Newsletter No. 231 November 9, 2016
This is a commentary on an Internet site called ‘Sharkhunters’ and its owner, one Harry Cooper.
Mr. Harry Cooper
P.O.Box 1539
Hernando, Florida
sharkhunters@earthlink.net
This site, which reflects a very right-wing, neo-Nazi point of view and tries to connect these views with a history of German WWII submarines is, to be kind, bizarre.
Mr. Cooper constantly claims Hitler escaped from Germany at the end of World War II and settled in Argentina. He either went to that country by a U Boat or a plane so Cooper takes paying guests to various places in the Argentine where Hitler, Bormann and other top Nazis allegedly had homes and businesses and also to various former Nazi-prominent places in Germany.
Although working with the late right-wing neo-Nazi Willis Carto and a constant espouser of Hitlerian views, there are constantly recurring rumors from Chicago that Sharkhunters head, Harry Cooper, neo-Nazi and Hitler supporter though he might be, is actually Jewish and was a member of the Beth Israel Congregation in that city.
It would seem difficult to believe, considering the immense propaganda about the enormous German death camps, their huge gas chambers, the production in these mythic camps of lampshades, shrunken heads and boxes of hand soap, that any person of the Jewish faith would want to have any positive connection with the Third Reich.
However, where there is money to be made, conceptions can be modified.
Here is an example of the hype being posted in support of Mr. Cooper’s business:
“SOUTH AMERICA PLANE! – One of our South American S.E.I.G. Agents has found an elderly lady who remembers thing big plane landing on that remote estancia/ranch and she has much more information for us. Cooper is going down there in February to speak with this lady. We expect much more history to be revealed here. We will keep you informed. this was our first book on the escape of Adolf Hitler and it was all the memories of Don Angel Alcazar de Velasco, the agent who worked in the Berlin Bunker for the last three months of the war – and he saw Hitler and Eva Braun forcibly drugged under orders of Martin Bormann and removed from the bunker long before the alleged suicide. He met with Hitler in South American in 1952 and this is all corroborated.”
Perhaps Cooper’s most elaborate rewriting of history is his enthusiastically overwrought explanation of how Hitler did not commit suicide in the Berlin bunker, but in fact escaped and lived out the remainder of his life in South America. Cooper claims that the source material for Escape from the Bunker was a letter given to him by a Spanish-German double agent named “Don Angel Alcazar de Velasco,“ who, Cooper says, was personally involved in the operation to smuggle Hitler and Martin Bormann out of Berlin and into Argentina.
Published in 2010 with the support of the late Willis Carto, Escape from the Bunker also alleges that the FBI and other intelligence agencies were fully aware of Hitler’s escape, and were complicit in propagating the lie that Hitler had died during the war in an effort to bring closure to a country traumatized by war. Moreover, “Don Angel” supposedly bought up the possibility of Hitler having two surviving children, living “somewhere in Mexico”. In an interview with white supremacist radio host Jeff Rense, Cooper said he was looking for two individuals who might be those children.
Cooper is so attached to this conspiracy theory that he has conducted several “patrols” in Argentina, visiting locations which he is convinced are the sites where Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials lived after the war.
The Sharkhunters trip reports are cagey about where exactly these locations are, referring to the small German-influenced Argentinian village they visited only as “Stadt” (the German word for “city”).
The island that Cooper alleges held a “German nuclear research facility” remains unnamed, although Cooper claims this laboratory was so advanced that in the 1940s and 1950s its scientists accomplished so-called cold fusion — a feat yet to be accomplished by modern scientists.
Cooper and the Sharkhunters also visited an abandoned mansion, which they hint may be a former residence of Hitler himself!
A posting on Axis History Forum concerning Cooper
I researched Sharkhunters a few years ago and it was not really an organization – it was basically just Harry Cooper, his wife and his daughter and his daughter was just part time.
It was chartered in Florida as a FOR PROFIT corporation. At that time it was located in a trailer in Harry’s backyard. There was one other person listed if I remember correctly. Harry and his wife were the officers.
The Advisory Board is a complete sham.
I contacted some of them and found the following:
None of them knew or had ever met any of the others.
They never met as a group.
They were never consulted as a group.
They never provided any advice on Sharkhunter matters as a group.
In short the Advisory Board did not function as an advisory board.
Their names simply make Sharkhunters look legitimate while most of the people themselves have almost nothing to do with Sharkhunters.
The Advisory Board had no authority or control over Sharkhunters or Harry Cooper at all yet Harry frequently told newcomers to Sharkhunters that he couldn’t do this or had to do that because of an Advisory Board decision.
I suspect that many of the ‘life memberships’ were simply given to these folks but I can’t prove it. In the case of one of the Advisory Board members I happened to know, I was told he simply joined Sharkhunters as a normal member years ago and got an e-mail from Harry a few years ago asking if he would serve on the Advisory Board. Before he could even reply to the e-mail he got another one from Harry congratulating him for becoming an Advisory Board member. The last time I checked he had never met another active Advisory Board member nor had he ever been asked to make a decision on Sharkhunter matters as an Advisory Board member. His name on the Advisory Board list was apparently all Harry wanted.
In the case of Otto Kretschmer who was actually asked for his advice on occasion, Harry kept him listed on his Advisory Board on the Sharkhunters web site for long after he had died. When he was confronted with this he moved him to his past advisors list where he is still listed today. However Otto Kretschmer resigned from the Advisory Board in disgust on 5 July, 1998 and asked to have his name removed from the list of Advisory Board members.
To date I have come in contact with a number of former Sharkhunter members and not one of them had anything good to say about Sharkhunters or Harry Cooper.
The rag Harry calls the Sharkhunters KTB is basically a forum for Harry to rant about anything he dislikes. Anyone who challenges him or his statements is demonized in the KTB. You get Harry’s point of view and nothing else.
Many of the U-boat men he initially got to provide stories and information (for free) that he published in his KTB (not for free) will no longer have anything to do with him so he has switched to the SS and Russian submariners for new content. I expect he still publishes some of the old stories too of course.
Harry got to the U-boat men years ago when they were still being demonized by rehashed WWII propaganda and after years of Germany re-educating its population that everything that happened during WWII was evil etc. In short the U-boat men were “politically incorrect” even at home. He came across as a friend and they gave him their stories and signed photographs for free and he sold them for profit through Sharkhunters.
Many of these elderly gentlemen were, in my opinion, simply duped. Harry also has a travel agency that specializes in tours of Germany (for a price of course) and Harry was able to get some of the U-boat men to ride on the bus and show up for a meal with his tours or even act as a tour guide for a portion of a tour.
His web site features cheap mugs, mouse pads and video tapes of his tours as well as other junk and bogus conspiracy-theory books about Hitler escaping to Argentina etc. – all for profit.
All of this has provided Harry Cooper and his family a living and that is what Sharkhunters is all about as far as I can tell.
The claims of all the money he donates to the U-boat Archiv and the U-boat memorial in Germany are also suspect. Horst Bredow who founded, and still runs, the U-boot Archiv told me that not only had Harry never given him a penny, when his tours come to the Archiv they don’t leave donations either.
If you want an example of delusions of grandeur and an ego that just won’t quit see what Harry wrote about himself in his bio at: http://pths57.com/bio_htm_pages/cooper_harry.htm.
Sharkhunters is not what it seems to be. Talk to former members before getting involved with it.
English (United States) 
German
25 thoughts on “Newsletter No. 231 November 9, 2016”
My God, what kind of raging nuts are connected with the military collecting fraternity?
But I guess given all the lunatic bloggers running around loose on the Internet, this is not a surprise.
There are still people who believe in the Angels of Mons, the Shroud of Turin and the Lost Continent of Atlantis.
And there is Martin Bormann running a bowling alley in Argentina!
Lets give this man some money so we can visit the bowling alley.
Or that Secret U boat base on Long Island!
If I could get the names and addresses of this guy’s customers, I might be able to sell them the Golden Gate Bridge.
And at a discount!
Misha
Yes, much lunacy in evidence.
We have 2,210 “original Hitler paintings” available at all the really serious auction houses, Himmler’s carved throne, SS Death Camp Officer’s Rings, gold General’s daggers, short-barrelled P-38 Gestapo assassination pistols, fourteen Hitler uniforms and hats, all of different sizes, and 8,251 rare and original EM steel buckles!
That most of the latter are being made in India, China and the US should not worry the collector of steel buckles.
His buckles are all genuine and he has a wall-full of CoAs to prove it.
The belt buckles are in the same room at the many camouflaged German helmets (one of which is the famous ‘Stalingrad pattern’.)
More advanced and solvent collectors sport Himmler’s Carved Wood Throne in a special room just off the guest lavatory with pink roses in plastic on the toilet seat.
You might hang a swastika flag on the Golden Gate Bridge before you offer it to the sucker brigade.
ADR
I believe, that HITLER did escape now that the FBI files have been made public that confirm this fact, and that the AMERICAN government has lied to us for almost seventy years about many other events in history, those of us now on the internet are NOT all lunatics.
“Although there is nothing to be found in the AnonHQ article or the FBI files that comes close to contradicting the standard understanding that Hitler died by his own hand in his Berlin bunker in the closing days of World War II, these documents do highlight the fact that the types of people who forward patently fake e-mails or write hoax articles just to garner web traffic have indubitably existed in one form or another since at least the 1940s.” Snopes
Although there is nothing to be found in the AnonHQ article or the FBI files that comes close to contradicting the standard understanding that Hitler died by his own hand in his Berlin bunker in the closing days of World War II, these documents do highlight the fact that the types of people who forward patently fake e-mails or write hoax articles just to garner web traffic have indubitably existed in one form or another since at least the 1940s. Snopes
Many thanks for this. Putting up such informative material on individuals concerned with the militaria collecting world is a public service. Are you also going after the auction houses as well? The ones specializing in German Third Reich items are heavily laden with expensive recent fakes. I have a listing of firms, both in the US and abroad, who make these reproduction relics and if you wish I will forward all of this to you for your newsletters. Do keep up the good work!
Thank you for the comments. It is not having insufficient information but a case of having too much. Yes, the auction houses are on my list. Five in the United States and two in Europe. I considering myself as adding to the unemployment rolls. ADR
I read about the Himmler wood thrones and I saw one at the MAX show. Terrible. About ten years old, bad carving and the whole nine yards. The dealer who sells this has a whole stable full of terrible fakes and is as nutty as a fruitcake.
Actually, there are four of these abortions, all different, of different wood and carved by four different woodworkers. And all of them relatively recently made. And I saw one at a show in Germany about three years ago. And some of the dealers would be of considerable interest to a clinical psychiatrist.One of the worst gobbles placebos like candy under the impression they “keep his reception lines open” to aliens from another planet! These, he says, hide in his closet and come out at night and sing to him.
The dealer in Lakemont, Georgia is the one we seem to be talking about. His gaudy website reads like some period SS newspaper. He says he is related to a man who was a commander of a Cossack cavalry division. No, he wasn’t. This is the one who sells tapestries? They make them just like his in Pakistan. And that fake Chinese sword he had. You did an article showing the original Goering sword and the copy. That’s his copy. Some joker bought it and sent it back. Why is it that everything on the net is always some rare dagger or carved throne? What happened to more realistic pieces? You can’t find a nice clean German army lieutenant’s tunic anymore because they have all been humped up into a field marshal’s very own. You did a number on the camo helmet frauds and you should hear the helmet dealers screaming about how evil you are. Of course they are all painted up with modern enamel, not water-based paint like the originals and the crooks charge an arm and a leg for them. And put them in their “reference books” that are nothing but catalogs for what they sell out of their garage. And that dealer in Georgia is a lovely one for sure. I bought something from his list once. I paid for it with a bank check. It did not come. I called and some woman said she wanted $200 more for it, pick up on this, because the owner had changed his mind after I paid for it. I paid because I wanted it but I would never buy from them again.
Rodney
Correct on the location.
There is an army of new collectors who are deliberately being raped by having fake information put around, in books and TV tapes.
And yes, not only the dealers but the collectors who got swindled do not like me.
The collector who bought a fake dagger for a lot of money knows the dealer will never give him his money back so he is stuck.
And he hates me for exposing the fake.
They even fake cheap belt buckles, tunic buttons, field boots, steel helmets, canteens and even gas mask containers!
I am waiting for military underwear to come out of Poland.
Then we can expect a color book by Major Nuisance pointing out the difference between Army underpants and elite SS underpants.
Of course he happens to have a box full of the latter but he sells them to the collecting with a Certificate of Authenticity!
He pays five dollars a set from Taiwan and sells them for $100.
And the really expensive SS ones are for Oven Tenders in the Concentration camps and these are made out of asbestos.
And another CoA for the trusting!
Barnum was right!
ADR
Gentlemen:
I applaud your efforts to expose fakes, and fakers, in the collecting world.
Like the fine art market, the militaria relics market is run by a congregation of merchandisers, not collectors.
They obviously know very little about the subject but they do know how to get control of a lucrative market, shut out critics and artificially boost their profits by controlled “forum” sites, so-called “information books” that are full of pictures of a few original pieces and many deliberate fakes.
These are not informational books for serious collectors but only sales catalogs.
There are such books on German helmets, the Knights Cross and SS insignia which are designed to delude and encourage.
Also, many dealers provide Certificates of Authenticity which are completely worthless.
Another method of selling fakes is via rigged auctions, which are jammed with known reproductions by crooked dealers who had them made to order or purchased from manufacturers as fakes.
Anyone who questions an organized market is at once perceived as a dangerous enemy and at once attacked by the entire industry as a liar, a person of no integrity who must be silenced for the good of the community.
And I note you have commented on Mr. Petersen and his role in the Grand Cross swindle.
Did you know that Petersen is a CIA employee? Or that he went to the Russian military museum in Moscow and swindled them?
The Russians also have accused Petersen of stealing valuable flags and other items and would dearly like to lay their hands on him for prosecution.
The CIA is full of people like that.
And that Georgia-based dealer whose website looks like an advertisement for a NSDAP rally sells boxes full of Polish-made napkin rings, dinnerware, fake Hitler and other Nazi leadership relics, is reluctant to return money and would be better off merchandising his wife’s homemade guava jelly.
Robert Penrod
I would agree entirely with your views. Many beginning collectors make the cardinal error of trusting the self-proclaimed “experts” and are conned into following them and believing their concocted stories. The marketplace in militaria, and as you comment, fine art, is jammed with misattributed pieces or deliberate fakes. What is needed is a genuine gathering place for serious collectors and genuine experts to exchange views and alert each other to frauds and those to perpetrate them. And if a member objects to this or that item, they will not be silenced or forced away from the discussion panels. When ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise!
ADR
This is a good start!
Now, why not rip the blankets off of Helmuth Weitze and Hermann Historica in Germany?
They sell more expensive fakes than Gottlieb and Wolfe/Hardon combined.
And for sure the books on militaria are full of known fakes. The Maerz book on the KC is one and the Hicks book on German helmets is another.
And I got burned three times by going to auction houses.
What about that one in Tallahassee, Florida that sells all kind of fakes? They are known to break items sent in by trusting customers and then refuse to pay for it.
Why not publish on your site some illustrated catalogs of foreign fakes?
You did a wonderful number when you published that Chinese catalog of fake Allach pieces.
And the Polish dude that makes up fake watches, rings, silver and little bronze desk statues got real coverage.
Most collectors do not care if Germania International is selling fake Hitler paintings because most collectors couldn’t afford them. But also there are fake belt buckles, SS cloth, fake helmets and medals being advertised.
These are the things most collector can afford.
Why not spend more time on less expensive collectables rather than on fake Himmler chairs or Hitler paintings?
Or fake Hitler honorary citizen scrolls or Hitler silver.
Believe it or not, there are many collectors who really know what they are talking about. Why not encourage them to write articles for you? If they are afraid the owners of the WAF will kick them off for stirring the pot, publish under a made-up name. The input is worth far more than a name.
I know about the Florida auction house.
There is apparently a lawsuit coming on their destruction of valuable property and refusal to pay for it.
And we know all about Weitze, Winkler, Forman, in Europe and their brothers in the States. And I agree that going after the expensive fakes distracts from the less glamorous items like combat decorations, medal papers, pay books and so on.
And legitimate collectors do need a voice and I agree that the forums are a method of control and merchandising.
And I would be pleased to accept, and publish, articles from legitimate collectors about their special fields.
Fake names are the only ones you find on the WAF and I have no problem protecting any submitter.
ADR
You know that if you go after the auction houses, they will get some ragbag shyster lawyer to write you a letter threatening you with prosecution for libel,
Laugh at them if they do because if you can get them in court, and under oath (say during a deposition) think of all the embarrassing and possibly serious law violations you can cause them.
And if the mainline media hears about this, since they are owned mostly by Jewish interests, they would love this.
Keep it up, dudes!
Misha
I am very well acquainted with civil legal procedures.
Instead of suing them in local court, where the defendants might know the judge, sue them in Federal court in your district because of diversity of residency.
And if you accuse a dealer of selling a fake and he sues you for malicious defamation, and you have a catalog showing the fake from some Paki firm and an email acknowledging that the dealer is a favored customer, you have him beaten.
And then you turn around and sue the pig in Federal court for malicious prosecution.
There is a monetary loss limit in Federal cases so keep that in mind.
$75,000.
Think of their legal bills they will have to pay and note that any and all motions in the suit become public record and can be posted on websites.
There is more than one way to skin a pig.
It has been a long time in coming but finally the collecting world is seeing specific information, not only about fake items on the market but also who is responsible for this sea wave of counterfeits.
I have been collecting for 30 years and have a great deal of input about crooks, who they are, where they really live and what sort of crap they are selling.
I would be happy to forward all of this to you for your use.
But along with the dealers, we have a lot of auctions that are outlets for fakes. You mentioned several and there are many, many more.
Their excuse, if they palm off a fake, is that they just did not know about this and it really is the fault of the person who put it into their wonderful, trusted, auction.
But if you keep on posting data on known fakes and also talk about crooked auctions, their excuses will sound pretty poor in a law court.
We need to start telling the local post offices about mail fraud and double-head this by reporting mail frauds, especially really big ones like that Goering medal paper, not only to the USPS people but to the FBI and the local US Attorney as well.
Sincerely,
Ryan McConnel
I agree it has been a long time coming. The oligarchy of crooked dealers got away with their dealings because no one was willing to go after them. If a member of the WAF dared to attack one of that forum’s dealer friends or crooked members, they ousted him at once. Conformity and absolute obedience has been their watchword. This sort of repression works but only for a time and if the iron grip loosens, there will be hell to pay as frustrated collectors begin to unite.
And I have encouraged collectors who have been swindled to make reports just as you suggest. There is general disinterest on the part of the FBI and the US Attornies, but if the media ever gets its hands on this, then believe we will see eager action on the part of law enforcement. Just hang on to your proofs because sooner or later, you can give them to competent authority for action on their part.
ADR
One of the most negative aspects of the German militaria field are some of the dealers connected with it.
I think we all are aware that there are many fake items being made and sold as original and I think that others of us are aware that sites purporting to be collector information sites are actually places to advertise and authenticate fakes.
My personal objection here is the dealer who actually does not cater to the legitimate militaria collector but is a loud proponent of neo-Nazi “sacred relics.”
I personally collect military ID (‘Soldbuch’) books but that aside, when looking at various sites, I am genuinely put off by rants about the sacred Hitler tea cups, SS concentration camp rings, tapestries with all kinds of fake runes on them and so forth.
I think the worst of these is the Germania Interntional site. Professing to be an “historical site” it sounds like a page from “Mein Kampf” mixed with some Nordic nonsense that Himmler would have put out.
And I think the best way to stop the merchandising of modern fakes is for someone to start publishing excerpts from the illustrated catalogs of the fake-makers. And they could also show which dealers was selling these fakes.
A run of these would go a long, long way to discourage buyers and might also really disrupt the disinformation-packed forums.
Gordon
This is in train even as I write. Outraged and raped collectors have sent us many links to the manufacturers of fakes as well as the dealers, and especially the auction houses, who sell these. And I agree that a militaria collector’s forum or a sales website ought to be totally devoid of what hostile elements could call political or racial propaganda.
ADR
A military collector, say, that collects Confederate cap-and-ball pistols or cavalry swords is not about to reinstitute slavery in the South and neither is the collector of German ceremonial daggers out to push Jews into ovens.
I agree that politics, rants and so on have no place in a reputable hobby and those who trespass on good faith, ought to be avoided completely.
Many Russians collect German militaria without supporting Hitler and I am sure many collectors of Confederate (or Japanese swords) advocates building slave cabins or attacking Pearl Harbor again.
There is such a things as class and from my readings, a number of dealers have none.
Misha
The problem is that civilized behavior is very hard to find in the US today.
Class ought to be instinctive but civility has all but vanished.
We see this on some of the forums with screaming members calling each other names, members complaining about fakes thrown off for daring to disturb potential business deals or upsetting very stupid collectors with a house full of fake garbage.
But we have religions that are tolerant and religions that are run by air-headed fanatics. Pay your money, take your choice.
ADR
It is very interesting to observe that our very own CIA is deeply involved in the manufacturing, authenticating and sale of fake Nazi political and military items.
The worst of this gang was James P. Atwood.
He worked for the CIA in Berlin, faked “Hitler Assassination Rifles,” many “prototype” rare Nazi daggers, smuggled LMG 42s into Canada for sale to the RAM in New York, worked also with Marcus Wolfe, head of the STASI and a neighbor in Berlin selling CIA secrets to him, involved in more gun running.
Atwood had excellent connections with Nazi elements in the CIA -organized BND, sold or traded many intelligence secrets with the Russian GRU, helped Critchfield sell Russian atomic artillery shells to Pakistan and many more acts of fraud and treason.
I have much input on Atwood and other CIA operators who, with consent from their superiors, made, caused to be made and merchandised millions of dollars of counterfeit Nazi items.
The leadership of this gang was located in Munich, by the English Garden, and were fronted to the public as “Radio Free Liberty.”
Much of this was, of course, to make money they could stuff into Lichtenstein or Swiss banks but also to foster interest in fomenting active neo-Nazi groups both domestically and abroad.
There is far more to the fake Nazi relics business than meets the eye, believe me!
My, my! I wondered if this would come out eventually. This is known, at least, in Germany and is one of the main reasons the German government cracks down on any Third Reich-type propaganda or actions. Of course they won’t discuss any of this in public but the victims of the forgers can take some comfort in the fact that they are helping spread Liberty, Justice and Democracy throughout the civilized world.
ADR