From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Bellant: Old Nazi Networks in US
Date: 12 Dec 92 02:27:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1299600110:cdp:1299600114:000:13091
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cberlet    Dec 11 18:27:00 1992


/* Written  9:10 pm  Dec  8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written  8:30 pm  Dec  6, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written  6:31 pm  Mar  4, 1990 by nlgclc in igc:publiceye */
Bellant: Old Nazis/Heritage Groups 2
	     
PART ONE - SECTION 2
	
[The National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities)Council]
	
Axis Allies and Apologists
	
     -{Bulgarians}: -
	
      One of the organizations Pasztor approached to help form 
the Council was the Bulgarian National Front, headed by Ivan 
Docheff. As early as 1971, the GOP was warned that the National 
Front was beyond the pale. A Jack Anderson column quoted another 
Bulgarian-American organization, the conservative Bulgarian 
National Committee, which labeled Docheff's National Front as 
"fascist." [f-9] Neither the GOP nor the Nixon campaign took 
action. Professor Spas T. Raikin, a former official of the 
National Front, says the group grew out of an organization in 
Bulgaria that in the 1930's and 40's was "pro-Nazi and 
pro-fascist." [f-10]
	
      Although Docheff, 82, is semi-retired from GOP activity, 
the National Front is still represented in the person of Radi 
Slavoff, Republican Heritage Groups Council executive director 
and head of the Bulgarian GOP federation. Slavoff also represents 
the National Front in several other Washington, D.C. area 
coalitions, including one that is Nazi-linked. [f-11]
	
      While Docheff was representing the National Front, however, 
the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations was 
investigating him for possible war crimes he was suspected of 
committing while the mayor of a German-occupied city in Bulgaria. 
Docheff denies he ever committed war crimes, and OSI never 
brought charges.
	
      Docheff's political history, however, is not in dispute. 
Founder of a Bulgarian youth group in the early 1930's, Docheff 
met with Adolph Hitler and the Nazi movement's leading 
philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, in 1934 shortly after the Nazis 
came to power. [f-12] Docheff then established the Bulgarian 
Legion, a pro-Hitler group that agitated for government action 
against Bulgarian Jews.
	
      Docheff later began publishing a newspaper, <Prelom>, which 
carried a swastika as part of the design at the top of the front 
page. One of its headlines reads ">Long live the sacred struggle 
against the Jews."<f-13] Docheff's employer, Dr. Dimiter 
Waltscheff, was a German intelligence agent, according to 
Nuremberg documents obtained by Dr. Fred Chary of Purdue 
University. In 1944 Docheff fled when the pro-German Bulgarian 
government collapsed. After the war, he and other Legionnaires 
formed the Bulgarian National Front (BNF). [f-14] Until recently, 
Docheff was the group's chair, a post he held since the Front's 
founding in 1950. Several years ago the Front, with chapters in 
South America, Europe, Canada and the U.S., met in Germany. There 
they honored Dr. Waltscheff for his "contribution to the struggle 
of the Bulgarian people for freedom. . . ." [f-15]
	
      In 1984, Docheff stepped aside and George Paprikoff, 
another former Legionnaire according to Dr. Chary, temporarily 
became chair. Reagan's autographed photo appeared on the cover of 
the BNF publication <Borba> with a "Dear George" message in what 
appears to be Reagan's handwriting. Docheff wrote an endorsement 
of Reagan in the same issue of <Borba>. [f-16]
	
      When interviewed on the BNF's role in the Reagan-Bush 
campaign, Docheff said that the 25 U.S. chapters of the Front 
were active in the re-election effort: "If you want to know who 
the local chapter leaders of the Bulgarian National Front are, 
find out who heads the local Bulgarian unit of the Reagan-Bush 
campaign. They are the same persons." [f-17]
	
      Although the warning by the Bulgarian National Committee 
and the subsequent investigation of Docheff have provided 
adequate levels of warning to the GOP, it has continued to 
maintain ties to the Bulgarian National Front. Even while the 
U.S. government was investigating Docheff on war crimes charges, 
he was a pre-election guest of the White House in September, 
1984, [f-18] arranged through Republican Heritage Groups Council 
executive director Radi Slavoff.
	
     -{Cossacks}: -
	
      Attending the Reagan speech at the Shoreham was another 
Pasztor choice, "Major General" Nicholas Nazarenko. Slightly over 
six feet and a lean 200 pounds with dark hair and a pencil 
mustache, Nazarenko is still consumed with his wartime hatred of 
Russians and Jews. He organizes annual "Captive Nations" marches 
in New York City every summer, in which he appears in Cossack 
military dress.
	
      Nazarenko is a spry 76 years old, but could pass for 60; 
his energy seems boundless. The evening after Reagan's speech at 
the Shoreham Hotel, he insisted on showing this writer a huge 
suitcase of materials he carries with him as part of his 
political activity. It was filled with literature on the "Jewish 
problem," Cossack publications, and memorabilia from his service 
in World War II--on the German side.
	
      Nazarenko chain smoked and drank vodka throughout our 
seven-hour interview. He described his involvement with the 
German army as an officer in special Cossack units, battle by 
battle. His final military action was in an SS Cossack unit under 
German General von Panwitz. In order to prove his sincerity, he 
showed me his German officer's ID, and photographs of him and his 
unit. There were swastikas on the uniforms.
	
      Toward the end of the war, Nazarenko headed intelligence 
operations in Berlin for a Cossack "government-in-exile." After 
working with the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps, he came 
to the U.S. in 1949. He became head of a Cossack War Veterans 
group--a group of veterans allied with Germany during WWII which 
was later renamed the World Federation of Cossacks for the 
Liberation of Cossackia. Nazarenko was active in Richard Nixon's 
1968 and 1972 campaigns, and his Cossack veterans group is one of 
two Cossackian components of the Republican Heritage Groups 
Council. 
	
      Alex Aksenov, another Cossack delegate to the Republican 
Heritage Groups Council convention, spoke briefly about his past, 
volunteering that he was "in Berlin from 1939-45." He went to 
South America after the war, he said, but in the 1950's was 
brought to the U.S. to work on the first nuclear submarine 
program. [f-19]
	
      Nazarenko says he has been charged by other Cossack emigres 
as having hung Jews in Odessa and executed Soviet soldiers. He 
claimed that these were lies intended to discredit him. He does 
say, however, that Jews are our "ideological enemies."
	
      In that spirit, Nazarenko said that he was in touch with 
"patriotic" publications such as the neo-Nazi <Thunderbolt>, the 
anti-Semitic> <Spotlight>, and <Instauration>, a racialist and 
>anti-Semitic monthly. A well-publicized controversy erupted when 
<Instauration> was praised by Joseph Sobran> in> <National 
Review>, May 1986, as "an often brilliant magazine, covering a 
beat nobody else will touch. . . ." <Instauration's> writers and 
editors are all anonymous.
	
      Nazarenko says he's also in touch with various "Nazi" 
organizations. "They respect me because [I was a] former German 
army officer. Sometimes when I meet these guys, they say `Heil Hitler'."
	
      A recipient of a pension from the West German government 
for his wartime service, Nazarenko claims that Germany didn't 
commit atrocities in World War II. "Jews didn't die from gas 
chambers," says Nazarenko. "Those mountains of bones are from 
people who starved to death or died from disease."  
	
     -{Romanians}: -
	
      Romanian-American Republicanism is led by a retired priest 
who claimed in 1984 that the most important issue for Romanian 
Republicans is "the deportation of our beloved spiritual leader, 
Archbishop Valerian Trifa." [f-20] Faced with charges by the 
Office of Special Investigations (OSI) that he participated in 
the murder of Jews as part of a coup plot in Bucharest, Romania 
in 1941, Trifa left the U.S. in 1984. But his political network 
stayed behind. The Romanian Republican priest, Florian Galdau, is 
part of that network.
	
      Valerian Trifa was a leader of the Iron Guard in Bucharest 
in 1941. The Guard was a pro-Nazi Romanian group linked to the SS 
by liaison officers such as Otto von Bolschwing of the German 
SS.[f-21] In January, 1941 the Guard, with SS backing, attempted 
a coup. Trifa was one of the leaders who instigated crowds on a 
rampage that sought out Jews for gruesome deaths. Three days of 
chaos ensued. When order was restored, Trifa fled. During those 
three days, witnesses charged, Trifa personally went into a jail 
and killed Jews who had been put into a cell there.
	
      After the war, Trifa was able to come to the U.S. and take 
over the Romanian Orthodox church by means of physical coercion 
and with some help from the U.S. government. In 1952, Trifa 
became an Archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church. [f-22]
	
      FBI documents from the years 1954 and 1955 (which were used 
in the prosecution of Trifa) report claims that Trifa "is 
bringing Iron Guard members into the U.S. and installing them as 
priests." One of those priests, according to a report of Oct. 5, 
1955, was Florian Galdau, whom an FBI source described as "a 
Romanian Iron Guard member and who at Trifa's instructions was 
elected Pastor of St. Dumitru," a Manhattan parish. [f-23]
	
      Galdau had escaped Romania after the war, eventually 
settling in London. He began broadcasting over the BBC in 
programs aimed at Romanian citizens, a project comparable to the 
Radio Free Europe programs being established at the time under 
the covert control of the CIA. In 1955 Trifa brought Galdau to 
the U.S. According to an former Iron Guardist, the late George 
Roman, Galdau was brought in to head a New York City Iron Guard 
unit. His task was to recruit new Romanian immigrants into the 
Guard. [f-24]
	
      Galdau says he has brought 20,000 immigrants into the U.S. 
"I have files on 15,000 people I helped settle," he claims. He is 
aided by the Tolstoy Foundation and the International Rescue 
Committee, [f-25] two resettlement groups with links to the CIA. [f-26]
	
      Over the years, Galdau has performed priestly functions at 
events that commemorated Iron Guard founder Corneliu Codreanu. 
Trifa himself once concurred in an interview that the Galdau 
church was "a center of Fascists." [f-27]
	
      In 1974, the <United Israel Bulletin> of New York City 
headlined a story "Florian Galdau, A Priest, Heads New York Iron 
Guard Cell." [f-28] The charge has also been repeated in 
recent interviews with other Romanians, including a priest, all 
of whom, fearing reprisals, requested anonymity.
	
      Galdau himself denies any association with the Iron Guard. 
Further, he denies any knowledge of the existence of the Iron 
Guard in the U.S.
	
      Dennis Debbaudt, who has researched the Iron Guard for ten 
years, finds such denials "incredible." Debbaudt, who has 
assisted a Canadian government investigation of the Iron Guard 
presence there, estimates that at least 25% of the priests of 
Trifa's church were Guardists. "It's impossible for Galdau to be 
unaware of the Guard presence in the Romanian Orthodox Church."[f-29]
	
      Interviewed at the Republican Heritage Groups Council 
convention, Galdau criticized Jews for the debate over Bitburg, 
saying "Jews have harmed themselves in this country over this 
controversy." He says his protest of Trifa's prosecution was "as 
a Republican," and did not have anything to do with Iron Guard politics.
	
      A founder of the Republican Heritage Groups Council in 
1969, Galdau and his wife were the sole representatives of the 
Romanian-American Republican Clubs to the 1985 and 1986 Council 
conventions. In 1985, a third delegate "got sick" and the three 
alternates "just didn't show." Galdau's wife is vice-chair of the 
Romanian-American Republican Clubs. His principle contributions 
at the conventions were to charge that the "Democratic Party is 
controlled by the KGB," and to argue successfully for a 
resolution passed by the convention condemning the Justice 
Department's OSI investigation into the presence of Nazi-era war 
criminals in the United States.
	
      Galdau claims his Romanian-American Republican Clubs 
include ten local units. He says that they "recruited 600 
volunteers for the 1984 Reagan-Bush campaign." But getting 
details to substantiate these assertions is difficult. Although 
he holds a party post, he won't discuss his role within the 
party. When I asked Republican Heritage Groups Council leaders 
for information on the Romanian Clubs, they said Galdau doesn't 
share details with them either. Galdau was listed as a member of 
the Host Committee for a reception honoring Jeane J. Kirkpatrick 
and Frank J. Fahrenkopf during the Council's 1987 meeting in 
Washington, D.C. In 1988 he was named National Chair of Romanians 
for Bush.