Articles from 1945
American war correspondent John Terrell visited the rubble that was once Hitler’s headquarters/crash pad in central Germany and, with the aid of one of his former domestics, attempted to piece together what life was once like there.
Published six months after the German surrender was this account of post-war Vienna, Austria: the people, the shortages and the black-market. Originally liberated by the Soviet Army, the Americans occupied the city three months afterward; this is an eyewitness account as to what Vienna was like in the immediate wake of World War II. Reading between the lines, one gets a sense that the Viennese were simply delighted to see an American occupying force swap places with the Soviet Army, although the Soviets were not nearly as brutal to this capital as they were to Berlin.
In compliance with the Potsdam Conference, Vienna was soon divided into four zones of occupation.
One quality that can be found in the memoirs of both world wars is a shared sense that the males of their respective generations had been singled-out for extermination, and when the end to these wars finally came, the most seasoned combat veterans were in a state of disbelief that they would be allowed to grow old, when so many had died. Some of this relief can be felt in this article from 1945 in which the battle-savvy men of the U.S. Army’s Fifth Ranger Battalion anticipated their return to civilian life now that the war was over.
I don’t believe it will do much good to talk about the war with civilians. I don’t think war is something that anyone can know about unless they’re actually in it. I would just rather forget I was ever in the army…
The Rangers underwent intense training in hand-to-hand combat, you can read about about it in this 1942 magazine article.
New York’s Broadway theater scene during World War II:
Show people will never forget the year 1944. Thousands of men and women from the legitimate theater were overseas in uniform -actors and actresses, writers, scene designers, stage hands – and all looked back in wonderment at what war had done to the business… Letters and newspapers from home told the story. On Broadway even bad shows were packing them in…
The following article and illustration were clipped from the World War Two G.I. magazine, YANK; which we have included in our study of American World War One naval uniforms because we couldn’t imagine that the regulations involving the wearing of the lid could have been that much more different from the days when Admiral Simms ran the shop.
The June 1st issue of YANK MAGAZINE did a fine job of capturing the excitement that was felt in civilized quarters as the allied armies poured into Germany from all sides. As the news of Hitler’s suicide spread throughout Europe, a YANK reporter took a sampling of G.I. opinion on the subject. One G.I. in Italy opined:
Now they say Hitler is dead. Maybe he is. If he is, I don’t believe he died heroically. Mussolini died at least something like a dictator, but somehow I can’t figure Hitler dying in action…
Read an article about some bored newspaper editors who were curious to know what the headlines would look like if Hitler had been killed in 1941.
Was Adolf Hitler a follower of Jesus Christ or was he a man who saw no intelligence in the universe whatever? Today, for reasons that are quite understandable, neither the atheists or the Christians are eager to count the madman in their ranks. Hoping to diffuse this never-ending argument (that has found a home on the internet) OldMagazineArticles.com offers this page of research from a U.S. Army study on Hitler’s military that indicates Hitler’s sympathy for atheists.
Assorted observations from the man who operated Hitler’s elevator at Berchtesgaden can be found herein.
What you won’t find herein is a piece of Hitler trivia that I just picked-up. The story goes that the American comedian Bob Hope was given a tour of Hitler’s bunker shortly after the German surrender. Accompanied by a U.S. colonel, the two men brought lots of American cigarette cartons with them to bribe the Russian guards (the bunker was in the Soviet sector); Hope walked away with the enormous banner that was draped in the dictator’s lounge, as well as the handle off of Hitler’s toilet. The toilet handle has remained among the comedian’s possessions in Toluca Lake, California ever since.
Read about the earliest post-war sightings of Hitler: 1945-1955
YANK reporter Harry Sions listened in as sixteen Nazi officials, having known and worked with Hitler in various capacities through the years, sat back and recalled the events of Hitler’s last 365 days in power. Much was said regarding the failed assassination attempt (project Valkyrie) but some of the more interesting content refers to the closing days in the bunker with Bormann, Keitel and Jodl.
It was reported that shortly after he took up residence in the bunker, Hitler’s hair and mustache was transformed to a bright white, yet he was not the only man in Europe in need of hair dye; click here about these other fellows.
A report on what Hitler’s Bavarian retreat, Berchtesgaden, looked like after the 101st Airborne got through redecorating the place. This is an amusing article written by Yank reporter Harry Sions, who seemed to really want to know what Hitler’s taste in furnishings, books and movies truly was like. However the most entertaining parts of the article were the interviews with Hitler’s dimwitted domestic staff:
Is it true, we asked her, that the Fuhrer chewed on rugs when he became excited?
‘Only you Americans believe such nonsense,’ she replied.
The German soldier is one of several different types depending on whether he is a veteran of 4 or 5 years, or a new recruit. The veteran of many fronts and many retreats is a prematurely aged, war weary cynic, either discouraged and disillusioned or too stupefied to have any thought of his own…The new recruit, except in some crack SS units, is either too young or too old and often in poor health.
This 1945 article by George Creel reported on the brave and selfless acts of Robert D. Maxwell (1920 – 2019):
COURAGE, like everything else, has its kinds of degrees. No one would detract a hair’s weight from the bravery of the firing line, but in battle there is the heartening touch of a comrade’s shoulder, the excitement of the charge, and the 50-50 chance of coming out alive. All these aids are lacking in those epic instances where men make death a deliberate choice…one example that stands out for sheer drama and sustained fortitude is that of Technician Fifth Grade Robert D. Maxwell, who covered a German hand grenade with his body, smothering the explosion that would have killed every member of his group.
Maxwell survived his wounds; seven months later he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courage. He currently reside in Oregon.
The Chief of Staff’s 1945 report concerning the U.S. Army’s progress and set-backs during the course of the war mentioned one element:
in which the German Army held an advantage almost to the end of the war. The first was the triple-threat 88-mm [field gun] which our troops first encountered in North Africa…
The editors of YANK reported that the week of VE Day the
…first-run movie houses showed films of a kind seldom if ever seen by American audiences. The films, made for the most part by the U.S. Army signal corps, showed piles of human bones, mass graves and beaten, starving men who looked more like corpses than human beings…Homefronters sat in shocked silence, broken now and then in by low gasps.
A post-game interview with Hollywood star Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992) concerning all the many places throughout the European Theater of Operations that she performed before Allied audiences, at times performing very close to the German front line.
Marlene Dietrich’s only daughter, Maria Riva Dietrich (b. 1924), wrote that her mother, feeling a deep sense of pity and gratitude, made love to a very large number of front line soldiers.
Click here to read about the woman who entertained the U.S. troops during the First World War.
The General had seen welcomes in Paris and London and Washington and New York, but he got the warmest reception of all when he hit his boyhood home town, little Abilene, Kansas.
As soon as the Eisenhower party was seated a gun boomed and the parade began. It wasn’t a military parade. It told the story of a barefoot boy’s rise from fishing jaunts on nearby Mud Creek to command of the Allied expeditionary force that defeated Fascism in Western Europe.
In 1944, a class of sixth graders wrote General Eisenhower and asked him how they can help in the war effort; click here to read his response…
A four page article regarding the city of Brooklyn, New York during the Second World War – make no mistake about it: this is the Brooklyn that Senator Bernie Sanders inherited – it isn’t far from the N.Y. borough named Queens, where numerous Communists resided.
• Almost half the penicillin that was produced in the United States came out of Brooklyn
• Forty Five percent of of the Brooklyn war plants were awarded the Army and Navy E or the M from the Maritime Services
• Throughout the war, the ranks of the U.S. Armed Services were swollen with Brooklyn sons and daughters, 280,000 strong.
Click here to read an article about one of New York’s greatest mayors: Fiorello LaGuardia.
Those sly dogs at SCRIPT MAGAZINE! They printed the smiling mug of the twenty-five year-old Angela Lansbury (b. 1925) on the cover of their rag, briefly praising her for being the youngest performer to have ever been nominated for an Academy Award (she soon won the 1944 Best Supporting Actress statue for Gaslight), and ran a profile of the lass on a page eight article that was misleadingly titled Our Cover Girl, only to devote 85% of the columns to an illustrious forebear.
