In 1939, Hitler and Stalin concluded secret negotiations, which resulted in the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23 of that year, to bring about their desired division of Eastern Europe, beginning with Poland. This pact allowed Hitler to invade Poland with the Soviets’ blessing, which, as is well known, set into motion the Second World War.
What is much less well known is that the New York Times reported on the start of the War by repeating and reinforcing the Nazi propaganda. The renowned author and journalist Ashley Rindsberg elaborates on this fact in his recent bestseller The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History (p. 27):
The New York Times bought the Nazi dupe without flinching. Underneath its famous banner, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” the paper reported that, according to “Chancellor Hitler,” Germany had been attacked. Already in the second paragraph of the Times’s front-page article, the reporter … reprint[ed] verbatim Hitler’s infamous war speech to the Reichstag, which the Führer used to justify to the world, as much as to the German people, his invasion of Poland….
“At 8 P.M., according to the semi-official news agency,” the Times report stated, “a group of Polish insurrectionists forced an entrance into the Gleiwitz radio station [in Germany], overpowering the watchmen and beating and generally mishandling the attendants. The Gleiwitz station was relaying a Breslau station’s program, which was broken off by the Poles.”
Rindsberg describes this New York Times article as “what likely constitutes the single biggest, yet least recognized, journalistic failure on record.” (p. 26)
Eighty-six years later, American socialists and progressives, and even numerous liberals, still swear by the content and narrative promoted by the Times. They consider reading and trusting the paper a matter of intellectual refinement, social awareness, and moral superiority. Fortunately, younger generations are less influenced by the Times, as they prefer watching podcasts and reading the new online media, which often provide higher journalistic quality and diverse viewpoints.
But let us return to the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Thanks to initiatives by Eastern European statesmen and communist refugees in Western countries, today, August 23, is commemorated as “Black Ribbon Day,” the European “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism,” also referred to as the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
Remembering the Pact and heeding its lessons is essential if we wish to prevent a resurgence of totalitarian ideologies, evident in the pro-Hamas protests, the radicalization of Democrat Party supporters, and the replacement of traditional education with anti-American indoctrination that condones totalitarian crimes, both past and present. We need a wider recognition of the ideological similarities and historical collusions between fascism, Nazism, and communism, and a categorical condemnation of their atrocities. Otherwise, the pervasive propaganda of outfits such as “the Gray Lady” will continue its detrimental influence and threaten the preservation of the West.
[Featured image via YouTube and YouTube]
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Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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