Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy

Christopher Simpson

Jun 2014 · Forbidden Bookshelf Book 4 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

A searing account of a dark “chapter in U.S. Cold War history . . . to help the anti-Soviet aims of American intelligence and national security agencies” (Library Journal).

Even before the final shots of World War II were fired, another war began—a cold war that pitted the United States against its former ally, the Soviet Union. As the Soviets consolidated power in Eastern Europe, the CIA scrambled to gain the upper hand against new enemies worldwide. To this end, senior officials at the CIA, National Security Council, and other elements of the emerging US national security state turned to thousands of former Nazis, Waffen Secret Service, and Nazi collaborators for propaganda, psychological warfare, and military operations. Many new recruits were clearly responsible for the deaths of countless innocents as part of Adolph Hitler’s “Final Solution,” yet were whitewashed and claimed to be valuable intelligence assets. Unrepentant mass murderers were secretly accepted into the American fold, their crimes forgotten and forgiven with the willing complicity of the US government.

Blowback is the first thorough, scholarly study of the US government’s extensive recruitment of Nazis and fascist collaborators right after the war. Although others have approached the topic since, Simpson’s book remains the essential starting point. The author demonstrates how this secret policy of collaboration only served to intensify the Cold War and has had lasting detrimental effects on the American government and society that endure to this day.

Ratings and reviews

Interesting subject matter, but not academic enough. The author doesn't just want you to know about the subject matter, but also wants you to vote like him in the next election. Will look for another book on this subject instead.

Citing files from the State Department, military intelligence, and the CIA through the freedom of information act, this book provides a thourough detail of crimes and events of the WW2 and early cold war. It also exposes the US role in hiring and trafficking nazi collaborators and war criminals into the US to use in the clandestine war operations against the eastern europe Soviet Union territories shortly following WW2. Mainly conducting espionage, sabotage, and asasinations of communist politicians. The Vlasov army, Ukraine's role in assisting the SS mobile killing squads in Europe, operation paperclip, operation Bloodstone, the Gehlen Organization, sponsoring and training eastern emigre guerrilla armies to airdrop following the possible nuclear attack on Soviet Union, the role of the Catholic Church during and after WW2 to aid nazis and many other topics are discussed. This book helps to understand the current foreign policy that the US has torward the Ukraine.

About the author

Christopher Simpson is a veteran reporter, historian, and analyst who teaches at American University’s School of Communication in Washington, DC. His work has won national awards for investigative journalism, history, and literature, and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Current study includes technology, democracy, revolution, and peer learning.