*For the Glory of France: The Story of the French Resistance* *by Maria
Wilhelm*
*Introduction by Sam Sloan*
This is an interesting title for a book about a subject which most regard
as exactly the opposite from what the title says. Italian-America with a
German husband Maria Wilhelm tries to explain what many regard as the most
disgraceful period in the history of France. She calls it the most glorious.
Even today, the events of that time seem incredible, impossible,
unbelievable.
In brief summary, World War One did not really start until August 2, 1914,
when Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II invaded Belgium and attacked French
troops. Germany declared war on Russia on the same day. Thus began a war
that cost an estimated 70,000,000 lives.
The war ended for the time being on November 11, 1918 with the signing at
11 AM on 11 November 1918 – "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh month" of an armistice. A ceasefire came into effect.
Although most authorities feel that Germany was beaten and unable to
continue the war and France was the moral victor, Hitler who came to power
in 1933 called the German officers who agreed to the armistice as
“traitors” and vowed to restart the war. Hitler launched a blitzkrieg
attack on Belgium and France on 10 May 1940, defeating primarily French
forces. Although France had as many if not more combat ready forces in the
field, they were quickly overwhelmed by the Germans. German forces arrived
in an undefended Paris on 14 June 1940. France surrendered on June 22,
1940. Thus the conquest of France took only one month and 12 days.
As Americans with our limited knowledge of history, knowing that the armies
of Napoleon easily defeated the combined armies of Germany, Poland and
Russia and reached Berlin in 1806 and Moscow in 1812, we cannot understand
how it was possible that France collapsed and was defeated so easily and so
quickly.
About the only thing that Americans know about what happened next comes
from reruns of the old movie Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart. We cannot
understand why the French people did not seem to do much to resist the
German invasion. We wonder what would have happened had the Japanese or the
Russians had succeeded in their plans to invade America. This book is
intended to fill our gaps in the knowledge of this difficult and inglorious
era.
It seems an odd coincidence that the author of this book shares a name with
Kaiser Wilhelm II, our enemy during World War I. There is no known blood
relationship.
Of more immediate interest is the fact that the author of this book is the
mother of the presumed next Mayor of New York City.
Maria Wilhelm is the mother of Warren Wilhelm, Jr., who changed his name
legally to Bill de Blasio in order to run for election in New York City. He
can hardly be blamed for changing his name. Having the same name as the
enemy of America during World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm, certainly would hurt
his election chances. Much better is a nice Italian name like de Blasio.
New York City has a history of mayors with Italian names such as Fiorello
La Guardia, Vincent R. Impellitteri, Rudy Giuliani and governors with
Italian names Mario Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo. No person with a German name
has been elected to high office in New York City since World War I, except
for German Jews like Bloomberg and Koch.
However, his justification for changing his name from Warren Wilhelm to
Bill de Blasio seems questionable as he says that it was to honor his
mother who raised him after his parents divorced and his father commited
suicide. This is not a reasonable explanation, as his mother has never used
the de Blasio name and always used the Wilhelm name. This is one of four
books written by Maria Wilhelm, all using her German name of Wilhelm.
Others are “The Fighting Irishman: The Story of Wild Bill Donovan” , “The
Man Who Watched the Rising Sun The Story of Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias” and
“The Other Italy: The Italian Resistance in World War II”.
Taking no chances, Bill de Blasio did not change his name legally to de
Blasio until after he had already won election under that name. He did not
legally change over to this new name until 2002, when the discrepancy was
noted during an election. See the New York Daily News for September 22,
2013 article, “Mayoral hopeful Bill de Blasio has had three different legal
names, court records show Bill de Blasio, born Warren Wilhelm Jr., legally
changed his name twice over the past 30 years.”
Right now, Bill de Blasio is so far ahead in the polls that it is virtually
certain that he will be elected mayor. Polls show de Blasio leading by 43%
over Joe Lhota with 65% to 22% among likely voters.
This is likely to be an end to a bizarre election period which has made New
York City the world's laughing stock. The city does not yet know what the
end is going to be because they do not yet realize that “Bill de Blasio” is
a Hard Core Communist associated withn the Sandinista Government of
Nicaragua.
I happen to have been in Nicaragua briefly before “Bill de Blasio” arrived
there. This was in 1983. I drove a car, my Pacer, all the way from
Lynchburg Virginia to the Republic of Panama, stopping for a few days in
Nicaragua. There were basically no tourists there; I was the only one. All
foreigners were required by the Communist Government of Nicaragua to stay
in the same hotel together. Thus, I shared rooms with all of the other
foreigners there in Managua at that time.
What I found was that all of the others were the hardest of the hard-core
Communists imaginable. They were Americans and Europeans from countries
like Germany and France. They were all there to “cooperate”, as they put
it, with the establishment of the first fully Communist Government of
Nicaragua.
Not long thereafter, President Ronald Reagan started funding the
“anti-Sandinistas”, who were fighting a civil was against the Sandinistas.
We now know that “Bill De Blasio” was on the side of the Sandinistas and
thus was supporting the enemy of the United States of America.
So, we are about to elect the first Communist Mayor of any city in America.
If one listens carefully to his statements about social inequality, it is
clear that “Bill de Blasio” has not changed his views. Bill de Blasio does
not appear to have changed his Communist views. “Fighting for equality to
me — I say this humbly — is my life’s work,” is a recent quote.
Now that he is the official Democratic Party candidate, the press is
starting to take a closer look at his history and his political views, in
articles such as “A Mayoral Hopeful Now, de Blasio Was Once a Young
Leftist” published in the New York Times on September 22, 2013 and the
follow-up article “Mayoral Rivals Attack de Blasio on Past Support of
Sandinistas” published on September 24, 2013 that reports de Blasio
escaping out of back doors so as to avoid answering questions about his
support for the Communists.
It is reported that the books by his mother also support left-wing
ideology. The New York Times reports “when his mother began to have doubts
about her plan to write a book about the Italian resistance, focused on
themes of social upheaval, it was Mr. de Blasio who made sure she finished
it.” The New York Times, in its review of ''The Other Italy'' by Maria
Wilhelm points out her statement that the strongest underground forces were
led by Communists and Socialists.
We read this book to see if this work on the French Resistance includes
views sympathetic to the Communists. Indeed the first chapter is about
resistance leader Jean Moulin. There have been many allegations in the
postwar years that Moulin was a communist.
How did a hard core Communist like Bill de Blasio become the Democratic
party candidate for Mayor? This is one of those stranger than fiction
stories.
Only a few months before the primaries, “Bill de Blasio” was lingering down
in fifth place in the polls with no realistic chance of winning. But then,
one-by-one, those ahead of him were picked off.
First was Anthony Weiner. A good public speaker, Weiner had been the
leading Democratic Party candidate four years earlier. However, he had been
forced to give up his campaign for mayor and his seat in the United States
Congress after it became public that he had sent unwanted sex messages to
young women whom he did not know and they had complained.
However, by 2013 the public was willing to forget and forgive those
indiscretions and so he announced that he was running for mayor again.
Soon, Weiner was leading in the polls. As a result, another disgraced
politician, Eliot Spitzer, announced that he was joining the race for
Comptroller. Previously, Spitzer had resigned as Governor of New York after
it became public that he had regularly been paying prostitutes for sex.
More shocking was the amounts he had paid. He would travel to cities where
he was less likely to be recognized, such as Washington DC, and pay $4,000
to a prostitute for quickie sex. It was reported that he would keep his
black socks on while having sexual intercourse with a prostitute. Against
the charge that he was using public funds from his expense account as
Governor of New York, it was revealed that his wealthy parents had provided
the funds for him to have sex with prostitutes. This seemed morally worse
than having the government pay for it.
With Weiner leading in the race for Mayor, Spitzer decided it was time for
a come-back and so he joined the race for Comptroller and took an early
lead in the polls.
However, it soon developed that Weiner had not given up his habit of
sending sex messages over the Internet. One of his correspondents revealed
that he had sent a picture of his own penis to a young woman on Facebook.
This shocked even his strongest supporters. The woman receiving the picture
became public and gave press interviews. A hard core Porn site offered her
$250,000 to make a porn video. She accepted the money and became a porn
star.
While this was taking place, Anthony Weiner remained at the top of the
polls for a time but his numbers started to decline. He eventually finished
in fifth place in the polls.
Next to fall was the Chinese candidate, John Liu. While in first place on
the polls, it was revealed that he had violated New York Campaign Finance
Law in his previous campaigns. This is because the law provides 6 to 1
matching funds to qualified candidates. John Liu received a $16,000
campaign donation from a contributor in China. Because this exceeded the
amount any one contributor was allowed to donate, his staff created a list
of 64 fake names and address of persons who supposedly had contributed $250
each. This was the right amount to contribute to qualify for the 6-to-1
funds, so the Liu campaign received $96,000, or $16,000 times 6 in matching
funds from the city.
This was just one of many examples. Liu had raised millions of dollars
through these scams.
During the campaign, the two top subordinates of John Liu were arrested and
convicted of this crime. Liu himself claimed to have no knowledge of what
his underlings were doing and no proof has developed that he personally
knew or participated in this, so he was not arrested and remained free to
campaign for mayor. However, his poll numbers dropped and soon he was far
down in the polls. Especially devastating was the fact that he had used
this bogus accounting and fake names in his successful race to run for
Comptroller of New York City in 2009. The Comptroller controls billions of
dollars in city retirement funds and a controller who cheats on his own
finances was unacceptable.
With Liu and Weiner out of contention, soon Catherine Quinn was on top of
the polls. With seemingly a successful career as the Chairman of the New
York City Council, Quinn seemed ideal. However, as a long time political
insider, it was soon revealed that like all long term city politicians she
was involved in corrupt deals, such as the deal to give the Yankees a new
stadium.
Worse than that was the fact that she was an open lesbian. Her lesbianism
was not a secret and was long known. However, many New Yorkers did not know
about it. When one rival attacked her saying that she did not know about
family life because she did not have a family, she replied that she does
have a family because her mother and her sister are her family.
This made New Yorkers notice that she does not have, and never will have, a
husband nor children. Her polls numbers started to drop and soon she was
out of the running.
It was only after Weiner, Liu and Quinn were eliminated as viable
candidates that the voters started looking at Bill de Blasio as the next
mayor of New York City. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, a strong
challenge was launched by John A. Catsimatidis, a supermarket billionaire
who became rich by taking over Sloane's Supermarkets after my distant uncle
Max Sloan died.
John A. Catsimatidis spent four million dollars running for NYC Mayor, but
apparently the voters were not ready to elect an obese 400-pound former
supermarket check-out clerk, so his bid for mayor failed, leaving only
Guiliani crony Joe Lhota in the race from the Republican side. Guiliani was
known by the monikers “The Midtown Mussolini” and “Hitler on the Hudson”
during his unfortunate terms as mayor and New Yorkers do not seem ready to
elect someone like him again, but might reconsider once they realize that
his only remaining opponent is a Hard Core Communist like Warren Wilhelm
a/k/a Bill de Blasio.
The results of the primary race for Mayor were Bill De Blasio, 40.3%,
William Thompson 26.2%, Christine Quinn 15.5%, John Liu 7.0% and Anthony
Weiner 4.9%. On the Republican side, Joe Lhota got 52.5% and John A.
Catsimatidis got 40.7%.
In the waning moments of the primary campaign, a new issue arose, that of
the family of de Blasio. The voters discovered that while de Blasio is
white, his wife, an African American, is Black. This seemed to help him in
the short run with his son Dante with a prominent Afro hairstyle making
speeches. Whether it will help his popularity in the long run remains to be
seen.
The history of “Bill de Blasio” making multiple name changes for political
purposes did not come out until after he had won the primary election. His
history as a card carrying member of the Communist Party is not as yet well
known to the New York City voters, but clues to his political and social
views can be found in this book.
Sam Sloan
Bronx New York
October 16, 2013