Playing monday morning quarterback in his holding cell, military genius Hermann Göring took some time out from doing absolutely nothing in order to explain how Germany (Hitler in particular) screwed the pooch.
Here is a small article that appeared during the middle of the war saying that there were German parishioners within both Protestant and Catholic churches who offered food and shelter to the various assorted minorities (primarily Jews) who were persecuted by the Nazis.
Uncle’ Hermann to the masses, ‘Our’ Hermann to the army and big business, Col. Gen. Hermann Wilhelm Goering (1893 – 1946) last week became economic dictator and virtual Vice-Chancellor of the Third Reich.
Adolf Hitler dropped into his brawny, outstretched arms full power to carry out the gigantic plan which aims at making the Nazi State economically self-sufficient [in four years].
Uncle’ Hermann to the masses, ‘Our’ Hermann to the army and big business, Col. Gen. Hermann Wilhelm Goering (1893 – 1946) last week became economic dictator and virtual Vice-Chancellor of the Third Reich.
Adolf Hitler dropped into his brawny, outstretched arms full power to carry out the gigantic plan which aims at making the Nazi State economically self-sufficient [in four years].
A Phony War magazine article by Major General George Ared White (1880 – 1941) in which he muses wistfully (as Oregon men are wont to do) as to all the various, dreadful choices that were spread before Herr Hitler in the early months of 1940.
As varied as Hitler’s military options were, the General believed that France’s Maginot Line was impregnable and he did not think that Hitler would commit to such an undertaking. General White believed Hitler had six options before him which are all illustrated on the attached cartoon map.
This article pieces together the last few days of Hitler’s bunker experiences – who was there, how did he pass his time and the subjects he addressed. All the matters discussed herein was gleaned from the intelligence agencies of the three victorious armies that marched into Berlin during the Spring of 1945. The author goes into some detail as to whether he and his entourage could have escaped on foot plane or tank and rules each one out categorically. He further examines the possibility as to how this same group could have escaped to Argentina by submarine or air – and rules these possibilities out as well (the author, however, omits the possibility that they could have escaped through the elaborate tunnel system below the streets of Berlin).
I have visited these [death] camps and I have seen the prisoners and the conditions under which they existed or died. It would be hard, with a mere camera, to overstate the essential horrors of these camps… It is not a pretty site to see – as I did… I fancy that no other generation was ever required to witness horror in this particular shape…
This article is essentially an indictment of French General Charles Nogues (1876 – 1971), once the reigning governor-general of French Morocco – who was accused of beating the rush and selling-out early to the fascists before France had even collapsed:
More primary source articles about W.W. II France can be read here…
When Adolf Hitler was made chancellor of the Third Reich on January 30, 1933, he pledged his government would (1) unify the German people; (2) eliminate class distinction; and (3) secure equal rights abroad for Germany. At that time the Nazi leader addressed the nation: Now, German people, give us four years and then judge us!
That was four years ago.
Here is an eyewitness account of the suicide of Heinrich Himmler as told by Major John C. Schwarzwalder, a former member of the intelligence division of the U.S. Army Services Forces:
…At the end of the search an army doctor told Himmler to open his mouth. The prisoner did so, but Himmler bit down. The doctor withdrew his finger hastily. Himmler then ground his teeth together and swallowed hard. Some say he smiled grimly. In another second he was on the floor writhing in agony…
Hitler wasted little time in securing control over the Christian churches in Germany: within six months of taking power he began to put the screws to the Protestant churches. This article devotes much column space to the pastors who had no problem with any of Hitler’s commands.
The issue, then, is broader than the Reich. Jews, Protestants and Catholics the world over have seen another scrap of paper torn up in Hitler’s repudiation of his pledge on taking office that the Nazi regime would respect the freedom and legal rights of German churches… Hitler modified an order requiring all Protestant pastors on a recent Sunday to display Nazi banners from their church spires…. The Nazis have also suppressed the German branch of International Bible Students’ Society, outlawed the Boy Scouts, and, to make their program more effective – given a Nazi cast to the Lord’s Prayer.
KEY WORDS: church in nazi-occupied norway,Norwegian church during nazi occupationRead more …
Howard Katzander of YANK filed this short dispatch regarding all that he witnessed following the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimer, Germany:
The camp is a thing that has to be seen to be believed, and even then the charred skulls and pelvic bones in the furnaces seem too enormous a crime to be accepted fully. It can’t mean that they actually put human beings –some of them alive –into these furnaces and destroyed them like this.
Here is the first inside story of South America’s leading arms producer, Fritz Mandl (1900 – 1977), who ‘fled’ from Austria with $60,000,000. On the U.S. black list, he has been called ‘one of the most dangerous men in the world’.
Here is an account by a war correspondent who was a part of the Allied advance through Germany. He filed this chilling report about the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Nordhausen:
No one who saw the charnel house of Nordhausen ever will be able to forget the details of that horrible scene… The Yanks stood there stunned and silent,
Obergrupenfuehrer Albert Ganzenmüller (1905 – 1996) was responsible for running the German rail roads. This not only involved delivering troops and ordinance to the various fronts but also deporting Jews, Poles, Croats and Slovenes to assorted death camps:
Ganzenmüller’s special contribution to these migrations was his invention of the railroad-car gas chamber to exterminate Jews.
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.
Goebbels is the creator of the Hitler legend. He is the white-washer of the Nazi reputation. In the 1920s the party had an unsavory name because its ranks included a clique of of homosexuals. As early as 1922 a Nazi meeting at Munich voted that no woman should ever hold political office. Goebbels twisted the party’s abnormal dislike of women into something ‘respectable’ – the doctrine that a woman’s place was in the kitchen and the maternity ward.
