Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the UK's military commitment to (a) the European Union Battlegroup, (b) NATO Response Force, (c) NATO Operational Reserve Force, (d) the Spearhead Land Element, (e) Small Scale Focused Intervention Force and (f) Allied Rapid Reaction Corps will be sourced from the Joint Rapid Reaction Force from July to December 2008. [201023] Des Browne: The Joint Rapid Reaction Force (JRRF) exists to provide the UK's high readiness military contingency and to meet our international high readiness military commitments. In the period from July to December 2008 the UK may be required to provide force elements to the EU Battlegroup, the NATO Response Force and the NATO Operational Reserve Force; these commitments, should they arise, will be met from the JRRF as normal. The Spearhead Land Element and the Small Scale Focused Intervention capability are both integral components of the JRRF. They are two elements that contribute to the JRRF capability available to Defence for contingent tasks. The Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (HQ ARRC) is a UK led multinational HQ assigned to NATO. Between July and December 2008 the UK's military commitment to HQ ARRC will not be drawn from elements assigned to the Joint Rapid Reaction Force. **************************************** 18th March 2002 26. Sir Teddy Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on Britain's participation in the European Rapid Reaction Force. [40924] Mr. Hoon: There is no standing European Rapid Reaction Force. Under the Helsinki Headline Goal, however, the United Kingdom has identified a pool of relevant forces and capabilities that it might contribute to an EU-led operation. This includes a maximum of 12,500 troops plus, if required, up to 18 warships and 72 combat aircraft. **************************************************************** 15th Jan 2001. 21. Mr. Derek Twigg: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the role of British forces in NATO. [143733] Mr. Hoon: Britain's armed forces play a leading role in NATO, contributing to the full range of Alliance roles and tasks. In particular, the UK is the framework nation for the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, the ARRC, one of the great successes of the Alliance's post-Cold War adaptation. ********************************************** The EU Rapid Reaction Force: http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Papers/BP37.htm ******************************************************************** Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Territorial Army personnel will be (a) allocated to the European Rapid Reaction Force, (b) able to be deployed with the European Rapid Reaction Force at any 21 Dec 2000 : Column: 253W given time and (c) removed from availability for home defence as a result of such allocation and deployment; and if he will make a statement. [143691] Dr. Moonie: There is no such entity as a standing European Rapid Reaction Force. The UK has identified a pool of forces and capabilities which would enable it to make a powerful contribution to such operations in support of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, where NATO as a whole is not engaged. UK participation in any particular operation, and the nature of our contribution (including any potential use of the Territorial Army), would be matters for decision by the UK Government in the light of circumstances at the time. Our aim in restructuring the TA was to make it more integrated with regular forces and defence plans, with a shift in emphasis away from the TA's traditional home defence roles to other such as signallers, artillery, air defence, logisticians and particularly medical services. Maximum numbers deployed with regulars would depend on the nature and scale of the operation. ************************************************ Mr. Maples: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 15 December 2000, Official Report, column 300W, what unpublished agreements there are with (a) other countries, (b) the EU and (c) NATO concerning arrangements for the European Rapid Reaction Force. [143847] Mr. Vaz: The objective of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy is that EU nations, co-operating together, should be able rapidly to deploy troops for crisis management operations, where NATO as a whole is not engaged. This will not involve the establishment of a standing rapid reaction force, let alone a European Army. The decisions listed in my previous answer constitute the framework for this initiative. The EU and NATO will need to reach an overall agreement, covering 21 Dec 2000 : Column: 341W arrangements for consultation, NATO support for EU-led operations, security issues and capabilities. An interim agreement on security measures was reached between the EU Council Secretariat and NATO in July 2000, to allow for the exchange of classified information. ******************************************** Mrs. Ann Cryer: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the extent to which the contribution of nuclear-powered submarines to the proposed European Rapid Reaction Force is consistent with the Government's commitment to 8 Jan 2001 : Column: 353W ensuring a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies under the Non-Proliferation Treaty final document. [144106] Mr. Spellar: There is no such entity as a standing European Rapid Reaction Force. No nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines have been identified as part of our contribution to meeting the European Union headline goal. Nuclear-powered fleet submarines, which do not carry ballistic missiles, are not themselves considered to be nuclear weapons. Our contribution to the pool of forces and capabilities for EU-led crisis management tasks is fully consistent will Government policy on non-proliferation. **************************************** The proposal contained in this document provides for the creation of a European Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) by an avant-guard group of European countries, as a first step towards a European policy of security controlled by a European Federal government. It is founded on the contents of the Reform Treaty (RT) recently approved in Lisbon. The words “Rapid Reaction Force” and “security”, instead of “army” and “defence”, are used in the conviction that a European security policy will be a structural pause compared to the pure policy of power which characterised each European country up to the first half of the twentieth century [1]. I have long been a believer that the Atlantic system is out dated and even immoral. The reality is that Europeans and Americans think differently on issues of security and how to address issues, such as terrorism. I firmly believe in an independent from NATO European security and defense system that is made in Europe, in Brussels and national capitals, and not dictated from Washington. The narrow lens of military power as the only meaningful instrument of foreign relations dominates American foreign policy and this is why Americans view terrorism (which is a police-law enforcement problem) as a military problem that is “fought” through a “war.” American foreign policy realists are comfortable with the use of military force, even when military power is inappropriate. The European Security Strategy, the Solana Paper, addresses many solutions to security problems where the first use of military power is inappropriate. Unless we are talking about a state sponsor of terrorism, military force is inappropriate in the struggle against terrorism. Terrorism in largely a police-law enforcement problem that requires international police cooperation, such as Interpol and Europol, and here European can teach Americans about counter terrorism. Second, when one reads the Schuman Declaration, one can get the sense that the goal is also an independent European security system that is made by and for Europeans. I am glad to see that there is now permanent structured cooperation in the area of ESDP, as in Article 27(6) of the Lisbon Treaty, now inching forward. The ultimate goal of ESDP should be to operate independently from NATO and not be dependent on American assets, such as in airlift, in order to be effective in European defense. A major step was the European defense industry and another major step is the creation of an independent European organizational structure. The decision of when and how to use European Member States’ military assets should always be voluntary on the part of Member States and decisions remain with the Council and its Political and Security Committee. In the ESS, (independent) military power is one of many other instruments that the Union can use – and it should always be of last resort. The building of European security has nothing to do with counter-balancing the US, but is a very important part of the European project. Remember that “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan,” and fulfillment of the spirit of the Schuman Declaration requires a European security system, including military, that is by and for Europeans. ESLaPorteJoint Rapid Reaction Force
Europe Takes on a New Security Challenge
1 - The Creation of a European Rapid Reaction Force by an Avant-Guard Group of Countries: a Proposal (3/3)
11 August 2008 16:59, by ESLaPorte
Since last summer, the story of the German Schaeffler group has been the source of controversy in southern Poland, where the family business had been located until the end of the war. In July 2008, Schaeffler made the headlines in the international press with initiatives to take over the prominent automobile subcontractor, Continental. Lacking solvency, it is currently seeking a government bailout in the billions. According to observers from the Polish-Czech border region, the rapid rise of the company in the post-war period is based on its wartime business in Kietrz, in southern Poland which, at the time was called Katscher, and was part of the German Reich's Prussian province of Upper Silesia. German-foreign-policy.com's research shows that the owners profited in the Nazi period from the criminal schemes of German expansionist and racist policies.
Aryanized
The Schaeffler Company group alleges that the history of its company began in the post-war period, in 1946, when the brothers Wilhelm and Georg Schaeffler founded the nucleus of today's family enterprise, the INA KG in the Franconian town of Herzogenaurach. But the Schaeffler brothers, in fact, had appropriated the textile company, "Davistan Krümmer-, Plüsch und Teppichfabriken Inc. in Katscher. This had once been an important Jewish owned factory, employing, in its best times, more than 1,500 people. Soon after Hitler was given power in 1933, the Jewish owner lost his property.[1] In the course of his professional activities - making "efficiency assessments" throughout the German Reich for the Dresdner Bank - Wilhelm Schaeffler spotted the textile company, which, at the time, was under the supervision of a banking consortium and initiated the take-over. Quickly renamed "Schaeffler AG" - according to reports also for the Wehrmacht - the enterprise was soon producing not only textiles but had expanded its production during the war to include that of needle roller bearings.
For Tank Tracks
Soon the Schaeffler AG had focused its production on needle roller bearings. In a text in commemoration of William Schaeffler, published by the official register of the town of Herzogenaurach, one reads that the enterprise furnished "mass-produced needle roller bearings for tank tracks". Herzogenaurach is today the seat of the family enterprise.[2] Katscher seemed well-suited for the arms industry, because the Silesian town was out of range of allied bombers. With the approach of the Red Army in early 1945, the enterprise ceased production - and transferred part of its machinery, raw materials and several hundred employees to the west.
Beginnings in Kietrz
Machines and know-how from Katscher (today's Kietrz) formed the basis for the Schaeffler's rapid post war success. With the reestablishment of the company in 1946 under the name of INA, production returned to needle roller bearings, before long, supplying, alongside the US Army, the German auto industry. Schaeffler employs approx. 66,000 (2007) in more than 180 locations around the world and enjoys a sales volume of nearly a billion Euros.[3] Basically, the Schaeffler group owes its status today to the needle and roller bearings production and its beginnings in Kietrz. This also applies to the legendary family wealth, ranking 104th among the world's wealthiest. Unlike the roller bearing production, Schaeffler's textile branch, which also had its beginnings during the war, ranking, in the 1950s, among the largest German companies in the trade, was shut down in the 1980s.
Human Hair
Polish historians, who are researching possible business relations between the Schaeffler AG and the Auschwitz death camp, are interested in the textile branch. There is evidence of German enterprises in the textile industry using human hair. As the historian Andrzei Strzelecki, who works at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau), writes, large amounts of human hair were found in one of the town's factories after the Germans retreated from Kietrz in 1945. According to Strzelecki, it was the "G. Schoffler AG rug factory."[4] The same information appears in a publication of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, where the "rug factory of the G. Schoeffler AG" is mentioned.[5] In the long inventory lists of displaced Germans, neither the name "Schoffler" nor "Schoeffler" appears among those having fled Katscher or having been resettled since 1945.[6] But the name "Schaeffler" appears several times.
Industrial Recycling
As stated in the publication of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, scientists found traces of hydrogen cyanide on the human hair discovered in Kietrz. Hydrogen cyanide was an element of the "Zyklon B" poisoned gas, used by the Nazis to murder their victims in the gas chambers. In Kietrz several bolts of human hair cloth was also seized,[7] as proof of industrial recycling of human hair. Based on archive material in Poland, including production for the Wehrmacht, Adrezej Strzelecki reports that similar recycling was carried out in various German enterprises in the textile industry.[8] Strzelecki reports that the human hair found in Kietrz weighed 1,950 kg. According to historians, this would correspond to the hair of about 40,000 people.
Unresolved
According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the textile factory in which the human hair from Auschwitz was found, was nationalized after the war.[9] How the hair came to be in the factory, is unknown. Sources in the Polish state archives in Opole allege that the nationalized factory had been Schaeffler's textile factory. The question is yet to be resolved.
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