Mysteries of the EEC, 1942 and all that...

Very curious.

Over the last... however long... you - like I - may have seen a couple of words on the internet which, as you cannot speak German, you probably didn't look at too closely.

So, what are these words? And do the claims attributed to them check out?

Now, this blogger has no idea what the following publication contains. We'd happily be enlightened with quotes and appropriate translations as we do not even have a copy.

We'll tell you what we've seen and where we found it, then you can start your own research.

The claim, noted on a couple of anti-EU posts on the internet on a few occasions, is that a certain visionary book was published in Nazi Germany in 1942.

It was entitled: "Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft", the claim says.

Is this true? Is it real?

Why, yes. Stanford University have a listing for this title HERE.And this is what they tell us the book is about:

Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft / von Reichswirtschaftsminister u. Präsident der Deutschen Reichsbank Funk ; mit einer Einführung von Heinrich Hunke ; herausgegeben von dem Verein Berliner Kaufleute und Industrieller und der Wirtschafts-Hochschule Berlin.

Published: Berlin : Haude & Spener, 1943.

Now, this blogger cannot read German. And we do not have the text. We DO have access to Google translation tools.

Now, try this yourself. Follow the links provided and copy and paste the text in for yourself. Here is what Google handily tells us a translation of this means - the first three words in bold are our emphasis:

European Economic Community / by Reich Minister and President of the Reichsbank, Funk, with an introduction by Heinrich Hunke, published by the Association of Berlin Merchants and Industrialists and the Economic University of Berlin.

Does this substantiate claims that, rather than being an organisation for supposed 'post-War peace', what we're seeing is something straight out of Nazi Germany..?

What is this mysterious text? Can anyone volunteer any info on it..?

Is this conspiracy theory territory, or is there something that people haven't been told here?

(Hat-tip: I.S., Suffolk, whose anonymity this blog is preserving)