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New World Order (NWO), sometimes called the Great Reset
Posts # 194 (Dilip Panjwani - 23/8/15) and # 195 (Sid Belzberg - 23/8/15) indicate the extent of the confusion between DM and "Old-Style USSR Communism".
As I have posted before, a good start for the unknowledgeable is the seminal work on DM called "The New Democratic Theory" by Kenneth A. Megill - 70/1/1 - Paperback on Amazon (Hardcover almost impossible to find). I read it before I got sick.......would have great trouble getting through it now...........can only really read somewhat long articles at a sitting.......I have some unusual consequences from my Bi-Polar Disorder. But the book is in layman's language......a relatively easy read.
Deadline for comments on my proposal for our group to produce a set of Statements generally accepted by DM, and DM supporting, CT'ers in our group: Sunday, Aug. 20 @ 11:59 PM EDT. (Post # 171 - 23/8/13).
Thereafter I will, as soon as I can, propose the first DM Statement.
Bob A (Democratic Marxist)
Last edited by Bob Armstrong; Wednesday, 16th August, 2023, 07:36 AM.
Proposed Change in Protocol: Our CT'er group should make it mandatory that when a new Statement is proposed, it must be put forward with some supportive reasons (To date, we have not demanded this).
Reason: If there are supportive reasons given for the new Statement, someone with little knowledge of the issue will learn something about what the issue is about, and, maybe, some hints about how and where they can do their own research to confirm for themselves the Statement or to challenge the proposed Statement.
[This has come up already in the CT'er Negative Climate Change thread, which is using the same Statement Processing Protocol. The suggested change is in process there at the moment, and so far has not been opposed.]
Processing
I will give one week for the group to "oppose" this proposed protocol change (Deadline: Wednesday, Aug. 23 @ 11:59 PM EDT).
Statements Generally Accepted by CT'ers Here Concerning Human Self-Government
Statement # 7 (Proposed by Bob Armstrong - Post # 198 - 23/8/16)
Since people should be able to focus on higher activities of life (Philosophy, the Arts, Politics, etc.), automation will be a key factor in making this happen. It can free people from lower, less rewarding, work and life tasks. So some citizens will be able to dedicate more time to public life and government, and how to improve it.
[Note: I have taken this Statement from the Fb Democratic Marxist Global Forum (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2045...ref=nf&__xts__[0]=68.ARB5MaP7fzlN9ItgmSkMWzv60Rd9mIxsQIkIgIa6_Guh2MGR6mV82GdH-IxgmiiVaJcZ-NLi7Cz46VX0nn78clmPjd-pttzlYPR9dmEubTBnBdnGohd0bl3Fy4k02cb3BVHNVOcfjANvEEUCRw6k1IZDDsZV6l9V1Id5_NomySGWmEpA3Inygttyrt3-jYH1m1M50W3d94tVElUVaZ-SrM-WZ4BkYEj0ZYF5Y5X2d7KRG_MQJtND8fXyDSkU0F1I4FVHkI_eoiyOazUgCRS0lmfetiENOGsaJPb6MfuHzQ92-u7gMI_E8888fus). They are processing it there, and I thought it was good, and likely generally acceptable here.]
Processing Protocol
1. If there are no challenges, then the motion is “generally accepted” after one week.
2. The deadline for a Challenge is Wed., 23//8/23 @ 11:59 PM EDT.
Statements Generally Accepted by CT'ers Here Concerning Human Self-Government
Statement # 6
“Direct” democracy is preferable to “Representative” Democracy, if implementable. Usually, direct democracy has been practised in small, local political units. But with today's technology, direct democracy voting can be used within larger political units.
Processing
After one week, there have been no Challenges.
Conclusion
Statement # 6 is generally accepted, and joins the list of Statements.
Statements Generally Accepted by Libertarian CT'ers Here Concerning Human Self-Government
Statement # 1
Governments at all levels pass too many laws. Many are more restrictive than necessary, and some are just unnecessary. This unduly restrains the freedom of the individual, which is the paramount concern of society.
Statement # 2
But the main problem in current society is the "absolute enforcement" of law (Zero tolerance), even when such enforcement is illogical. An example might be giving a citizen a traffic ticket for going through a Stop Sign at midnight when no other pedestrian or vehicle is in sight. The laws are to be honoured in "spirit", though not always in the "letter".
Statement # 3
The Natural Law is: All is permissible to the individual that is not harmful to others/society. If one wants to harm oneself, though illogical, one is free to do so.
The Natural Law operates to bring common sense to law enforcement and to maximize the Freedom of the Individual. Thus, in certain circumstances (As in the traffic example above), the Natural Law overrides the actual relevant law, to provide an exception to the following of the law.
Statement # 5
Those in society charged with enforcement of law (Such as the police), have discretion to recognize the operation of the Natural Law in certain circumstances, and treat the conduct of the individual as not illegal. Thus they will not lay any charge against the individual.
Statement # 6
Where, by the conduct of the individual, someone breaks a law, and the Natural Law does not apply (There has been harm to another/society), the police/government can lay a charge and bring the individual before the court.
Statement # 7
The court shall verify the breaking of the law, and impose a penalty. Penalties should usually involve a "Compensation Payment" of some kind to the harmed individual/society at large. This will assist in deterring actions in society that are harmful to others/society.
Processing
No CT'er has come forward within one week to Challenge that a Statement is not an accurate Libertarian position (With the exception of Statement # 3 - revision proposed).
Conclusion
The 7 Statements are generally accepted by the Libertarian CT'ers in our group.
[Note: Statements are always open to Challenge that they do not accurately reflect the Libertarian policies. Rulings will be made on whether a Challenge is duplicative of a prior dismissed Challenge, and whether or not it will be allowed to be processed.]
Sid: "By the way, have you [Bob A] watched the videos I have posted yet?" - Post # 167 - 23/8/12
Sid has asked that I try to get through a number (I think there were two he was most concerned that I watch) of the longer videos he had posted on what he terms "The Great Reset" [Not easy for me due to a consequence of my Bi-Polar Disorder].
The Great Reset Lecture (Video)
I have both watched and reviewed the one video he wanted me to watch, The Great Reset lecture (37 min., 54 sec.): Post # 157 - 23/8/12. I confirmed this to him again in my Post # 169 - 23/8/13.
The Great Awakening (Movie)
I did ask if one of the other videos he wanted me to watch was a full length movie (2 hr. 49 min.) called the Great Awakening. In my Post # 169, I posted:
Is this the second one you are referring to?
The Great Reset From the Religious Point of View
A. Full Movie – The Great Awakening (From Sid Belzberg – dubbed Plandemic 3)
Sid did not answer me on this one, and whether he felt it was a critical one I watch (This would not be easy - whew).
Other New World Order/Great Reset Videos
I have in my notes that Sid specified two videos of particular importance. If the second is not the one referred to above, then I am uncertain which one was the second one. If there is another video Sid feels is critical for me to watch, would he mind again posting the link.
My Approach
I am not dodging here or being lazy, as he has sometimes suggested. I do have a serious medical restriction which makes both my reading, or viewing, long length materials quite challenging. I must do short sittings over a long period of time for completion, and I must sometimes just skim or jump ahead if I feel I have the gist.
But I can do both .........just takes a somewhat long time.
Statements Generally Accepted by Libertarian CT'ers Here Concerning Human Self-Government
Wikipedia:
The Libertarian Party is a political party in the United States that promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism, and limiting the size and scope of government. Wikipedia
Processing - Phase I - Developing the Statements - now completed (Subject to Statement # 3)
Statement # 1
Governments at all levels pass too many laws. Many are more restrictive than necessary, and some are just unnecessary. This unduly restrains the freedom of the individual, which is the paramount concern of society.
Statement # 2
But the main problem in current society is the "absolute enforcement" of law (Zero tolerance), even when such enforcement is illogical. An example might be giving a citizen a traffic ticket for going through a Stop Sign at midnight when no other pedestrian or vehicle is in sight. The laws are to be honoured in "spirit", though not always in the "letter".
Statement # 3
The Natural Law is: All is permissible to the individual that is not harmful to others/society. If one wants to harm oneself, though illogical, one is free to do so.
The Natural Law operates to bring common sense to law enforcement and to maximize the Freedom of the Individual. Thus, in certain circumstances (As in the traffic example above), the Natural Law overrides the actual relevant law, to provide an exception to the following of the law.
Statement # 5
Those in society charged with enforcement of law (Such as the police), have discretion to recognize the operation of the Natural Law in certain circumstances, and treat the conduct of the individual as not illegal. Thus they will not lay any charge against the individual.
Statement # 6
Where, by the conduct of the individual, someone breaks a law, and the Natural Law does not exempt them (There has been harm to another/society), the police/government can lay a charge and bring the individual before the court.
Statement # 7
The court shall verify the breaking of the law, and impose a penalty. Penalties should usually involve a "Compensation Payment" of some kind to the harmed individual/society at large. This will assist in deterring actions in society that are harmful to others/society.
Processing - Phase II - Opposing Libertarian Positions
[Note: As Group Secretary, I set out that this would be the second phase of dealing with the Libertarian positions: Post # 149 - 23/8/9:
"Note: We are not yet dealing with those who fundamentally oppose a Libertarian position. This will come in Phase Two of the processing of these Statements."
Opposition to a Particular Statement
We would ask that the opposer post first the Libertarian Statement s/he is opposing with its number. Then post an executive summary "Statement in Opposition". Then post your "Support" for Your opposing Statement and why the Libertarian position is not correct.
Please make a separate post for each Libertarian Statement you are opposing.......this way others opposed to this same Statement can make reference to the prior opposition post numbers re this particular Statement. It will lessen possible confusion.
The floor is yours CT'ers! Take a shot!
Bob A (As Group Secretary)
Last edited by Bob Armstrong; Thursday, 17th August, 2023, 08:13 AM.
Statements Generally Accepted by Libertarian CT'ers Here Concerning Human Self-Government
Wikipedia:
The Libertarian Party is a political party in the United States that promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism, and limiting the size and scope of government. Wikipedia
Processing - Phase I - Developing the Statements - now completed (Subject to Statement # 3)
Statement # 1
Governments at all levels pass too many laws. Many are more restrictive than necessary, and some are just unnecessary. This unduly restrains the freedom of the individual, which is the paramount concern of society.
Statement # 2
But the main problem in current society is the "absolute enforcement" of law (Zero tolerance), even when such enforcement is illogical. An example might be giving a citizen a traffic ticket for going through a Stop Sign at midnight when no other pedestrian or vehicle is in sight. The laws are to be honoured in "spirit", though not always in the "letter".
Statement # 3
The Natural Law is: All is permissible to the individual that is not harmful to others/society. If one wants to harm oneself, though illogical, one is free to do so.
The Natural Law operates to bring common sense to law enforcement and to maximize the Freedom of the Individual. Thus, in certain circumstances (As in the traffic example above), the Natural Law overrides the actual relevant law, to provide an exception to the following of the law.
Statement # 5
Those in society charged with enforcement of law (Such as the police), have discretion to recognize the operation of the Natural Law in certain circumstances, and treat the conduct of the individual as not illegal. Thus they will not lay any charge against the individual.
Statement # 6
Where, by the conduct of the individual, someone breaks a law, and the Natural Law does not apply (There has been harm to another/society), the police/government can lay a charge and bring the individual before the court.
Statement # 7
The court shall verify the breaking of the law, and impose a penalty. Penalties should usually involve a "Compensation Payment" of some kind to the harmed individual/society at large. This will assist in deterring actions in society that are harmful to others/society.
Processing - Phase II - Opposing Libertarian Positions
[Note: As Group Secretary, I set out that this would be the second phase of dealing with the Libertarian positions: Post # 149 - 23/8/9:
"Note: We are not yet dealing with those who fundamentally oppose a Libertarian position. This will come in Phase Two of the processing of these Statements."
Opposition to a Particular Statement
We would ask that the opposer post first the Libertarian Statement s/he is opposing with its number. Then post an executive summary "Statement in Opposition". Then post your "Support" for Your opposing Statement and why the Libertarian position is not correct.
Please make a separate post for each Libertarian Statement you are opposing.......this way others opposed to this same Statement can make reference to the prior opposition post numbers re this particular Statement. It will lessen possible confusion.
The floor is yours CT'ers! Take a shot!
Bob A (As Group Secretary)
Hi Bob,
There seems to be a typo in your Statement #6, and you may want to correct that...thanks.
Thanks Dilip - now corrected! Does this make it clearer?:
Statement # 6
Where, by the conduct of the individual, someone breaks a law, and the Natural Law does not exempt them (There has been harm to another/society), the police/government can lay a charge and bring the individual before the court.
It has been most helpful to the rest of us to have teased out these Statements on your political philosophy....thanks for your guidance.
Also, the Post # 202 (23/8/17) seemed so good, I've re-posted it [Edited a bit] on my Fb site, The REAL News (https://www.facebook.com/bob.armstrong.9235). I have challenged my "THE Think Tank" to propose opposing Statements there!
Bob A (As Group Secretary)
Last edited by Bob Armstrong; Thursday, 17th August, 2023, 08:19 AM.
Sid: "By the way, have you [Bob A] watched the videos I have posted yet?" - Post # 167 - 23/8/12
Sid has asked that I try to get through a number (I think there were two he was most concerned that I watch) of the longer videos he had posted on what he terms "The Great Reset" [Not easy for me due to a consequence of my Bi-Polar Disorder].
The Great Reset Lecture (Video)
I have both watched and reviewed the one video he wanted me to watch, The Great Reset lecture (37 min., 54 sec.): Post # 157 - 23/8/12. I confirmed this to him again in my Post # 169 - 23/8/13.
The Great Awakening (Movie)
I did ask if one of the other videos he wanted me to watch was a full length movie (2 hr. 49 min.) called the Great Awakening. In my Post # 169, I posted:
Is this the second one you are referring to?
The Great Reset From the Religious Point of View
A. Full Movie – The Great Awakening (From Sid Belzberg – dubbed Plandemic 3)
Sid did not answer me on this one, and whether he felt it was a critical one I watch (This would not be easy - whew).
Other New World Order/Great Reset Videos
I have in my notes that Sid specified two videos of particular importance. If the second is not the one referred to above, then I am uncertain which one was the second one. If there is another video Sid feels is critical for me to watch, would he mind again posting the link.
My Approach
I am not dodging here or being lazy, as he has sometimes suggested. I do have a serious medical restriction which makes both my reading, or viewing, long length materials quite challenging. I must do short sittings over a long period of time for completion, and I must sometimes just skim or jump ahead if I feel I have the gist.
But I can do both .........just takes a somewhat long time.
Bob A (Anti-NWO)
Bob, First I am sorry to hear of your health issue that prevents you from focusing properly over extended periods of time. Second, the movies you have posted here have nothing whatsoever to do with the movies I requested you view.
Here are the correct movies
A History of Nazi WEF leader Klaus Schwab AKA "Benevolent tyrant" as per Bob A.
Schwab Family Values
Is the real Klaus Schwab a kindly old uncle figure wishing to do good for humanity, or is he really the son of a Nazi collaborator who used slave labour and aided Nazi efforts to obtain the first atomic bomb? Johnny Vedmore investigates. BYJOHNNY VEDMORE
FEBRUARY 20, 2021
29 MINUTE READ
On the morning of 11 September 2001, Klaus Schwab sat having breakfast in the Park East Synagogue in New York City with Rabbi Arthur Schneier, former Vice President for the World Jewish Congress and close associate of the Bronfman and Lauder families. Together, the two men watched one of the most impactful events of the next twenty years unfold as planes struck the World Trade Center buildings. Now, two decades on, Klaus Schwab again sits in a front row seat of yet another generation-defining moment in modern human history.
Always seeming to have a front row seat when tragedy approaches, Schwab’s proximity to world-altering events likely owes to his being one of the most well-connected men on Earth. As the driving force behind the World Economic Forum, “the international organization for public-private cooperation,” Schwab has courted heads of state, leading business executives, and the elite of academic and scientific circles into the Davos fold for over 50 years. More recently, he has also courted the ire of many due to his more recent role as the frontman of the Great Reset, a sweeping effort to remake civilization globally for the express benefit of the elite of the World Economic Forum and their allies.
Schwab, during the Forum’s annual meeting in January 2021, stressed that the building of trust would be integral to the success of the Great Reset, signalling a subsequent expansion of the initiative’s already massive public relations campaign. Though Schwab called for the building of trust through unspecified “progress,” trust is normally facilitated through transparency. Perhaps that is why so many have declined to trust Mr. Schwab and his motives, as so little is known about the man’s history and background prior to his founding of the World Economic Forum in the early 1970s.
Like many prominent frontmen for elite-sponsored agendas, the online record of Schwab has been well-sanitized, making it difficult to come across information on his early history as well as information on his family. Yet, having been born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938, many have speculated in recent months that Schwab’s family may have had some tie to Axis war efforts, ties that, if exposed, could threaten the reputation of the World Economic Forum and bring unwanted scrutiny to its professed missions and motives.
In this Unlimited Hangout investigation, the past that Klaus Schwab has worked to hide is explored in detail, revealing the involvement of the Schwab family, not only in the Nazi quest for an atomic bomb, but apartheid South Africa’s illegal nuclear programme. Especially revealing is the history of Klaus’ father, Eugen Schwab, who led the Nazi-supported German branch of a Swiss engineering firm into the war as a prominent military contractor. That company, Escher-Wyss, would use slave labor to produce machinery critical to the Nazi war effort as well as the Nazi’s effort to produce heavy water for its nuclear program. Years later, at the same company, a young Klaus Schwab served on the board of directors when the decision was made to furnish the racist apartheid regime of South Africa with the necessary equipment to further its quest to become a nuclear power.
With the World Economic Forum now a prominent advocate for nuclear non-proliferation and “clean” nuclear energy, Klaus Schwab’s past makes him a poor spokesperson for his professed agenda for the present and the future. Yet, digging even deeper into his activities, it becomes clear that Schwab’s real role has long been to “shape global, regional and industry agendas” of the present in order to ensure the continuity of larger, much older agendas that came into disrepute after World War II, not just nuclear technology, but also eugenics-influenced population control policies.
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Last edited by Sid Belzberg; Thursday, 17th August, 2023, 10:52 AM.
On 10 July 1870, Klaus Schwab’s grandfather Jakob Wilhelm Gottfried Schwab, referred to later as simply Gottfried, was born in a Germany at war with its French neighbours. Karlsruhe, the town where Gottfried Schwab was born, was located in the Grand Duchy of Baden, ruled in 1870 by the 43 year old Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick I. The following year, the aforementioned Duke would be present at the proclamation of the German Empire which took place in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. He was the only son-in-law of the incumbent Emperor Wilhelm I and, as Frederick I, was one of the reigning sovereigns of Germany. By the time Gottfried Schwab turned 18 years old, Germany would see Wilhelm II take the throne upon the death of his father, Frederick III.
In 1893, a 23 year old Gottfried Schwab would officially depart from Germany giving up his German citizenship and leaving Karlsruhe in order to emigrate to Switzerland. At the time, his occupation was noted as being that of a simple baker. Here, Gottfried would meet Marie Lappert who was from Kirchberg near Bern, Switzerland and who was five years his junior. They would marry in Roggwil, Bern, on 27 May 1898 and the following year, on 27 April 1899, their child Eugen Schwab was born. At the time of his birth, Gottfried Schwab had moved up in the world, having become a Machine Engineer. When Eugen was around one year old, Gottfried and Marie Schwab decided to return to live in Karlsruhe and Gottfried reapplied for German citizenship again.
Eugen Schwab would follow in the footsteps of his father and also become a Machine Engineer and in future years, he would advise his children to do the same. Eugen Schwab would eventually begin working at a factory in a town in Upper Swabia in Southern Germany, capital of the district of Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg.
The factory where he would forge his career was the German branch of a Swiss company named Escher Wyss. Switzerland had many long standing economic ties to the Ravensburg area, with Swiss traders in the early 19th century bringing in yarn and weaving products. In the same period, Ravensburg delivered grain to Rorschach until 1870, alongside breeding animals and various cheeses, deep within the Swiss Alps. Between 1809 and 1837, there were 375 Swiss people living in Ravensburg, though the Swiss population had dropped to 133 by 1910.
In the 1830s, skilled Swiss workers set up a cotton factory with an incorporated bleaching and finishing plant owned and maintained by the Erpf brothers. The Ravensburg horse market, created in around 1840, also attracted many people from Switzerland, especially after the 1847 opening of the railway line from Ravensburg to Friedrichshafen, a town situated on nearby Lake Constance on the borderlands of Switzerland and Germany.
Rorsach grain traders would make regular visits to the Ravensburger Kornhaus and eventually this cross-border cooperation and trade also led to a branch of the Zurich machine factory, Escher-Wyss & Cie, opening in the city. This feat was made plausible once a train line connecting the Swiss to the German route network was completed between 1850 and 1853. The factory was set up by Walter Zuppinger between 1856 to 1859 and would begin production in 1860. In 1861, we can see the first official patent of the manufacturers Escher-Wyss in Ravensburg of “peculiar facilities on mechanical looms for ribbon weaving”. At this time, the Ravensburg branch of Escher Wyss would be directed by Walter Zuppinger, and would be where he developed his tangential turbine and where he gained a number of additional patents. In 1870, Zuppinger along with others would also founded a paper mill works in Baienfurt close to Ravensburg. He retired in 1875 and devoted all his energies to the further advance of turbines.
Founding Document of the Escher-Wyss Ravensburg Factory, dated 1860.
At the turn of the new century, Escher-Wyss had put the ribbon weaving to one side and begun to concentrate on much bigger projects like the production of large industrial turbines and, in 1907, they sought an “approval and concession procedure” for the construction of a hydropower plant near Dogern am Rhein, which was reported in a Basel brochure from 1925.
By 1920, Escher-Wyss found themselves embroiled in serious financial difficulties. The treaty of Versailles had restricted the military and economic growth of Germany following the Great War, and the Swiss Company found the downturn in neighbouring national civil engineering projects too much to bear. The parent branch of Escher-Wyss was located in Zurich and dated back to 1805 and the company, which still benefited from a good reputation and a history lasting more than a century, was deemed too important to lose. In December 1920, a reorganization was carried out by writing down the share capital from 11.5 to 4.015 million French Francs and which was later increased again to 5.515 million Swiss Francs. By the end of the financial year of 1931, Escher-Wyss was still losing money.
Yet, the plucky company continued to deliver large scale civil engineering contracts throughout the 1920s as noted in the official correspondence written in 1924 from Wilhelm III Prince of Urach to the company Escher-Wyss and to the asset manager of the House of Urach, accountant Julius Heller. This document discusses the “General Terms and Conditions of the Association of German Water Turbine Manufacturers for the Delivery of Machines and Other Equipment for Hydropower Plants”. This is also confirmed in a brochure on the “Conditions of the Association of German Water Turbine Manufacturers for the Installation of Turbines and Machine Parts within the German Reich”, printed on March 20, 1923 in an advertising brochure from Escher-Wyss for a universal oil pressure regulator.
After the Great Depression in the early 1930s had laid waste to the global economy, Escher-Wyss announced, “as the catastrophic development of the economic situation in connection with the currency declines; The company [Escher-Wyss] is temporarily unable to continue its current liabilities in various customer countries.” The company also revealed that they would apply for a court deferral to the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, which reported on 1 December 1931 that, “the company Escher-Wyss has been granted a stay of bankruptcy until the end of March 1932 and, acting as curator in Switzerland, a trust company has been appointed.” The article stated optimistically that, “there should be a prospect of continuing operations.” In 1931, Escher-Wyss employed around 1,300 non-contracted workers and 550 salaried employees.
By the mid-1930s, Escher-Wyss had again found itself in financial trouble. In order to rescue the company this time, a consortium was brought on board to save the ailing engineering firm. The consortium was partly formed by the Federal Bank of Switzerland (which was coincidently headed by a Max Schwab, who is of no relation to Klaus Schwab) and further restructuring took place. In 1938, it was announced that an engineer at the firm, Colonel Jacob Schmidheiny would become the new President of the Board of Directors at Escher-Wyss. Soon after the outbreak of war in 1939, Schmidheiny wasquoted as saying, “The outbreak of war does not necessarily mean unemployment for the machine industry in a neutral country, on the contrary.” Escher-Wyss, and its new management, were apparently looking forward to profiting off the war, paving the way for their transformation into a major Nazi military contractor.
A Brief History of Jewish Persecution in Ravensburg
When Adolf Hitler came to power, many things changed in Germany, and the story of the Jewish population of Ravensburg during that era is a sad one to tell. Yet, it was hardly the first time that anti-Semitism had first been recorded as having reared its ugly head in the region.
In the Middle Ages, a synagogue, mentioned as far back as 1345 was located at the centre of Ravensburg, serving a small Jewish community which can be traced from 1330 to 1429. At the end of 1429 and through 1430, the Jews of Ravensburg were targeted and a horrific massacre ensued. In the nearby settlements of Lindau, Überlingen, Buchhorn (later renamed Friedrichshafen), Meersburg and Konstanz, there were mass arrests of Jewish residents. The Jews of Lindau were burnt alive during the 1429/1430 Ravensburg blood libel, in which members of the Jewish community were accused of ritually sacrificing babies. In August 1430, in Überlingen, the Jewish community was forced to convert, 11 of them did so and the 12 who refused were killed. The massacres which took place in Lindau, Überlingen and Ravensburg happened with the direct approval of the ruling King Sigmund and any remaining Jews were soon expelled from the region.
Ravensburg had this ban confirmed by Emperor Ferdinand I in 1559 and it was upheld, for example, in an 1804 instruction issued for the city guard, which read: “Since the Jews are not allowed to engage in any trade or business here, no one else is allowed to enter the city by post or by carriage, The rest, however, if they have not received a permit for a longer or shorter stay from the police office, are to be removed from the city by the police station.”
Not until the 19th century were Jews able to settle legally in Ravensburg again and, even by then, their number remained so small that a synagogue was not rebuilt. In 1858, there were only 3 Jews recorded in Ravensburg and, in 1895, this number peaked at 57. From the turn of the century until 1933, the numbers of Jews living in Ravensburg had steadily decreased until the community was only made up of 23 people.
By the start of the 1930s, there were seven main Jewish families living in Ravensburg, including the Adler, Erlanger, Harburger, Herrmann, Landauer, Rose and Sondermann families. After the National Socialists seized power, some of the Ravensburg Jews were initially forced to emigrate, while others would later be murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Leading up to World War II, there were many public displays of hatred towards the small community of Jews in and around Ravensburg.
As early as March 13, 1933, about three weeks before the nationwide Nazi boycott of all Jewish shops in Germany, SA guards posted themselves in front of two of the five Jewish shops in Ravensburg and tried to prevent potential buyers from entering, putting up signs on one shop stating “Wohlwert closed until Aryanization”. Wohlwert’s would soon become “Aryanised” and would be the only Jewish-owned shop to survive the Nazi pogrom. The other owners of the four large Jewish department stores in Ravensburg; Knopf; Merkur; Landauer and Wallersteiner were all forced to sell their properties to non-Jewish merchants between 1935 and 1938. During this period, many of the Ravensburg Jews were able to flee abroad before the worst of the National Socialist persecution began. While at least eight died violently, it was reported that three Jewish citizens who lived in Ravensburg survived because of their “Aryan” spouses. Some of the Jews who were arrested in Ravensburg during Kristallnacht were forced to march through the streets of Baden-Baden under SS guard supervision the following day and were later deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Horrific Nazi crimes against humanity took place in Ravensburg. On 1 January 1934, the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases” came into force in Nazi Germany, meaning people with diagnosed illnesses such as dementia, schizophrenia, epilepsy, hereditary deafness, and various other mental disorders, could be legally forcibly sterilised. In the Ravensburg City Hospital, today called Heilig-Geist Hospital, forced sterilisations were carried out beginning in April 1934. By 1936, sterilisation was the most performed medical procedure in the municipal hospital.
In the pre-war years of the 1930s leading up to the German annexation of Poland, Ravensburg’s Escher-Wyss factory, now managed directly by Klaus Schwab’s father, Eugen Schwab, continued to be the biggest employer in Ravensburg. Not only was the factory a major employer in the town, but Hitler’s own Nazi party awarded the Escher-Wyss Ravensburg branch the title of “National Socialist Model Company” while Schwab was at the helm. The Nazis were potentially wooing the Swiss company for cooperation in the coming war, and their advances were eventually reciprocated.
Ravensburg was an anomaly in wartime Germany, as it was never targeted by any Allied airstrikes. The presence of the Red Cross, and a rumoured agreement with various companies including Escher-Wyss, saw the allied forces publicly agree to not target the Southern German town. It was not classified as a significant military target throughout the war and, for that reason, the town still maintains many of its original features. However, much darker things were afoot in Ravensburg once the war began.
Eugen Schwab continued to manage the “National Socialist Model Company” for Escher-Wyss, and the Swiss company would aid the Nazi Wermacht produce significant weapons of war as well as more basic armaments. The Escher-Wyss company was a leader in large turbine technology for hydroelectric dams and power plants, but they also manufactured parts for German fighter planes. They were also intimately involved in much more sinister projects happening behind the scenes which, if completed, could have changed the outcome of World War II. Nazi officials in front of the Ravensburg Town Hall in 1938, Source: Haus der Stadtgeschichte Ravensburg
Western military intelligence were already aware of Escher-Wyss’ complicity and collaboration with the Nazis. There are records available from western military intelligence at the time, specifically Record Group 226 (RG 226) from the data compiled by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which shows the Allied forces were aware of some of the Escher-Wyss’ business dealings with the Nazis.
Within RG 226, there are three specific mentions of Escher-Wyss including:
File number 47178 which reads: Escher-Wyss of Switzerland is working on a large order for Germany. Flame-throwers are despatched from Switzerland under the name Brennstoffbehaelter. Dated Sept. 1944.
File number 41589 showed that the Swiss were allowing German exports to be stored in their country, a supposedly neutral nation during World War II. The entry reads: Business relations between Empresa Nacional Calvo Sotelo (ENCASO), Escher Wyss, and Mineral Celbau Gesellschaft. 1 p. July 1944; see also L 42627 Report on collaboration between the Spanish Empresa Nacional Calvo Sotelo and the German Rheinmetall Borsig, on German exports stored in Switzerland. 1 p. August 1944.
File number 72654 claimed that: Hungary’s bauxite was formerly sent to Germany and Switzerland for refining. Then a government syndicate built an aluminium plant at Dunaalmas on the borders of Hungary. Electric power was provided; Hungary contributed coal mines, and equipment was ordered from the Swiss firm Escher-Wyss. Production began in 1941. 2 pp. May 1944.
Yet, Escher-Wyss were leaders in one blossoming field in particular, the creation of new turbine technology. The company had engineered a 14,500 HP turbine for the Norsk Hydro industrial facility’s strategically important hydroelectric plant at Vemork, near Rjukan in Norway. The Norsk Hydro plant, part powered by Escher Wyss, was the only industrial plant under Nazi control capable of producing heavy water, an ingredient essential for making plutonium for the Nazi atomic bomb program. The Germans had put all possible resources behind the production of heavy water, but the Allied forces were aware of the potentially game-changing tech advances by the increasingly desperate Nazis.
During 1942 and 1943, the hydro plant was the target of partially successful British Commando and Norwegian Resistance raids, although heavy water production continued. The Allied forces would drop more than 400 bombs on the plant, which barely affected the operations at the sprawling facility. In 1944, German ships attempted to transport heavy water back to Germany, but the Norwegian Resistance were able to sink the ship carrying the payload. With help from Escher-Wyss, the Nazis were almost able to change the tides of war and bring about an Axis victory.
Back in the Escher-Wyss factory in Ravensburg, Eugen Schwab had been busy putting forced labourers to work at his model Nazi company. During the years of World War II, nearly 3,600 forced labourers worked in Ravensburg, including at Escher Wyss. According to the city archivist in Ravensburg, Andrea Schmuder, the Escher-Wyss machine factory in Ravensburg employed between 198 and 203 civil workers and POWs during the war. Karl Schweizer, a local Lindau historian, states that Escher-Wyss maintained a small special camp for forced labourers on the factory premises.
The use of masses of forced labourers in Ravensburg made it necessary to setup one of the largest recorded Nazi forced labour camps in the workshop of a former carpenter’s at Ziegelstrasse 16. At one time, the camp in question accommodated 125 French prisoners of war who were later redistributed to other camps in 1942. The French workers were replaced by 150 Russian prisoners of war who, it was rumoured, were treated the worst out of all the POWs. One such prisoner was Zina Jakuschewa, whose work card and work book are held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Those documents identify her as a non-Jewish forced labourer assigned to Ravensburg, Germany, during 1943 and 1944.
Eugen Schwab would dutifully maintain the status quo during the war years. After all, with young Klaus Martin Schwab having been born in 1938 and his brother Urs Reiner Schwab born a few years later, Eugen would have wanted to keep his children out of harm’s way.
Klaus Martin Schwab – International Man of Mystery
Born on 30 March 1938 in Ravensburg, Germany, Klaus Schwab was the eldest child in a normal nuclear family. Between 1945 and 1947, Klaus attended primary school in Au, Germany. Klaus Schwab recalls in a 2006 interview with the Irish Times that:”After the war, I chaired the Franco-German regional youth association. My heroes were Adenauer, De Gasperi and De Gaulle.”
Klaus Schwab and his younger brother, Urs Reiner Schwab, were both to follow in the footsteps of their grandfather, Gottfried, and their father, Eugen, and would both initially train as machine engineers. Klaus’s father had told the young Schwab that, if he wanted to make an impact on the world, then he should train as a Machine Engineer. This would only be the beginning of Schwab’s University credentials.
Klaus would begin studying his plethora of degrees at Spohn-Gymnasium Ravensburg between 1949 and 1957, eventually graduating from the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Ravensburg. Between 1958 and 1962, Klaus began working with various engineering companies and, in 1962, Klaus completed his mechanical engineering studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich with an engineering diploma. The following year, he also completed an economics course at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. From 1963 until 1966, Klaus worked as Assistant to the Director-General of the German Machine-building Association (VDMA), Frankfurt.
In 1965, Klaus was also working on his doctorate from the ETH Zurich, writing his dissertation on: “The longer-term export credit as a business problem in mechanical engineering”. Then, in 1966, he received his Doctorate in Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich. At this time, Klaus’s father, Eugen Schwab, was swimming in bigger circles than he had previously swam. After being a well known personality in Ravensburg as the Managing Director of the Escher-Wyss factory from before the war, Eugen would eventually be elected as President of the Ravensburg Chamber of Commerce. In 1966, during the founding of the German committee for Splügen railway tunnel, Eugen Schwab defined the founding of the German committee as a project “that creates a better and faster connection for large circles in our increasingly converging Europe and thus offers new opportunities for cultural, economic and social development”.
In 1967, Klaus Schwab gained a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland as well as a Master of Public Administration qualification from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in the United States. While at Harvard, Schwab was taught by Henry Kissinger, who he would later say were among the top 3-4 figures who had most influenced his thinking over the course of his entire life. Henry Kissinger and his former pupil, Klaus Schwab, welcome former- UK PM Ted Heath at the 1980 WEF annual meeting. Source: World Economic Forum
In the previously mentioned Irish Times article of 2006, Klaus talks about that period as being very important to the formation of his present idealogical thinking, stating: “Years later, when I came back from the US after my studies at Harvard, there were two events that had a decisive triggering event on me. The first was a book by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, The American Challenge – which said Europe would lose out against the US because of Europe’s inferior management methods. The other event was – and this is relevant to Ireland – the Europe of the six became the Europe of the nine.” These two events would help shape Klaus Schwab into a man who wanted to change the way people went about their business.
That same year, Klaus’s younger brother Urs Reiner Schwab graduated from ETH Zurichas a mechanical engineer, and Klaus Schwab went to work for his father’s old company, Escher-Wyss, soon to become Sulzer Escher-Wyss AG, Zurich, as Assistant to the Chairman to aid in the reorganisation of the merging companies. This leads us towards Klaus’s nuclear connections.
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BYJOHNNY VEDMORE
Founding Document of the Escher-Wyss Ravensburg Factory, dated 1860.
Nazi officials in front of the Ravensburg Town Hall in 1938, Source: Haus der Stadtgeschichte Ravensburg
Henry Kissinger and his former pupil, Klaus Schwab, welcome former- UK PM Ted Heath at the 1980 WEF annual meeting. Source: World Economic Forum
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