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My dad has started preaching from this self published book (Indisputable Evidence Proving the EU Was Created by Nazis, by Jack King) which claims the European Union was both wanted and created by Nazis. It claims anyone can verify these facts and to deny this is impossible. Since it struck me as an extreme position, I have looked into it. From my own research:

  • Walter Funk, Nazi economist, did want something akin to the EU.

  • Hallstein was a lieutenant in the German army, then a POW (does this make him a Nazi?) but it appears he was not a Nazi supporter and opposed them.

  • Schuman literally was arrested for protesting the Nazis.

Can you provide some high quality sources on this matter? My current stance is that the Nazis might have wanted the EU, but it is slander to claim they created it. (As my Dad keeps saying with glee, along with "It's been proven".)

EDIT: Specific claims made in book

  • Alfred Krupp, an extreme Nazi was let off all charges and kept all previous property thanks to mccloy who wrote off deep German ties as playboy behaviour.

  • Robert Schuman, Walter Hallstein and Konrad Adenauer. All three were supporters of Hitler. Franz Alfred six death squads

  • Multiple USA companies had links and benefitted from IG Faben

  • Heinz Pol a journalist did expose German ambitions to create the EEC and United States of Europe.

  • A secret meeting of Nazis – How will Germany dominate the peace when it loses the war planning the EU project

  • Dr shield used money from looting countries to finance the fledgling eu

  • Sir Norman Montagu & the Bis bank supported nazism

  • Jean monet and John Foster Dulles used EU project plan from Walter Funk Karl Werster given honours after working on gas chambers for the Nazi Party. He then had a nazi reunion dinner which went unchecked.

  • Ed Heath took a £35k payout to get Britain into EU lying about loss of control

  • Jean-Claude Junckers father was a Nazi.

LangLаngС
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MANICX100
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    Like Napoleon, William Penn, Victor Hugo and many more. And the bloke who said "We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living." (Winston Churchill, 19/9/46, Zurich University) – ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere Dec 23 '19 at 12:30
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    Beware off-topic comments. This question is not about the (implicit, invalid) assertion that if Nazis supported it then the EU is bad. The question is about whether (some) Nazis supported (the idea of) an EU.. – GEdgar Dec 23 '19 at 13:13
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    OP this is very broad and unclear. Please distinguish own thoughts & research from claim made in the book. That *exact* claim needs to be quoted here, as I might look into he claim, but not into an AMZN scheme. We have an ad-page to go after that does not mention "Funk". Does the book really rely on just those figures mentioned in the synopsis? Then what 'proof' does the book present for its claims? Unless these formal weaknesses for a Skeptics question are not addressed, and edited towards improvement, I'm voting to close this as 'unclear'. – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 15:09
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    I appreciate you adding claims from the book, but you might want to go with direct quotations. Some of your bullet points are confusing and hard to read, and it's not clear how they relate to the central claim. – F1Krazy Dec 23 '19 at 17:50
  • I guess, if you can find the lynchpin/corner stone argument, the most important claim, in that book — and directly quote that verbatim (reflected by updating the question *title!*) we might be going somewhere? – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 17:59
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    I put this question on hold while we work out what the claim is: That the EU is bad because Reductio ad Hitlerum? That there existed former Nazis in favour of the actual EU? That Nazi policy included the unification of Europe (or "Greater Germany" as their 25-point plan called it)? That 3 particular people were "Founding Fathers" of the EU? That some named person was a Nazi (note: We don't accept questions about what people were thinking - so make it about something concrete.) That some companies had links to some Nazis? – Oddthinking Dec 24 '19 at 23:48
  • I've got the book using a trial Amazon Prime membership, so hopefully not handing any money to this pile of paranoid ramblings. The author's thesis is that the EU is actually the Nazi party in disguise. The bulk of the book consists of a chronology which attempts to link members of the Nazi party before and during the war with the founding of the EU. However there are no references to primary sources, so assertions like "*1944: A secret conference was held in Berlin entitled "How Germany will dominate the peace when it loses the war*" are impossible to check. – Paul Johnson Dec 25 '19 at 19:34
  • The book is a Gish-gallop through 90 years of European history; actually verifying anything in it is basically impossible. At best it is mostly quote-mining and cherry-picking, but outright falsehoods seem quite likely too (as I said, its very difficult to check anything). The author does not actually present an argument: he seems to think that a mere list of facts is sufficient, but the implied argument seems to be that some people who were members of the Nazi party in the war were later instrumental in the formation of the EU, so therefore the EU must be a secret policy of the Nazi party. – Paul Johnson Dec 25 '19 at 19:50
  • I'm trying to think what an actual answer might look like. The argument can't be refuted because there isn't one. The long list of unsupported claims might be tackled piece-meal, but at best you would find a mixture of true, false and unknown, with the last category holding all the really interesting claims. – Paul Johnson Dec 25 '19 at 19:52
  • @PaulJohnson: The question is on hold until we can narrow it down to one claim. No-one is asking us to fact check an entire book. – Oddthinking Dec 25 '19 at 22:33
  • @Oddthinking True. I just wanted to report on what I found in the book and give my reaction. – Paul Johnson Dec 25 '19 at 23:09
  • The "secret meeting" in 1944 seems to be this one: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/45321/is-us-military-intelligence-report-ew-pa-128-real/45330#45330 – Paul Johnson Jan 02 '20 at 17:31
  • What is "something akin to the EU"? The EU is/does a lot of things. – bobsburner Mar 27 '20 at 12:41

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OP's claim is supported by the Wikipedia page for Robert Schuman which contradicts the book's synopsis:

In 1940 ... 10 July, he voted to give full power to Hitler's ally Marshal Pétain, but refused to continue to be in the government. Later that year, on 14 September, he was arrested for acts of resistance and protest against Nazi methods. He was interrogated by the Gestapo but thanks to the intervention of a German lawyer, he was saved from being sent to Dachau.

Perhaps Schuman was at one time "a supporter of Hitler", but obviously was not later on. As with Werner Von Braun, many Germans originally supported the National Socialist German Workers' Party, before it became a monster.

OP's claim is further supported by the Wikipedia page for Walter Hallstein, which says

Hallstein was a member of several nominally Nazi professional organizations, but he was not a member of the Nazi Party or of the SA. He is reputed to have rejected Nazi ideology and to have kept his distance from the Nazis.

Moving on to the Wikipedia page for Walther Funk, he

was tried and convicted as a major war criminal by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Sentenced to life in prison, he remained incarcerated until he was released on health grounds in 1957. He died three years later.

He may have envisioned a European Union - even one that would be led by Germany - but played no active part in it.

Lastly, the Wikipedia page for Konrad Adenauer says:

Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer, noting his civic projects, the building of a road circling the city as a bypass, and a "green belt" of parks. However, both Hitler and Speer concluded that Adenauer's political views and principles made it impossible for him to play any role in Nazi Germany...

Adenauer was imprisoned for two days after the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934...

After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, he was imprisoned for a second time as an opponent of the regime.

So it would seem that all of them except Funk was actually opponents of Nazi ideology.
Weather Vane
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  • This seems a bit premature, as we still do not know (or do you?) what's in that book exactly. The basic premise is floating around in numerous books, but often quite different in reasoning and 'proofs'. Let's wait and see what the actual claim is to analyse, once OP updates the question with details for clarity… – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 14:27
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    @LаngLаngС it is based on the book's synopsis in the link, which says *"Here, at last, is incontrovertible evidence proving the link between the Nazis of the 1940s and today's European Union. The founding fathers of the EU are frequently named as Robert Schuman, Walter Hallstein and Konrad Adenauer."* If the synopsis is that weak, I don't suppose the book's contents will do much better. – Weather Vane Dec 23 '19 at 14:31
  • I am far from suggesting the book to be a nice read. But where does Funk come in? I am saying the question is too unclear as of now to be answered properly. From your angle of approach I'd also strongly suggest to use better sources than WP, like https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-1994-0503 (although Monnet is neither mentioned by OP nor the synopisis)? – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 14:38
  • @LаngLаngС I mentioned Funk because OP has him in the question, presumably as a "key player" in the book. – Weather Vane Dec 23 '19 at 14:40
  • Yes, exactly. But is he in anywhere the book (do we examine the book's claim or OPs claim?)? Is he part of OPs prior research into this? That's what I mean with "question is unclear." To me at least. – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 14:41
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    So,,, you're basing this entirely on Wikipedia? – Ben Barden Dec 23 '19 at 15:01
  • @BenBarden the answer contains no other links, perhaps it should be a part of the question — OP's research, but are you trying to refute it *on that basis*? The synopsis betrays the book's argument style with: *"Anti semitic Remainers who dispute the accuracy of this book will be identified and sued for libel"* which supports my [earlier comment](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/45603/was-the-eu-created-or-supported-by-nazis/45604#comment211473_45603) about A-B-C, suggesting that because the Nazis were anti-semitic, anyone who refutes the arguments must be anti-semitic too. – Weather Vane Dec 23 '19 at 16:05
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    No. Not speaking for Ben, but: using only WP is suboptimal style, not a refutation. WP is a volatile info-source. Anyone can edit, and often 'bad' edits sneak in. WP should be your jump board to go after *their* sources, if they cite them. Get as close as you can get to high quality sources. Primary is best, secondary is, well secondary (& well liked on Skeptics), but WP is almost by definition tertiary (I also see some secondary on WP; but alas, sometimes WP *becomes* 'primary' by —let's call it—'inventing stuff'). WP is too much PR battle ground for such topics as to be a trustworthy source) – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 16:32
  • @LаngLаngС OK but it's probably a lost cause. If Adenauer and Schuman originally supported Hitler, before things went bad, that's enough fact for someone to create a supposed argument. – Weather Vane Dec 23 '19 at 16:39
  • Wot? No again. There is *plenty* to criticise Adenauer for, among others that he tried to compromise with Nazis. He was conservative, after all. And he did compromise with Nazis after 45 (which might be a grain of truth for the claim?). But unlike millions of other Germans (among them, future 'EU'-supporters?), he was one that out of own volition and Nazi-opposition *to him* got out of those years with a relatively *immaculate* vest. That's just the point with that 'claim' (AFAWKI): where's still truth, where starts the lie (or error)? Claim is propaganda. Propaganda cannot *always* lie. – LangLаngС Dec 23 '19 at 16:48
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    Basically, if you could get non-Wikipedia sources that said essentially the same things as your current Wikipedia quotes say, this would be an *awesome* answer. As it is... it's interesting, and thorough, but way too unreliable. Part of the point of Skeptics is to get away from "truth by consensus" issues, and Wikipedia is rotten with them. – Ben Barden Dec 23 '19 at 20:48