by | September 8, 2010 · 9:39 am

Barbados 1936: Happy natives dive for coins, Nazi swastika flies in Bridgetown

Critical Past archival film shows an edited version of Bajan life in 1936

Our thanks to a reader who directed us to the CriticalPast.com archives where we found some 1936 film footage of “Barbados Island” showing the way we were. Well, the way we were at least according to some American tourist who edited their home movie. Lot’s of stereotypes and a big Nazi surprise too!

As we were viewing the film, we saw the Nazi flag go by on a motorized open boat holding about 20 people. Hmmmm… that’s not mentioned in the keywords, but yup… there it is. What an interesting juxtaposition of Barbados and the Nazi flag with (presumably) German tourists just 3 years before Herr Hitler and his Jew-hating friends (including the Russians) launched their death-fest called World War II.

Oh? You didn’t know that Russia and Germany were allies that launched World War II together? Hmmmm…. wat they teachin’ at UWI these days?

History: an agreed upon set of lies, OR, written by the victors. Whatever history is, you can see a little bit of ours at Critical Past.com.

Here’s a list of the scenes from the 1936 short film “Boys dive in Barbados to entertain visitors and view of Carol Island, beach and the sea from the Hackleton’s Cliff.“

– Barbados “Little England”.
– Happy native girls and boys dive for visitors to this beautiful coral island.
– Small boats gather round the ocean vessels.
– Nelson’s statue… facing a different direction of course!


– Native “Bobbies” carry on British traditions on foot and horseback.
– Donkey carts haul wood. To the families of “James Blunt, St. Michael” and “Yearwood”… here is a film of your ancestor!
– Scenes of tallships in the harbour and a view of the city.
– The view from Hackleton’s Cliff.

13 Comments

Filed under Barbados, History, Military

Tagged as , , ,

13 responses to “Barbados 1936: Happy natives dive for coins, Nazi swastika flies in Bridgetown”

  1. Facts
    September 8, 2010 at 11:34 am

    Thanks BFP.
    Too good to be true.

    You only get one clip free. You have to buy any others.
    Good picture nonetheless.

  2. John Da Silva
    September 8, 2010 at 2:45 pm

    When are we going to create a national digital archive? There must be hundreds of hours of videos out there, plus hundreds of thousands of photos of old Barbados. One day there is going to be a fire and everything in the national archives is going to be lost. If we can digitise everything in there and make it available as a public resource, we can better learn about our history.

  3. 198
    September 8, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    And the new death-fest is the free world’s struggle against the creeping theocracy of islam..!

    So many people are completely oblivious of the fact that world war three started in Nov. 1979
    with the Iranian Hostage Crisis
    -but we prefer to wait for a formal Declaration of War.

    Ask Denmark what it’s like.
    Talk to the original inhabitants of LEEDS in the UK
    ask them what it’s like.

    But ignore me, I’m talking nonsense..

  4. what will they think of next
    September 8, 2010 at 7:47 pm

    Great stuff, BFP.

  5. Green Monkey
    September 9, 2010 at 1:41 am

    So many people are completely oblivious of the fact that world war three started in Nov. 1979
    with the Iranian Hostage Crisis
    -but we prefer to wait for a formal Declaration of War.

    Or did it start even further back than that when the CIA and Britain’s MI6 teamed up to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Musaddiq, to install the dictatorial Shah as the new Iranian strong man and Western sock puppet, toady ruler (along with his notorious torture experts, trained by the CIA and the Israelis, the SAVAK secret police organization) because Musaddiq was planning to nationalize the British owned Anglo Iranian Oil Company (which later became the now infamous British Petroleum).

    The AIOC many Iranians believed were sucking enormous profits out of Iran’s oil fields to the benefit of their shareholder, which included the British government, and passing on a relative pittance in royalty payments to the Iranian government, while also paying unconscionably low wages to their Iranian workers.

    A ‘great venture’:
    overthrowing the government of Iran
    by Mark Curtis

    In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran’s nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture in a dictatorship that lasted until the 1979 Islamic revolution. The 1953 coup is conventionally regarded primarily as a CIA operation, yet the planning record reveals not only that Britain was the prime mover in the initial project to overthrow the government but also that British resources contributed significantly to the eventual success of the operation. Two first-hand accounts of the Anglo-American sponsorship of the coup – by the MI6 and CIA officers primarily responsible for it – are useful in reconstructing events. (1) Many of the secret planning documents that reveal the British role have been removed from public access and some of them remain closed until the next century – for reasons of ‘national security’. Nevertheless, a fairly clear picture still emerges. Churchill later told the CIA officer responsible for the operation that he ‘would have loved nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture’. (2)

    In the 1950s the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) – later renamed British Petroleum – which was managed from London and owned by the British government and British private citizens, controlled Iran’s main source of income: oil. According to one British official, the AIOC ‘has become in effect an imperium in imperio in Persia’. Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC not only made revenues from Iranian oil ‘greatly in excess of the revenues of the Persian government but [it] dominates the whole economic life of Persia, and therefore impairs her independence’. (3) The AIOC was recognised as ‘a great foreign organisation controlling Persia’s economic life and destiny’. The British oil business fared well from this state of affairs; the AIOC made £170 million in profits in 1950 alone. (4)

    Iranians could also point to AIOC’s effectively autonomous rule in the parts of the country where the oilfields lay, its low wage rates and the fact that the Iranian government was being paid royalties of 10% or 12% of the company’s net proceeds, whilst the British government received as much as 30% of these in taxes alone. (5) Shown the overcrowded housing afforded to some of the AIOC workers, a British official commented: ‘Well, this is just the way all Iranians live’. (6)

    snip

    The origin of British planning to aid the overthrow of Musaddiq lay in his decision to nationalise oil operations in Iran, which was passed into law in May 1951, the month after he became Prime Minister. In the dispute that followed, Musaddiq offered to compensate the AIOC but Britain demanded either a new oil concession or a settlement that would compensate for loss of future profits. ‘In other words’, according to Iranian scholar Homa Katouzian,’the Iranians would have had either to give up the spirit of the nationalisation or to compensate the AIOC not just for its investment but for all the oil which it would have produced in the next 40 years’. (11) Nationalisation and the offer of compensation were perfectly legitimate in international law though this did not appear to be relevant in guiding subsequent British actions. ‘If Musaddiq seemed to be inflexible’, Katouzian comments further, ‘it was because he insisted on basic principles which would have been observed if the dispute had been between two equal nations’. (12) It was a fatal misunderstanding for which he – and one might add ultimately the Iranians – paid dearly. ‘Persian public opinion’, the British Ambassador commented, ‘is unanimous in rejecting the [British] offer’. (13) But Britain did ‘not consider that a deal on acceptable terms can ever be made with’ Musaddiq’. (14) According to the Foreign Office’s description of the US State Department’s view, ‘a reasonable solution with Musaddiq is impossible’: nevertheless, it added ominously, ‘there is hope of a change which would bring moderate elements into control’. (15)

    More at:
    http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm

    (Note the article describes a typical use of false-flag terror tactics by the CIA/MI6 coup organizers).

  6. 198
    September 9, 2010 at 4:58 pm

    The view that WW3 started Nov. 1979 is an American view
    but your history lesson may well prove to be right!

    Many maintain that WW3 started quite soon after WW2
    of which the Cold War was part.

    War scholars however have classified ‘the real’ WW3 as
    the battle of islam vs. the christian West(NATO to all intents and purposes)
    -so who knows, nuh?

    The point remains that we should not wait for a formal declaration of war, a la 7th. Dec. 1941 after Pearl Harbour.

    It may have been better had Geo.W.Bush made such a formal declaration on Wed. Sept. 12th. 2001
    after the World Trade Center twin towers collapsed
    but with both him and the nation in shock that anyone would DARE to do that to the Yanks, it’s understandable that the declaration was not made.

  7. ninemikemike
    September 9, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    Well said 198 – at least someone is aware of the enemy strengthening just like the Nazis in the 30s.

  8. Green Monkey
    September 10, 2010 at 8:07 pm

    Here’s another perspective on the current round of provocations designed to keep humanity at each others throats, primed and ready to kill while the war profiteers continue to rake in billions per second. The war profitteers watch from the sidelines, rubbing their hands as their coffers fill to overflowing from the sales of the latest, high-tech gizmos and war toys, while the patsies from both sides satiate their whipped up blood lust in killing and maiming the opposing infidel on the other side.

    War is a Racket
    By US Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler (At the time of his death in 1940, the most decorated Marine in US history)

    WAR is a racket. It always has been.

    It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

    A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

    In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

    How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

    Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

    http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c1

    9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001

    This article summarizes earlier writings by the author on 9/11 and the role of Al Qaeda in US foreign policy. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, 2005

    “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings….The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..”, (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

    “Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the [Islamic] Jihad.” (Pervez Hoodbhoy, Peace Research, 1 May 2005)

    “Bin Laden recruited 4,000 volunteers from his own country and developed close relations with the most radical mujahideen leaders. He also worked closely with the CIA, … Since September 11, [2001] CIA officials have been claiming they had no direct link to bin Laden.” (Phil Gasper, International Socialist Review, November-December 2001)

    -Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman, was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.

    –The architects of the covert operation in support of “Islamic fundamentalism” launched during the Reagan presidency played a key role in launching the “Global War on Terrorism” in the wake of 9/11.

    – President Ronald Reagan met the leaders of the Islamic Jihad at the White House in 1983

    -Under the Reagan administration, US foreign policy evolved towards the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic “freedom fighters”. In today’s World, the “freedom fighters” are labelled “Islamic terrorists”.

    -In the Pashtun language, the word “Taliban” means “Students”, or graduates of the madrasahs (places of learning or coranic schools) set up by the Wahhabi missions ffrom Saudi Arabia, with the support of the CIA. Education in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular in Afghanistan. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000.

    snip

    The Reagan Administration supports “Islamic Fundamentalism”

    Pakistan’s ISI was used as a “go-between”. CIA covert support to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, –i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be “successful”, Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the “jihad”, which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

    In December 1984, the Sharia Law (Islamic jurisprudence) was established in Pakistan following a rigged referendum launched by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Barely a few months later, in March 1985, President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166), which authorized “stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen” as well a support to religious indoctrination.

    The imposition of The Sharia in Pakistan and the promotion of “radical Islam” was a deliberate US policy serving American geopolitical interests in South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Many present-day “Islamic fundamentalist organizations” in the Middle East and Central Asia, were directly or indirectly the product of US covert support and financing, often channeled through foundations from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Missions from the Wahhabi sect of conservative Islam in Saudi Arabia were put in charge of running the CIA sponsored madrassas in Northern Pakistan.

    Under NSDD 166, a series of covert CIA-ISI operations was launched.

    The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades through the ISI. CIA and ISI officials would meet at ISI headquarters in Rawalpindi to coordinate US support to the Mujahideen. Under NSDD 166, the procurement of US weapons to the Islamic insurgents increased from 10,000 tons of arms and ammunition in 1983 to 65,000 tons annually by 1987. “In addition to arms, training, extensive military equipment including military satellite maps and state-of-the-art communications equipment” (University Wire, 7 May 2002).

    snip

    These various “terrorist” organizations were created as a result of CIA support. They are not the product of religion. The project to establish “a pan-Islamic Caliphate” is part of a carefully devised intelligence operation.

    CIA support to Al Qaeda was not in any way curtailed at the end of the Cold War. In fact quite the opposite. The earlier pattern of covert support took on a global thrust and became increasingly sophisticated.

    The “Global War on Terrorism” is a complex and intricate intelligence construct. The covert support provided to “Islamic extremist groups” is part of an imperial agenda. It purports to weaken and eventually destroy secular and civilian governmental institutions, while also contributing to vilifying Islam. It is an instrument of colonization which seeks to undermine sovereign nation-states and transform countries into territories.

    For the intelligence operation to be successful, however, the various Islamic organizations created and trained by the CIA must remain unaware of the role they are performing on the geopolitical chessboard, on behalf of Washington.

    Over the years, these organizations have indeed acquired a certain degree of autonomy and independence, in relation to their US-Pakistani sponsors. That appearance of “independence”, however, is crucial; it is an integral part of the covert intelligence operation. According to former CIA agent Milton Beardman the Mujahideen were invariably unaware of the role they were performing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): “neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help”. (Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998).

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20958

  9. Clio
    September 10, 2010 at 11:34 pm

    (1) BFP: don’t oversimplify the story in search of a quick punch line– you wrote “You didn’t know that Russia and Germany were allies that launched World War II together?”. From the 1920s when Mussolini came to power in Italy, through to 1933 when Hitler did in Germany, through the Spanish Civil War, it was Russia and the international Communist movement which almost ALONE was fighting fascism. All through the 1930s, Britain and the US and France were appeasing Hitler– without the British Navy’s quiet help, Franco would never have been able to invade Spain from Morrocco and overthrow the Republic. In 1938, Chamberlain and Daladier at Munich agree to send arms to Hitler– you know why: because they wanted Germany to drive east and finish off the Bolsheviks. Russians weren’t stupid, they say, look at this thing bosee, they are ganging up to hit me from every side (and remember that is exactly what had happened in 1919-21), and in 1939 itself they sign the Hitler-Stalin pact, and in October 1939 push forward their troops to into eastern Poland to create a buffer zone. Stalin then built up military capacity in the center of the country. When Hitler invaded in 1941, the Russians were able to put together the greatest army every seen in Europe, and it is the Red Army, not the British or the Americans, who defeated the hardest best equipped troops of the Nazis. Stalingrad, Kursk (the greatest tank battle ever fought), all over to Berlin, the Russians pushed them back with almost no help from Britain or the US. We always hear about the D-Day landings, but what no body tells you is that it was because the Russians were tying down the cream of SS and Wehrmacht regiments that they were able to have any penetration at all on the eastern front.

    (2) Green Monkey, thanks for bringing some sense here. 198, take a little reality check and tell me which is the militaristic power in the world which has invaded country after country, and killed maybe 3 million people in Vietnam, a million in Indonesia, and possibly as many as 600,000 people in Iraq. It ent nuh muslims, I could tell you that.

  10. BFP
    September 11, 2010 at 11:39 am

    Hi Clio

    “it was Russia and the international Communist movement which almost ALONE was fighting fascism.”

    Communism IS Fascism as much as National Socialism ever was.

  11. Clio
    September 12, 2010 at 12:25 pm

    BFP, sorry, that’s a little simplistic, indeed if you would pardon me, ignorant. Fascism was a form of Capitalism, and indeed was backed by rich people around the world, including undoubtedly many in Barbados in the 1930s, because it was considered to be a kind of ‘militant capitalism’ which would crush the bolshevik threat. As Mussolini put it: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”. The Fascists in Italy, Spain, and Germany were in alliance with big business, big landowners, the Catholic Church and the protestant hierarchy in Germany. The German aristocracy, until a year or so before the end of the war, backed the Nazis enthusiastically since they thought they were defending the old order. Henry Ford, King Edward VII of England, JFK’s father, all celebrated the Nazis.

    I am sure those Nazi sailors in your photograph were given a warm reception at a party at the Barbados Yacht Club…..

  12. BFP
    September 12, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Hi Clio

    Clive here.

    I’m aware of the, shall we say “technical” or “theological” differences between fascism and communism and you are correct. Technically. But I view it as a family feud between the dictatorship brothers.

    Besides, Communism is nothing more that state capitalism with slave labour. And please, please don’t get into the “we haven’t seen true communism yet” argument. I’d have to shoot myself as I had enough of that being shoved down my throat during my “higher” education. I’m still waiting for the “New Soviet Man.” If you find him, please let me know!

    I’m also sure that the subtleties of Fascism vs Communism were lost on the millions of victims of each system, especially at the start of WWII when Stalin and Germany divided up Poland and then invaded at the same time. You must be aware of the Katyn massacre?

    Your view that Communism was some sort of savior in WWII or anytime is something I strongly disagree with.

    With respect,

    Cliverton

    PS: Yes, you are probably correct that the Nazis received a warm welcome at the BYC. Some Members of Parliament and the House of Lords in the UK embraced the Nazis as friends in the mid-1930’s for a variety of reasons including the one you state about heading off the commies. Like making friends with a rattlesnake to get rid of your cobra enemy though, it always ends up with the realisation that “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy!”

    Cheers!

  13. BLP? Fascists? Never!
    September 13, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”

    oh man that sounds just like the 14 yrs. now gone
    …of blp management in Bim, not so?
    LOL