World War Two

Find old World War 2 articles here. We have great newspaper articles from wwii check them out today!

The German Portable Pillbox (Yank Magazine, 1944)

No doubt about it: for the fashionable, young Deutchen Soldaten on the go, the preferred choice in pillboxes is the portable variety! And you’d best believe that when those slide-rule jockeys back in Berlin lent their lobes to what the trendy book-burning crowed in Italy and Russia were saying, they jumped to it and created this dandy, 6,955 pound mobile pillbox that was capable of being planted almost anywhere. Better living through modern design!

The Battle of Berlin (Newsweek Magazine, 1943)

The long-awaited climax of the great Allied air offensive against Germany came like a thunderclap last week. It was the opening of the Battle of Berlin… According to the [British Ministry of Economic Warfare], the Germans have evacuated nonessential civilians (children, invalids and the aged) just as the British had from London three years before. But all evidence indicated that government officials and essential workers still remained in the German capital.


Berlin police counted 5,680 dead.


More on the bombing of Germany can be read here…

M8 Greyhound Armored Car (Yank Magazine, 1944)

Here is the skinny on the Ford Motor Company’s M8 Greyhound Armored Car as it was presented to the olive-clad readers of YANK MAGAZINE in the summer of 1944:

Armored Car, M8, 6×6: the Army’s latest combat vehicle, is a six-wheeled, eight-ton armored job that can hit high speeds over practically any type of terrain. It mounts a 37-mm cannon and a .30-caliber machine gun in a hand-operated traversable turret…

The BMW Motorcycle Examined (Yank Magazine, 1944)

All global tensions aside, the U.S. Army could not find any faults at all with the motorcycles that BMW was making for Adolf Hitler during World War II. After having spent much time testing and re-testing the thing, they reluctantly concluded, This is as good as any motorcycle in the world (it was probably a bit better…).

Click here to read about the firm belief held by the German Army concerning the use of motorcycles in modern war.

How to Drive W.W. II Axis Vehicles (Yank Magazine, 1944)

This posting remarks about a number of concerns: assorted factoids about the German PZKW II tank and it’s 1944 down-graded status as an offensive weapon to a reconnaissance car; tips for GIs as to how to drive German vehicles and, finally, the German interest in salvaging tank parts from captured enemy armor:

Military Buildup in Belgium (Literary Digest, 1936)

With a clear understanding as to what was coming down the pike, Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Henri Spaak (1899 – 1972) prevailed upon Prime Minister Paul van Zeeland to push through the Chamber of Deputies a bill increasing the military service from twelve to eighteen months for Belgium’s 44,000 conscripts while at the same time, reinforcing the fortifications along the French border.
Over half the article pertains to the fascist party of Belgium, REX, a group that hardheartedly resisted any such defensive posturing. A few weeks following this printing, Léon Degrelle (1906 – 1994), the leader of REX, the Belgian fascist party, marched on Brussels and brought down the van Zeeland government.

Versailles Treaty Violations (Literary Digest, 1936)

Attached is an interesting article that announced the Nazi march into the Rhineland as well as the island of Hegoland. The journalist also listed various other Versailles Treaty violations:

• The treaty said that Germany should have no troops in the Rhineland. On March 7 of this year, they marched in.

• The treaty said that Germany should never have a conscript army. On March 16 of this year, conscription was announced by Chancellor Hitler.

• It said that Germany should have no military aviation. She has it.

• It said that the Great German General Staff should be abolished. It was never disbanded.
*Violations of the Versailles Treaty began, in fact, a week before it was signed.


Click here to read an additional article concerning the Versailles Treaty violations.

The Growth of the German Airforce (Ken Magazine, 1939)

Published four months before Germany’s attack on Poland (September 1, 1939), this article outlines Hermann Goering’s efforts to build the Luftwaffe from scratch, the creation of various flight schools, the Luftwaffe collaboration with the Hitler Youth organization, and his aspirations to out-class the air forces of the United States and Britain. The article also addresses the business dealings of American manufacturers Boeing and Douglas Aircraft had with the German Luftwaffe.


Click here to read about the corrupt American corporations that aided the Nazi war machine during the 1930s.

The Arms Race (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

Stirred by [the] Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and by subsequent German scrapping of the Versailles Treaty, military experts of every nation have been altering the smallest details of army life to make their forces bigger, faster and more deadly than those of their neighbors.

Nowhere was there any indication that the pace of armaments might slacken. No nation gave any sign of dropping out of the race.


The economist who made the German rearmament possible was named Hjalmar Schacht, click here to read about him…