80 Years Ago Today

Eighty years ago today the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, sinking American ships, destroying planes and killing American military personnel.  It was a sneak attack and we were unprepared for it.

Today our biggest threat is from Communist China, who are building up their military at a furious pace.  They are preparing for war.  It seems there will always be a tyrannical totalitarian power, anxious to capture and control more peoples and territory.   Taiwan is in danger, as is the Ukraine in danger from Putin’s Russia.  Matters are not helped by the fact we have a fool in the White House with no credibility as a leader.  

Memorial Day is Every Day for the Dutch Caretakers of American Graves

Here is a wonderful story of remembrance of the American war dead in Holland.  Hat tip to Always on Watch.

Read it all here.

The White Rose: Martyrs Against Nazi Tyanny #History #WorldWarII

One of my interests is World War II, and I spend a lot of time watching movies, documentaries and film clips of it on YouTube.  Last week I watched a film about the White Rose, a group of anti-Nazi German youths who worked against Hitler's government.  It is an inspiring tale:  young people risking, and several losing their lives, in the effort.

Founded in 1942, the White Rose wrote and distributed leaflets among the German populace, urging passive resistance to Nazi rule.  Leaflets were typed on a borrowed typewriter, and reproduced on a duplicating machine.  These were mailed at random to addresses taken from public phone books, or distributed by leaving them in public places.  The White Rose had cells in Hamburg, Freiburg, Berlin, and Vienna.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst

The film documents the trial and execution of three members of the White Rose:   Hans Scholl, a medical student at the University of Munich, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst.  All three had been members of the Nazi youth organizations, early supporters of Hitler and the Nazis.  Hans had served in the RAD, the National Labor Force. As a soldier on the Eastern front, Hans had observed first-hand Nazi atrocities against civilians, and became disillusioned with the German war effort.  Christoph Probst had served in the German army at a Luftwaffe (air force) base.  However, they lost their allegiance to Hitler in light of Nazi atrocities, and they were angered by Germany's loss of democracy and freedoms.  Their pamphlets denounced Hitler as a mass murderer and called upon Germans to resist the Nazi regime.

After the German defeat at Stalingrad, Hans and Sophie took a suitcase full of leaflets to the University of Munich, where they left small stacks of them outside the doors of classrooms.  However, they were observed by the janitor, who reported them to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.  They were arrested and tried in the so-called People's Court on February 22, 1943.  The trial was presided over by the notorious Roland Freisler, chief justice of the People's Court of the Greater German Reich, who had been sent from Berlin.

Roland Freisler, a dedicated Nazi, held show trials in which the accused were insulted and demeaned. This was no different:

He conducted the trial as if the future of the Reich were indeed at stake. He roared denunciations of the accused as if he were not the judge but the prosecutor. He behaved alternately like an actor ranting through an overwritten role in an implausible melodrama and a Grand Inquisitor calling down eternal damnation on the heads of the three irredeemable heretics before him. . . . No witnesses were called, since the defendants had admitted everything. The proceedings consisted almost entirely of Roland Freisler's denunciation and abuse, punctuated from time to time by half-hearted offerings from the court-appointed defense attorneys, one of whom summed up his case with the observation, “I can only say fiat justitia. Let justice be done.” By which he meant: Let the accused get what they deserve.

Sophie Scholl

Freisler found Hans, Sophie and Christoph guilty of high treason, and sentenced them to death by guillotine. Their executions were carried out on the same day, by executioners strangely attired in top hats.  Sophie went first, followed by Hans, and Christoph died last.  Later, the prison guards would recount the bravery with which the three had met their end, saying that Sophie did not bat an eyelash.  Her last words were "The sun still shines."  Her brother Hans shouted "Long live freedom!" as the blade fell.

Later, other members would follow the three to the guillotine, including a Munich philosophy professor, Kurt Huber, who had overseen the group.

The film about the trial and executions is called Sophie Scholl, the Final Days.  It can be viewed for free at YouTube, at this link.

Roland Freisler was later killed by an American bomb in Berlin.  On February 3, 1945, as he was preparing another trial with a predetermined verdict (death), the building in which he presided came under American bombing.  As he gathered his papers before seeking safety in a shelter, a bomb exploded through the roof and Freisler was crushed by a falling beam.  Good riddance.

After many years, the guillotine, on which the three were executed, was found in the basement of a German museum.  It is considered too grisly to put on display.  See it here.

Today, schools and squares all over Germany have been named in honor of the White Rose.  This small group today is a symbol of freedom and resistance to tyranny.  I know I will never forget their names:  Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst.  As Sophie said to her mother, shortly before her execution:  May we meet in eternity.

Postscript:  the White Rose authored and distributed six leaflets (a seventh was never finished and released).  Their English translations can be read at this link.

According to Wikipedia:

The White Rose had the last word. Their last leaflet was smuggled to the Allies, who edited it and air-dropped millions of copies over Germany.

Graves of Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl

World War II Movies for Free on YouTube

I haven't been motivated to do much for the past week or so.  I just wait until night time, then go to my table in the backyard gazebo and watch World War II movies and documentaries on my laptop.  You can see a lot of these full length films on YouTube -- just search for "World War II full movies" at YouTube.

One that I particularly enjoyed was "The Bunker," portraying Hitler's final days, from the time he entered his underground bunker to the day of his suicide in April 1945.

I have no sympathy for Hitler, but I did feel some for his staff and guards and entourage who had to cope with certain defeat, total destruction and their own deaths or imprisonment.

Nazi Helmet Restoration: The Finished Helmet

Restoration of a German M-40 Helmet of WW II
(Click to see larger image)

I have finished my project for the week:  restoring a German M-40 helmet from World War II.

I spent yesterday spray painting the helmet, then lightly rubbing it out with very fine steel wool.  I am very pleased with the results, as I have never before successfully spray painted anything in my life.

This morning I installed the new liner, a reproduction of the liner used in original German helmets.  After that, I applied the Wehrmacht decals - eagle on the left side, national colors on the right side.

The spray paint that I used and recommend is Apefelgrun [Apple Green] from 1944 Militaria.  The color is actually more of an army olive green.

The helmet's original appearance, as I received it from the seller in Europe, can be viewed here.

Note:  My interest in Nazis is strictly a historical interest.  I in no way endorse their cause or hateful ideology.

Nazi Helmet Primed for Paint

The more I read and learn about the Nazis, the more I dislike them.  But they did wear some really cool helmets.

My helmet, purchased from Europe, has now been stripped of paint and rust, and today I primed it with Rust-Oleum Rust Transformer.  This stuff is supposed to neutralize any remaining rust by chemically changing it to something inert, over which you can safely apply paint.

I found a place where I could spray paint the helmet -- no, not the kitchen table, the backyard garden!  I put it on a flat, aluminum paint pan and started spraying.  Of course, my first efforts created drips, so I had to use steel wool to wear those drips away, then respray.  If you aren't used to spray painting, you must learn patience, one thin coat at a time, to avoid drips.  After drying, I lightly rubbed with fine grade steel wool to smooth the surface.

Tomorrow it will be time to apply the olive green paint (some call it field gray).  The primer coat gave me some valuable practice today.  Once I finish that, I can apply military decals and the inner liner and chin strap.  When Halloween arrives, I can wear the helmet and go to the party as a Democrat.  Har har!

Nazi Helmet Restoration Progress: the Stripped Helmet

I have spent several days this week stripping my German M40 of paint and rust.  The pre-restoration helmet is here.  The stripped helmet is at the left.  (The M40 designation refers to the year the model was created.  World War I helmets included the M16 and M18, and more modern helmets were the M35, M40 and M42.  The differences in the last three models are subtle.)

I notice that the rust remover dissolves the rust, but leaves behind a dark mark where the rust used to be. This can be ground off, but I have neither the time nor patience to do that, and, it isn't necessary.

Next step:  priming the helmet.  I am going to use a Rust-Oleum product that supposedly turns rust into something else that can be painted over.  If any small amounts of rust remain, the Rust-Oleum should kill it and prevent more rust from forming.  I'll give it two coats.

The question is, where can I spray paint my helmet with the primer and later the paint?  I suppose the kitchen table is out of the question.

I have a nice work bench in my garage.  Unfortunately, it is covered with storage boxes.  Maybe I can remove them temporarily.  I have to paint the helmet when my wife is gone for the day, probably on a shopping trip to San Jose.  Otherwise, I will have to paint it under an extreme barrage of nagging, warnings of doom and destruction, and loud verbal expressions of angst, fear, horror and disaster.

A Follow Up on Claims Made by Pro-Hitler Film

The film I reviewed in my prior post (Adolf Hitler:  the Greatest Story Never Told) made some very controversial claims.  Here's a brief follow-up on two of those claims.

Update:  I added a piece about the Allied treatment of the Russian Cossacks, who fought Stalin with Germany.

The film alleges that Russian Cossacks, who fought with German troops, were lied to and tricked or forced into being repatriated to Russia, where they were executed.
This Wikipedia article establishes the truth of this claim.  However, the Cossacks were not fascists, they were anti-communists, tired of the harsh conditions of living under Stalin's communism.  Because of an agreement at Yalta before the end of the war, the allies turned the Cossacks over to Stalin to meet their fate.  This clearly stinks in the history books.

Eisenhower Deliberately Starved German POWs?
One of the claims was that General Dwight D. Eisenhower deliberately allowed nearly a million German POWs to die from starvation and exposure.  This claim was first made by a Canadian author, James Bacque, in his book Other Losses (1989).

I haven't ready an books on the subject, but I very much doubt that this is true, based on my intuition alone. Stephen E. Ambrose refuted Bacque in a New York Times article in 1991, and later wrote a book about it. Other authors have written books to rebut Bacque, and a raging debate continues via books and articles.  German POWs did die in POW camps just after the war, due to a massive influx of German soldiers surrendering to the Allies in order to avoid becoming prisoners of Russia (who used POWs for slave labor and worked and starved the great majority of them to death).  The POW camps right after the war were thus overcrowded and food scarce (despite Bacque's claims to the contrary).  However, any deaths resulting therefrom were not intentional.  The U.S. Provost Marshall put the number of deaths at 15,285, a far cry from the 900,000 claimed by Bacque.  Nevertheless, this debate will go on indefinitely.

There Is No Evidence That The Holocaust Ever Happened?
This claim is the easiest to refute.  There were actually records and documentation of the mass murder of Jews by gassing them, and numerous witnesses to the atrocity, many of whom testified at the Nuremberg trials of German officers for war crimes.  An excellent discussion and refutation of Holocaust Denial can be found at the Jewish Virtual Library at this link.

Zyklon-B Was Used to Disinfect Clothes, Bodies and Buildings of the Typhus Germ.  This argument is used by Holocaust deniers to explain away the cyanide based poison, Zyklon-B, which was used to kill several million Jews.  In fact, Zyklon-B cannot kill anaerobic bacteria such as the Typhus bacterium, and would be useless against the disease.  It can only kill aerobic (oxygen breathing) organisms, like people.

Who Produced the Film "Adolph Hitler:  the Greatest Story NEVER Told"?
I do not know who produced this film, but it seems to bear the ideologies of the Institute For Historical Review (IHR).  Wikipedia describes IHR as follows:

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR), founded in 1978, is an organization whose primary purpose is to disseminate views denying key facts of Nazism and the genocide of Jews and other victims. It is considered by many scholars as the world's leading Holocaust denial organization. 

All of this reading and research leads from one thing to another.  I reject Holocaust denial as a credible position on history, based on the documented facts.  However, one thing I do not understand is why Jews were so hated in Europe in the 1930s?  This hatred seems to be re-emerging in the here and now.  This bears some serious study, but where do I start?

Pro-Hitler Propaganda? See the film "Adolph Hitler: the Greatest Story NEVER Told"

Adolph Hitler

I get on these kicks.  My latest is World War II.  I watched the whole series "The Unknown War," on Hulu Plus, made in the 1970's for television, and narrated by Burt Lancaster.  It contains a lot of interesting facts about the war in the east, but is way too complimentary to Stalin and the Soviet Union for my tastes.  The major fact I took away from the series was that the Russian soldiers, partisans and civilians fought heroically against the Nazis with seeming indifference to their own lives.  They were virtually unstoppable.  Hitler didn't win a single major battle -- or if he did, the Russians soon came back and retook what was lost, like they did at Sebastopol.  The Russians liberated their homeland with incredible effort and sacrifice -- that I do not doubt.  They even kept going and liberated several other east European countries as well.  Unfortunately, when the war was over, they didn't leave.  One totalitarian power was substituted for the other.  Burt Lancaster seemed not to notice.

After that I came across another film with an incredible title:  "Adolph Hitler:  the Greatest Story NEVER Told."  It is a Nazi apologia, and almost six hours long.  You can watch it for free on the internet here.  I'm sure you have the time and will get right on it.

Now I believe in watching such documentaries with an open mind, but not a gullible one.  I decided to sit through the whole thing to see what I might learn.  I did indeed find it interesting.  I learned something about why those Russian fighters were so adamant about winning.  There were NKVD squads in back of the line of infantry, and anyone who retreated would be shot.  Furthermore, anyone who surrendered was automatically considered a traitor, and either shot or sent to a forced labor camp.  The film discussed one Russian nurse who was captured by the Nazis, and when the Russian troops liberated her prison camp, they arrested her.  For surrendering, she was given six years in the gulag and exiled to Siberia for life.  

This pro-Hitler film made a good case for Hitler in the early part of his career.  The World War I Treaty of Versailles was grossly unfair to Germany, saddling them with total blame for the war, onerous reparations and stripping away part of German territory and ceding it to other countries.  Sudentland was one, incorporated into Czechoslovakia in 1919.   Likewise, the Polish Corridor, the port city of Danzig, had been given to Poland, separating Germany geographically from its province of East Prussia.  Hitler, as well as the majority of Germans, hated the Treaty of Versailles and felt they had been royally screwed.  (I agree with their position.)  The Treaty resulted in high unemployment, raging inflation and poverty for millions of Germans.  An unjust peace bore the seeds of a new war to come.

Hitler wanted to unite all Germanic peoples under the protection of Germany, and he wanted German territory returned.  He invaded Czechoslovakia to take back the Sudentland, peacefully annexed German-speaking Austria (and most Austrians approved).  The allied powers fumed a bit but did nothing.  Finally, there was the Polish Corridor and Danzig, and the Poles were mistreating the Germans living there.  He invaded Poland to get back these territories and to protect Germans there, and frankly, I can see his point.  However, this automatically resulted in Britain and France declaring war on Germany.  Germany offered to negotiate, but Churchill would have none of it. [Update:  I have subsequently learned that Hitler was concerned with more than the Polish Corridor and Danzig.  His SS troops committed atrocities against Polish civilians and murdered a lot of Jews.]

The film describes some bad behavior on the part of the Allies, alleging that German POWs were deliberately starved by Eisenhower, who refused to feed them, killing many thousands of men.  I find this hard to believe, and will need to read some corroborating accounts before I do.  Ike never struck me as one to commit war crimes. [UPDATE:  I have looked into this claim and have decided it isn't true.  See my follow up post here.]

The film claims that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was actually a preemptive strike, that Stalin had been moving west, gobbling up small countries, and that he planned to invade Europe.  Hitler beat him to the punch.  True story?  It is indeed plausible, considering the expansionist nature of Stalinism, and several other authorities tend to corroborate this claim.  What Burt Lancaster didn't mention, quite a few Russians welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Communism, and many joined the Nazis to fight Stalin.  The Cossacks were one such group.  Now another case of the Allies acting badly: after the German defeat, the Cossacks surrendered too.  British troops lied, telling the Cossacks they were to be moved to the west by train, away from Russia.  After boarding the trains, the Cossacks were then sent east, back to Russia, where they were all executed.  They would never have boarded the trains had they known the truth.  The Allies were therefore complicit in mass murder.  

The hardest part of this film to swallow is the story of the Jewish concentration camps.  It claims there were no death camps, no Holocaust, and presents testimony of one or two Jewish survivors to that effect.  It also presents the research of a Jewish scholar who studied the Holocaust, and claims he can find no reliable evidence that it happened - no written orders, no buildings that could have served as gas chambers.  Okay, we are entering the Holocaust Denial Zone, and my antennae shot up.  

So how did all those millions of Jews die?  What caused those huge piles of dead bodies at Auschwitz and Dachau?  They died of Typhus (yeah, right). There was a lot of that going around, I guess, but the German guards were strangely immune.  Zyklon-B, the chemical allegedly used to gas Jews to death, was really only a disinfectant, for sanitizing buildings and clothes against the Typhus epidemic.  [Update: This claim is refuted by the fact that Zyklon-B has no effect on an anaerobic bacterium like Typhus.  It only kills aerobic organisms, like humans.]  Sure, they burned the bodies, but only to prevent the spread of the disease.  Hogwash.  There were many Jewish survivors of the camps who witnessed such atrocities.  Further, I remember seeing documentaries that claim the Nazis kept meticulous records on the numbers they killed.  What happened to those?  The film doesn't say.

Other than gas, the Nazis simply shot a lot of Jews, and had the foresight to photograph and film a lot of it.  None of this was mentioned or explained in the film under discussion.  

I would like to see more research on the Holocaust, what records do exist to prove it.  Of course, there was Auschwitz commander Rudolph Hoss, whose testimony at Nuremberg described the gassings, but according to the film, he was beaten and his family threatened unless he lied about it.  This doesn't ring true either.  For what possible purpose could the Allies have in fabricating such monstrous atrocities?

The film ends by praising Adolph Hitler, claiming he was a truly great man.  I remain unconvinced [I am being sarcastic].  Call me a skeptic.  Note:  A rebuttal of Holocaust Denial can be found at this link.  I have read through this website, and it refutes convincingly the Holocaust denial elements of "Adolf Hitler, the Greatest Story NEVER Told."

UPDATE:  I have been watching a lot of documentaries about the Third Reich, and there is no doubt that Hitler was a lunatic. Several German plots to assassinate him failed.  Hitler was an evil man who had not an ounce of empathy for other humans.  Once he took power, he executed leaders of other political parties, a beloved German general whom he saw as a potential rival, and many of his own followers in "the Night of the Long Knives."

Restoring a World War II German Helmet

German M-40 Army Helmet

I bought this German M-40 helmet from a source in Czechoslovakia.  In the pictures it appears pristine, but is actually freckled with rust spots.

The liner, bottom right, is not correct.  This is the type of liner used in World War I German helmets, as well as various European army helmets.

The helmet was painted black after WWII and used as a Civil Defense helmet.  Since the paint and liner are not original, it is permissible to restore the helmet.  You would never want to restore an authentic German army helmet, with the original paint, decals and liner, no matter how poor their condition.  You would be altering an historical artifact, which greatly decreases its interest and value.

This morning I removed the liner, held inside the helmet by three pins.  The liner smelled badly, like old sweat or body odor, indicating it is indeed aged.  The inside of the helmet was fairly rusted, worse than the outside.  I applied a rust remover (Naval Jelly) and got rid of most of it.  I will have to buy some steel wool today and scrub away at what remains.

Next, I washed the helmet and dried it, and applied a paint stripper to both inside and out.  It loosened the paint, but I can see it will take more than one application.  The stuff contains methylene chloride, a rather nasty solvent.  I will have to begin using thicker rubber gloves, as this stuff burns right through the thin ones I was using.  This is going to involve some work.  Ugh.

After I strip off as much paint and rust as possible, I will prime the helmet with Rustoleum, then paint it with German field gray paint.  After that, I will apply German army decals and replace the liner with a good reproduction of the type used in German helmets, an eight finger affair made of goat skin.  Right now, that seems to be days away.

It's difficult to tell whether this helmet ever saw combat.  I doubt it. Thousands of helmet shells were stamped out in advance of need, and many remain in Germany and elsewhere.  Reenactors and hobbyists can buy one of these shells and have it restored to the original condition of a new Nazi helmet.  I am doing my own restoration.  When it is done, I plan to invade the Sudentland.  Or not.

UPDATE:  See the restored helmet here.  I have one last task to do, and that is to seal the decals to prevent them from rubbing off and from scratches.  I have ordered a spray can of Dammar varnish to do that, the same varnish used on the original helmets.

My German Helmet and the Nazi Invasion of Russia In 1941

Reproduction German Helmet of WW II

My reproduction German helmet arrived this week.  The color is perfect, a kind of gray-green.  It is heavier than my uncle's German police helmet.  I tried it on, and was immediately aware of the weight.  No doubt German soldiers developed strong neck muscles wearing these.  Holding the helmet, I am aware of the cold steel, the heavy weight, and the smell of the leather liner.

Okay, so now I have a German helmet.  What do I do now, invade Poland?

Nah, I'll just keep it as a historical reference as I study the history of World War II, one of my interests.

I have been watching a documentary series from 1974, "The Unknown War," narrated by Burt Lancaster.  It is all about the Nazi invasion of Russia, Operation Barbarossa, which began in 1941.  According to the series narration, Hitler intended to destroy the Soviet Union and exterminate its populations, and then incorporate the lands into Germany.  The Russians had ample reason to fight like fanatics, as surrender was not an option.

The series covers great battles such as the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad and Kursk.  Due to Nazi encirclement of major Russian cities, millions of Russians starved to death rather than surrender.  Around 20 million Russians died, of war wounds, starvation and freezing in the bitter winters.  Nevertheless, the Nazi invasion failed.  Hitler all but exhausted his military resources in his obsessive desire to destroy Russia.  Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers died or surrendered, and many thousands of tanks and aircraft were lost in Hitler's vain effort.  There's no telling how WWII might have turned out, had Hitler not invaded Russia, and wasted so many German lives and assets, instead of directing those assets against the allied forces.  Russia had a formal peace agreement with Germany and would not have fought with the allies, absent the 1941 invasion.

Earlier this week, I watched "Escape From Sobibor," based on the true story of 600 Jewish prisoners in a Nazi extermination camp, who rebelled against their captors, killing eleven German guards and officers before opening the gates and fleeing, in mass, into the nearby forest.  About half survived the surrounding mine field and machine gun fire, and most of those were later captured and executed.  About 50 of the prisoners eluded capture and survived the war.

There is no escaping the fact that the Nazis were entirely evil.  If ever there was a just and necessary war, it was the allied war on the fascist powers of World War II.  It is instructional to study the depths of depravity to which men and nations can descend.  The goal, as always, is to learn how we might prevent such tyranny from happening again.

D-Day Plus Seventy Years: My Uncle's Souvenirs of the Invasion of Normandy 1944

My Uncle Theo, a Texan, took part in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy in June of 1944.  He was a medic with the 2nd Armored Division and didn't land on Normandy Beach until June 7 -- D-Day + One.  When he died in 1957, he left us a suitcase filled with war mementos, collected from the invasion of Sicily (Italy) and also the Normandy invasion (France).  There were Nazi wallets, Italian uniform buttons, German, Italian and French cash and coins, German medals, a German first aid kit, German eating utensils, some unfired bullets, Nazi patches, and even a black Nazi helmet.  I still have most of these mementos, carefully preserved.

As a child going through the suit case, handling the artifacts, I could sense momentous events, Germans and Americans, horror and death. The Nazi wallets were stuffed with personal pictures of handsome young German soldiers posing with friends, family and sweethearts.  This impressed on me the reality of war.  These dead Germans were human beings, and I could feel a certain empathy for them while still hating their cause.  But if somebody had to die, I thought, better them than us.  We didn't start this war.

Uncle Theo? (Sitting)

I noticed a sour smell in the suitcase that seemed to emanate from an orange colored plastic bottle.  It had German writing on the side, so I didn't know what it was for.  Years later, a friend who spoke German told me the bottle contained a salve for rubbing on the skin after a chemical or gas attack.  Now, all these years later, I still associate that sour chemical smell with D-Day.  I still have that orange bottle, but the smell is very faint now.  My uncle's suitcase, which had absorbed much of the smell, crumbled into dust years ago.  I now store his Normandy items in a large, plastic, sealed storage box.


Looking at many pictures of D-Day, however, I get an impression that it was rainy and wet.  It was a massive logistics operation, moving men, weapons, supplies and machines onto Normandy Beach.  LST's, a small ship with doors that opened in the bow, pushed their noses up close to the beach.  A special bridge built by British engineers provided the runway from the LST bows to the beach.  The LST's opened their large doors and expelled tanks, trucks, jeeps, artillery and long lines of troops.  Funny to think that 70 years have passed since that great undertaking -- a lifetime ago.

LSTs Unloading Men, Weapons and Machines
Normandy Beach,  June 1944
(Click to see full size)

Life Magazine printed photographs of the Normandy invasion, and there is a photo of a balding, husky soldier sitting near the water's edge, next to a line of dead American soldiers, most of who drowned coming ashore.   They wore their army life jackets (actually, a doughnut shaped, inflatable tube) too low on their bodies, and the life jackets flipped them over, pointing their heads down into the water, drowning them.  The Army life jackets were poorly designed -- Navy jackets didn't do this.

My father wrote to my uncle, who was at that time "somewhere in France," sending him a clipping of the photo, and asking if it were him.  I still have his letter in response, a letter headed "In France" and dated August 17, 1944.  He wrote "About the clipping you sent [the answer] is yes, but I probably could give no details now.  You see, this division has been under rigid censorship for two years, being an arm'd [armored] division."  However, Unc is facing away from the camera, so we will never be able to prove it (but dang, it sure looks like him to me).  That's the photo above.

As the allied troops moved off the beaches and into the French interior, my uncle went with them, winning both a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for tending the wounded under heavy small arms and artillery fire, near Carentan, France.  He also won his second Purple Heart prior to the Battle of the Bulge (the first was in Sicily), when he was wounded and sent back to England to recover.

The Coast of Normandy as It Looks Today:

The American Cemetery is to the right, the last resting place for those who died on the beaches.

Some of the Artifacts Brought Back From Normandy
by My Uncle Theo, Pvt, 2nd Armored Division

Photo:  On the left is a photo I took of some of Unc's Normandy artifacts.  There's a picture of someone's sweetheart, a German First Aid kit, two wallets, a gray leather cartridge box that was affixed to a soldier's belt, a spoon/fork combination in a gray leather holder that also strapped onto a soldier's belt, that orange bottle mentioned earlier, a case that held the orange bottle, a real Nazi helmet in near-pristine condition, some wallets, a patch, some medals, a German soldier's belt bucklet, some bullets, and one more wallet.

I will make a second post of some of the pictures that my uncle found in wallets of fallen Nazi soldiers during the Normandy invasion.  These pictures, except for Alfred Schmid, have not been published anywhere before.

See post below this one for those pictures.

Pictures Taken From Fallen Nazis In the Invasion of Normandy, 1944 -- by My Uncle Who Was There

Here are some of the photos that my uncle recovered from fallen German soldiers during the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), seventy years ago.  These photos have not been published before -- they are the personal photos of German families and friends, carried by German troops who died in France on and after D-Day.  Click on each photo to see it full size.

Corporal Franz Schmid.  This photo was found in the wallet of a friend or relative at Normandy.  This soldier probably died on the Russian Front, perhaps in the Battle of Kursk.  He is painfully young in this picture.

The verbiage is from a death announcement that also bore this photo, found in the same wallet.  It was printed in German and translated by a German friend of mine.

Click to view full size.

UPDATE:  I found the German Military Graves Commission website and database online, and Franz Schmid is listed.  He did indeed die in the battle of Kursk, Russia and is buried at the German cemetery there, Besedino.  The database gives a slightly different birthdate for Franz, Oct 18, 1920 rather than Oct 20, 1920.  Here is the online record:

Unknown boy, wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth.  This pic of this young man was found in one of the wallets my uncle recovered from the body of a fallen Nazi soldier at Normandy -- probably a relative of the fallen soldier who owned the wallet.

I have been researching this uniform for a couple of hours, and have learned that the uniform is that of the the German Reichsarbeitdienst (RAD), or German National Work Service.  It is not of the Hitler Youth as I originally thought, though the jacket is almost identical, and the hat similar, to those of the Hitler Youth.  The RAD was formed in July of 1934 as the official state and party labor service.  It was an auxiliary service to the military, but was not part of the military, even though it's members wore military style uniforms.

German youth between 18 and 25 were obligated to serve six months in the RAD or other national service, and then two years in the military after that.  

The cool hat being worn by this man is a Robin Hood RAD cap.  The RAD symbol on the front of the cap is the head of a shovel.




Alfred Schmid, probably the brother of Franz Schmid above.  Papers in the wallet identified this man.  He too fell in battle, also on the Russian front.

He is wearing a dress uniform complete with white gloves and a ceremonial sword.

It appears the photograph was taken in his living room.

German soldiers in an army barracks, possibly during basic training.  They are goofing off, mugging at the camera and striking poses.  Look at one man holding crossed bayonets, and another with a bayonet in his teeth.

I wonder how many of these young men survived the war.

This photograph always seemed sad and poignant to me.  A German soldier is kissing his sweetheart, perhaps before shipping out.  His name and that of his sweetheart are unknown.

Update:  Reader Doug Kursk says the eagle on this soldier's arm indicates he was a member of the SS, presumably the Waffen SS, who went into battle like other troops.

Two German soldiers on a motorcycle -- names and location unknown.

German soldiers on a train.  The little boy among them is interesting and puzzling.

Undoubtedly someone's mom, tending chickens back home while her sons went off to fight and die in Hitler's war.  Name and location unknown -- undoubtedly somewhere in Germany.

Some German soldier's sister, sweetheart or wife.  She was cute and had a nice smile.  Name and location unknown -- undoubtedly somewhere in Germany.


















I have additional photos from the wallets, but not all are interesting.  There's a group of boys in Bavarian dress, playing accordions outside a shop; pictures apparently from Russia, and others.

Tomorrow's Post Will Be Interesting! Includes Photos Taken From Fallen German Soldiers (by My Uncle at Normandy)

Since it is the 70th anniversary of D-Day tomorrow, I have put some effort into my posts for that day.  I tell some personal tales of my Uncle Theo who went ashore on Normandy Beach on D-Day + 1 (and appeared in a Life photo on the beach).

Unc helped himself to the wallets of dead German soldiers, plucking them from their pockets and bringing them home as souvenirs.   These wallets contain the personal and family pictures of the German soldiers, some of which are quite poignant.  Adolf Hitler was not only the biggest SOB in modern history, he was the biggest SOB to the German people too -- sacrificing millions of their sons in an evil and ultimately, fruitless war.

The posts will publish automatically at 11:59 PM tonight and 12:00 AM tomorrow.

Tune in!

Remembering Pearl Harbor: 72 Years Ago Today

American Ships Burn in Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941

Throughout my life, I have always noted the date when December 7th rolled around.  It is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where 2,403 Americans were killed by bombs or bullets, eight Navy ships sunk and twelve more damaged.

The Japanese Empire had drawn first blood in our war with the Axis Powers in World War II.  They would live to regret it -- or should I say, their survivors would live to regret it.

Seventy-two years have passed since that fateful day in history.  God bless those who died on that day, in that place, and may we never forget them.

Source:  Fact Sheet Pearl Harbor, U.S. Navy Museum online.

D-Day + 69 Years

This week, Rush Limbaugh visited Normandy, France and toured the scenes of D-Day, the allied invasion of Nazi-held France, 69 years ago today.

No matter how much time passes, that day in history will always be foremost in my mind, when I think of valor and courage and victory over evil.  I hope to visit Normandy, and Omaha Beach, before I die.  I would like to pay my respects to the American dead, thousands of whom are buried there under white marble crosses and green grass.

Rush describes his impressions and emotions of the visit here.

On the 40th anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan gave one of his most inspiring speeches at the scene, "The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc."  Here it is.

December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor

I have previous posts on this historic event, with pictures and videos, at the following links:

Facts About the U.S.S. Arizona and the Attack on Pearl Harbor -- Inside the Wreck (Facts, Photos, Videos)

70 Years After Pearl Harbor (Rare Color Video of the Attack)

Remembering Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor - A Moment of Silence Please

December 7th, 1941: Remembering "A Day of Infamy"

Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona

Why I'm Reading "Mein Kampf"

I am reading "Mein Kampf," Adolph Hitler's autobiography and statement of purpose.  Why, is it because I'm a budding Nazi?  Are my secret, repressed proclivities finally surfacing?  Am I practicing goose-stepping around the house with a pot on my head?

Well no.

I just want to know what this man thought and why.  I found a free pdf copy of the book by searching the web, but I bought a Kindle copy of it from Amazon.  The Kindle copy automatically takes you to the last page you were reading when you quit, and that alone was worth the price.

Today antisemitism seems to making a comeback in a big way.  Perhaps this has something to do with the left's embrace of Islam, their fellow hate-America ideologues, the only religion to make Jew hatred and murder official and integral parts of its doctrine.

I became interested in reading Hitler's point of view when I started reading "Berlin Diary" by William L. Shirer. Shirer's book is quite compelling -- through his eyes one can see the Nazi movement in its early days, see Hitler as if he were still alive and making speeches.  It is scary being in Berlin in the late 1930's, seeing the rising peril, the elevation of a madman to the pinnacle of power in Germany.  Everywhere is the tramp of marching, boot-clad feet, Hitler's angry rants echoing over loud-speakers, men and boys in gray and brown uniforms, crowds of people with their arms raised in unison and shouting "Sieg Heil!"

The Nazis were Group-Think in its most extreme and dangerous form.  Now let's see what else I can learn from Mr. Hitler.

Update:  D. Charles, one of the most extreme Islamic apologists I have yet encountered, is ticked because I wouldn't post his last comment in which he calls me a bigot and says I have "lost the argument" (over the innate evil of Islam itself as opposed to extremists misinterpreting Islam).  He says I lost the argument because I have never visited an Islamic country.  This is a total non-sequitur.

Well DC, I have never visited Germany or Japan, but I still hold informed opinions as to the evil of the fascism that once dwelled there; I have never visited North Korea but hold an informed opinion that its government is genocidal and tyrannical.  I can read news reports, see films and videos, read published histories, and listen to eye-witness accounts -- and also read Islam's holy texts and written histories of Muhammad and his deeds.  I do not have to contract cancer to know that it is a horrible and often fatal disease.  Likewise, I do not need direct experience of Islamic evil to know the religion is evil and worthless to humanity.   Your argument and the premise it is built on are extremely weak.

Jew hatred is an intricate, innate part of the religion of Islam.  Quoting a reader at View From the Right:

While looking at the website of the Jewish Virtual Library, I came across the following chilling quote from Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia, in 1937.

While speaking to a British colonel, H.R.P. Dickson, he said, "Our hatred for the Jews dates from God's condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus) and their subsequent rejection of His chosen Prophet." He added, "that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty."

[Auster responds]:   This statement by Ibn Saud shows that it is not "radicals" alone who hate us "infidels" and want to conquer us. It is mainstream Muslims. And it did not start with the establishment of Israel in 1948, or Khomeini taking over Iran in 1979, or the U.S. keeping troops in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s to ward off a possible invasion by Saddam Hussein, or the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It started with Muhammad, and it is mainstream and universal among Muslims.

Oh, and one more thing, D.Charles: I kicked your butt like a soccer ball and we both know it.

William L Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" Reissued

William L. Shirer was an American journalist in Berlin from 1933 to 1941.  He witnessed first hand the arise of Nazism in Germany and reported on it.  The website Traces describes him this way:

One of the most recognized U.S. Americans to visit Nazi Germany, William Shirer perhaps shed more light on the events that led to Hitler’s ascendancy and German involvement in World War II than anyone else from the United States. Although closely watched in Germany, Shirer managed to convey much in his reporting by using subtle phrasing, suggestive tones of voice or U.S. slang unfamiliar to German censors trained only in formal British English. Having lived in Paris and familiar with Central Europe from his days with the Chicago Tribune, Shirer became one of the most respected U.S. journalists in wartime Europe.

Shirer later wrote a book, "Berlin Diary" in which he described prewar events in Germany and his visceral reactions to them.  Attending the Nuremberg rally (see above photo), Shirer described it this way:

Hitler shouted at them through the microphone, his words echoing across the hushed field from the loud-speakers. And there, in the flood-lit night, jammed together like sardines, in one mass formation, the little men of Germany who have made Nazism possible achieved the highest state of being the Germanic man knows: the shedding of their individual souls and minds—with the personal responsibilities and doubts and problems—until under the mystic lights and at the sound of the magic words of the Austrian they were merged completely in the Germanic herd.

Later, in 1960, he wrote his life's work, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."  This latter book is considered one of the most important histories of Nazi Germany, of what happened there and why.   Smithsonian Magazine sets the stage:

Why had Germany, long one of the most ostensibly civilized, highly educated societies on earth, transformed itself into an instrument that turned a continent into a charnel house? Why had Germany delivered itself over to the raving exterminationist dictates of one man, the man Shirer refers to disdainfully as a “vagabond”? Why did the world allow a “tramp,” a Chaplinesque figure whose 1923 beer hall putsch was a comic fiasco, to become a genocidal Führer whose rule spanned a continent and threatened to last a thousand years?

Why? William Shirer offered a 1,250-page answer.

When I was a freshman in college in the early 1960's, "Rise and Fall" was highly touted by scholars and college professors, and was recommended reading.  I took a look at it, decided it was way too thick to hold my attention, and quickly returned it to its shelf in the bookstore of San Jose City College.

Now, years later, I get to rectify my mistake.  The book has been reissued, and I have purchased the Kindle edition of both "Rise and Fall" and "Berlin  Diary" from Amazon.com, and plan to read both books, beginning with the latter.  Why these books are important in the 21st century is explained in Smithsonian Magazine:

In Shirer one can see an evolution: If in Berlin Diary his emphasis on the Germanic character is visceral, in The Rise and Fall his critique is ideological. Other authors have sought to chronicle the war or to explain Hitler, but Shirer made it his mission to take on the entire might and scope of the Reich, the fusion of people and state that Hitler forged. In The Rise and Fall he searches for a deeper “why”: Was the Third Reich a unique, one-time phenomenon, or do humans possess some ever-present receptivity to the appeal of primal, herd-like hatred?

The herd-like instinct was clearly not a one-time phenomenon.  We have seen it before Hitler (the Jacobins of the French Revolution) and we have seen it afterwards (in Mao's Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution, and even the current "Occupy Wall Street" goons who seem incapable of rational thought).

Group-think almost always leads to disaster, particularly in politics.

Photoshop Reconstruction: Another Grunion Sailor

Mary Bentz of the USS Grunion Family Search Team contacted me, asking me to do another Photoshop reconstruction of a WWII submarine sailor who died at the hands of the Japanese.  In many cases there is no clear photo of the fallen sailor, and sometimes there is only a blurry or grainy newspaper photo.

Here's my reconstruction, both before and after.  Is my reconstruction super fabulous?  Well no, but it's not too bad.  With Photoshop you have to know when to stop, as you can get obsessed with a single photo.

Update:  Since I wrote the above, I have continued to make revisions.  Suggestions from readers on how to improve the reconstruction are welcome.  I have learned that the sailor is Seaman Second Class Arnold Charles Post of the submarine USS Grunion.