World War Two

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

Heroes of the Battle of Britain
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

A list of five outstanding Britons (two women and three men) accompanied by a description of their selfless acts performed during the Nazi Blitz on their homeland.

Who dares to doubt when Britons sing that there will always be an England?

A Hidden Nazi Army?
(Quick Magazine, 1954)

In the chaos and confusion of 1945 Berlin the whereabouts of Gestapo General Heinrich Müller was lost; many believe he had been killed or committed suicide. Another report had it that Müller had been captured with the Africa Korps by the British and subsequently made good his escape into Syria. In an issue of the Soviet newspaper Izvestia that appeared on newsstands at the end of July, 1950, it was reported that while residing in the Middle East he had converted to Islam, changed his name to Hanak Hassim Bey and was amassing an army of German veterans in order to march on Israel. The attached notice seems to be based on the Izvestia article.

Distrusting Germans was a common pastime for many people in the Twentieth Century; some thirty years earlier a similar article was published about this distrust.
Here is another article about escaped Nazis.


When a Nazi converted to Islam it was undoubtedly the work of Haj Amin Al-Husseini. Click here to read about him.

The Ike Jacket Goes Mainstream
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

In their book about American soldiers in the war-torn Britain of W.W. II, Overpaid, Over-Sexed and Over Herestyle=border:none (1991), authors James Goodson and Norman Franks recall how thoroughly impressed Americans were with the standard issue British Army uniform. The Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, was no exception – he promptly ordered his tailor to suit him in a similar get-up. Other American generals followed in his path as did the cocky young pilots of the Army Air Corps – shortly there after the look soon spread to other branches of the Army. This 1944 article discusses the broad appeal of this jacket and that civilian fashion designers had begun manufacturing the Ike Jacket for the Home Front.

Preparing for War with Motorcycles
(Literary Digest, 1937)

A short news piece from The Literary Digest reported on an investment that the Nazi forces were making to insure a lightening-fast attack:

Motorcycles, a cool million of them, have become a German army specialty. The new Wehrmacht specializes in them. (it knows it will be short of horses; as when in March, 1918, the Teuton cavalry arm was virtually abolished, west front and east.) The British and French have only half a million machines apiece.


Read about the mechanics of W.W. II German motorcycles…

The Escaped P.O.W.s That The F.B.I. Never Found
(Collier’s Magazine, 1953)

Unlike Reinhold Pabel, the W.W. II German P.O.W. whose story is told in the article posted above, the five escapees in this article remained at large long after the war ended. Five minutes researching their names on the internet revealed that every single one of them remained in the U.S. where they held jobs, paid taxes and raised families well into their golden years.

Friend of the Allies
(The American Magazine, 1940)

Colonel William J. Donovan and Edgar Mower, writing of fifth-column activities at the direction of Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, charged Fritz Wiedemann [as having been] praised by Hitler for helping to spike American legislation to aid the Allies in 1939.


Numerous nasty remarks were quoted in the attached article concerning the German Consul General in San Francisco, Fritz Wiedemann (1891 – 1970), but the journalist who penned the article could not possibly know that Wiedemann was at that time spilling his guts to the FBI. Having served under Hitler for some time as adjutant, by 1940 Wiedemann had denounced his devotion to the Nazi Party and told Hoover all that he Knew about Hitler and what the world could expect from the man.


In 1940, Japanese spies made the mistake of confiding in Wiedemann – more about this can be read here.

Capturing The Largest Nazi Spy Ring
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Following swiftly on the smashing of a spy ring in this country, a Federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., last week leveled a unique indictment at the government of Nazi Germany: it baldly accused the Third Reich of conducting, in ten countries stretching from Peru to China, a worldwide espionage plot directed against the United States.


J. Edgar Hoover tells how this ring was broken up in this 1951 article…

Counter-Espionage
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

This is the story of Harry Sawyer (real name William G. Sebold), a German immigrant to American shores. On a return trip to Germany to visit family in 1939, Sawyer was very reluctantly forced into service as a spy for the German SD (Sicherheitsdienst), the intelligence arm of Himmler’s SS. Sawyer was schooled briefly in the ways of spying, told what was expected of him and then let loose to set sail home.


Upon his return, Sawyer quickly explained his problem to J. Edgar Hoover, who masterfully turned the situation to his advantage, an advantage that led to the capture of 32 Nazi spies.


Click here to read about Lucy – Stalin’s top spy during the Second World War.

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