the constitutionality of the Racial Discrimination Act. It is our view that the 17 September 2002 FCA Judgment has made Australia a racist country. The judgment has categorized Jewish Australians as a racial entity, which they are not. This is exactly what the German National Socialists (Nazis) did with their Nuremberg Racial Law during the 1930s. It suited the Jewish National Socialists (Zionists) who needed a pretext on which to base their claim to the Moslem and Arabic-speaking land of Palestine.

The latest case on matters 'Holocaust' comes from South Africa.

Muslim radio station victorious in latest round of Shoah-denial case

By Michael Belling

18 November 2002, www.jta.org/page_view_story

CAPE TOWN - Jewish leaders here are reacting with dismay after their complaint charging a Muslim radio station with trivializing the Holocaust was rejected. In an acrimonious case, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies had filed the complaint with the nation's Broadcasting Complaints Commission about a 1998 broadcast on Radio 786, a Muslim station in Cape Town.

Appearing on the program was Yacoub Zaki, a historian at the Muslim Institute in London. During the broadcast, Zaki said, "I accept that 1 million-plus Jews died during the Second World War, but I dispute the fact that they were murdered, that they were killed by gassing. These people died, like other people in the camps, from infectious diseases, particularly typhus," he said.

The interview prompted a series of legal actions, including one brought before the Constitutional Court, the nation's highest court. In that case, the radio station sought to overturn a section of the broadcasters' code of conduct that prohibits hate speech. Radio 786 brought the case after the Board of Deputies had lodged a complaint against the station for airing the program, which dealt with the ideology of Zionism and how it resulted in the creation of the Jewish state.

Earlier this year, the Constitutional Court sided with the radio station and struck down several provisions of the Broadcasting Code of Conduct as unconstitutional infringements on the right of free speech.

After that ruling, the Jewish Board of Deputies turned to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, as it had done previously, in hopes of obtaining a ruling against the radio station.

Now those hopes have been dashed.

In his ruling dismissing the complaint, commission official Roland Sutherland wrote that "the trivializing of the extent of the suffering" of Jews during World War II is "doubtless perceived by many who accept the accuracy of Holocaust evidence as churlish and insulting." Nevertheless, in my view, it is not the stuff of which reasonable people take offence to the degree it warrants the proscription of the expression of such views."

Hate speech is not protected under the free speech provisions of the South African constitution, but Sutherland ruled that the broadcast did not fall under the category of hate speech.

Sutherland found there was "no attack in the broadcast on the Jewish religion or Jews as such." He also ruled that the broadcast had included "no exhortation to hatred of any particular religious group or group of individuals."
The Board of Deputies subsequently issued a statement saying the ruling evoked "a deep sense of shock."
Denying or trivializing the Holocaust is "an attack on the dignity of the Jewish people and not just 'churlish' behavior," the statement said.

Jewish leaders are vowing to keep the case alive. "We will pursue every avenue open to us to take this matter further," Russell Gaddin, the Board of Deputies' national chairman, told JTA. "We believe we have a case they have to answer."

So, it's not all doom and gloom. There are spot-fires breaking out everywhere and the anti-Revisionists are doing everything in their power to put out these liberating fires.

We now need your urgent financial support so that we can mount a solid appeal in the Federal Court of Australia and have these matters clarified.

This is a test-case, a precedent-setting legal case that will either chill or liberate our enquiry into the truth of contentious historical issues.

Comment: 6 November 2002: Australians are asking themselves: Why is there this indecent haste to enact terrorist laws within Australia?

Admittedly, the terrible tragedies that have befallen the world since 11 September 2001, require a positive response. However, such horrible acts pale into insignificance when contrasted with what has befallen the world prior to 11 September 2001.

One glimmer of understanding may come from the following, again from South Australia, which has always been Australia's 'State of Dissent'!

Draw your own conclusion, but bear in mind that the control freaks are driven by hate, that they cannot tolerate a free and independent mind at work, a mind that loves nothing better than to clarify and explore the limits of its own existence.

The following statement by South Australia’s Premier ‘officially’ ended World War Two hostilities against Germany, and the Emergency Powers Act of 1941 was rescinded. We now have too much personal freedom, and before anyone wakes up to this fact, there is the need quickly to bring in new laws that will rob us of our personal freedom.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: It is my not so melancholy duty to report to the house that World War II is over in South Australia. But please, before the bells ring, let me explain why I make such a blindingly obvious claim. Cabinet has agreed today that a bill will be introduced to repeal the wartime Emergency Powers Act 1941. This legislation was passed and enacted at the darkest time in our history when Europe was enslaved and when Australia's freedom was in peril to give the government of South Australia broad powers to organise and fund civil defence in the state during World War II.

The act gave the wartime government of Tom Playford sweeping powers to make regulations to secure and maintain the safety and wellbeing of the civil population during wartime and to maintain public order. Civil defence was then the responsibility of state governments, and there was a fear that voluntary measures for civil defence could not be relied upon in a time of crisis. The Playford government of the time was concerned about the activities of certain parts of the population, including trade unions. The wartime Emergency Powers Act gives the government, and any government since then, extraordinary powers to suspend all civil liberties in South Australia. The government has the power to remove any group of South Australians from any part of the state and to require anyone `to furnish any prescribed information to any authority'. It includes the power to regulate almost anything produced or grown in South Australia. This includes `the production, manufacture, sale, supply and distribution of food, water, fuel, gas, electricity and any other commodities or things'. The Minister for Energy might be reluctant to see some of these powers repealed!

The act allows for the removal of livestock from any portion or property in this state, the regulation of transport of all kinds and can prohibit the use of lights. The Emergency Powers Act, still in force in South Australia to this very day, allows for rationing, fixing or controlling the acquisition or selling prices or profit margins, and requiring producers to amalgamate their production facilities or to work collectively. We can instruct factories to make any products that we see fit. I know that the Treasurer will be sad to lose some of these powers just on the day when he has learnt that he has them!

More seriously, the act gives the government the power to authorise any prescribed persons to enter and search any premises. These powers supplemented commonwealth war legislation and ensured the control of businesses—something now achieved through the Corporations Law. Some of the powers in this act exist in a more modern and appropriate form in state disaster legislation.

As I am sure almost all of us know, World War II ended in 1945. After extraordinary sacrifice, Australia and its allies prevailed. The war was won, and through that victory our freedom was assured. So, the obvious questions are: why is this act still current on South Australia's statute book? Why is it still the law of South Australia? I am advised that the intention of the Playford government was that the Emergency Powers Act would expire when peace treaties were signed; that is the way it had worked after World War 1 with the Treaty signed at Versailles. But, after World War II, peace treaties were never signed because the Axis powers surrendered—

The Hon. M.D. RANN: It was unconditional surrender; there was no need for treaties. But the South Australian law lives on. In 1952, this act and a number of other South Australian wartime acts were amended to enable the Governor to issue a proclamation declaring that World War II had ended. So, seven years after the war, South Australia was set to formally declare that the war was over. But I am advised that no record could be found that this was ever done. In effect, the state of South Australia, its parliament and its laws do not acknowledge the passing of history. It seems that we are the only state in Australia with World War II legislation like this still on the statute book; and I do not know if we are the last place on earth to formally recognise the cessation of hostilities and the end of the Second World War.

So, I am informing this house today that the government will move by legislation to abdicate and relinquish the boundless wartime powers we now have at our disposal but, I hope, like our parliamentary colleagues opposite when they were in government, wielded with wisdom and moderation.

Like many members gathered here, my own family served in World War II, so I make this declaration with a certain regret, but at the same time with a good deal of relief and some inward rejoicing. It is now time, by repealing this legislation, to recognise the long 57-year walk South Australia has made towards the sunlit uplands of peace, where our children can dream of the glad hope of tomorrow.

This legislative anomaly has been discovered through the process of conforming to our obligations under National Competition Policy. We have been required to conduct a sweeping review of legislation which discovered this act and which we are now required to remove from the statute book. So, the cabinet has agreed that we shall repeal the Emergency Powers Act of 1941. As Winston Churchill said during the darkest hours of the conflict in Europe:

But what I can say is that, thankfully, due to the courage and sacrifice of many Australians, their families and our allies, we no longer need the powers set down in the Emergency Powers Act of 1941. The war is over, but let us never forget that we enjoy our freedom and prosperity because of that victory.

Ultimately power comes always out of the system's, any system's, guns. Whoever endangers power structures from outside or within will have to face the fire works. No time lost for love and compassion, for truth and honesty and dignity. The priority is power over people and never ever power from the people, through the people, and for the people.

German war misery revealed
From The Times
20 November 2002

BRITAIN deliberately bombed German civilians during the war, setting ablaze cities, schools and churches, according to a new book that shatters a 50-year taboo in Germany.

"Terrible crimes were committed, yet no one could talk about them," says the historian Jorg Friedrich, author of Der Brand (The Fire).

"How could we raise these issues when weighed against the German-inflicted horrors of the concentration camps? How could we point a finger at the British and Americans who were feeding us and teaching us democracy?"

The book, serialised in the mass circulation Bild newspaper and promoted with television interviews, has now broken that silence.

Dr Friedrich, who has published several books on Nazi aggression, trawled through the archives of 70 cities to piece together the misery inflicted by the Allies.

More than 1 million tonnes of explosives were dropped on 1000 German towns and villages; 635,000 people died, most burnt to death or suffocated by toxic fumes.

He interviewed survivors who collected the bodies that had shrunk in the flames. "The carbonated corpses shrivelled to around 50cm," said Heinrich Bierg, from Wuppertal, who was 16 at the end of the war. "We had to store them in zinc baths or washing tubs. Three fitted in a tub, seven or eight in a bath."

The sheer accumulation of detail has shocked Germans. Trude Walther, a 20-year-old student, wept as she read the paper in Berlin yesterday. "I never knew," she said.

The stories come after recent disclosures of the vast number of rapes of German women by Soviet army soldiers, and a new novel by Gunter Grass about the bombing of the German refugee ship Wilhelm Gustoff towards the end of the war.

Germans, who have been told by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder that they are again a "normal country" unshackled by the past, increasingly see themselves as victims of war. Previously, only right-wing fringe publications dared to make such a claim.

School history lessons barely mentioned the Allied bombing campaign and, as German scholar the late W.G. Sebald noted in a first attempt to break the silence, no German novels on the subject were published. Professor Sebald's research threw light on some of the horrors, such as women carrying their dead babies in suitcases for months after a bombing attack.

Pictures of South Australia’s German Club in Flinders St. Adelaide, the day after the fire 9 November 2002