Europe

Poland-U.S. relations have been "particularly rocky" under the Obama administration, he added, explaining that Poles want to hear that the U.S. will "finally recognize that Poland is now a mature democracy, that Poles can travel freely to the United States, and that they can be economic and political and military partners."

“I am positive regarding Lithuania’s ability to build LNG terminal," notes Bochkarev.

“The situation is less rosy with nuclear," he adds, "Visaginas plant is expected to cost €7 billion [or 20 % of GDP of Lithuania, 40 % of Estonia’s GDP or 32 % of Latvia’s GDP], a cost which is likely to increase during the construction, especially taking into account new safety requirements of post-Fukushima 'nuclear era'."

Click here to read the article at EurActiv.

Writing for Pakistan's The News International, EWI board member Ikram Sehgal, a security analyst, examines the implications of the French election on prospects for economic recovery and stability in Southwest Asia.

Click here to read this column in Pakistan's The News International.

Writing for India Today, EWI board member Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary of India, assesses the likely impact of Hollande's administration on the Franco-Indian relationship.

Click here to read this column in India Today.

After researching my new book that tells the story of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power through the eyes of American correspondents in Germany, I have been confirmed in the belief that this cliché about journalism is right on target. What most reporters may find surprising, though, is that the glaring mistakes in their first drafts of history are often more valuable than what they get right.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems astonishing that the danger Hitler represented wasn’t obvious to everyone, particularly to experienced foreign correspondents. Their many misjudgments prompt the question: How could they have been so wrong?Take Dorothy Thompson, the most famous American woman foreign correspondent of her era. When she had the chance to interview Hitler in November 1931, she entered the room convinced she was meeting the future dictator of Germany. “In something less than fifty seconds I was quite sure I was not,” she wrote. “It took just that long to measure the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog.” His eyes, she added, had “the peculiar shine which often distinguishes geniuses, alcoholics, and hysterics.” In other words, he shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Plenty of her colleagues made the same mistake. Some admitted that the first time they saw Hitler they burst out laughing since he looked like a comic figure with his jerky motions, bizarre appearance and bizarre performances.

Such snap judgments, however, can haunt a reporter. On a fast-breaking story, they are all too common. Few of us who covered the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe can honestly say we understood at the time how quickly the Kremlin’s empire would disintegrate. Future historians may judge many of our stories harshly. But those historians would be missing the point if they only looked at the scorecard indicating which reporters were right or wrong. The reason why some correspondents got it so wrong in their initial sizing up of Hitler also explains why the reports of their more perceptive colleagues were largely disregarded.

Even before Hitler took power, Edgar Ansel Mowrer of The Chicago Daily News was warning his Jewish acquaintances to get out of Germany. Few listened. Many Jews were initially reluctant to take Hitler seriously since, like Thompson, they could not imagine that the German people would follow him blindly. As for Americans, almost no one wanted to entertain the notion that they might be dragged into another conflagration in Europe.

In many cases, the records of reporters contained surprising twists. Hearst correspondent Karl von Wiegand was the first American journalist to interview and write a feature about Hitler, in November 1922, when the Nazi leader was still only a local agitator in Munich. Wiegand described him as “a magnetic speaker having also exceptional organizing genius” whose “apostolic fervor” was winning many followers. He concluded that Hitler might one day declare himself dictator of Bavaria.

But later Wiegand offered a prognosis as wildly off the mark as Thompson’s. Impressed by Hitler’s annexation of Austria and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he wrote that the German leader would not imperil those gains by embarking on “a deliberately planned aggressive war.” He made that prediction in the spring of 1939; on Sept. 1, Hitler triggered World War II with his invasion of Poland.

After examining this mixed record, I came away with heightened admiration for those reporters like Mowrer and CBS’s William Shirer who were consistently right. And even for Thompson, who later more than made up for her famous misreading of Hitler with hard-hitting stories that led to her expulsion from Germany in 1934. But I could also now understand why she and so many others got things wrong at first.

Still, the reports that these correspondents may have been most eager to forget are precisely the ones that are the most instructive. Those first drafts of history help explain the real mystery of Hitler’s rise: how he benefited from the unwillingness of so many to believe that he meant what he said when he was promising a Greater Germany and the extermination of those he labeled internal enemies, most prominently the Jews.

This is a lesson about the limitations of reporters, but also a cautionary note for those quick to stand in judgment: Don’t be so sure you would have done better.

Click here to read this piece at nytimes.com.

Andrew Nagorski, vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute, is author of “Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power.”

Reviews

The Weekly Standard

“Compulsively readable and deeply researched, Hitlerland delves into the history of the Third Reich without losing a personal touch. Nagorski as aware of the horror many Americans felt as the march toward evil hit full stride, adding details sure to rouse similar feelings in readers.” Click here for the full review.

Newsweek

"What Andrew Nagorski (formerly a Newsweek correspondent) has done in this highly readable history built around the experience of Americans in Germany from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second, is to make Hitler at once as human and as monstrous as he was to the reporters, diplomats, businessmen, sycophants, and soldiers from the United States who met him." Click here for the full review.

The Daily Beast

"...this is a book that is full of things I never knew, and I found all of them interesting. It should be on everybody’s “must read” list who is interested in history." Click here for the full review.

Chicago Tribune

"Riveting stuff...I read this book in one terrible gulp...an important, chilling book" Click here for the full review.

The Economist

"Any reader trying to puzzle out today’s world will be unsettled by the reminder of how easy it is to get things wrong." Click here for the full review.

The Washington Post

“Hitlerland is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Reading about the Nazis is not supposed to be fun, but Nagorski manages to make it so.” Click here for the full review.

Library Journal

“A compelling work for World War II history buffs or anyone who wants to understand how such devastating evil emerged while the world seemingly watched.” Click here for the full review.

Jewish Book Council

“Nagorski opens up a window into an era that we thought we already knew and allows these Americans to tell their stories without passing judgment on their perceptiveness or the rectitude of their moral compasses clouded by the benefits of historical hindsight.” Click here for the full review.

Coverage

Nagorski spoke with Leonard Lopate about "Hitlerland" on WNYC radio. Click here to listen to the full interview.

Glenn Beck's Book List featured "Hitlerland" as personal recommendation from Glenn Beck. Click here for their write-up.

Tina Brown, editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, interviews Nagorski in a video at Dailybeast.com. Click here to watch the interview.

Lewis Lapham, former editor of Harper’s magazine and founder of Lapham’s Quarterly, speaks with Nagorski in an audio podcast for Bloomberg.com. Click here for the full story and podcast.

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, a senior editor at The Atlantic, interviews Nagorski on how Americans perceived the early days of the Third Reich. Click here for the interview.

A slideshow from The Huffington Post detailing the experiences of eight Americans featured in the book, including an introduction by Nagorski. Click here to access the slideshow.

Bernard Vaughn of Reuters discusses 'Hitlerland' with Nagorski. Click here for the interview transcript.

Click here for EWI's interview with Andrew Nagorski on 'Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power.'

The group is made up of experts from Australia, Belgium, India, Italy, France, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and the United States. In a meeting held March 15-16 in Brussels, the group expanded on their discussions about proposals for legislation on cybersecurity, including the need for a global tribunal on cyberspace.

Judge Stein Schjolberg, a co-chair of the working group, is a retired Court of Appeal Judge in Norway and an expert on cyber crime. He previously worked with INTERPOL and ITU on cybersecurity issues. Following the group’s most recent meeting, Judge Schjolberg spoke with EWI’s Thomas Lynch on international means of prosecuting cyber crime.

What’s the purpose of the Cyber Crime Working Group? What does it aim to accomplish?

The Cyber Crime Working Group was established in July 2010 by EastWest Institute President John Edwin Mroz. We have since been working for a year and a half on a project on the issue of cyber crime and global cyber attacks. We are dividing the issue of cyber crime into five pillars, ultimately developing a proposal for a potential treaty or several treaties on the United Nations level.

The first issue, or pillar, is international criminal law for cyberspace. The second is a global virtual task force for the investigation and prosecution of cyber crimes/attacks. The third pillar is the establishment of an international criminal tribunal (not a court) for cyberspace. The fourth is a broader look at cybersecurity issues as a whole, and the fifth focuses on blocking child pornography or other online child abuse.

What is “cyber crime” as opposed to “cyber espionage,” “cyber war,” or other similar buzzwords being used today?

I have been involved in this field for many years. I began by making a definition, but I very shortly quit that. In my opinion, cyber crime must be defined by each country independently, so we do not have any global definition of the term. Some countries use the term “cyber warfare,” some use “espionage” and so on; we leave it to each country.

How do you propose to overcome the political deadlock on international cyber crime cooperation?

I am not willing to accept deadlock. From a layman’s perspective, you read newspapers, gather information, and understand that dialogues are always occurring. A dialogue may include the hope that it develops into further projects. Since I am concerned about cyberspace, I know these dialogues have been taking place. I attended the United Nations twelfth criminal congress in Salvadore, Brazil, which had dialogue among the United States, the European Union and the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). This dialogue developed into the establishment of working groups through the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. This office is studying these issues and will come forward with proposals and recommendations; we will take it from there.

What progress has been made in internationally in bringing these issues to the U.N. level?

There has not yet been any kind of legal agreement on cyber crime developed at the U.N. level, nor treaties, protocols or a convention. There is of course the European Convention, the Budapest Convention, a convention now developing in the Caribbean countries, and developments in Asia under the APEC and ASEAN countries. We have several developments for regional agreements but not yet anything on the U.N. level on cyber crime, cybersecurity or global cyber attacks.

Everyone I speak to agrees that something is missing at the global level. That’s why we have four working groups now studying this issue; the UNODC, the European Union and United States working group, the EastWest Institute, and the Commonwealth working group. With four groups working on this issue now, I am sure that in the next two to four years we will have a full proposal prepared.

With respect to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, many consider it to be outdated; do you agree with that assessment?

I would not describe the Budapest Convention as outdated, I would maybe describe it as “old fashioned.” Of course, it was established, produced and written in 1990s using older terminology. Now that we are in the 2010s, we have seen a lot of development, new kinds of criminal conduct and new ways of describing systems and behaviors.

What would be the role of an International Criminal Tribunal for Cyberspace?

There is criminal conduct in cyberspace that no one is investigating, no one is prosecuted for. No one is sentenced for all this damage that is created as a result of international attacks.  The only thing we are doing is repairing damage, but a lot of economic losses have occurred, so something must be done. On other issues there have been global courts or tribunals. Since the United States, Russia and China have not signed on to the International Criminal Court, we are left to establish potential tribunals. There have been tribunals for Rwanda, for the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon and so on; this is why I’m moving forward with a proposal for a potential international criminal tribunal for cyberspace.

It is a pleasure to work together with EWI. I think that EWI has a very unique position to bring forward global dialogues, global proposals and maybe global solutions.

Hitlerland explores the perspectives of such prominent Americans as George Kennan, Sinclair Lewis, Charles Lindbergh, Jesse Owens, William Randolph Hearst and W.E.B Dubois during their time in an increasingly volatile Germany.

The book was the product of extensive research and interviews; as Henry Kissinger explains, Nagorski “plumbed the dispatches, diaries, letters, and interviews of American journalists, diplomats and others who were present in Berlin to write a fascinating account of a fateful era.”

Publishers Weekly writes: “Nagorski’s account is rich in anecdotal detail about how a man dismissed by many could hypnotize a nation and terrorize the world.” At a time when the public debate about current flashpoints often uses Hitler and 1938 as a reference point, Nagorski’s latest work is essential reading. Nagorski spoke with EWI staff on the writing process, notable figures featured in the book, and the connection to his experiences covering Germany for Newsweek.

Click here to read an excerpt of 'Hiterland' at The Atlantic.

Click here for the book page on Amazon.

Click here to visit the author’s web site.

Click here for a roundup of media coverage of 'Hitlerland.'

Who were the Americans in German in the 1920s and 1930s, and how did you get their stories?

There was a broad range of Americans: diplomats, military attachés and foreign correspondents, along with a stream of visiting writers, students, professors and Olympic athletes. In a few cases, I was able to interview them directly, but most of them are no longer living. Which meant that I had to scour every possible record I could find—their published and unpublished memoirs, diaries, reports and letters. I found many of these source materials in archives, libraries and private family collections; in some cases, there were records that had been sitting in a family’s attic and almost forgotten.

What drew these Americans to Berlin?

Berlin in the 1920s was a wild place, where everything about life played out on the extremes. Against the backdrop of Germany’s defeat in World War I, its economic collapse and hyperinflation, politics often turned to violence. Even the sex was wild, as normal inhibitions all but evaporated. At the same time, Berlin—more so than Paris or London—was the cultural capital of Europe, boasting celebrities like Bertolt Brecht, Marlene Dietrich, George Grosz and Albert Einstein. The Americans who came to Berlin were swept up in all this excitement.

How were these Americans treated?

In the 1920s and early 1930s, most American felt very welcome in Germany. Of course, the United States had helped defeat Germany in World War I, but its involvement came late. And the Americans were far more sympathetic to their plight after the war than the British or, especially, the French, who wanted to punish Germany as much as possible by seeking high reparations. As a result, Americans were seen as the good victors, who didn’t share those fierce European enmities. Germans also were heavily influenced by American music, films and trends.

How did this change once Hitler came to power in 1933?

First of all, many Americans were deeply troubled by the extremism of the Nazis. And some witnessed incidents of violence first-hand, or, in several cases, were even the victims of such violence. In the early period of Hitler’s rule, quite a few American visitors who failed to raise their arms in the Nazi salute were beaten badly by storm troopers. But even then, the American journalists and diplomats were often treated much better than their European counterparts, since Hitler didn’t want to antagonize Washington and hoped to keep America out of any future European conflict.

What impressions did Americans who met Hitler have of him?

One of the most fascinating aspects of my research was exploring that question, and discovering the huge range of reactions. Captain Truman Smith, who was a junior military attaché in 1922 when he became the first American diplomat to meet Hitler, kept a notebook of his impressions. It shows that he immediately realized that this local agitator in Munich, who was largely unknown at the time, could become a real political force. But the most common mistake was to underestimate Hitler. Americans often saw him as almost a clownish or effeminate figure, who couldn’t possibly outmaneuver the more “serious” politicians. As late as 1931, Dorothy Thompson, one of the most famous female correspondents, interviewed Hitler and quickly proclaimed that he had no chance of gaining power.

Of all of your stories about Americans there, where’s the biggest surprise?

For many readers, I think it’ll be discovering that an American woman, the wife of Hitler’s propagandist who was of mixed German-American parentage and a Harvard grad, may have prevented the Nazi leader from committing suicide after his failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The woman’s name was Helen Hanfstaengl, and Hitler clearly—how to put it?—had a thing for her in his own awkward way. This is a story I tell in some detail.

How will these first-hand accounts change a reader’s view of the rise of Nazism and the familiar players? What are you hoping to convey with this book?

There have been many excellent accounts of this period, but what is different about mine is precisely the fact that the reader sees events unfolding through the eyes of the Americans there at the time. These Americans didn’t have the benefit of hindsight; they were trying to figure out what Hitler and his movement represented as all this was playing out. And the implicit questions for anyone, including myself as I was conveying their stories, were: What would I have understood at the time, and what would I have done? I think most people will realize that the answers are not nearly as obvious as they might have thought before reading Hitlerland.

As a Newsweek foreign correspondent, you were based in Germany twice and you covered the fall of communism. How did that influence your choice of this subject?

The fact that I was lucky enough to cover such epic events in a more recent period made me very curious about my counterparts in the 1920s and 1930s. While the periods were very different, I knew from my own experiences how difficult it is to understand the meaning of epic upheavals when you’re right in the midst of them. For that reason, I’m perhaps less harshly judgmental about some of the miscues or miscalculations of the Americans at the time than others may be. In fact, I did not feel that my mission in this book was to pass judgment for the most part. It’s up to my readers to make up their own minds.

At a meeting in Brussels on Jan. 23, EU foreign ministers, agreed on a ban on the transport, purchase and import into Europe of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products, and related finance and insurance. In a joint statement, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Iran had “failed to restore international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”

In order to provide struggling European economies enough time to find alternative suppliers, the agreement allows already concluded contracts to be executed until July 1, 2012. The measures will also be reviewed before May 1 to assess the impact of the embargo on countries such as Greece, which is facing financial collapse and has sought compensatory measures from the rest of the EU before agreeing to the embargo.

The sanctions ban the export of key technology for the energy sector and new investment in Iranian petrochemical firms and their joint ventures.

The EU also froze the assets of the Iran's central bank in the EU and banned trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds with Iranian public bodies and the central bank.

In addition, the sanctions bar the sale to Iran of more “sensitive dual use” goods—those that can have a military or security application. They add three people to a list of people targeted by asset freezes and visa bans, and freeze the assets of eight more companies. Details of the sanctions were published in the EU's Official Journal.

Reacting to the agreement, Mohammad Kossari, deputy head of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Security Committee, warned that “if any disruption happens regarding the sale of Iranian oil, the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be closed.” Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, told the state broadcaster that the “European Union sanctions on Iranian oil is psychological warfare.” He added, “imposing economic sanctions is illogical and unfair but will not stop our nation from obtaining its rights.”

In response, Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO in Brussels, pledged that the United States and its allies would keep the waterway open to international shipping and the oil business. “The Strait of Hormuz needs to remain open and we need to maintain this as an international passageway. We will do what needs to be done to ensure that is the case.”

Oil prices reached nearly $100 per barrel on Jan. 23, reacting to the renewed Iranian threat.

Existing Sanctions

The oil embargo represents a leap in the sanctions regime against Iran, following four earlier rounds of escalating penalties. The EU had gradually imposed sanctions on Iran starting in 2007 as part of Western efforts to put pressure on Tehran over its nuclear work. Sanctions include those agreed upon by the United Nations and autonomous EU measures. Current EU sanctions include:

• A trade ban on arms and equipment that can be used for repression, and a ban on goods and technology related to nuclear enrichment or nuclear weapons systems, including nuclear materials and facilities, certain chemicals, electronics, sensors, lasers, navigation and avionics;
• A ban on investment by Iranian nationals and entities in uranium mining and production of nuclear material and technology within the EU;
• A ban on trade in dual-use goods and technology, for instance telecommunication systems and equipment; information security systems and equipment; and nuclear technology and low-enriched uranium;
• An export ban on key equipment and technology for the oil and gas industries (i.e. exploration and production of oil and natural gas, and refining and liquefaction of natural gas). There is also a ban on financial and technical assistance for such transactions. This includes geophysical survey equipment, drilling and production platforms for crude oil and natural gas, equipment for shipping terminals of liquefied gas, petrol pumps and storage tanks;
• A ban on investment in the Iranian oil and gas industries (exploration and production of oil and gas, refining and liquefaction of natural gas), meaning no credits, loans, new investment in and joint ventures with such companies in Iran;
• A ban on new medium- or long-term commitments by EU member states to offer financial support for trade with Iran, and restrictions on short-term commitments;
• A ban on EU governments extending grants and concessional loans to the Iranian government, or providing insurance and re-insurance to the Iranian government and Iranian entities (except health and travel insurance);
• A requirement for EU financial institutions to report to national authorities any transactions with Iranian banks they suspect could be financing nuclear activities, to report transfers above 10,000 Euros to national authorities, and to request prior authorization for transactions above 40,000 Euros (with humanitarian exemptions);
• A ban on Iranian banks opening branches and creating joint ventures in the EU, and on EU financial institutions opening branches or bank accounts in Iran;
• A ban on the issuance of and trade in Iranian government or public bonds with the Iranian government, central bank and Iranian banks;
• EU governments must require their nationals to exercise vigilance over businesses with entities incorporated in Iran, including those of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL);
• A declaration that national customs authorities must require prior information about all cargo to and from Iran and may inspect such cargo to ensure trade restrictions are respected;
• Cargo flights operated by Iranian carriers or coming from Iran may not have access to EU airports (except flights with both passengers and cargo). No maintenance services to Iranian cargo aircraft or servicing to Iranian vessels may be provided if there are suspicions that they carry prohibited goods;
• Visa bans are imposed on persons designated by the United Nations, associated with or providing support for Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities or development of nuclear weapon delivery systems, and senior members of the IRGC. As of Jan. 22, visa bans and asset freezes apply to 113 people (41 designated by the United Nations and the rest by the EU); and
• An asset freeze on 433 entities associated with Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems and on senior members and entities of IRGC and the IRISL. U.N. designations cover 75 entities, including companies in banking and insurance sectors, the nuclear technology industry and in the fields of aviation, armament, electronics, shipping, chemical industry, metallurgy, oil and gas, and branches and subsidiaries of IRGC and IRISL.

Human Rights

In addition to the nuclear track, the EU has imposed travel bans and asset freezes on 61 Iranians seen as responsible for human rights violations.

Economic Relations

The EU had a free-trade agreement with Iran until 2005. Europe remains an important trade partner. Ninety percent of EU imports from Iran are either oil or oil-related products. In 2010, the EU imported 14.5 billion Euros worth of goods from Iran while exporting 11.3 billion Euros of goods to the country.

Raymond Karam is a program assistant for EWI's Regional Security Initiative.