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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
How universities die
The University of Berlin, founded a century earlier, was the Harvard of its day. Every serious American university, from Hopkins to Chicago, to Harvard and Berkeley, was made or reformed according to the 'Berlin model.' Why else is the freedom to learn, across multiple disciplines. Although supported entirely by the state, universities themselves would decide who would teach and what would be taught. If university rankings had existed in 1910, eight of the top 10 in the world probably would have been German — with only Oxford and Cambridge joining them in that elite circle. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up As late as 1932, the University of Berlin remained the most famous of the world's universities. By 1934, it had been destroyed from without and within. Advertisement Germany's descent from a nation of 'poets and thinkers' ('Dichter und Denker') to one of 'judges and hangmen' ('Richter und Henker') ended its leadership in higher education. Advertisement The impact of the new National Socialist regime that came to power in January 1933 became clear on May 10 of that year, when the members of the German Student Union — among them many students from the University of Berlin — piled and burned books from public libraries on the streets of Berlin's Opernplatz, the square opposite the university's main building. A crowd of 70,000, including students, professors, and members of the SA and SS — the storm troopers for the National Socialist Party — watched as thousands of volumes were torched. Students and Nazi Party members at the book burning on the Opernplatz in Berlin, May 10, 1933. German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons The Nazi regime quickly purged universities of non-Aryan students and faculty and political dissidents. Leading scholars left Berlin in large numbers in a historic academic migration to the United States, Britain, and elsewhere. Universities lost any capacity for self-government. The University of Berlin abandoned its own traditions of teaching and research. Scholarship serving truth for truth's sake was jettisoned for scholarship in service of the 'Volk.' The Nazi period would be followed by East German Communist orthodoxy and finally, in 1990, by absorption into the German Federal Republic — with each change accompanied by a new purge of faculty. In 2010, at the celebration for the 200th anniversary of the university — now named Humboldt University — its president welcomed guests by saying: 'Today, nobody anywhere in the world is prepared to take this university as a model.' Indeed. No longer the leading university in the world, Humboldt University today is not the best in Germany — and not even the best in Berlin. Advertisement Beijing In the first half of the 20th century, China developed a remarkable set of colleges and universities: a small system, but pound for pound one of the best and most innovative in the world. Its institutions were Chinese and foreign, public and private. The system was composed of leading state universities — Peking University in Beijing and National Central University (modeled on the University of Berlin) in Nanjing. Its private institutions often had international partners. Peking Union Medical College, with Rockefeller Foundation funding, had a global reputation. Tsinghua University in Beijing began in 1911 as a prep school for students planning to enroll at universities in America. By the 1930s, it was China's leading research university, devoted to free and open inquiry. When the Japanese occupied Beijing in 1937, Tsinghua led the effort to relocate leading Chinese universities to China's southwest. Some of Tsinghua's most famous and innovative alumni, such as physicists C.N. Yang (Yang Zhenning) and C.T. Li (Li Zhengdao), who would become Nobel laureates in 1957, completed their studies during this time. Tsinghua's president and the leader of National Southwest University , Mei Yiqi, is still remembered today for his advocacy of liberal education, institutional autonomy, and academic freedom even in the darkest moments of the war. For that he is known as Tsinghua's 'eternal president.' In short, Tsinghua survived eight years of exile and war, and it stood firm by its academic values. What it could not so easily survive was the Communist conquest of China in 1949. Tsinghua's longstanding ties with the United States were severed, not to be joined again for three decades. Chinese universities were reordered along Stalinist lines and were rapidly Sovietized. A new Tsinghua campus arose next to the original one. Its 13-story main building, a brutal Stalinist complex of three structures, now dominated the campus. In 1952 Tsinghua became a polytechnic university to train engineers according to rigid state plans. The schools of sciences and humanities, agriculture, and law were all abolished, and their faculty members were scattered to other institutions. Faculty who would not or could not work under the new regime either fled abroad or were fired at home. Advertisement While Tsinghua began to train China's Communist technocracy, the relentless politicization of universities under Mao Zedong first weakened and then nearly destroyed the university. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the university became the site of bloody clashes and eventually shut down completely. The Cultural Revolution even destroyed Tsinghua's iconic gate, replaced for a time by a huge statue of Mao. Tsinghua resumed operations, but on a skeletal basis, only in 1978. It would take until the centenary of the university, in 2011, for Tsinghua to reclaim its position as a leading comprehensive research university. A Chinese politician, Wang Guangmei, was publicly humiliated at a denunciation rally at Tsinghua University in 1967. Wikimedia Commons Boston Harvard University began life in 1636 as a public institution. Its founder was not John Harvard but the General Court of Massachusetts. It was supported in the 17th century by taxes and other 'contributions' from as far south as New Haven, at times levied in corn, and by the revenues of the Charlestown ferry that connected Cambridge to Boston, paid in wampumpeag (the currency of the Massachusetts Bay Colony). Founded 140 years before the United States, Harvard was nonetheless central to the creation of our nation. After the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the Advertisement Harvard and the United States have been closely connected ever since. During World War II, the university once again devoted itself to the war effort. Soldiers were housed on Harvard's campus. Harvard faculty developed advanced torpedoes for submarine warfare and the napalm used in the firebombing of enemy cities, and they assisted in creating the first atom bomb. They also provided intelligence. Numerous Harvard scholars joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Their collective work at OSS, organized in regional departments, formed the foundation of postwar 'area studies' at Harvard and across the United States, supported by the Department of Defense. In the aftermath of the war, Harvard created a curriculum focused on 'General Education for a Free Society' to give students 'a common understanding of the society which they will possess in common,' a concept that would be adopted nationwide. The Vietnam War led, in contrast, to a Harvard sharply divided over the justness of that cause. But even so, in its wake, Harvard created the Kennedy School of Government to prepare students for careers in public service — a leading center for the study and practice of government. For nearly four centuries, the decisions and actions of Harvard have set the tone for American higher education. Today Harvard has become the leading research university in the world, with a reputation equal to, if not greater than, that of the University of Berlin in the 19th century. As it rose to national prominence in the 20th century, universities across the United States vied to be the 'Harvard of the South' (Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice), the 'Harvard of the Midwest' (Michigan, Northwestern, Chicago, Washington University), and the 'Harvard of the West' (Stanford). Advertisement Yet today Harvard is an institution that may be more admired abroad than at home, in an era of public (and politicized) critique of American higher education. At least 43 US states have cut back on their investments in higher education since 2008, according to research I gathered for my book 'Empires of Ideas.' Leading public and private universities, including Harvard, have become lightning rods in the political and culture wars of the day. Although the Trump administration's multifront assault on Harvard may be less violent (for now, at least) than the authoritarian takeovers of the University of Berlin and Tsinghua University, it is no less dangerous. It is an attempt to destroy the academic freedoms and institutional autonomy that have been hallmarks of every great modern university. Fortunately, the United States is not (yet) Berlin in 1933 or Beijing in 1950. It retains an independent judiciary and rule of law, and it has, in Harvard, a university with the history, will, and resources to resist. In its resistance, Harvard has reaffirmed its leadership in American higher education as nothing else could. Should it fail, we shall witness the destruction of the one industry, higher education, in which this country is still the global leader. We shall destroy our capacity to recruit talent from all shores. We will decline. For history shows that universities can die, and nations will decay. If American universities remain the envy of the world in 2025, the question must be: for how long?
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Natural Law Does Not Lead to the Unbound Executive
In 2016, I was studying the rise of the National Socialist movement. My project was to investigate the philosophical origins of the National Socialist German Worker's Party—that is, the Nazi Party. That story is a complicated one, since National Socialism was not a cohesive philosophical movement in itself. It was constituted by a variety of different threads: the master morality of Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosophy of Otto Weininger, Darwinian population medicine, and a number of other influences. It was during this work that I encountered the work of Nazi jurist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt, famous for his legal justification of Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Back in 2016, Schmitt's work was coming again into the public eye, thanks in large part to the influential Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule. Schmitt's sharp critiques of liberalism and his theories of law and politics, Vermeule argued, could be separated from his Nazism, and that to ignore these insights on account of Schmitt's politics was mere 'puritanism.' More recently, Vermeule has made waves with his idea of 'common good constitutionalism,' a new theory of legal interpretation arguing the executive branch can read into the law its own determinations about what serves the common good. (This is in contrast to the traditional notion that the courts make final determinations on constitutional questions.) In making this case, Vermeule makes liberal use of classical philosophical terms like 'common good' and 'natural law.' Vermeule's theories, however, should not be taken as representative of the tradition whose language he borrows. Rather, his project is fundamentally Schmittian and should be distinguished from wider theories about natural law and the common good. The significant and serious risks in Vermeule's project are not inherent in either natural law or common good political thought themselves. It would be a shame to throw out a tradition of thought, the tradition of natural law, that has so much to offer our public life because of a certain odorous bathwater. For the past several decades, Adrian Vermeule has been making an extended case for a more powerful executive branch of government. In the wake of the Iraq War, he co-authored The Executive Unbound, which made the case that legal constraints on the executive are really a fiction, and that American legal thinkers have overblown the need for separation of powers and the rule of law. In the modern era, given how quickly technology, markets, and foreign policy dynamics shift and how complex governance is, the legislature and courts are increasingly irrelevant. The executive is, or at least ought to be, 'legally unconstrained,' he wrote. Vermeule draws this line of thinking from Schmitt, a legal academic in early 20th century Germany and the 'crown jurist' of the Nazi Party. Schmitt played an important role in the early days of the Reich as chief legal counsel in party meetings. He wrote legal opinions for the party, drawing on his theories about the executive and the state of emergency, in order to justify Hitler's rise to dictatorial power and the extra-legal murders during the Night of the Long Knives. As the executive, sole power for determination with regard to the state of emergency—when to declare it, what it meant, and how long it would last—rested with the fuhrer. In this historical case, one element of the emergency was the existence of enemies of the party in important public positions. The fuhrer was, therefore, according to Schmitt, well within his proper role in ordering their killing or removal. Just as Vermeule claims that the executive's power rests not on what is granted to him by law but on the support of the people, so Schmitt claimed that Hitler's acts were justified because he had a special 'affinity' with what was popular among the German citizenry. Vermeule and his coauthor, Eric Posner, argue in The Executive Unbound that it is unreasonable to be afraid of tyranny on the part of an executive who is legally unconstrained, because public opinion itself will limit the administration's power (they have to worry about being ousted or about a lack of political will among the people). This, however, is precisely why Schmitt thought Hitler was justified in his policies: namely, because the German people wanted them. In the ensuing years, Vermeule has applied a Schmittian analysis to the administrative state—that is, to federal agencies acting under the executive. In articles like 'Our Schmittian Administrative Law,' and books like Law's Abnegation, he has argued that, inevitably, legislatures leave gray areas and gaps in the law, within which agency officials would have an unlimited breadth of action and judgment. The rise of the administrative state has long been a concern for originalists, who bemoaned the legal doctrine known as Chevron deference (overturned last year by the Supreme Court) which held that courts should defer to agency judgments in matters of the agency's own expertise. Many originalists regarded the legal doctrine as a problematic violation of the separation of powers since it gave unelected members of the executive wide latitude to exercise lawmaking power via regulations, unchecked by the courts or by Congress. Such a vast expansion of executive power opens the door to abuses of power, they maintained. But for Vermeule, this is a feature of the administrative state, rather than a bug. It is precisely with the executive, unfettered by law, that this kind of power should rest. 'As for the structure and distribution of authority within government,' Vermeule writes, 'common-good constitutionalism will favor a powerful presidency ruling over a powerful bureaucracy, the latter acting through principles of administrative law's inner morality with a view to promoting solidarity and subsidiarity. The bureaucracy will be seen not as an enemy, but as the strong hand of legitimate rule.' Finally, in Common Good Constitutionalism, his most recent book, Vermeule argues that it is within the executive's prerogative to read into the text of the law its own judgments on what serves the common good. This prerogative, further, ought not be limited by ideas about the original public meaning of the Constitution or later statutes. Originalists have long argued for their position on the basis that straying from the original public meaning of the text in favor of 'reading into' the text the policy priorities of a given judge effectively untethers judicial and executive action from the law altogether. It provides no principled limit to a judge's ability to disregard the actual meaning of a law in favor of his or her preferred policy objectives. Here again, this kind of wiggle room is what Vermeule likes, and he likes it not just for judges but for administration officials. In Common Good Constitutionalism, as legal scholars William Baude and Stephen Sachs note, Vermeule's motivation for attacking originalism seems to be that it has failed to achieve his preferred policy ends (among these are a stricter public health regime, the curbing of elite liberal wealth, and forming 'better beliefs' among the public). For Vermeule, the limitations of original public meaning are too constraining. Despite the introduction of natural law and common good language in his most recent book (following on Vermeule's recent conversion, in 2016, to Catholicism), that work's project is the same Schmittian one that Vermeule has been on for decades. Additionally, the elements of Schmitt's thinking that Vermeule affirms were not incidental to Schmitt's support for Hitler, but constitutive of it. It was on the basis of the very theories that Vermeule affirms that Schmitt gave to the Nazi party the justifications it needed for dictatorship and political murder. I do not think this is the outcome Vermeule wants. But it is a grave misjudgment to think there's a nugget of gold hiding within the mottled stone of Nazi jurisprudence. Again, Vermuele's latest work has a distinct flavor from his earlier writing, in that it makes liberal use of 'the common good' and 'natural law' and of quotations from Thomas Aquinas. The term 'natural law' refers chiefly to a tradition of ethical, not legal, thought. It is a tradition as broad as it is deep, and includes ancients like Aristotle and the stoics, medievals like Aquinas and Ibn Sina, and moderns like Hugo Grotius and Jean-Jaques Burlamaqui. On the other side of the world, it includes also the epochal philosophers Mengzi and Zhu Xi. These thinkers are united by the idea that ethical truths can be drawn from facts about human nature. Within the natural law legal tradition in America today, Vermeule is decidedly on the outskirts. The leading thinkers in this world are people like Jeff Pojanowski, Kevin Walsh, and Robert P. George, none of whom would agree with Vermeule's particular application of classical or natural law terms and traditions. Where Vermeule sees the meaning of law as open to the unconstrained interpretation of the executive, Pojanowski and Walsh ably argue that the classical tradition has more to say in favor of faithfulness to the original public meaning of duly promulgated law. The differences between these thinkers is enough to show that Vermeule's line of thought should not be taken as representative of the natural law legal theorists at large. The strength of natural law theory is that it holds that ethical and political debates may be grounded in facts about human nature that are accessible to all. This does not mean that the answers to moral and political questions are obvious or easy. It simply means that it is possible for us to argue, disagree, deliberate, and reason together constructively, because we all have access to some degree of common ground upon which to argue. To understand natural law in the American tradition, you might turn to Hugo Grotius, the Dutch natural law legal theorist of the Early Modern era and an influential figure in the legal landscape that shaped America. Working mostly in the early 17th century, Grotius was facing a newly diverse, pluralistic, and interconnected world, one in which the dictates of particular religious traditions would not have universal sway. Was it ever possible to come to any kind of agreement about moral life and the law? Grotius thought so, because essential facts about our human nature, like the fact that we are rational and social animals, are universal, and can ground our deliberation about what constitutes the human good. In his great work, De Jure Belli, Grotius argued that natural law is 'a dictate of right reason' based upon human nature, one which could ground the laws of engagement between diverse nations. We still find ourselves in the same situation: a pluralistic and diverse society. Natural law allows us to govern together based on certain fundamental facts about human nature. We will all bring our own biases and interests to the table, but—unlike the executive branch Vermeule would make all powerful—the legislature is specifically designed for bargaining, reasoning, deliberating, and accommodating in order to achieve stable, moderate, and reformable governance through law. Natural law theory supports the idea that this kind of deliberation is possible, and that politics can be something more than raw expression of preference and power. In a legislative body, members will bring many resources to bear in making judgments about what is and is not good law. For deliberation to be possible, however, there must be some common ground, some public set of reasons accessible to all. Otherwise the parties are at an impasse. Natural law holds that this realm of public reason really is accessible to us through observation of human nature. In the rationality and freedom of the human person, for instance, we might be able to ground arguments about rights; in the sociality and fellow-feeling of human nature, we might be able to ground arguments about duties. This does not mean everyone will come to the same easy conclusions, it just means that there is a common, non-sectarian discourse within which reasons can be exchanged. Natural law holds that there really are objective claims we can make about what is good and bad for the human person. Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, makes his famous 'function argument' to express how this works. In looking at any natural thing, we determine what is good or bad for it based on its characteristic functions. Thus, we know that it is better for a dog to be able to run and play and be with other dogs than to be legless, caged up, and alone. This is because we can observe the nature of the dog is to run, to play, to be social. So it is with human beings. Our characteristic functions include our health, security, but they also include distinctly human things, like our freedom, sociality, and rationality. Early Americans thought that the law should protect certain liberties, like freedom of speech, worship, and expression, because these were conducive to the characteristic functions of free and rational creatures. But this exchange of reasons, this deliberative practice where, as a group, we try to come to practical arrangements in accordance with human flourishing and the common good, does not satisfy Vermeule. He would like government to instantiate his own conception of the common good without compromise and deliberation. In his picture, the executive will be in the best position to decide difficult questions of politics and morality. But how can we be sure the executive will use this awesome power well? On the one hand, in The Executive Unbound, he says that public opinion will constrain the executive, but in Common Good Constitutionalism, Vermeule claims that the executive will do what's best for the people whether they like it or not. How we guarantee that the executive will be so wise, restraining itself from using its unchecked power tyrannically, remains a mystery. Vermeulism also should not be taken as 'the Catholic position.' Although Vermeule quotes St. Thomas Aquinas—a towering figure in the natural law tradition—in support of his legal theory, whether Vermeule's view represents Aquinas's, let alone the actual teaching of the Catholic Church, is debatable. Pope John Paul II, in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus, affirmed that there should be a balance of power between executive, legislative, and judicial, with the law reigning over all. 'This is the principle of the 'rule of law',' John Paul II wrote, 'in which the law is sovereign, and not the arbitrary will of individuals. … Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law.' What is more, Vermeule bases his thinking on the political theology of Carl Schmitt. But no less an authority than Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in 1970 that it was 'impossible' for a Catholic to adhere, as Vermeule seems to, to Schmitt's 'political theology.' Our constitutional system, inspired by the writing of Aristotle among others, is designed with human weakness in mind. An unbound executive was precisely what it meant to avoid because the Founding Fathers recognized, as Aristotle did, that an executive unconstrained by law is a tyranny, and that those in whom such power was concentrated were likely to be corrupted by power. Aristotle thought that it would be lovely to have a perfectly wise and just monarch, but recognized that, human nature being what it is, a tyrant was much more likely. The solution of our founders was the elaborate system of separation of powers and of checks and balances. And even further, the founders, as expressed in The Federalist and elsewhere, did not believe that their system was self-enforcing or self-constraining. They understood that it could devolve into tyranny in various ways. As John Adams said, our Constitution is only fit for a moral and religious people, and any other would 'go through it like a whale goes through a net.' The founders also believed that, fallen as human nature is, it could still rise to virtue under the right cultural influences and within a well-designed constitutional system. The Constitution is designed for people who have the virtue to adhere to, rather than violate, its limits. As administrative law scholar Adam White argued in his review of Law's Abnegation, the rise of a more imperial presidency is not a historical inevitability, but a consequence of a lack of public virtue. The loss of the rule of law is, in some respects, a matter of choice. Today, perhaps, we face a choice. Do we still believe in the Constitution handed down to us, or do we want to slide toward Schmitt's authoritarian vision? It is a vision that could be embodied on the right or the left theory and that of the founders both made use of the idea of natural law. If we accept Vermeulism, let us at least not say that natural law made us do it.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'New era' for German army as permanent brigade launched in Lithuania
The German military entered what Chancellor Friedrich Merz described as a "new era" on Thursday, with the launching of its first large unit stationed permanently in another country. Merz and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda both attended the roll-call ceremony for the new armoured brigade in the centre of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The deployment came in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as part of efforts to strengthen the eastern flank of the NATO military alliance. About 800 German troops were on parade on Cathedral Square in Vilnius. The brigade receive its colours, and a Lithuanian and German flash, or badge. Merz said at the ceremony that "Lithuania has asked for support – and Germany stands ready." "Anyone who challenges NATO must know that we are prepared," said Merz. "Anyone who threatens an ally must know that the entire alliance will jointly defend every inch of NATO territory." "This gathering is a sign of our solidarity and our friendship, for which I'm all the more grateful in view of the suffering that National Socialist [Nazi] Germany brought to this country." For the German army, this was "a step into a new era," Merz said. "Never before have we permanently stationed a large military unit abroad." Nausėda described it as a "historic moment" for both countries. "It is also a landmark event for the security architecture of NATO and the whole of Europe." "My country is ready to play its part. Next year we will reach 5% of GDP for defence," he said, signing up to the higher spending target demanded by US President Donald Trump. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, who also attended the roll-call ceremony, said that "deterrence and defence are Germany's top priorities." "We cannot and will not look away. Without security there is no freedom, without security there is no sovereignty," he said. 'Indispensable' military presence The brigade named "Lithuania" is to be fully operational by 2027. The aim is for a permanent presence of up to 5,000 troops, with their headquarters to be at Rūdninkai near the Belarusian border. The barracks have yet to be built, and an exercise ground is also planned. Temporary accommodation for the brigade is to be in barracks near Vilnius. Addressing the German troops directly during the roll-call ceremony, Merz said: "Your job is not easy ... it requires discipline and it involves risks. But it is indispensable." The reinforcement of NATO's eastern flank with German troops would help defend the military alliance against "any aggression," Merz told reporters earlier alongside Nausėda. "The security situation here in the Baltic States remains very tense," said Merz.
The Journal
14-05-2025
- The Journal
Three Nazi-worshipping extremists found guilty of planning attacks on mosques and synagogues in UK
THREE NAZI-WORSHIPPING EXTREMISTS who believed a race war was imminent in the United Kingdom have been found guilty of planning terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues. A jury at Sheffield Crown Court heard how Christopher Ringrose, 34, Marco Pitzettu, 25, and Brogan Stewart, 25, were preparing to use the more than 200 weapons they had amassed, including machetes, swords, crossbows and an illegal stun gun. Ringrose had also 3D-printed most of the components of a semi-automatic firearm at the time of his arrest and was trying to get the remaining parts. The trio, who are not believed to have met in the real world before they appeared together in the dock of a court, were arrested when security services believed an attack was imminent after undercover officers infiltrated their online group, the court heard. A nine-week-long trial heard how the group idolised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, shared racist slurs and glorified mass murderers. Brogan Stewart PA PA Today, a jury rejected claims the defendants were fantasists with no intention of carrying out their threats and found the three men guilty of a charge of preparing acts of terrorism and charges of collecting information likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism. Ringrose was also convicted of manufacturing a prohibited weapon. Pitzettu pleaded guilty to obtaining an illegal stun gun at a previous hearing. The defendants will be sentenced on 17 July. Christopher Ringrose PA PA The judge, Justice Cutts, told them: 'You must all expect substantial custodial sentences'. Opening the trial in March, Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, said: 'The prosecution say that these three defendants were right-wing extremists who regarded themselves as National Socialists, or Nazis, and they supported the National Socialist movement in the UK, such as it is or indeed was.' He said the defendants followed a cause which embraced an admiration for Adolf Hitler, white supremacy, a 'hatred towards black and other non-white races', and glorification and admiration for mass killers who have targeted the black and Muslim community. He told the jury of seven men and five women that the trio all held a 'belief that there must soon be a race war between the white and other races'. Marco Pitzettu PA PA The prosecutor told the jury that the defendants formed a group called Einsatz 14 in January 2024, with 'like-minded extremists' who wanted to 'go to war for their chosen cause'. Advertisement He said Stewart told the group: 'Hitler did more for his people than any politician. And for Britain to have a p*** and zionist in charge of the country is absolutely outrageous.' Sandiford said this last comment was a reference to the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has Pakistani ancestry. The jury was also shown a short video Stewart posted of himself wearing a German army helmet, a Nazi armband and a skull face covering. Sandiford explained how Stewart discussed torturing a Muslim leader using his 'information extraction kit' with an undercover officer. Brogan Stewart's crossbow PA PA He explained how Stewart set up a group called Einsatz 14 with him as 'Fuhrer' and an undercover officer called Blackheart as the 'Obergruppenfuhrer', which the other two defendants also joined. He said that when Blackheart asked him about the group's ideology, Stewart replied: 'Personally, I've taken inspiration from the SS', and added: 'I also hope that we can extort political rivals and potentially plan operations to meet migrants landing on our beaches and deal with them. 'As the race war comes to unfold I'd expect members to stand by, wait for orders and deploy to combat our…' The court heard that Stewart sent the officer a list of 'standard uniform' for Einsatz 14 which included a Black SS helmet, 'mask, balaclava, skull face mask or anything to hide identity' as well as a Swastika armband, although the defendant said this was 'Not a given. It must be earned'. Brogan Stewart's tomahawk PA PA Sandiford said potential recruits were sent a vetting form with questions such as: 'What is your opinion on the historic paramilitary force, the SS?' and 'Out of so many different options, who would you say you hold most of your hatred for – kikes, n******, shitskins, fags etc and why'. He told the court that Stewart developed a mission statement for the group which said its 'basic duties' included to 'target mosques, Islamic education centres and other similar locations'. Sandiford told the jury the group discussed potential targets at the end of January 2024. He told the court Stewart sent Blackheart details of the Islamic Education Centre on Mexborough Road in Leeds, including a Google Maps image. The officer asked Stewart for more detailed information about the plan and he replied that they could smash windows or ambush someone, the court heard. According to Sandiford, Stewart said: 'It depends how far we are willing to go. It could be a beating with batons and bats or something more serious.' Bethan David, Head of the Crown Prosecution Service's Counter Terrorism Division, said: 'These extremists were plotting violent acts of terrorism against synagogues, mosques and an Islamic Education Centre. By their own admission, they were inspired by SS tactics and supremacist ideology. 'Had Christopher Ringrose managed to completely finish building the 3D-printed semi-automatic firearm that he had started to, it could have been used leading to devastating consequences.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
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Nazi-worshipping trio's cache of swords and crossbows uncovered
A trio of Nazi-obsessed fanatics amassed a cache of swords, crossbows and a 3D-printed semi-automatic firearm in preparation for an attack on a mosque or a synagogue. Right-wing extremists Christopher Ringrose, 34, Marco Pitzettu, 25, and Brogan Stewart, 25, were found guilty of terrorism offences at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday. The men, who were part of a militant online group, claimed they were merely fantasists who never intended to carry out an attack. Credit: Counter Terrorism Policing North East However, the jury rejected their claims, and anti-terrorism detectives believe that if they had not been arrested, they would have carried out a mass casualty attack. A nine-week-long trial heard how the group, which had been infiltrated by undercover officers, idolised Hitler and the Nazis, shared racist slurs and glorified mass murderers. Ringrose had also 3D-printed most of the components of a semi-automatic firearm at the time of his arrest and was trying to get the remaining parts. Jurors were shown a video of a police firearms expert testing a completed version of the weapon to show it would have been viable. Opening the trial in March, Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, said: 'The prosecution say that these three defendants were Right-wing extremists who regarded themselves as National Socialists, or Nazis, and they supported the National Socialist movement in the UK, such as it is or indeed was.' He said the defendants followed a cause that embraced an admiration for Hitler, white supremacy, a 'hatred towards black and other non-white races', and glorification and admiration for mass killers who have targeted the black and Muslim community. The prosecutor told the jury that the defendants formed a group called Einsatz 14 in January 2024, with 'like-minded extremists' who wanted to 'go to war for their chosen cause'. He told the jury of seven men and five women that the men all held a 'belief that there must soon be a race war between the white and other races'. Credit: Counter Terrorism Policing North East Mr Sandiford said an undercover officer called Blackheart was also part of Einsatz 14 and was referred to as the 'Obergruppenführer'. Stewart developed a mission statement for the group that said its 'basic duties' were to 'target mosques, Islamic education centres and other similar locations'. The court heard the group discussed potential targets at the end of January 2024. The court heard Stewart sent Blackheart details of the Islamic education centre on Mexborough Road in Leeds, including a Google Maps image. Det Ch Supt James Dunkerley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said the men had collected more than 200 weapons, including knives, swords, body armour and a stun gun. But he said that 'most concerning' was the fact they tried to acquire a gun and this led them to build a 3D-printed firearm. The officer said: 'We saw this building of a firearm, and we saw them then changing their conversation and an up-tick in their hatred and looking to identify a real-world target, which could have been talk of a synagogue, an Islamic institution, a mosque, education... 'When we saw that up-tick changing, and they were looking to come out into the real world, that's when we took the action to arrest them.' Mr Dunkerley said: 'That was a tipping point for us. The protection of the public was absolutely paramount, and this wasn't some fantasy.' He added: 'If they took that 3D-printed firearm onto the streets and discharged it, it would kill somebody.' Bethan David, head of the Crown Prosecution Service's Counter Terrorism Division, said: 'These extremists were plotting violent acts of terrorism against synagogues, mosques and an Islamic education centre. By their own admission, they were inspired by SS tactics and supremacist ideology. 'Had Christopher Ringrose managed to completely finish building the 3D-printed semi-automatic firearm that he had started, it could have been used, leading to devastating consequences.' Ringrose, of Cannock, Staffordshire; Pitzettu, of Mickleover, Derbyshire; and Stewart, of Tingley, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, were all found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism and charges of collecting information likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism. Ringrose was also convicted of manufacturing a prohibited weapon, while Pitzettu pleaded guilty to obtaining an illegal stun gun at a previous hearing. The defendants will be sentenced on July 17. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
