Nazis on the beach: How Spain’s Costa Blanca became a safe haven for SS officers after war
Not sure of the truth of this. It could be a fantasy. The Argentina refuge is well established but Spain?
The Costa Blanca is today almost a second colony for British expatriates and tourists but a new film has revealed how this part of Spain was once the favoured refuge of Nazis hiding from the reach of law.
The Substitute tells the story of how after the Second World War former SS officers used Spain as their personal fiefdom, helped in no small measure by General Franco’s sympathetic regime.
Even after the Spanish dictator’s death in 1975, the Spanish secret service and police ensured that the country remained a safe haven for loyal followers of Adolf Hitler who were hunted by international prosecutors and Mossad, the Israeli secret service.
Though General Franco’s sympathetic attitude to the Third Reich and its loyal servants has been documented in a number of books, few Spanish films have dared tackle this subject – until now.
Oscar Aibar, director of The Substitute, only sought to tell this story after a chance encounter in a bar in Calpe, a resort in southeastern Spain where British expatriates make up nearly 14 per cent of the population.
“Ten or 15 years ago, I spent my summer in Calpe. There were photos of famous people who had eaten there on a bar wall. There was one of six people in SS jackets. I asked if there was a film being made and they said “no, no, these are the Germans from Denia, a village nearby’,” he told The Independent.
“I became interested. The mayor of Denia told me they used to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, they all wore their uniforms from the Second World War and played Wagner.”
Mr Aibar, whose film has received critical acclaim in Spain, said when he started research on the film four years ago he spoke to two former agents from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
They related two plots to kidnap wanted ex-Nazis who were hiding out in Spain.
“In 1967 during the Six-Day War, Mossad believed that an expert in missile technology lived in (southeastern) Spain. They tried to kidnap him but this failed,” Mr Aibar said.
The other operation was to try and capture Dr Aribert Heim, the so-called “Dr Death” of the Mauthausen concentration camp who injected prisoners with unknown substances.
In 1982, when democracy had returned to Spain, Mossad tried to kidnap Heim who was also believed to be hiding out in Spain, Mr Aibar said.
“Heim liked to dive and to go sea fishing. They wanted to kidnap him at sea but it failed.”
Heim was later said to have escaped to Uruguay where he was reputed to have set up a clinic. In 2005, Spanish police mounted an operation to arrest Heim after it was reported that he was living in the Costa Brava. Reports suggest he died in Egypt in 1992, but no trace of his body has been found.
“For any fascists in Spain, these men were like rock stars for them,” said Mr Aibar.
These stories of the Nazis hiding under the Spanish sun had all the elements for the thriller which later became The Substitute.
The film tells the story of a police officer who settles on the Costa Blanca hoping for a quiet life but who comes across a web of former Nazis.
It recreates how even in the early 1980s Spain was struggling with the forces of Francoism even after the dictator’s death as the officer tries – and fails – to bring the wanted men to justice.
Among the best known refugees from the Third Reich in Spain was Otto Skorzeny, an SS lieutenant colonel who took part in an 1943 operation to rescue the deposed Italian Benito Mussolini from the partisans.
He escaped from the Allies after the Second World War and settled in Madrid where he was allegedly later recruited by Mossad to work for them. He later died in 1975 from lung cancer.
Leon Degrelle, known as the “Belgian Fuhrer” who led a pro-Nazi party in his own country and served with the SS, escaped to Spain in 1945.
Under the protection of the Franco regime, he lived under the name José León Ramírez Reina, until his death in Malaga in 1994.
Less well known is Clarita Stauffer, who was born in Madrid to a German family before the Second World War. She helped Nazis hide in Franco’s Spain.
Peter Besas details in his 2015 book Nazis in Madrid how Stauffer would help provide fugitives with new clothes, jobs and false identity papers.
She was said to have helped Walter Kutschmann, a former Gestapo officer who was wanted for the massacre of 2,000 Jews in Poland in 1941, to escape arrest. He was later arrested in 1985 in Buenos Aires and died in hospital in Argentina the following year.
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In Midst of Drug Pricing Debacle, Americans Are Choosing An Alternative Path to Traditional Medical Insurance
As tends to be the way Congress handles things, the lowering of prescription drug prices as been rather slow as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tries to corral members. But Congress isn't the only one getting involved in the issue of prescription drug prices.
At the start of the month, Solidarity HealthShare announced that they are partnering with online search tools from Drexi to offer sharing with prescriptions. They are the first, and currently only, health share that offers sharing in prescriptions and medications, according to Solidarity HealthShare President, Chris Faddis. CEO Bradley Hahn pointed out that "[m]embers can now receive prescriptions that are far below industry average prices."
Health share ministries, including those like Solidarity HealthShare, are also particularly attractive for Americans who want to be at peace knowing that their medical care costs will not go towards funding medical procedures that they find morally or religiously objectionable, such as abortion or surgery to change one's sex.
One might even find a sense of community with their health insurance in turning to Solidarity HealthShare, as opposed to a more traditional health insurance company, as Faddis and Hahn emphasized in a conversation with Townhall. For example, members can see where their costs are going, such as how families are helping each other out. They expanded to the public about six years ago, and have about 10,000 families as part of the program.
When asked how he sells Solidarity to members, Hahn mentioned that "the health care system is broken, and there's got to be other solutions in there." He explained that when it comes to this "better solution" they aim for, it amounts to "a fair and just pricing approach to healthcare," with members knowing that they "joiningg a community" and that they "have an advocate," so that they will be "protected" by Solidarity, which will "be by at side" while they "try to get fair and reasonable pricing."
He also emphasized that members also pay a discount.
What sets Solidarity apart from other, more traditional health insurance companies, is the "transparency" prescription drug costs as well, which is something Hahn explained to Townhall they really "address head on" so as to provide "a comprehensive solution for our members."
Previously, Solidarity shared in the cost of incidental prescription costs, such as antibiotics. It's through the new platform that they're able to offer cost sharing with recurring prescription drugs.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/11/10/solidarity-health-share-n2598916
************************************************Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton ripped President Joe Biden’s remark that labeled Kyle Rittenhouse a “white supremacist”
Cotton shared the comments during a “Fox & Friends First” interview Thursday morning.
“I want to focus on what Joe Biden said last year, which is calling this young man a white supremacist based on a few seconds of video,” Cotton said.
“As I often say, when there’s a shooting like this, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on some video circulating on social media. You should allow all the facts to be collected and make a reasoned judgment,” he added.
Cotton also commented that Biden’s critical response has become the “go-to” move of Democrats.
“When Joe Biden called Kyle Rittenhouse a white supremacist last year, it really was just the go-to move of the Democrats,” Cotton said. “They do this all the time when they’re losing an argument on the merits,” the senator argued.
Cotton then applied the attitude by Democrats to the left’s response to school board issues where parents are viewed as enemies for protesting policies like closures or critical race theory.
“They don’t like parents going to school boards to protest what their kids are learning or school closures, so those parents are called racists,” he said.
“They don’t like that Virginians elected Republicans last week, they condemn Virginia voters as racist,” Cotton added.
The senator argued Democrats even apply the same approach to the Constitution when it fits their agenda. “They don’t like the United States Constitution or the norms and the customs of the United States Senate, so they call it racist,” Cotton said.
Cotton noted the name-calling is a losing approach and said it’s “not a sign” of a strong party.
“They are constantly losing arguments with the American people, and then they just revert to name-calling towards their opponents. It’s not a sign of a party that is strong or healthy,” he said.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Black Privilege
When NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired from basketball in 1989, his farewell tour included lengthy standing ovations and gifts ranging from framed jerseys to a Persian rug to a yacht emblazoned with “Captain Skyhook.” But some fans, no doubt many of them, were left to wonder why the NBA was honoring this man, given that he’d spent his entire career being a petulant jerk. Had the league run out of humans?
Apparently, the Abdul-Jabbar apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Kareem’s son Adam, 29, was sentenced Tuesday in Southern California to six months in jail. His crime? He stabbed his 60-year-old neighbor seven times with a hunting knife. Prosecutors said the victim, Ray Winsor, was stabbed in the back of the head, suffered a fractured skull, and nearly died of blood loss after collapsing outside of the emergency room.
As Fox 5 San Diego reports:
Abdul-Jabbar pleaded guilty to three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and a count of carrying a dirk or dagger, all felonies, while admitting sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury on the victim. He could have faced up to nine years and eight months in prison if convicted as charged at trial, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Six months for seven stabs with a hunting knife? Is it just us, or does that sentence seem a bit, oh, light? What’s more, as part of his plea deal, Abdul-Jabbar’s sentence was stayed until January 7, which the DA’s office said will allow him to apply for home confinement instead of incarceration.
“This slap on the wrist is an absolute miscarriage of justice,” said District Attorney Todd Spitzer after the sentencing. “This man nearly bled to death in front of the emergency room doors after being stabbed so violently over and over that his skull was fractured.”
Wow. We’re not sure whether it’s “rich privilege” or “black privilege” or a combination of both, but that’s some serious privilege. Abdul-Jabbar must’ve had a sterling legal team in his corner, because there’s no way a public defender could’ve worked out such a sweet plea deal. One wonders whether his dad’s name, or his millions, helped him here.
One also wonders whether his son’s stunningly light sentence will cause Kareem to reconsider his comments from last year, when, at the height of the George Floyd riots, he wrote in an LA Times op-ed: “The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system, and jobs. … We die at a significantly higher rate than whites, are the first to lose our jobs, and watch helplessly as Republicans try to keep us from voting. Just as the slimy underbelly of institutional racism is being exposed, it feels like hunting season is open on blacks.”
Poor Kareem. Especially if he doesn’t understand that blacks and whites both die at the exact same rate: 100%.
To be fair to young Abdul-Jabbar, though, residents in the area described him as a “good kid” and were shocked by the then-alleged violence. The 6-foot-8-inch lad even walked over to the victim’s house the next day and apologized to his wife.
Sorry about the multiple stab wounds, ma'am. He just kinda caught me at a bad time.
And isn’t that the way it always works? They’re all such nice young men until they pull out the ol’ hunting knife and start stabbing away at their elderly neighbors. As Winsor himself put it: “I sort of got on him because the lady who takes care of him is 83 years old, he doesn’t do anything for her, and it just bums me out. She’s in a walker taking her trash cans down.”
According to Winsor, he started to walk away from Abdul-Jabbar and “felt punching.” As it turns out, then, the assailant in this case isn’t just any thug; he’s a backstabbing thug. “I thought he punched me a couple of times,” said Winsor, “but then I saw blood.”
So the old white guy nearly got stabbed to death in a dispute about garbage cans — a dispute about the proper treatment of the elderly.
Next time, maybe he’ll check his privilege and mind his own business
https://patriotpost.us/articles/84141-kareem-abdul-jabbars-black-privilege-2021-11-11
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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