The Terrible Truth About Germany
Lt. Col. Max Klaar (left) Bundeswehr (retired) embraces Merrit P. Drucker, retired US Army major at a ceremony in Washington. Photo: Monica Frim.
World War Two stopped in 1945, but it did not end.
The death rate among soldiers and civilians in Germany increased. No peace treaty was signed between Germany and its former opponents. And according to many Germans, there is still no real peace either, because the country is occupied and lacks a treaty.
It is identified by the United Nations as a “Hostile State;” the propaganda which helped to start the war still goes on against Germany; the conquerors have never been called to account for the atrocities they inflicted on their German prisoners of war, or for the deaths by forced starvation of millions of German civilians. Thuggish fascists still threaten freedom of speech. Thousands of political prisoners have been sentenced to jail in Germany for expressing opinions tolerated…
Dina Babbitt – Painting Prisoners for Dr. Mengele
Dina Babbitt narrowly survived Auschwitz when her art skills came to the attention of Josef Mengele, who needed watercolor portraits to accurately document the skin tone of Gypsy prisoners whom he was studying. Sometime after the war, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum claimed ownership of the paintings. Babbitt died in 2009 after an emotionally-charged, and ultimately unsuccessful battle to have her work returned to her. Her story was related in this 2006 NY Times article by Steve Freiss:
At 83, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt still recalls the rickety easel where in 1944, under orders from the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, she painted watercolors of the haggard faces of Gypsy prisoners.
But her memories of the Auschwitz concentration camp, vivid though they are, aren’t enough for Mrs. Babbitt. Seven of the 11 portraits that saved Mrs. Babbitt and her mother remain not far from where she created them, on display at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and…
Nazis Tried To Train Dogs To Read And Talk In Effort To Win WWII
The ultimate goal of a large-scale project known as “Wooffan SS” was for dogs to take over as SS officers, spies, and concentration camp guards. The Telegraph sifts through the sordid kennel of history:
The Germans viewed canines as being almost as intelligent as humans and attempted to build an army of fearsome ’speaking’ dogs, extraordinary new research shows. Hitler hoped the clever creatures would learn to communicate with their SS masters — and he even had a special dog school set up to teach them to talk. The incredible findings show Nazi officials recruited so-called educated dogs from all over Germany and trained them to speak and tap out signals using their paws.
The Germans hoped to use the animals for the war effort, such as getting them to work alongside the SS and guard concentration camps to free up officers. The bizarre ‘Wooffan SS’ experiment has come to light after years…
How Anything May Signify Anything: William Friedman And The Biliteral Cipher
Cabinet Magazine has a fascinating and mysterious article on William F. Friedman, perhaps the greatest code-breaker in modern history. Friedman became a hero of World War II by breaking Japan’s PURPLE code and inventing the Army’s best cipher machine. He did it all using the ‘biliteral cipher’, a simple but powerful encoding technique invented in the sixteenth century, which allows for hidden messages to be conveyed by anything from flower petals to musical notes to faces in a photograph:
It is unlikely that Bacon’s cipher system was ever used for the transmission of military secrets, in the seventeenth century or in the twentieth. But for roughly a century from 1850, it set the world of literature on fire.
A passion for puzzles, codes, and conspiracies fueled a widespread suspicion that Shakespeare was not the author of his plays, and professional and amateur scholars of all sorts spent extraordinary amounts of time, energy, and money combing Renaissance texts in search of signatures and other messages that would reveal the true identity of their author. Even after the recent publication of James Shapiro’s comprehensive history of the authorship controversy, Contested Will, it is difficult for us to appreciate the depth of conviction — among writers as diverse and as distinguished as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Henry Miller, and even Helen Keller — that Shakespeare’s texts contained the secret solution to what was widely considered to be “the Greatest of Literary Problems.”…
U.S. Government Report Confirms America As ‘Safe Haven’ For Nazis
A fascinating front page story in the New York Times today details some of the more outrageous instances of the United States harboring refugee Nazis following World War 2, including scientists recruited for the notorious Operation Paperclip. Read the whole thing: it’s eye-opening for those who might think the “land of the free” would never do something like this:
A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.
The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.
It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called…
Why is This Republican Candidate for Congress Dressed as a Nazi?
Rich Iott, second from right, in a Nazi SS Waffen uniform.
First saw this on Bill Maher’s show over the weekend, he was discussing this story from Joshua Green on the Atlantic:
An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio’s 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.
Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II. Iott’s participation in the Wiking group is not mentioned on his campaign’s website, and his name and photographs were removed from the Wiking website.
When contacted by The Atlantic,…
The Atomic Cake Controversy of 1946: A “Mission Accomplished” Photo-Op From Yesteryear
President George W. Bush and many of his top administration officials were often accused of hubris in their eight-year run, but I have to say this incident from 1946 really tops the literal cake. It has the haughtiness of President Bush’s 2003 “Mission Accomplished” photo-op aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, combined with an element as you see below, I can best describe as … callous. From CONELRAD Adjacent:
The celebratory event took place on Tuesday evening, November 5, 1946 at the Officers’ Club of the Army War College in Washington, D.C. The occasion was to mark the disbanding of Joint Army-Navy Task Force Number One, the body that organized and oversaw the first post-war atomic tests in the Pacific. These highly publicized detonations on Bikini Atoll are remembered today, if at all, for displacing an entire indigenous population of islanders, for inspiring a revealing line of swimwear for women and for…
65 Years Ago, The U.S. Dropped a Bomb on Hundreds of Thousands of People
Alex Pasternack writes on Motherboard:
In the early morning hours of July 16, 1945, some of the greatest scientific minds of a generation gathered in the New Mexican desert to watch the results of their unprecedented, world-changing experiment: to build the most powerful weapon in the world. But when they pressed the button on their bomb, nicknamed “Gadget,” they weren’t quite sure what would happen.
The general consensus was that the bomb would yield energy equivalent to 5,000 tons of TNT (the actual result as it was finally calculated was 21,000 tons). Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project, had bet ten dollars against scientist George Kistiakowsky’s wager, with his entire month’s pay, that the bomb would not work at all. Enrico Fermi offered a wager on “whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world.”
Winston Churchill Ordered Cover-Up of World War 2 UFO Incident to Prevent Public Hysteria
Well, of course he did. Good ol’ Winston was well aware of The Doctor, and even tried to use Daleks to defeat those Nazi bastards during WW2. Andrew Hough and Peter Hutchison write in the Guardian:
Winston Churchill was accused of ordering a cover-up of a Second World War encounter between a UFO and a RAF bomber because he feared public “panic” and loss of faith in religion, newly released secret files disclose.
The former Prime Minister allegedly banned reporting of the “bizarre” incident, off the east coast of England, for half a century amid fears disclosures about unidentified flying objects would create public hysteria.
He is said to have made the orders during a secret war meeting with US General Dwight Eisenhower, the then commander of the Allied Forces, at an undisclosed location in America during the latter part of the conflict.
The claims are contained in thousands of pages of declassified files on…
Space Nazis Launch Future Sneak Attack Against The World (Video)
And you thought the Nuremberg Trials would end this evil. The good folks at io9.com have been monitoring this Finnish production from the get-go, let us know what’d cha think:
U.S. Army Marches On Red Square (Photo)
Don’t worry, they’re just celebrating the 65th anniversary of our two countries’ tag team victory over the Nazis! Wired reports:
Source: U.S. Army Europe, via Flickr
This weekend marks the 65th anniversary of V-E Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe. In Russia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union, May 9 marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Victory Day (День Победы) is a major public holiday there, vested with almost sacred meaning.
But this year’s military parade in Red Square is particularly unusual: It’s the first time active-duty U.S. troops have been invited to march in the ceremony. Pictured here are soldiers of Co. C, 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, part of the 170th Brigade Combat Team, in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. They took part in the parade as part of a contingent of troops from the nations that defeated Hitler.
[Read more at Wired]
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Hitler Was ‘Obsessed’ With Stealing The Turin Shroud
Would WWII have turned out differently if Adolph Hitler had gotten his hands on the Turin Shroud? He may have believed it would bestow him with Jesus powers. From the Telegraph:
Both the Vatican and the Italian royal family, the Savoys, who were the guardians and owners of the shroud, feared that the German leader, who had an interest in the esoteric, might try to steal the linen cloth.
Officially this was to protect it from possible bombing (in Turin). In reality, it was moved to hide it from Hitler who was apparently obsessed by it. When he visited Italy in 1938, top-ranking Nazi aides asked unusual and insistent questions about the Shroud.
The shroud, which is supposed to have wrapped Christ’s body after he was crucified, was returned to Turin in 1946 on the orders of Italy’s last king, Umberto II. While millions of people believe the shroud to be authentic, sceptics…
The Real ‘English Patient’ Hero Was Not A Womanizer … He Was Gay, Letters Show
From the Daily Mail:
Letters have surfaced in Germany proving that the World War Two spy who inspired the hero the the Oscar-winning film The English Patient was no womaniser but a gay man in love with a young soldier called Hans Entholt.
The correspondence also indicate the Hungarian-born adventurer Count Laszlo de Almásy did not die of a morphine overdose after suffering terrible burns and dreaming of the woman he loved, the fate the befell the fictional hero played by Ralph Fiennes in the film.
Instead Almásy succumbed to amoebic dysentery in 1951 never having once slept with a woman.
While the Imperial War Museum in London holds reports he wrote for German intelligence in WW2 under lock and key, letters written by Almásy, who worked for Rommel’s Afrika Corps, have been found in Germany, confirming the long-time rumours about his sexuality.
The Heinrich Barth Institute for African Studies in Cologne has discovered the intimate…
New Evidence on WWII Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg
From Yahoo News:
New evidence from Russian archives suggests Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, was alive after Soviets reported that he had died in a Moscow prison, a Swedish magazine and U.S. researchers reported Thursday.
The fate of Wallenberg, who was arrested in Budapest in January 1945 by the Soviet army, has remained one of the great mysteries of World War II.
The Soviets claimed he was executed July 17, 1947 but never produced a reliable death certificate or his remains. Witnesses claim he was seen in Soviet prisons or labor camps many years later, although those accounts were never verified.
Now, the archives of the Russian Security Services say a man identified only as Prisoner No. 7, who was interrogated six days after the diplomat’s reported death, was “with great likelihood” Wallenberg.
The security services reported the find last November to Susanne Berger…
The Tattoo Used in Auschwitz Was Originally An IBM Code Number
Here is another (controversial) chapter from my book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.
For more on me, look at The Memory Hole.
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The tattooed numbers on the forearms of people held and killed in Nazi concentration camps have become a chilling symbol of hatred. Victims were stamped with the indelible number in a dehumanizing effort to keep track of them like widgets in the supply chain.
These numbers obviously weren’t chosen at random. They were part of a coded system, with each number tracked as the unlucky person who bore it was moved through the system.
Edwin Black made headlines in 2001 when his painstakingly researched book, IBM and the Holocaust, showed that IBM machines were used to automate the “Final Solution” and the jackbooted takeover of Europe. Worse, he showed that the top levels of the company either knew or willfully turned a blind eye.
A year and a half after that book gave Big Blue…
Life Magazine’s Maps Of A Nazi Invasion Of America
The blog Ptak Science Books has an interesting slice of history: an extensive series of maps originally published in Life Magazine in 1942, detailing a number of ways in which the Axis powers could have successfully invaded the United States and taken over the country.
The companion article was titled “Now the U.S. Must Fight for Its Life” and intended to make readers consider the possibility of the United States losing World War II and falling under Nazi control. Thankfully, these are maps of a history that never occurred.
Human Bones Could Reveal Truth of Japan’s ‘Unit 731′ Experiments
Julian Ryall writes in the Telegraph:
The Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious medical research team carried out secret human experiments regarded as some of the worst war crimes in history.
Its scientists subjected more than 10,000 people per year to grotesque Josef Mengele-style torture in the name of science, including captured Russian soldiers and downed American aircrews. The experiments included hanging people upside down until they choked, burying them alive, injecting air into their veins and placing them in high-pressure chambers.
Now new detail about their victims’ suffering could be revealed after the authorities in Tokyo announced plans to open an investigation into human bones thought to have come from the unit. A new search is also due to be carried out for mass graves that may contain more victims of human experiments.
Rethinking Hitler’s ‘Dumb Blonde’: The True Story of Eva Braun
Kate Connolly writes in the Guardian:
For decades she has been seen as a decorative companion to Adolf Hitler, an apolitical “dumb blonde” whose attentions served as an occasional diversion for the Führer. But the first academic biography of Eva Braun draws a different picture of the dictator’s long-standing girlfriend, claiming historians have hugely underestimated the role she played in his life.
Berlin historian Heike Görtemaker reveals her as a politically committed woman who won Hitler’s affections, enjoyed a healthy sex life with him, sympathised with Nazi politics and gave him psychological support. Görtemaker spent three years researching her book, Eva Braun: Life With Hitler, due out this month from the prestigious CH Beck publishing house. She was able to draw on previously unseen or little-known documents, letters, diary entries and photographs.
Recording Of Nazi Officers Who Found Hitler’s Body Released
Allan Hall reports that a tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found Adolf Hitler’s body in his Berlin bunker has been discovered, in the Telegraph:
The recording was made on October 25 1956 in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden, site of the Fuehrer’s mountaintop home in Bavaria. The court was convened to officially declare the former leader of Nazi Germany dead so that his fortune and rights to his book “Mein Kampf” could be seized by the state government.
Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun.
On the recording, discovered by researchers for the German Spiegel TV channel, the men speak under oath of entering the Fuehrer’s study after hearing shots ring out on April 30 1945.
“When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa,”…
