Magda Hassan Wrote:I'm interested in the links to German CSU, Mertins and MEREX if you have more Ralf.
I cannot address the CSU/Strauss/Hanns-Seidel-Foundation/BND connections right now. Bit off more than I can chew...
Here is a by no means complete rundown on Gerhard Mertins, founder of the "Circle of Friends of the Colonia Dignidad", and his Merex company. Please feel free to repost this in the "Players, organisations and events of deep politics" section.
(Please note: As I had misplaced my copy of Ken Silverstein's "Private Warriors" until yesterday, I will extensively quote from Andrew Feinstein's "The Shadow World. Inside the Global Arms Trade". Feinstein, however, is mainly paraphrasing Silverstein who did the original work.)
Gerhard Mertins (1919-1993) was, according to Romano Mussolini's biography of his father, one of the three SS officers who freed Benito Mussolini. The German Wikipedia quotes Romano Mussolini: "For more than sixty years, my father´s liberation from Gran Sasso was attributed solely to Skorzeny, even though Mors and Mertins played crucial roles."
Excerpts from Andrew Feinstein, "The Shadow World. Inside the Global Arms Trade" (London, 2012), 19-34. Excerpts may be slightly rearranged to fit the chronology:
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Despite appearing a happy, easy-going man, always ready to help, Mertins was also shrewd and 'cheated everybody', according to a close associate.
(...) Soon after the war he took up a position at Volkswagen, a company with an impeccable Nazi pedigree. Little is known about his activities until the early 1950s, although it is almost certain that he kept curious company. According to US Army Intelligence documents, Mertins was the leader of the Bremen branch of the Green Devils, a group of Second World War parachutists agitating for a rearmed Germany. The branch included a number of suspected war criminals.
(...). Closely connected to neo-Nazis of all stripes and unrepentant about his right-wing views, Mertins was more than comfortable with the considerable neo-Nazi sentiment evident in Germany after the war. For instance, he invited Otto Ernst Remer, founder of the Socialist Reich Party (SRP) in 1950, to address members of his veterans' group in Bremen. The SRP's platform was almost indistinguishable from Hitler's and included denial of the Holocaust. (...)
Mertins was considered to be an important SRP sympathizer who US intelligence believed 'will aid the party financially'.
(...) In September 1952, he travelled to Egypt to participate in a bizarre project that was to provide an entrée to the world of arms dealing. (...) The response [to Egypt's defeat in the 1948 war with Israel] of the then Egyptian ruler, King Farouk, was to hire a number of ex-military Germans to assist in training his troops, allegedly with the tacit support of both the CIA and Gehlen Org. When Mertins arrived in Egypt in September 1951 he became a top aide to one of the group's leaders, the former Wehrmacht General Wilhelm Fahrmbacher, like Mertins a recipient of the Knight's Cross.
When the young General Gamal Abdel Nasser led a coup aginst King Farouk in July 1952, he turned to the Germans who had been training his erstwhile enemy's forces to create his own intelligence and security network in order to consolidate power. (...) the German detachment set about their new task, still with the backing of the CIA and Gehlen Org. The training was led by Otto Skorzeny, a notoriuous ex-Nazi who had been part of an elite unit that helped Mussolini escape from Allied jails during the war. Skorzeny (...) joined the like-minded Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco. Skorzeny set himself up as an agent for various Spanish arm companies, most notably ALFA. Mertins was in contact with him in 1954 to discuss a potential arms deal that Skorzeny was negotiating with Mertins.
(...) Mertins left his Egyptian posting but remained active in the Middle East during the mid-1950s. He trained parachute regiments in Syria and worked as a sales agent for a number of German firms throughout the region. (...)
As a result of his activities in the region, Mertins was considered a potentially useful intelligence asset. He was approached by US Army Intelligence during the mid-50s and immediately put on the payroll. His job was to provide his new friends with information about the Middle East gleaned from his work as a salesman. It was the first time, but certainly not the last, that Mertins made money from his relationship with the intelligence services.
Mertins returned to Germany in the late 1950s (...) Reinhard Gehlen asked Mertins to act as the middleman for German arms sales to the Third World. Gehlen would assist Mertins with intelligence about potential clients and help him to arrange the necessary papers -- end-user certificates and export licences which are essential to any arms deal.
Germany at the time was hoping to remilitarize. The thinking was that in addition to using arms to peddle influence, selling its old surplus stock would raise much-needed money for new arms purchases. For this purpose, in 1963 Mertins established a new company, Merex, which was jointly based in Bonn and Vevey in Switzerland. (...)
The company boss soon forged a crucial new contract to add to his large intelligence network. In 1965, Merex was hired as the German sales agent for Interarms, the International Armament Corporation run by the infamous Sam Cummings, who was sometimes referred to as the 'new Zaharoff' (...). He had formed Interarms in 1953 at the tender age of twenty-six and proceeded to make a fortune with help from the CIA. In 1954. he undertook his first major CIA-sponsored mission, to supply arms to a right-wing coup in Guatemala. (...)
Together, Mertins and Cummings were a formidable arms-dealing force. (...)
The following year [1966] Merex sealed a series of controversial deals that would almost spell an end to Mertins' nascent career as an arms dealer. Zaharoff-like, he sold fighter planes to both sides in South Asia, one of the world's less stable regions at the time. (...)
Selling to Pakistan during a period of conflict was a violation of US and international law.Congressional hearings were held under the chairmanship of Senator Stuart Symington. Mertins was not called, but instead met Senator Symington [Silverstein: and Senator Fulbright] privately.But Sam Cummings was forced to appear before the assembled politicians, where he confirmed Symington's astonishing finding that 'our own intelligence services knew exactly at that time that these F-86s were meant for Pakistan'.
As Congress was holding hearings into the Pakistan deal, the FBI was investigating whether Merex should be registered as an agent of the West German government. After considerable paperwork had been collected indicating that Merex was in constant contact with the US Departments of State and Defense, Army Intelligence intervened to ensure that the company was not registered as an agent, lest it lose its secrecy and anonymity: 'The Army has opposed registration of Merex or Mertins (as a former agent) on any basis which could jeopardize [their] continued use.'
With US Army Intelligence in his corner, Mertins decided to establish an American branch. Merex Corporation was set up in a home in Bethesda, Maryland, just north of Washington DC.
The opening of the US branch was the final nail in the coffin of the brief but profitable relationship between Mertins and Sam Cummings, which had begun to sour after the Pakistan deal became public. Previously, Interarms had acted as Mertins's agent in the US, but this was no longer necessary.
(...)
Mertins installed a close friend, Gerhard Bausch [Silverstein has the correct spelling: Bauch], as the CEO and president of the company, although Merex Corp remained entirely owned by the European business.
(...) Mertins's relationship with German Intelligence cooled after the Pakistan deal, for which he eventually faced criminal charges.
(...)
His defence team claimed that his dealings in Pakistan were at the explicit behest of the German government. Mertins explained his relation to the German intelligence netework, BND, and the judge found little to discredit his evidence, especially after a BND operative testified that the government was almost always aware of what Mertins had done in Pakistan, as part of a project codenamed Uranus.
With his German government links in a fragile state, Mertins began to pursue other avenues and continents in search of new sales. In some cases he was helped by connections to US Intelligence. (...)
But it was in South America where Mertins was able to secure most of his new deals, using, once again, his enduring Nazi connections. In Peru, Mertins appointed Commercial Agricola as Merex's local representative in the country. The company was run by Fritz [better: Friedrich] Schwend, who, during the Second World War, had been part of Operation Bernhard, a madcap scheme to undermine the British economy by flooding the UK market with masses of counterfeit pounds. Schwend had, like many Nazis, escaped post-war justice and settled in Peru. He and Mertins were assisted by Otto Skorzeny. Skorzeny struck up a close relationship with Peruvian Intelligence, which led to a request for M14 tanks.
Mertins's South American network included other, even more extreme, Nazis, such as Hans Rudel and Klaus Barbie. (...)
After the war, Barbie worked for US Intelligence before settling in Bolivia. (...) Barbie's depraved skills proved useful to Bolivia's military dictators.
During the reign of Hugo Banzer, Barbie was hired to set up internment camps for political opponents, where torture and executions were common. Usefully for Mertins, Barbie also became the dictatorship's official weapons-purchasing agent. (...)
Mertins's deepest and most profitable connection in South America was with Chile. Merex first entered the Chilean market in 1971 when Gerhard Bausch travelled to the country to sell $800,000 of bridles and saddles to the Chilean cavalry, as well as 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Their point-man was an influential and ambitious General, Augusto Pinochet, who took over power in an infamous coup two years later,suipported by the US and in which the democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, was either murdered or committed suicide. Mertins was delighted that the country was in the hands of a virulently anti-communist strongman and frequently travelled to Chile, where he witnessed Pinochet's propensity for violence and torture. During these visits Mertins often stayed at Colonia Doignidad, a German community camp based in the South Andes. He was so impressed with the colony that he formed the Circle of Friends in Germany to raise funds for it.
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[Mertins also was in contact with the Chinese "military parastatal" NORINCO and Saddam Hussein. He had a long-standing relationship with the Iranian SAVAK. He dealt with the Contras and the Taliban. In 1975 he met with DINA leader Manuel Contreras who had come to Germany under a false name. Together they travelled on to Iran.]
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Excerpts from Ken Silverstein, "Private Warriors" (New York, London, 2000), 109-141:
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"Mertins's governmental clients ranged from Chile's Augusto Pinochet to Iraq's Saddam Hussein."
"While by no means as integral to US agencies as Glatt, Mertins, who died in 1993 had a four-decade long relationship with American intelligence and sometimes worked in conjunction with government operations. Like Glatt, he procured Russian made arms for the secret Foreign Materiel Acquistion Program. He was also involved in arming the 'freedom fighters', including a controversial deal Oliver North's Enterprise arranged for the Contras. As one retired intelligence officer said of Mertins's role as an American asset, which until now has never been disclosed: 'You were either so high up that you didn't say anything about him or too low to know.'"
[In Egypt working for Nasser:]
"Mertins was on cordial terms with some of the more extreme Nazi elements. A US Army intelligence report from December 1954 notes that Skorzeny -- in his role as representative of the Spanish weapons manufacturer ALFA -- had been in contact with Mertins about an arms deal he was negotiating with Nasser's regime."
[After Mertins's return from Egypt and a brief stint in Saudi Arabia training paratroopers:]
"(...) Mertins extablished Merex in Vevey, Switzerland in 1963. According to German writer Heinz Vielain (...) he became engaged in the weapons business at the request of Reinhard Gehlen. (...) Vielain says that Gehlen wanted to secretly arm selected Third World nations as a means of keeping them in the Western camp but -- due to political sensitivities and the need to evade arms export laws that banned sales to regions of conflict -- needed a cut to carry out the transactions."
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More information about the Bolivian connection, i.e. Klaus Barbie, can be found in Peter Hammerschmidt, "Deckname Adler. Klaus Barbie und die westlichen Geheimdienste." ('Cover name Adler. Klaus Barbie and the Western intelligence services'). But really, Mertins knew everybody: Barbie, Friedrich Schwend, Walter Rauff, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who knows, perhaps even Mengele.
It is interesting to note that some, if not most, of the weapons used by neo-fascist terrorists in Italy came from Germany. At least, this is what Gerhard Feldbauer claims in "Von Mussolini zu Fini. Die extreme Rechte in Italien" ('From Mussolini to Fini. The Extreme Right in Italy').
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/kampagnen/owl...dbauer.pdf
According to Michael Townley, Stefano delle Chiaie used the pseudonym ALFA when Townley recruited him for Condor. ALFA is the name of the most important of the Spanish weapons manufacturers Skorzeny represented.
If I find the time, I will provide some comments on the information given above.
![[Image: p19hessHULTON.jpg]](http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2013/09/06/19/p19hessHULTON.jpg)
the classified document outlines a highly-sensitive inquiry into the claims that the elderly Nazi was killed on British orders to preserve wartime secrets Hulton Archive