| Dear readers, my eyes have been opened!
They were opened after I made a complaint to the Australian Press Council on 1 st , May,
2024, regarding a 20 th April, 2024, article written in the Weekly Australian by Phillip
Adams. In his article he slanderously deflected blame for WW2 Death Camp atrocities
away from the actual German perpetrators and onto Poles. In his article the pompous,
arrogant ex-communist [1] Adams, who is described in the December 1985 edition of
Quadrant as ‘a pundit film maker socialist millionaire [2] stated ‘then there’s Auschwitz-
Birkenau in Poland – the most monstrous mass grave, war crime, call it what you will, in
human history’ (emphasis added).This and a previous slander in February was spotted by
The Embassy of the Republic of Poland, Canberra. In the 27-th April article in Puls Polonii,
the Embassy called for the Polish community to support its complaints lodged with the The
Australian Press Council, pleading for them to get Adams to follow the Council’s
guidelines, to modify his article that so falsely and outrageously deflected the blame for
German Death Camp atrocities onto Poles. I was one who responded to the Embassy’s
call.
The Australian Press Council has a Complaints Office where complaints of 400 words or
less can be made online. So the Council gives the deceiving appearance that Poles will
not be ‘Patsies’ for German War Crimes, but the Council’s inaction allows the slander to
continue, and continue and continue! To this day, 20-th June, 2024, neither The Polish
Embassy’s nor my complaints have been responded to. My 27-th May registered post letter
to Paul Nangle, Director of Complaints, has also been ignored. Nor has the Australian
Press Council taken any action on subsequent slanders written on May 1-st and May 15-th
2024. I had to re-send my letter by registered post because, incredulously, Nangle
claimed that my 733 word 1 st May, 2024, letter of complaint sent by standard post had not
reached the Council. I say incredulously because this is the first time in my life that a letter
I sent by Australia Post was supposedly not delivered and likewise every letter sent to me
over my lifetime has always been delivered!
My experience indicates that since 1999 The Australian Press Council’s approach on this
issue seems to indicate that it does little more than give a deceiving appearance of
‘fairness’. Although the Press Council guideline has its own shortcomings, nevertheless, if
it is followed it does provide the Australian media with a guideline to better phrase Death
Camp terminolgy, advising writers, ‘that the appropriate description for these German
Camps would be "Nazi concentration camps", with their location being specified as being
"in occupied Poland".
The shortcoming of the Australian Press Council’s guideline arises from the use of the
term ‘Nazi’. This term does not specifically identify Germans as the perpetrators of the
WW2 atrocities. The perpetrators are instead identified as some nationless group of
people called “Nazis”. Even if the Australian Press Council guidelines were applied,
Poland would still be the only nation specifically mentioned by name. For example, if
Adams article was rewritten thus: ‘then there’s the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp in
occupied Poland’, the only nation specifically identified by name in this phrase is Poland.
It should be noted that UNESCO has a superior policy. UNESCO identifies Auschwitz
Birkenau as a “German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)”. Why
doesn’t the Australian Press Council follow the superior UNESCO guideline and change
its own guideline from ‘Nazi concentration camps’ to ‘German Nazi Concentration Camps’.
The addition of just one word would seem simple to do. Simple, yes, but very meaningful.
By simply adding the word ‘German’ it would clearly and unambiguously identify the
actual perpetrators of the atrocities as Germans and not Polish ‘Patsies’. Perhaps the
Council prefers that the ambiguity remain?
Adams terminology and similar terminology by other people at other times such as ‘Death
Camps in Poland’ or ‘Concentration Camps in Poland’ or ‘Extermination Camps in Poland’
are not used accidentally. The terms were specifically designed to deliberately deflect
blame away from the actual German perpetrators onto Polish ‘Patsies’.
Prior to 1956, the German WW2 Extermination Camps were commonly identified as
German. However in 1956, Alfred Benzinger an Official Intelligence Service agent of the
Federal Republic of Germany, suggested to the German government that the stigma of
German guilt for perpetrating WW2 atrocities could be avoided by a cunning semantic
manipulation; just change the phrase ‘German Concentration Camps’ and the like to
‘Concentration Camps in Poland’ [3]. Doing this cleansed the stigma of Germans being
identified by name as the perpetrators of German WW2 atrocities. Germans and the rest
of the world could once again see Germany and German people as ‘a nation of poets and
philosophers’, and efficient, precision manufacturers of cars and other products. It should
be noted that Benzinger was a former ‘Goose Stepping’ WW2 German National Socialist
Secret Police Sergeant, one of many German War Criminals who were employed by the
post WW2 German Government.
By following Benzinger’s advice, in effect the German government’s cunning 1956
semantic manipulation worked. The reeking stigma emerging from Germany’s WW2
Extermination Camp atrocities was passed on from the actual German perpetrators onto
the Polish ‘Patsies’. The image of Poland from 1956 onwards began to be tarnished. The
tarnishment has relentlessy continued to the present day, as can be seen 88 years later
by Phillip Adams’ 2024 use of the terminology that, Benzinger, the former ‘Goose
Stepping’ WW2 German National Socialist Secret Police Sergeant advised the German
government to follow from 1956 onwards. The Australian Media and the Australian Press
Council, at Polish expense, continue to fall for Benzinger’s charade.
The Australian Press Council seems to accept this slander of Poles. It refused to respond
to my complaint about Adams slanderous article and it also failed to respond to the earlier
complaint made about the same article by the Polish Embassy in Canberra. Because the
Australian Press Council does not stringently apply its suggested guidelines on this
matter, despite repeated complaints, the slander of Poles continues unabated. In effect,
the Australian Press Council absolves Germany from the guilt for the WW2 atrocities the
Germans actually committed. I have written to Paul Nangle, the Council’s Director of
Complaints, asking why the Council doesn’t respond. He gives no reason, he simply
ignores my registered mail inquiry to him!
Yes, my eyes have been opened by The Australian Press Council’s inaction, allowing
Germans to escape responsibility for their WW2 war crimes. It shows that the Council’s
guidelines on this issue seem to be nothing more than window dressing, to give a staged
appearance of ‘fairness’. In effect, by ignoring complaints lodged with them about this
issue, the Council disgustingly allows Poles to continue to be the ‘Patsies’ for WW2
atrocities actually committed by Germans. Outrageous!
The Australian Press Council’s eyes should have been opened earlier and its integrity
would not have been jeopordised or sullied if it learned, understood, heeded, respected
and remembered the profound statement on this matter issued on 30 th January, 2005, by
American Jewish Committee Executive Director, David A.Harris:
"We would also like to remind those who are either unaware of the facts or careless
in their choice of words, as has been the case with some media outlets, that
Auschwitz-Birkenau and the other death camps, including Belzec, Chelmno,
Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka, were conceived, built and operated by Nazi
Germany and its allies. The camps were located in German-occupied Poland, the
European country with by far the largest Jewish population, but they were most
emphatically not 'Polish camps'. This is not a mere semantic matter. Historical
integrity and accuracy hang in the balance [4] ."
I don’t have newsreel footage to portray the truth like the production manager of the film
Sound of Music had. When the Salzburg Government Autocrats didn’t want to be
embarrassed by the historical truth, they refused to give the film production manager
permission to adorn the City’s streets with staged Swastikas and Extras playing the role of
German National Socialist solders. The production manager replied that he would instead
use the black and white official historical newsreel footage shot at that location to show
real life Goose Stepping German Nationalist Soldiers marching through the streets of
Salzburg adorned at the time with real life Swastikas, There was plenty of footage to
choose from because the Film location was near Adolf Hitler’s Eagles Nest residence, the
leader millions of Germans voluntarily voted into office. When Germany were ‘winners’,
massive crowds joyfully and enthusiastically cheered and supported him at all his public
appearances. The German invasion and occupation of Poland and the heinous atrocities
they committed there didn’t matter, after all, they were ‘winners’. But now, if the historical
newsreel footage was used to portray scenes in the film, perhaps, some of Salzburg’s
citizens would be able to recognise themselves! Or perhaps others would recognise them.
Not wanting to be embarassed, the Salzburg Government Autocrats gave the Sound of
Music film production manager permission to do what he needed to do. The Australian
Press Council doesn’t believe it will suffer any such embarrassment. There is no Official
Body to lodge complaints about the Australian Press Council deliberately ignoring
repeated complaints lodged with it concerning the German designed semantic
manipulation repeatedly used by the Australian Press that slanders Poles. The Australian
Press Council obviously believes that no lone voice can possibly embarass them on this
matter. On my part, all I can do is write this article to publicly expose the Council’s staged
‘fairness’.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Adams_(writer)
[2] https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.353811100455712
[3] https://www.jta.org/2012/06/07/ideas/on-the-term-polish-death-camps
[4] https://zrobtosam.com/PulsPol/Puls3/index.php?sekcja=1&arty_id=8172
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