For those of you who don't know planet earth is in the throws of Sunspot cycle number 23. Sunspots are those peculiar dark holes that appear on the Sun randomly but the numbers of which vary according to an approximate 11 year cycle.

Right now we are in sunspot cycle number 23. The number 23 accounts for the number of cycles that have officially been recorded by various observatories around the world. So if you multiply the number 23 by 11 you get the number of years that sunspot cycles have officially been recorded. Although the discovery of sunspots goes all the way back to the 1600's I am told.

These dark patches on the surface of the sun can be seen with the aid of filters and telescopes. Don't ever look at the sun with your naked eye with binoculars or whatever because instantaneous retinal damage would occur.

As of today 3.27.2000 the number of sunspots is approximately 300 according to the United States National Bureau of Standards. If you have a shortwave radio you can tune in station WWV from the Bureau coming from Boulder, Colorado. WWV
Transmits continuously on frequencies of 5000 kilohertz, 10000 kilohertz, 15000 kilohertz and maybe 20000 kilohertz. And I just went outside with my trusty little pocket shortwave radio and also noticed them on 2500 kilohertz. These radio frequencies translate to 2.5 megahertz, 5.0 mhz., 10.0 mhz. Etc. Because it takes 1000 kilohertz to make up 1 megahertz. So 2500 kilohertz is another way of saying 2.5 megahertz.. It used to be referred to as cycles rather than hertz because that is what we are talking about. One hertz unit is actually 1 cycle per second in the radio frequency spectrum. Some time back in the 1970's the International Telecommunications Union decided to do homage to the German physicist Heinrich Hertz who had a lot to do with perfection of radio transmitting gear. Henceforth a cycle became a Hertz in honor of Heinrich.

Old habits are hard to break and since I have been a licensed radio amateur for 40 years, I still find myself telling people that WWV is on 5000 kilocycles. No negativity intended for old Heinrich.

One handy feature about WWV is that they broadcast 24 hours a day 7 days a week
perpetually. And they are very strong. WWV is constantly ticking with the seconds supposedly from an atomic clock located at the Boulder facility. So every 60 ticks you can a computerized voice telling you what time it is.

It goes something like this. This is station WWV National Bureau of Standards, at the tone the time will be 20 hours and 14 minutes Coordinated Universal Time. Or of course whatever time it is. The Coordinated Universal Time is the time in military units at the Greenwich Observatory in England at the exact location of the Prime Meridian. This is some times referred to in military jargon as Zulu time. Where that came from I have no idea.

Ham operators around the world eagerly await Sunspot Peaks. Which is what we are experiencing right this moment. Because these dark spots on the surface of the sun cause an intense ionizing effect on the earths ionosphere which is approximately 110 miles about the surface of the earth. The ionosphere or F layer as it is called is what is responsible for the bouncing of radio waves from one point to another. So here in the United States we are much better able to hear the BBC (British Broadcasting Service) from London during sunspot peaks.

And of course it makes it incredibly easy to talk to all parts of the globe when sunspot activity is high. It is very high right now. Over the weekend I could hear radio amateurs talking to each other from all continents of the earth at the same time.

During the last sunspot peak which occurred in 1990 I heard a conversation that I will never forget. It occurred on the 20 meter amateur band at about midnight Texas time. Making it about breakfast time in Europe. The station I was listening to was a gentleman named Karl from West Germany. His call sign was DJ8RR. (each country of the world is assigned a prefix) Germany is DK or DJ. The USA is Assigned W's, K's and N's for prefixes. My own call sign starts with the letter K. So in ham radio language phonetically speaking Karl was DELTA JULIET EIGHT RADIO RADIO.

The first night I heard Karl talking to some radio amateurs in California and Oregon about their experiences in World War II. Karl as I was listening was telling his California friends that he had spent the War in a tank division mostly in Russia. This definitely got my attention. Being a serious history buff I focused on every word that Karl said.

Yeah he said it was damned cold over there and that he considered himself lucky to be alive. And that after the war was over he went back to Germany and entered college as a veterinary student. Which was his profession ever since 1950 or so. A veterinarian.

It was most interesting hearing guys in California talking nonchalantly about their war time experiences with one of the old enemies. Karl of course was in some branch of the German military. And I wanted desperately to find out which branch. But there were too many people calling Karl that night and he was off to work to take care of some sickly dogs and cats or something at his veterinary practice.

As fate would have it, the very next night I caught old Karl again around 14.205 megahertz with his usual strong signal. So I gave out a call to station DJ8RR and low and behold he came right back to me. We exchanged the usual amateur radio pleasantries such as his signal report in Texas and mine in Germany etc. And that I was located 200 kilometers southwest of Dallas, Texas and all of that.

Then I decided to get to the real issue. I explained to Karl that I had heard him the night before talking about his experiences in a German tank division operating in Russia in 1943.

He said yes that he had indeed been there and through some miraculous act of providence he had survived and lived to be a veterinarian in Germany for the last 40 years.

I was fixing to drop the boom on old Karl but first let me give you a little information about the German military which you must know in order to appreciate what I am about to tell you.

Because Adolph Hitler was an extremely paranoid individual he broke the whole German military complex into certain subgroups.

For instance in our United States military the airborne units are part of the US Army. These of course would be the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. There were a few more parachute divisions such as 173'rd Air Mobile which was active in Vietnam. And the 1st Air Cavalry Division which is part of the 1st Cavalry Division. 173rd Air Mobile has been deactivated and 1st Air Cav is also on the deactive list as far as I know. Both divisions, 101st Airborne from Fort Campbell, Kentucky and 82'nd Airborne from Fort Bragg, North Carolina are now officially listed as United Nations Rapid Deployment Forces. Both divisions are the guys who jump out of airplanes. Both were used in Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Nicaragua, Iraq and of course the recent Kosovo thing.

In Adolph Hitler's military the airborne or parachute divisions were part of the German Luftwaffe. (pronounced Looftvoffa). The letter W in the German language is always pronounced as a letter V in English.

There were 2 other fighting units in the German military used in World War II. These were the Wehrmacht. (again pronounced Verrmocked) and the Waffen SS.
(pronounced as Voffin SS).

The Wehrmacht is essentially the regular army of Germany and has been called so since way before World War I. But since all the negative hype over Hitler and such it is now called the Bundesvehr. Bundesvehr literally means the Federal Army. The Bundesvehr was active in Kosovo also. You could locate them if watching on CNN by the familiar Maltese Cross on the sides of their tanks. The Bundesvehr were fired on during the NATO operation in Kosovo and returned fire killing several Serbian militia members. This was caught in vivid detail on CNN in the summer of 1999. This action by the Bundesvehr was the first time that the German military had fired a hostile shot since May of 1945. Momentous or ominous depending on how you look at it.

So now I have mentioned the Luftwaffe parachute units and the regular army Wehrmacht divisions.

This leaves us the last and most definitely not the least of the German military forces active in World War II. This is course was the Waffen SS. The letters "SS" are always depicted as lightning bolt S's. In the German language the SS stood for the words Schutez Staffnel. Which literally means Elite Guard. So the Nazi Waffen SS means the fighting branch of the Elite Guard. In order to be in the SS you had to be of pure Aryan descent. And be able to prove it with genealogical records. Also to be in the SS you had to be a member of the Nazi Party. In the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe you didn't have to have the Aryan gene in your blood and you also didn't have to be a Nazi Party member.

The Waffen SS was the cream of the cream you might say. They got the best food provided by the Party and the military. Also promotions were much faster in the SS than in the other branches. They also had their blood type tattooed underneath their left arms so that transfusions could be done quickly. Hitler considered the Waffen SS his personal shock troops.

It is also documented of course that the SS provided the extermination squads to the death camps. The extermination squads were called "EINSATZGRUPPEN". The
GESTAPO was also made up strictly of SS troops. The word GESTAPO is an acronym of 3 German words. Geheim Staatz Polizei or Ge-sta-po. Meaning in German the Secret State Police.

Never in my research did I ever discover a Luftwaffe parachute division operating in Russia. I don't know why that was. They did face American and British units in North Africa, Italy and in France. Some of the more famous Luftwaffe divisions were the 1st Parachutist Division and the very famous Herman Goerring division.

But I never found any evidence of any Luftwaffe units in Russia.

So I asked Karl that night back in 1990, "Karl my friend, were you a member of a Wehrmacht division or a Waffen SS division."

When I asked Karl this he literally came unglued if you will. There was much coughing and choking on his end. When he finally caught his breath he asked he in harsh terms what I wanted to know for.

I told him that I was a history freak and thought it all was incredibly fascinating.

Karl then launched into a monologue of how much he liked the Jewish People. And that he wanted me to know that he had Jewish friends all over the world. That he had Jewish guests in his house in Germany and that he had stayed with Jewish friends in Israel when he visited there. According to Karl he loved the Jewish people more than any other in the whole world.

I told him that I had Jewish friends also. But I still wanted to know if he had been in a Wehrmacht division or a Waffen SS division in 1943.

Karl reminded me that it had all been a big mistake and that they had been misled by old Adolf. But that he had been a noncommissioned officer in LIEBSTANDARTE.

CLICK ON HTTP://users.vnet.net/seawolf/rs/thess.htm

Well that was all he had to tell me because I then knew the rest of the story.

You see all SS divisions were numeralized. From 1 to 37 actually. There were 37 Waffen SS divisions. Liebstandarte was known as the 1st SS. PANZER DIVISION.

Liebstandarte was also Adolf Hitler's personal SS body guard division. Although the 1st SS was always up front in the fighting and never actually guarding Der Fuehrer.

Since that conversation back in 1990 with old Karl I have asked other radio amateurs in Germany how Karl is doing. One such radio amateur told me back in 1995 or so that Karl was sick and living in a nursing home. I have checked call sign directories in Germany since then and I have found no listing for old DJ8RR. So I have to presume that old Karl has passed on to Aryan Heaven. He was maybe the most interesting radio operator I ever talked to.

Another thing I have learned since my talk with Karl is that the logo's for all of the Waffen SS Panzer divisions used variations of occult symbols and nearly all had a skeleton key positioned in some manner. Skeleton keys are the long slender type used back years ago usually with a "T" shaped end to accommodate the old time locks.

I have always wondered what significance the Skeleton Keys had to the Waffen SS that every division had one of them on its logo.

Please click on http://www.1944militaria.com/links.htm

Most interestingly I have found a website showing various logo's of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The Website is http://www.beyond-the-illusion.com. And guess what The CIA also uses skeleton keys in its various departmental logos. As a matter of fact one CIA department involving dropping operatives in foreign countries uses the exact same logo as the Nazi 12Th SS Panzer Division. The 12th SS used a lighting bolt S superimposed on a skeleton key. Just exactly like this department of the CIA. The 12th SS Panzer was the Hitler Youth Division. Or in German it was the Divisionen der Hitler Jugend.

So how does it come about that the 12th SS Panzer Divisions regimental logo is the same as a departmental logo in the Central Intelligence Agency.

Maybe Henry Kissinger could tell us. After all he was the one who brought all the old ex-Nazi's over to the United States after the war during Operation Paperclip and Project 63.

It is really spooky to see all the skeleton keys used in the Nazi SS units logos now intermingled with departmental logos in the Central Intelligence Agency.

If one was Jewish, one might start getting a feeling of DÉJÀ VU or something. At least it would make me slightly uncomfortable.

It makes me uncomfortable and I am not even Jewish.