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Old July 5th, 2012 #41
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An amazing letter sent on the orders of Adolf Hitler informing his Gestapo thugs to leave a single Jew alone during his reign of terror has been found in Germany.


The Jew in question was Ernst Hess, a judge, whom the Führer ordered not to be 'persecuted or deported' because he had been his commanding officer in the trenches during the First World War.

Some six million Jews - including Hess's sister - would be murdered in the Holocaust set in motion by Hitler.

But because the German leader looked back on his experiences as a corporal in the war with pride and deep fondness, Hess was allowed to live.

Hitler would later renege on his protection agreement, but it saved Hess at a time when the round ups of German Jews were at their most fierce.

The document was turned up by the recently opened Jewish Voice from Germany newspaper.

Hess came close to being deported after the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 - the meeting which set the mass murders in extermination camps in occupied Poland in motion - but was finally saved due to his marriage to a gentile.

His daughter Ursula is now 86 and spoke to the Jewish Voice from Germany about the extraordinary trick of fate which made Hitler spare her father from the gas chambers.

A file kept by the Düsseldorf Gestapo on judge Hess includes a letter from Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and overlord of the death camps, dated 27 August 1940. It granted Hess 'relief and protection as per the Führer’s wishes.'

Himmler made a point of informing all relevant authorities and officials that Hitler’s war comrade was 'not to be inopportuned in any way whatsoever.'

Ernst Moritz Hess, born in 1890 in Gelsenkirchen, had joined the 2nd Royal Bavarian Reserve Infantry as an officer at the beginning of World War I, the same regiment that Austrian-born Hitler served in.

Both men were deployed to the Flanders front in the fall of 1914, serving in what was known as the 'List Regiment' until 1918.

Hess was seriously wounded in October of 1914 and again two years later in October 1916. In the summer of that same year, he had temporarily been Hitler’s company commander.

Decorated with the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class as well as the Bavarian Military Order of Merit, he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1918.





Hess’s daughter told the newspaper how her father returned from get-togethers with old comrades of the List Regiment in the late Twenties and early Thirties.

He would often relate to the surprise expressed by Hitler’s former comrades when they heard that the ultra-nationalist politician had been in their ranks.

'What, Hitler? He was in our unit? We never even noticed him,' she said her father told her.

Hess then used to explain that Hitler had had no friends within the regiment, never said a word to anyone and had been 'an absolute cipher'.



Hess, standing far right, with his unit during the Great War

This account corresponds with what others have said about the misfit Führer-in-waiting who showed no interest in the soldierly pursuits of women, drink and comradeship.

Hess, by contrast, had formed long-lasting relationships to his fellow soldiers, including Fritz Wiedemann, former aide de camp to the List Regiment’s HQ and later personal adjutant to the Führer from 1934 until 1939. Via Wiedemann, he also had ties to Hans Heinrich Lammers, Head of the Reich Chancellery.

Although baptised a protestant, his mother was Jewish and Hitler's Nuremberg Race Laws decreed him to be a 'full blooded Jew'.

Hess was forced by those laws to quit his job as a judge in 1936. His family witnessed him being beaten up outside his house by Brownshirted Nazi thugs later the same year.



The letter which was sent by Heinrich Himmler, reichsführer of the SS and overlord of the death camps, dated 27 August 1940, granting Hess 'relief and protection as per the Führer's wishes'

Hess moved his family to Bolzano, Italy in October 1937. He had petitioned Hitler in June the previous year asking for an exception to be made for him and his daughter under the race laws.

In his letter Hess said: 'For us, it is a kind of spiritual death to now be branded as Jews and exposed to general contempt.' Although Hitler turned down the petition in 1936, he did allow Hess’s pension to be transferred to Italy in 1937.

He later released Hess from the obligation to bear the name 'Israel' that identified him as a Jew, the law since January 1939.



Hess with his wife Margarethe and daughter Ursula in the early Thirties

The Mussolini government forced Hess to return to Germany in 1939 and, hoping that his connections to powerful men close to Hitler would keep him safe, he moved his family to the remote Bavarian village of Unterwössen near Traunstein in mid-1940. A copy of the letter Himmler sent to the court and Gestapo in Düsseldorf was given to him.


Hitler pictured in 1934. He remembered his time in the army fondly and was proud of his service in the war

But in late June of 1941, all bets were off. Hess was summoned to appear at the 'Aryanization Office' in Munich. When he submitted his letter of protection to the SS official on duty, Franz Richard Mugler, the document was taken from him.

Hess was told that the protection order had been revoked in May of 1941, and that he was now 'a Jew like any other'.

The Hess family never saw the original copy of the letter again. The petitions that Margarete Hess filed in Berlin with Hans Lammers were unsuccessful. The contacts the family had to Fritz Wiedemann were no longer enough – the adjutant had fallen out of favour with Hitler in 1939.

Ernst Hess was deported to Milbertshofen, a concentration camp for Jews near Munich. Later, he was assigned to a barracks-construction firm as a common laborer, and housed by the Gestapo in a 'Jew House'. The only thing protecting Ernst Hess from deportation was his 'privileged miscegenated marriage' to Margarete Hess.

He survived the war. From 1949 until 1955, he served as President of the German Federal Railways Authority in Frankfurt-am-Main. But his sister Berta was rounded up in Duesseldorf and gassed at Auschwitz, wrongly believing that the protection afforded to her brother extended to her.

After receiving the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ernst Hess was awarded a plaque of honor from the City of Frankfurt in 1970. He died there on September 14th, 1983.
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From a commenter who seems to have noticed the obsession:
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Hitler story for the day - check.
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Old July 17th, 2012 #42
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It was a dastardly plan which, if successful, could have meant sweet victory for the enemy.

Secret wartime papers exchanged between MI5 officials reveal that the Nazis’ plans to conquer Britain included a deadly assault on Sir Winston Churchill with exploding chocolate.

Adolf Hitler’s bomb-makers coated explosive devices with a thin layer of rich dark chocolate, then packaged it in expensive-looking black and gold paper.

The Germans planned to use secret agents working in Britain to discreetly place the bars of chocolate - branded as Peter's Chocolate - among other luxury items taken on trays into the dining room used by the War Cabinet during the Second World War.

Lord Rothschild typed a letter to a talented illustrator seconded to his unit asking him to draw poster-size images of the chocolate to warn the public to be on the look-out for the bars

British agents foiled the plot and tipped off one of MI5's most senior intelligence chiefs, Lord Victor Rothschild. He typed a letter to a talented illustrator seconded to his unit asking him to draw poster-size images of the chocolate to warn the public to be on the look-out for the bars

The lethal slabs of confection were packed with enough explosives to kill anyone within several metres.

But Hitler’s plot was foiled by British spies who discovered they were being made and tipped off one of MI5’s most senior intelligence chiefs, Lord Victor Rothschild.



Lord Rothschild, a scientist in peace time as well as a key member of the Rothschild banking family, immediately typed a letter to a talented illustrator seconded to his unit asking him to draw poster-size images of the chocolate to warn the public to be on the look-out for the bars.


British spies foiled the plot and tipped off one of MI5's most senior intelligence chiefs, Lord Victor Rothschild (above)



Lord Rothschild (left) was a scientist in peace time as well as a key member of the Rothschild banking family.
The letter, marked 'Secret', reads:

'Dear Fish,

I wonder if you could do a drawing for me of an explosive slab of chocolate.

'We have received information that the enemy are using pound slabs of chocolate which are made of steel with a very thin covering of real chocolate.

'Inside there is high explosive and some form of delay mechanism... When you break off a piece of chocolate at one end in the normal way, instead of it falling away, a piece of canvas is revealed stuck into the middle of the piece which has been broken off and a ticking into the middle of the remainder of the slab.

'When the piece of chocolate is pulled sharply, the canvas is also pulled and this initiates the mechanism.

'I enclose a very poor sketch done by somebody who has seen one of these.

'It is wrapped in the usual sort of black paper with gold lettering, the variety being PETERS.

'Would it be possible for you to do a drawing of this, one possibly with the paper half taken off revealing one end and another with the piece broken off showing the canvas.

'The text should indicate that this piece together with the attached canvas is pulled out sharply and that after a delay of seven seconds the bomb goes off.'

The letter was found by Mr Fish’s wife, journalist Jean Bray, as she sorted through his possessions following the artist’s death, aged 89, in 2009.

She has spent the past two years putting together a book of her late husband’s work - Pick Up A Pencil. The Work Of Laurence Fish.
The Germans planned to use secret agents working in Britain to discreetly place the bars of chocolate - branded as Peter's Chocolate - among other luxury items trayed into the dining room used by the War Cabinet during the Second World War

The Germans planned to use secret agents working in Britain to discreetly place the bars of chocolate - branded as Peter's Chocolate - among other luxury items trayed into the dining room used by the War Cabinet during the Second World War


After the war, Mr Fish spent several decades as a commercial artist, producing many iconic posters for corporate giants including Dunlop and BP, rail companies, tourist boards and Save the Children.

In his later years, he returned to fine art, producing a breathtaking range of work.

His widow said he had 'very fond memories' of his secondment to MI5 and of working with Lord Rothschild in particular.

'They got on tremendously well and who knows, they might even have saved a few lives,' said Mrs Bray yesterday from her home in the Cotswolds.


The Russian spy who 'saved' Churchill from assassination

A legendary Russian spy who foiled a Nazi plot to assassinate Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt died in January, aged 87.

Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan, codenamed Amir, ensured the safety of the three leaders by exposing a plot to kill them at the historic 1943 Tehran conference of the 'Big Three' Allies.

He was just 19 at the time but he led a group of young Soviet agents to disrupt a German plot codenamed Operation Long Jump to wipe out the leaders of Britain, the USSR and the US.

As his death was announced he received an immediate accolade from the Kremlin signifying his standing as one of Moscow's greatest-ever agents.


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Old July 22nd, 2012 #43
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Caution: Mind the splinters when reading this story. I think this comes from the bottom of the barrel.
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Adolf Hitler's Olympic Village of 1936: Conservationists race to save the forgotten relic of the infamous 'Nazi Games'

Conservations are in a race against time to save the abandoned Olympic Village built for the so-called 'Nazi Games' in 1936.

The site on the western edge of Berlin is where athletes from all over the world headed 76 years ago to take part in the most infamous Olympic Games in history.

But the athlete's accommodation has been largely left to rot since it was abandoned by Soviet forces in 1992 with only 25 of the 145 original buildings remaining - including the crumbling swimming pool, gym, theatre and dining hall.


Abandoned: Accommodation at Adolf Hitler's 'Peace Village' built for the 1936 Olympic Games in Elstal, west of Berlin, was later used as barracks for the German army



Athletes from all over the world headed 76 years ago to take part in the most infamous Olympic Games in history - the so-called 'Nazi Games' (pictured Adolf Hitler greeting them)

Jens Becker, from the DKB Bank which owns the site, told The Times of the ongoing struggle to save the historic site.

He said: 'This is the oldest Olympic village that exists and that is why it is important to save it. It is a part of German history which nearly disappeared and now we are trying to save it.

'It was the first permanent Olympic village. The athletes were impressed - each house had its own steward and there had never been a swimming pool before at an Olympic village.'

Around 4,000 athletes – including Great Britain’s 208-strong squad – took part in the Games in the summer of 1936 as Europe teetered on the brink on war.

Adolf Hitler looked on with delight as his German ‘supermen’ lived up to his dreams of glory, winning the Games with a medal count of nearly 90; Great Britain came tenth with just 14.

The only real slap in the face for the Führer was the success of America’s black track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens.



Dilapidated: View of the House of Nations, which housed the many kitchens and dining halls in the 1936 Olympic village



Re-roofing the swimming pool, viewed from the diving board, cost more than £1million


American athlete Jesse Owens' room has been preserved as part of the restoration project

He won four gold medals and was the star of the Games in the world’s eyes – even if Hitler regarded him as inferior because of his colour.

Ironically, Owens’s tiny room – No 5, in block 39 – is so far the only athlete’s room that has been renovated.

It’s a simple space that reflects the modesty of the humble man who stayed there – a man who, paradoxically, enjoyed more freedom in Nazi Germany at that time that he did in his segregated U.S. homeland.



A short walk from Owens’s quarters lies the ‘Restaurant of the Nations’, the eating hall for the athletes.

The record books tell how in three weeks the participants consumed 100 cows, 91 pigs, over 650 lambs, 8,000lb of coffee, 150,000lb of vegetables and 160,000 pints of milk.

Sven Voege, who’s currently in negotiations to rent out some of the village sites as exhibition rooms, said 'it's a shame' so little of the site has been restored.

He said: 'Because it is inextricably bound up with Nazism, most Germans avoid it. It is a place that lives and breathes sportsmanship and history, side by side.

'But German history is something we shun because of our past.’



The spokesman for the DKB foundation Jens Becker looks at Soviet mural paintings depicting the Second World War in the Hindenburg building



The gym, with the Olympic rings and a vaulting horse used by German triple gold medallist Alfred Schwarzmann. Located on the western edge of Berlin, it lies forlorn and forgotten


A bas-relief of marching German soldiers, which still stands near the theatre where athletes went to watch variety shows, hinted at Hitler's future military ambitions

‘The Führer was teetotal and the order for the athletes was no drinking,’ says Voege.

‘But the French and the Italians railed against the idea of no wine, while the Belgians and Dutch thought the prospect of no beer was too much to contemplate.

'All four nations were the exception and were served alcohol at every meal.’

Only the salon where the Italians dined alongside the Soviets is preserved. The room where the British ate is a shell filled with fallen masonry.

Hopes of refurbishing the building, which served in WWII as a hospital for wounded German troops, have fallen through.

In 1936 a huge steel-and-wood sign depicting the five Olympic rings stood on top of the Restaurant of the Nations.


A drawing of Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin can be seen on the wall of the main amphitheatre in the Hindenburg building where functions and cultural shows were staged in the village



The fencers practise in the Olympic Village. During their stay, there were constant reminders of the Nazi regime's less savoury side. Athletes were surrounded by officials in Nazi uniforms

That’s now propped up against a back wall, forgotten, in the off-limits gymnasium.

Outside the hall is the 400m loop, which is just as it was when Godfrey Brown, Godfrey Rampling, Freddie Wolff and Bill Roberts pounded it in practice before going on to win gold for the UK in the 4x400m relay race.

‘Children were allowed into the village, and the English runners were firm favourites with them because of their impeccable manners,’ says Voege.



Jesse Owens won four gold medals and was the star of the Games in the world's eye

‘They always stopped to say hello to the children and sign autographs.’

During their stay, there were constant reminders of the Nazi regime’s less savoury side.

Athletes were surrounded by officials in Nazi uniforms.

And a bas-relief of marching German soldiers, which still stands near the theatre where athletes went to watch variety shows, hinted at Hitler’s future military ambitions.

After the war ended in 1945, the Olympic Village was occupied for nearly 50 years by the Soviet Army.

Among the new tenants were the torturers of SMERSH and the KGB, interrogators who turned the subterranean rooms housing the swimming pool’s heating system into a theatre of pain and death.

The cremated remains of victims lie strewn over the site.

Meanwhile, mocking Hitler’s dreams of a ‘thousand-year Reich’, a painting was added of heroic Red Army soldiers doing battle with the Nazis in the ‘Great Patriotic War’, which claimed the lives of over 25 million Soviets.

So far, £1.7million has been spent to re-roof the swimming pool but there is no money left for the conservationists to work on restoring the rest of the village.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2176977/Adolf-Hitlers-Olympic-Village-1936-Conservationists-race-save-forgotten-relic-infamous-Nazi-Games.html
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(my bolding) Contradiction much?
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Old July 23rd, 2012 #44
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Opera singer with swastika tattoo pulls out of German Wagner festival
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2177252/Singer-quits-Wagner-festival-Nazi-tattoos-Yevgeny-Nikitin-pulls-German-concert.html
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Old July 24th, 2012 #45
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Lightbulb Letters to Adolf Hitler

'I am prepared to sacrifice my life when you call': Letters to Adolf Hitler show how ordinary Germans idolised feared leader

Letters written by ordinary Germans to Adolf Hitler during the dark days of Nazi Germany have been discovered in a Russian archive.


New Book Worth Looking At

The fascinating correspondence, which will surprise many with their critical tone, begins in 1924 and goes right through to the Fuhrer’s last days as he cowered in a Berlin bunker in 1945.

The documents, which were found in a Russian archive, have now been translated into English and reveal a side of the Nazis that is rarely considered.


Fan mail: A decorative telegram to Hitler declaring 'loyalty and love' sent in 1937 from a Dr Otto Hellmuth

They show how the popularity of Hitler's National Socialists party was carefully managed as support grew among the German population - and beyond.

But, more surprisingly, the letters also show how 'shaky' Hitler’s hold on power was at times and how unpopular the Second World War became among the masses.

His office even received, and replied to, letters from Jews complaining about his party's increasingly anti-Semitic stance

Chillingly, the British editor of a book publishing the correspondence, Letter To Hitler, claims the collection shows how a similarly totalitarian regime could emerge today.

Dr Victoria Harris said: 'Some letters from people who idolise him are totally fawning, but you get the impression from the others that he could easily lose his approval.

'The biggest lesson I learned was how shaky his popularity was and how the regime had to work hard to maintain popularity.

'What is chilling is that you can see how he built his support and how you could see it happening elsewhere.'

The Nazis carefully filed all the letters that their leader received, copied the replies and filed those as well.

The letters grew in number through the 1930s as the Nazi party became more powerful, and include thousands wishing Hitler a happy birthday.

The correspondence includes letters from Jews unhappy with his policies, and from others pointing out to Hitler what he ought to be doing.

As early as 1925 the direction of the National Socialist party was being questioned, especially its lack of religious revival.

Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess responded to one such enquiry by stating that religious revival was not among the goals of the Nazi Party.

Hess replied to another correspondent in 1925 who asked whether Hitler drank.

The reply was: 'Mr Hitler does not drink alcohol, except perhaps a few drops on very exceptional occasions. He does not smoke at all.'

Support for anti-Semitic policies was received from a Mrs von Ponief in 1930.

She wrote:
Quote:
'In order to do completely Jew-free work, we must require our members to agree not to buy from Jews, in this way we can gradually succeed in driving Jews out of retailing and thus put the middle-class back in the saddle.'
The letters also show how well Hitler’s book Mein Kampf was doing, and in 1932 his publisher wrote to him: 'Between the beginning of this year and 21 May we have been able to sell a total of 29,385 copies of your work. Therefore we are crediting you with a payment of 21,157.20 marks...'

Another writer wanted permission to market 'Hitler Cigarettes', but the offer was declined.

One letter from a Jew showed how integrated into German society they were and how the discrimination surprised them.

One writer wanted permission to market 'Hitler Cigarettes', but the offer was declined

Heinrich Herz wrote: 'But what I cannot say I am satisfied with is the one-sided treatment of thousands of my co-religionists, whose feeling and thinking are just as German as mine.

'How much I should like to help build up my beloved Fatherland, if only an opportunity to do so were offered me.'

In 1934, as Hitler built up a head of steam, the fawning letters grew in number and included this from Stanislaus Jaros, who wrote: 'I am prepared, like my father, even to sacrifice my life, when Germany is involved and you, my Leader, call.'

As war approached, correspondents kept asking for peace. In 1938, Josef and Elli Jablonski wrote: 'It makes us happy and glad to know that peace exists and will remain.'

As the Second World War headed to its conclusion many wrote to Hitler with ideas for new weapons, but the letters asking for autographs and showing declarations of support fell to zero.

But some remained faithful unto the end, like Justizrat W von Zezschwitz, who wrote: 'But it may be granted to your prudent, temporising leadership, as we all confidently hope it will, at the right moment, with fullest health, to put a compelling halt to the enemy who has penetrated so far into German lands in the East and the West.'

Dr Harrissaid: 'Through the 1930s the letters grow in number and Hitler received many before the elections in 1933. And he got thousands on his birthday.

'The high point was in 1938 and then the numbers of letters dropped off quite suddenly when the war started in 1939.

'In the 1930s, the letters show veneration and excitement but also strongly-worded criticism.

'People wrote to complain about specific aspects of his policies. In 1934, he received a letter from a Jew who was not practising, but still had the confidence to write.

'Surprisingly those who complained often received feedback and it is clear that the regime realised the importance of popularity.

'Hitler said that popularity was the most important aspect of authority and by replying to the letters the regime was giving the illusion of paying attention.

'And the longer the war went on the more they needed to enhance their popularity.

'It is also clear what a strategic error it was to start the war because the people saw Hitler as someone to bring peace and they didn’t want to go to war.

'And they did feel able to write to Hitler about it and the letters were carefully filed away and copies of replies that were sent were filed alongside the letters.

'There is even one objecting to a relative being sent to Auschwitz.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz21ZgI5ztG
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Old July 29th, 2012 #46
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A feud has broken out between members of the Wagner opera family in Germany as the leader of the clan threatens legal action unless they co-operate with a 'moral house cleaning' aimed at de-Nazifying the world's leading opera festival.

Katharina Wagner, who now directs the annual Bayreuth Festival of Richard Wagner's operas, wants family members to turn over every document they have in a bid to exorcise the ghosts of the Third Reich - including 'potentially explosive' letters penned by Hitler to Winifred Wagner, the Englishwoman who became head of the family in wartime.

Katharina Wagner, 34, said silence on the part of her family will not be tolerated as the links that the festival had during the 12 year lifespan of the Third Reich with the Nazi hierarchy, including Hitler, are probed.


Past: Katharina Wagner, left, directs the annual Bayreuth Festival of operas by Richard Wagner, right, and wants family members to turn over every document they have in a bid to exorcise the ghosts of the Third Reich

Hitler held up Richard Wagner, who died in 1883, as the greatest ever German composer.

Because he and the late maestro both shared a visceral hatred of the Jews, the music of Wagner literally became the theme tunes of the regime.

The Bayreuth Festival in his honour is the hottest ticket in the opera world with a ten year delay for tickets and is attended by European leaders.




But because of Wagner's hatred of the Jews - and his family's later love affair with the Nazis - his music is banned to this day in Israel.

Katharina Wagner hopes a reckoning with a dark past will lead to a rehabilitation of her great grandfather and his works.

A week ago the sudden exit of star baritone Evgeny Nikitin from the Bayreuth Festival - he has a giant swastika on his chest as a relic from his days as a heavy metal band drummer - brought it's sinister past back to the present in a way few wanted.




Professor Johannes Johannes Tuchel, head of a foundation honouring Nazi resisters, said: 'The Bayreuth Festival played an important role in the politics of the Nazi leadership.

'Therefore, of course the involvement of the Wagner family and the Bayreuth Festival during the Third Reich must be examined carefully.'

Katharina, who co-leads the festival with her half-sister Eva, said: 'I myself had and have no problem to make available to the public all my exclusive property and material in its entirety relating to this issue.'

But this reckoning with the past - something undertaken by such large German concerns as VW, BMW and several banks - is causing friction within the Wagner tribe.

Amélie Hohmann, granddaughter of Winifred Wagner, the English-born bride of Richard Wagner's son Siegfried, who became one of Hitler's closest confidantes and irrevocably bound the festival up with the Nazi cause, is against this - because she has what are described as 'explosive' letters between her grandmother and Hitler among masses of sealed paperwork that forms part of her estate.


Legal missives asking her to turn over the material as part of the investigation have been ignored.

Katharina has spoken of her hopes of a 'cooperative working relationship' - but has also threatened to go further in seeking court action to get her and other family members to open up about the past if they refuse to do so.

Michael Brand, a lawyer hired by the Wagner estate to write to Amelie and others, said: 'My client Katharina Wagner considers the right to take all legal steps necessary if no progress on this matter is achieved.'

In October 2010 she sought to end a post-1945 boycott of Wagner's music in Israel by inviting the Israel Chamber Orchestra to play a concert in July 2011 at the Bayreuth town hall. But her own visit to Israel was canceled after hostility from Holocaust survivors.

The controversy surrounding her great grandfather's music will, she believes, be lessened with this thorough investigation into the past.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180645/Wagners-war-Opera-family-feud-composers-Nazi-past-theyre-asked-carry-moral-house-cleaning-publish-Hitler-letters.html
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Old August 2nd, 2012 #47
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An extraordinary letter from the nephew of Adolf Hitler has been discovered in which he begs to be allowed to enlist in the U.S. Army to fight against his uncle's facist regime.

William Patrick Hitler fled Nazi Germany when war broke out in 1939 to come and live with relatives in New York.

After being rejected from the U.S. Army because of his family connection, he wrote an emotional plea to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 on why he so strongly wanted to fight for Allied Forces.


One of the good guys: Adolf Hitler's nephew William, pictured with his mother Bridget, wrote to President Roosevelt in 1942 begging to be allowed to fight for the U.S. against his uncle's regime



Fighting evil: Seaman First Class William Patrick Hitler, 34, receives his papers before heading off to war against his uncle's Nazi forces

In the letter, he wrote: 'I am the nephew and only descendant of the ill-famed Chancellor and Leader of Germany who today so despotically seeks to enslave the free and Christian peoples of the globe.

'More than anything else I would like to see active combat as soon as possible and thereby be accepted by my friends and comrades as one of them in this great struggle for liberty.'



The letter made its way into the hands of then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who approved Hitler for service against the Nazis.

William Hitler joined the Navy in 1944 but was removed from service three years later after being wounded.



Reign of terror: Adolph Hitler salutes passing tanks during a military parade with high-ranking Nazis

William Patrick, who later changed his last name to Stuart-Houston, was the son of Adolf's half-brother Alois and first wife Bridget Dowling. He was born in Liverpool, England on March 12, 1911.

Three years later, Alois left his wife and son and took off for Europe. He remarried, becoming a bigamist, but kept in contact with his first wife. He settled in Germany asking Bridget to send William for a visit. She agreed in 1929 when William was 18.

William had a half-brother Heinz Hitler - however he became a committed Nazi (and was later tortured to death by the Soviets).

In 1933, William found himself in Nazi Germany where he planned to cash in on his uncle's rise to political fame. He badgered his uncle for a better job than the one he was given working in a bank.

In 1938, Adolf offered his nephew a high-powered position within his organization but William fled to Britain, as he was suspicious that it was a trap.


Plea: William Hitler's letter begging to fight against the Nazis was sent to President Roosevelt (left) and appears in a book of correspondence from American Wars

He escaped from Germany in 1939 with the help of a British spy and quickly left for the U.S. with his mother.

After serving his stint with the U.S. Navy, William dropped the name Hitler. He married Phyllis Jean-Jacques and had four sons. The family settled in Patchogue, Long Island where he set up a medical laboratory business.

He died in 1987 at the age of 76 and was buried at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram, New York.

The letter appears on the blog Letters Of Note after it was included in the book, War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars.

The correspondence comes from varying conflicts - reaching as far back as the Civil War to letters from American soldiers who fought in Bosnia in the 1990s.

The letters come from ordinary soldiers, sailors, airmen and medical staff - but also include some famous voices. Among the notes are the words of General William T. Sherman, Clara Barton, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernie Pyle and Julia Child.
AGAINST ALL EVIL: THE FULL LETTER OF WILLIAM PATRICK HITLER

March 3rd, 1942.
His Excellency Franklin D. Roosevelt.,
President of the United States of America.
The White House.,
Washington. D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

May I take the liberty of encroaching on your valuable time and that of your staff at the White House? Mindful of the critical days the nation is now passing through, I do so only because the prerogative of your high office alone can decide my difficult and singular situation.

Permit me to outline as briefly as possible the circumstances of my position, the solution of which I feel could so easily be achieved should you feel moved to give your kind intercession and decision.

I am the nephew and only descendant of the ill-famed Chancellor and Leader of Germany who today so despotically seeks to enslave the free and Christian peoples of the globe.

Under your masterful leadership men of all creeds and nationalities are waging desperate war to determine, in the last analysis, whether they shall finally serve and live an ethical society under God or become enslaved by a devilish and pagan regime.

Everybody in the world today must answer to himself which cause they will serve. To free people of deep religious feeling there can be but one answer and one choice, that will sustain them always and to the bitter end.

I am one of many, but I can render service to this great cause and I have a life to give that it may, with the help of all, triumph in the end.

All my relatives and friends soon will be marching for freedom and decency under the Stars and Stripes. For this reason, Mr. President, I am respectfully submitting this petition to you to enquire as to whether I may be allowed to join them in their struggle against tyranny and oppression?

At present this is denied me because when I fled the Reich in 1939 I was a British subject. I came to America with my Irish mother principally to rejoin my relatives here. At the same time I was offered a contract to write and lecture in the United States, the pressure of which did not allow me the time to apply for admission under the quota. I had therefore, to come as a visitor.

I have attempted to join the British forces, but my success as a lecturer made me probably one of the best attended political speakers, with police frequently having to control the crowds clamouring for admission in Boston, Chicago and other cities. This elicited from British officials the rather negative invitation to carry on.

The British are an insular people and while they are kind and courteous, it is my impression, rightly or wrongly, that they could not in the long run feel overly cordial or sympathetic towards an individual bearing the name I do. The great expense the English legal procedure demands in changing my name, is only a possible solution not within my financial means. At the same time I have not been successful in determining whether the Canadian Army would facilitate my entrance into the armed forces. As things are at the present and lacking any official guidance, I find that to attempt to enlist as a nephew of Hitler is something that requires a strange sort of courage that I am unable to muster, bereft as I am of any classification or official support from any quarter.

As to my integrity, Mr. President, I can only say that it is a matter of record and it compares somewhat to the foresighted spirit with which you, by every ingenuity known to statecraft, wrested from the American Congress those weapons which are today the Nation's great defense in this crisis. I can also reflect that in a time of great complacency and ignorance I tried to do those things which as a Christian I knew to be right. As a fugitive from the Gestapo I warned France through the press that Hitler would invade her that year. The people of England I warned by the same means that the so-called "solution" of Munich was a myth that would bring terrible consequences. On my arrival in America I at once informed the press that Hitler would loose his Frankenstein on civilization that year. Although nobody paid any attention to what I said, I continued to lecture and write in America. Now the time for writing and talking has passed and I am mindful only of the great debt my mother and I owe to the United States. More than anything else I would like to see active combat as soon as possible and thereby be accepted by my friends and comrades as one of them in this great struggle for liberty.

Your favorable decision on my appeal alone would ensure that continued benevolent spirit on the part of the American people, which today I feel so much a part of. I most respectfully assure you, Mr. President, that as in the past I would do my utmost in the future to be worthy of the great honour I am seeking through your kind aid, in the sure knowledge that my endeavors on behalf of the great principles of Democracy will at least bear favourable comparison to the activities of many individuals who for so long have been unworthy of the fine privilege of calling themselves Americans. May I therefore venture to hope, Mr. President, that in the turmoil of this vast conflict you will not be moved to reject my appeal for reasons which I am in no way responsible?

For me today there could be no greater honour, Mr. President, to have lived and to have been allowed to serve you, the deliverer of the American people from want, and no greater privelege then to have striven and had a small part in establishing the title you once will bear in posterity as the greatest Emancipator of suffering mankind in political history.

I would be most happy to give any additional information that might be required and I take the liberty of enclosing a circular containing details about myself.

Permit me, Mr. President, to express my heartfelt good wishes for your future health and happiness, coupled with the hope that you may soon lead all men who believe in decencey everywhere onward and upward to a glorious victory.

I am,
Very respectfully yours,
Patrick Hitler
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182382/Hitlers-nephew-writes-letter-Roosevelt-begging-fight-Nazis-WWII.html
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Old August 6th, 2012 #48
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A British sports car, whose determined lady driver beat the Nazis to win Olympic gold at the Berlin Games of 1936, has revved into London 2012.

The amazing story of Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Haig, niece of World War I military leader Field Marshal Douglas Haig, and her Coventrybuilt 1.5 litre Singer Le Mans sports car, has been revealed three-quarters of a century after her Olympian achievement as the car goes on display at the Savoy Hotel during the Games.

But its current owner is disappointed that the vehicle and its achievement as the only automotive winner of an Olympic gold medal appears to have been ‘snubbed’ by Lord Coe at a Games where German giant BMW is the official car sponsor.
Medal-winner: Anna Sebastian, of the Savoy, with the Singer Le Mans

Medal-winner: Anna Sebastian, of the Savoy, with the Singer Le Mans

Miss Haig, aged 30, had been rallying for only a year when she took part in the 2,000-mile cross- Europe 1936 Olympic Rally, which ended at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. She was the only Briton among 125 entrants — and won after an adventure-fuelled drive.

Her navigator, Barbara Marshall, was also her flatmate.

The magazine Popular Motoring records how, in 1936, they set off from the regional offices of the RAC in Birmingham, crossed the Channel on the night boat from Dover to Ostend, before arriving at the German frontier.

The signs of Hitler’s Nazi regime were everywhere. The car was photographed hurtling down one of Hitler’s newly opened Reichsautobahn, the world’s first motorway.

At a control point near Cologne, she notes how: ‘There, under the banners bearing swastikas and the Olympic rings, we presented our control book while steel-helmeted sentries presented arms.



The 'Singer' Le Mans sports which won Gold in the Olympic Motor Rally 1936 in Berlin on show outside the Savoy hotel in London

Later she passed through southern Germany into snowy Bavaria, only to be ordered back at the Austrian border. Then it was on to Potsdam and at the Avus racing circuit, near Berlin, they learned they were the first car to finish and that their tally of 2,162 points had secured gold.

A planned presentation at the Olympic Stadium was hastily rescheduled to another venue when the authorities realised a British two-seater sports car had beaten the pride of the German automotive industry.

Miss Haig recalled: ‘After many introductions and much heelclicking, we were presented with a velvet case containing the only gold medal for the rally.’

The car, which originally cost £285, was bought ‘as a box of bits’ in 1987 — the year of Miss Haig’s death — by businessman Gifford Wright, editor of the Singer Owners’ Club, who had it restored to its present glory. Similar examples have sold for around £130,000.



Four years ago Mr Wright wrote to Olympics supremo Lord Coe offering the car for an official display of Olympic sporting greats. He received a polite reply and a subsequent rejection.

Mr Wright wrote back to Lord Coe: ‘It seems tragic that visitors to the Games will be deprived of seeing this iconic piece of Olympic and British motoring history.’

Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of drivers rely on satnav — but 46 per cent have been led astray by them, says an Autoglass poll of more than 2,000 drivers. Satnav woes include nearly driving off a cliff, veering into front gardens and going round in circles.

Yet one in five drivers said they couldn’t live without their satnavs.

This might explain why recently, returning from Goodwood, West Sussex, I was part of a convoy of cars taken into a cul-de-sac in Haslemere.

None of the major satnav companies or data providers —INRIX, TomTom or Trafficmaster— could provide an answer.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/motoring/article-2184278/Welcome-home-car-beat-Nazis-Olympic-gold-1936.html
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Old August 9th, 2012 #49
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A woman whose relatives died in Auschwitz says she was shocked to discover wine bottles featuring images of Hitler in an Italian supermarket.

Cindy Hirsch from Philadelphia, U.S. was holidaying with her husband Michael in Garda, northern Italy, when the couple spotted the wine bottle labels featuring pictures of the former Nazi leader.

One of the bottles being sold in a supermarket near their hotel was called 'Mein Kampf' after the right-wing dictator's famous book, another was called 'Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer' (one people, one empire, one Fuhrer).



Offensive: Cindy Hirsch from Philadelphia, U.S. was holidaying with her husband Michael in Garda, northern Italy, when the couple spotted spotted the Fuhrer wine bottle labels featuring pictures of the former Nazi leader

Other labels depicted Hitler in different poses including one in which he is shown making the Nazi salute. Another bottle featured an image of Pope John Paul II.

Mrs Hirsch's father was born in Czechoslovakia and is an Auschwitz survivor, however her grandparents, aunt and other relatives died at the concentration camp.



According to the Daily Telegraph Mrs Hirsch said: 'It is not only an affront to Jews, even if my husband and I are Jewish. It is an affront to humanity as a whole'.

Mr Hirsch added: 'It is very shocking and startling to us.

'We would think of it as neo-Nazism. It makes you wonder about the sympathies of the local people.'

An inquiry has been opened into the sale of the wine bottles which have been available for a number years.



Tasteless? One of the bottles being sold in a supermarket near their hotel was called 'Mein Kampf' after the right-wing dictator's famous book, another was called 'Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer' (one people, one empire, one Fuhrer)





The Italian integration minister Andrea Riccardi said: 'I want to reassure our American friends who visit our country that our Constitution and our culture rejects racism, anti-Semitism and Nazi fascism.

'This offends the memory of millions of people and risks compromising the image of Italy abroad.'

Mr Hirsch said he complained to a shop assistant after noticing the bottles in a supermarket.

He said the worker replied: 'He told me 'It's just history, like Mussolini like Che Guevara.' I put the bottle down on the counter and left the store.'

Prosecutor Mario Giulio Schinaia told news agency ANSA that inquiries were under way.

He said: 'The only crime that could be currently attributable to this is that of apologising for fascism,' prosecutor Mario Giulio Schinaia told Ansa.

'At this point though it would be opportune to invent the crime of human stupidity'.

Italy made the act of apologising for fascism a crime in 1952.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2186025/Italian-Hitler-wine-bottles-attacked-offensive.html
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Old August 20th, 2012 #50
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Default Graverobbing to Supply Huge Nazi Market in Britain

Nazi grave robbers stealing medals, equipment and BODY PARTS to sell

- Looting burial sites of Third Reich troops slayed on the Eastern Front
- Huge demand from collectors in Britain where items are legal to sell

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml
 
Old August 20th, 2012 #51
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Originally Posted by Alex Linder View Post
Nazi grave robbers stealing medals, equipment and BODY PARTS to sell

But despite the enthusiasm from collectors to get hold of relics, the trade has sparked anger from the German War Graves Commission.
The organisation traces around 40,000 dead soldiers each year and reburies them. They say that the gangs are deliberately trying to obstruct their work.
Charity president Fritz Kirchmeier said: 'Often staff discover that graves have been looted. Worst is the lack of dog tags, without which we cannot identify the soldiers.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml
Sick fucking bastards, there are people in my family who fought on the eastern front who went missing without a trace, no one knows whether they were killed in action or died in the gulags (hopefully not) , makes me want to say something hateful about Russians but I´ll refrain for now.
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Old August 20th, 2012 #52
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Smile Just can't get enough of Uncle Adolf...

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Does the DM ever tire of printing pictures of Hitler?

barry jones adelaide australia
Nazi aide’s warning over ‘mad’ Hitler: German official urged British intelligence to topple dictator or peace would be impossible

By Alan Hall

PUBLISHED: 19:16 EST, 19 August 2012 | UPDATED: 01:58 EST, 20 August 2012

New research shows that a former chief aide to Adolf Hitler - the man who recommended him for the Iron Cross and who became a father figure to the future dictator - urged British intelligence to topple him when he was at the height of his power.

Dr Thomas Weber, a professor at the University of Aberdeen, says Fritz Wiedemann risked death for his betrayal as he urged Britain “to strike as hard as possible” against the “madman” Hitler after he defeated France in 1940.

Peace was impossible without the removal of Hitler, claimed Wiedemann.

“The fact that Wiedemann was entirely against Hitler is, up until now, unknown,” Dr Weber told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine yesterday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...mpossible.html
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Old August 20th, 2012 #53
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Read more: [XURL]In 1933, William (Hitler´s nephew) found himself in Nazi Germany where he planned to cash in on his uncle's rise to political fame. He badgered his uncle for a better job than the one he was given working in a bank.

In 1938, Adolf offered his nephew a high-powered position within his organization but William fled to Britain, as he was suspicious that it was a trap.

http://vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=1418825&postcount=47
Yea, sure, he fled, more likely the job wasn´t good enough for the opportunistic little weasel, that or the story is a fabrication for some cheap propaganda.
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Old August 27th, 2012 #54
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IT was a key moment at the end of the Second World War.

Nazi monster Hermann Goering – fleeing for his life from his own side – handed his gold-plated pistol to an Allied soldier and surrendered.

Lieutenant Jerome Shapiro was allowed to keep the gun he received on a road in Austria in May 1945. Sixty-seven years on, it is being put up for auction and is expected to fetch £30,000.



The gold-plated pistol Nazi Hermann Goering handed over to the allies when he surrendered at the end of the Second World War has been revealed in public for the first time

Lt Shapiro, an American, apprehended Hitler’s henchman as he fled Germany in his bullet-proof Mercedes car with bags of luggage strapped to the roof.

After being held at gunpoint, the head of the Luftwaffe presented Lt Shapiro with the Walther PPK pistol along with a ceremonial dagger.

When Lt Shapiro died in the 1970s his widow gave the pistol to a friend of her late husband living near them in Delaware who sold it some 20 years later to a private collector.


It has now come to public light for the first time after being made available for sale at auction in the US in October.

Goering’s decision to surrender came after Hitler ordered the SS to execute him for attempting to take control of the Reich as the Nazi regime collapsed.

To save himself, Goering fled through Austria towards enemy lines where he gave his gun to Lt Shapiro.


After being held at gunpoint, Goering pictured left next to Hitler, presented Lt Shapiro with the gold-plated Walther PPK pistol along with a ceremonial dagger

Auctioneer James Julia, of Maine, U.S., said the gun was a highly important item of military memorabilia.

He said the pistol was gold-plated and festooned with oak leaves, which were seen as symbols of strength by the Nazis.

Lt Shapiro and a private were sent out in a jeep to find Goering which they did at Radstadt in Austria.

Goering also had on him an unloaded Smith and Wesson revolver which he is said to have asked to keep so he could present it in a formal surrender to General Eisenhower.

However, both the pistol and the ivory-handled dagger were handed over to Lt Shapiro as part of the surrender procedure in Austria.

Mr Julia said: 'Lt Shapiro managed to keep hold of the gun until the end of the war and returned home with it.

'He used to visit local schools with the pistol to show off and use to give talks about the war.

'After Lt Shapiro’s death, the pistol ended up in the ownership of an army Major who lived near him in Delaware and the two became good friends.

'Lt Shapiro’s widow gave the Major the pistol and dagger after her husband’s death. He kept it for something like 20 years and sold it to a collector 10 years ago.'

The auction takes place in the U.S. on October 1 and 2.



Hermann Goering stands in the prisoners' dock at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in Germany on November 21, 1945

Goering, pictured right, had been fleeing from Hitler after the dictator had ordered SS soldiers to shoot Goering who had wanted to take control of the failing regime

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192511/The-gold-plated-revolver-used-Hermann-Goering-surrender-allies-resurfaces-sale-30-000.html
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Old September 2nd, 2012 #55
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Yesterday my fiancee, Iona, and I were married in a pretty village on the northeast coast of Scotland. The pews were filled with family and friends, and it was a moving and a joyous occasion.

Yet our exchange of vows was not the only significant event remembered in that small church in Edzell, near Montrose, on a quiet September afternoon.

For some of those present it was also a reminder of what took place far away on a moonless night in the Eastern Mediterranean almost 70 years ago: an act of heroism that changed the course of the Second World War. And without which there would have been no wedding.


At 5.50am on October 30, 1942, a Sunderland flying boat spotted a German submarine 70 nautical miles north-east of the Nile Delta. Four destroyers were dispatched at top speed from Port Said, where Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet was based. Among them was HMS Petard, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Mark Thornton, a fearsome taskmaster whose goals were simple: to seek action with the enemy – and to capture a German U-boat.

It was not just a matter of pride. Technical advances with the German navy’s Enigma coding machines in February 1942 had led to a complete blackout for the British code breakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. By now, late October, it had been almost ten months since they were last able to decipher U-boat signals, and hundreds of thousands of tons of allied shipping were being lost each month to submarine ‘wolf packs’.



The addition of an extra ‘rotor’ to the German coding machines had increased the number of permutations from an already staggering 159 million million million by a factor of 26. While Britain’s most brilliant minds were stalled, Hitler edged closer to realising his objective of starving Britain into surrender.

Cracking the uprated four-rotor U-boat Enigma cipher, or Triton, as the Germans called it, had become the Holy Grail at Bletchley. And now, with a U-boat in its sights, the Navy had a chance to help. Petard made contact with the German sub at around noon and began depth-charging, but time and again the U-boat slipped away. As the wind rose, the broken water made any tell-tale signs of a strike – debris and oil slicks – harder to spot.

More than 150 depth charges were launched during the ten-hour pursuit until, at around 10pm, the Petard’s crew detected the smell of diesel on the water. They’d scored a hit and the U-boat was blowing its ballast tanks in order to surface.

After a pregnant silence, the sound of white water breaking off the Petard’s port side alerted Thornton to the sub’s presence on the surface. He called for the searchlight and there, illuminated in its beam some 80 yards away, was U-559 wallowing low in the water. A white painted donkey – its distinctive motif – was clearly visible on the conning tower from which German crewman now slithered on to the outer hull and into the waves.

Thornton gave the order to open fire, and a brief burst from the Petard’s smaller guns ripped holes in the tower and the U-boat’s shell. But when it was clear that its crew were abandoning ship the ceasefire bells were sounded. At this pivotal point in the war, capturing a U-boat was a far greater prize than sinking one.

Sub Lieutenant Gordon Connell, the Petard’s 25-year-old gunnery control officer, was ordered to lead a party on to the sub. But his brain felt numb after the brief burst of fire and his legs weakened as he clambered down on to the Petard’s slippery iron deck. Calling for a rope ladder and netting to be lowered, he yelled back to Thornton that the gap between the Petard and U-559 was too wide: he was unable to jump on to the hull of the sub. From the bridge, Thornton shouted that Connell was to dive in from the upper deck and swim.


As Connell hesitated, looking down at the faces of struggling German crewmen picked out in the water by the searchlight, First Lieutenant Anthony Fasson emerged from the darkness. He was about to save Connell’s life and change the course of the war.

Fasson was Petard’s second-in-command, a handsome 29-year-old from the Scottish Borders, described by colleagues as ‘an outstanding leader of men’. He ordered Connell to move aside, and took his place. Fasson and another crew member, Able Seaman Colin Grazier, peeled off their outer clothes and dived in.

Boarding the now abandoned U-559, they worked frantically by torchlight. Water was flooding in through the seacocks opened by the Germans in an attempt to sink it.

Fasson used the butt of a machine-gun to smash open cabinets in the captain’s quarters, passing confidential books and documents to Grazier, who climbed the ladder and handed them to 16-year-old Tommy Brown. The canteen assistant and youngest member of Petard’s crew had ignored the warnings of his superiors and joined Fasson and Grazier on the sub.

Connell, meanwhile, had launched a small sea boat and, with a boarding party, manoeuvred it through groups of shouting German submariners to the U-boat, where they saw Brown clinging to the conning tower’s guardrail, one hand clutching documents and codebooks.

With waves breaking over the submarine hull, the documents were transferred to the sea boat where they were put in a waterproof pouch. German codebooks were written in soluble ink so they could be thrown overboard in the event of enemy capture.

When Brown shouted he was going down below for a third time, Connell warned that the U-boat was sinking dangerously low in the water. Giving the order that Fasson and Grazier were to be brought up immediately, Connell then jumped into the sea to clamber on to the tower.


Inside the U-boat, Fasson was adamant that he needed more time. He and Grazier were still at work when the vessel lurched fatally and the hatch to the conning tower dipped below the waves.

On the surface, confusion reigned as Connell and other members of the boarding party were pulled back into the sea boat by their crewmates, along with Tommy Brown, who had jumped off the conning tower in the nick of time. But shouts for their two missing comrades went unanswered.

Forty members of U-559’s 50 crew were saved from the waters.

Captain Thornton’s later investigation into how Brown had come to be on board the sinking U-boat revealed the fact that the youngster had disguised his age when signing up for the Royal Navy. He had been just 15 when he joined the Petard. He was discharged from the ship.

Once back in dock, the documents captured by Fasson, Grazier and Brown were passed to British intelligence officers who had flown to Haifa, in what is now Israel. The haul of Enigma documents from U-559 was arguably the most significant of the war, allowing the British scientists, mathematical savants and chess masters at Bletchley to crack the four-rotor Triton code.

Within weeks, U-boat signals were being intercepted and interpreted. More than 500,000 tons of shipping were saved in the first months of 1943 alone. The tide had been turned and when Nazi submarine losses began to sharply escalate, Admiral Doenitz was forced to withdraw what was left of his U-boat fleet from the Atlantic. Such was the secrecy that it wasn’t until the mid-Seventies that Doenitz discovered that Triton had been penetrated.

Fasson and Grazier were each awarded a posthumous George Cross in September 1943: a civilian rather than military award because they had not been under enemy fire. Fasson’s parents had been told their son had drowned in an ‘unsuccessful’ attempt to board a U-boat. Brown, who was to die a year later in a house fire in South Shields, was awarded the George Medal.

Robert Harris, whose book Enigma was made into a Hollywood film starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet, says that without Fasson, Grazier and Brown, ‘there might never have been a D-Day in June 1944’.


It was over dinner one evening in 2008 that Iona and I began discussing our families. I recounted how my grandfather, Gordon Connell, had been inspired to write his first book by what he described as ‘an accidental encounter’ with a war memorial in the Scottish Borders.

During a family caravan holiday in 1973, he’d wandered off alone looking for somewhere to cash a cheque and perhaps find a drink. Under his arm he carried a battered pair of Zeiss binoculars with a swastika engraved on them; a trophy taken from U-559 moments before it sank, taking with it his two comrades.

Looking up at the memorial, he came to an extraordinary realisation: ‘I find it difficult to describe my emotions,’ he later wrote. ‘The Lieutenant Anthony Blair Fasson, George Cross, Royal Navy, whose name appeared with many others, was the same Tony who had saved my life over 30 years before.’

Connell’s book, Fighting Destroyer, was published in 1976, long before it emerged how truly remarkable the Petard’s contribution had been. He died in 1992.

When I finished telling the story, which has long been a source of pride for my family, Iona had her hand over her mouth. I asked her what was wrong. And it was then that she explained that the story of October 30, 1942, is as famous in her family as it was in mine.

First Lieutenant Anthony Fasson, she said, was her great uncle, the beloved older brother of her grandmother, Sheena.



Iona now says it was the moment she knew we were destined to be married. It felt like fate – it still does – and must have been similar to what my grandfather experienced when he stood before that small granite obelisk near the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey.

Sheena, who is now 95 and lives just a few hundred yards from where we were married, was left heartbroken by the death of her brother. It turned out she had already read my grandfather’s book and learned of what Tony had done for him.

Connell would go on to survive the war and father five children, one of whom is my mother. Twenty-eight years to the day after that fateful encounter with U-559, the second of his ten grandchildren was born. That grandchild was me.

Yesterday, when I got to my feet to speak, I was holding my own baby daughter, Iris, a living legacy of Fasson’s act of selfless courage all those years ago. I remembered my grandfather and felt a pang of regret that I never spoke with him at any length about his experiences as a young man.

With Iona by my side, and Sheena close by, I remembered, too, Anthony Fasson, the man who made the ultimate sacrifice to save not just Connell’s life, but those of so many others.

Fasson, Grazier and Brown are commemorated with a plaque in Jedburgh, a striking sculpture in Tamworth, Grazier’s home town, and a stained glass window in a church in North Shields. Books have been written about their heroism.

And yesterday, just a few yards from our wedding marquee, in the house belonging to my in-laws, there was another memorial. In a small wall-mounted display case sat a replica of Anthony Fasson’s George Cross. My grandfather would have been so very proud.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2196791/Dan-Iona-Davies-Couples-link-heroic-act-saved-Britain-Nazi-U-boats-70-years-ago.html
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Old September 5th, 2012 #56
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A plan to build a modern-day crematorium next to the gas chambers and ovens of a Nazi death camp has sparked a storm of protest from Jewish organisations around the world.

Authorities in Lublin in eastern Poland want to construct the crematorium near to the Majdanek camp where 80,000 people were put to death during the Second World War

The camp was captured nearly intact because the advance of the Soviet Red Army was so rapid it prevented the Nazis from destroying it before liberation.




Majdanek remains the best preserved Nazi concentration camp of the Holocaust with intact gas chambers, crematoria and barracks.

It is a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. But now Lublin, which has no crematorium for modern day funerals, has deeply upset Europe's Jews with its insensitive plan to build one near Majdanek.



'If people see smoke rising from a crematorium chimmney they will think it comes from Majdanek,' said Roman Litman of the Jewish community of Lublin, the city from where the Nazis directed the murder of 2.4 million Jews in a string of death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.

'It cannot and must not be built anywhere near this hallowed ground that is strewn with the ashes of the dead.'


Lublin city council is due to decide the planning application from a company called Styks before Friday.

Krzysztof Zuk, mayor of the city of Lublin, and authorities overseeing the Majdanek memorial site which includes a museum, want the company to find a different location for its crematorium which - if allowed to go ahead - would be barely 750 yards away from the place where the Nazis incinerated their victims.

Lublin says it needs a crematorium as more and more Catholics shun burials. But the rising tide of anger at the spot which has been earmarked may mean further delays in getting one built.

'There should be no crematorium in this area because of the one that is already there,' said Edward Balawajder, the former director of the Memorial Majdanek.

'Majdanek is known around the world as a memorial to the victims of Nazism.

It should not be shrouded in the smoke of burning people again,' read a letter to the local paper signed by Jewish groups while Anti-Defamation League leader Abraham Foxman, himself a Holocaust survivor, said; 'The idea is disgusting, that a company wants to build such a thing near holy ground dedicated to the memory of people who suffered incredible cruelties.'

Some locals, however, have backed the project, saying they want to live in a 'normal' city unburdened by the Nazi past.

Majdanek began life as a concentration camp for Jews and Soviet POWS, but began exterminating inmates soon after opening in 1941.


Majdanek functioned as sorting and storage depot for property and valuables taken from the victims at the killing centers in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, all in Poland.

Victims at Majdanek were forced into gas chambers that were pumped full with the exhaust from captured Soviet tank engines.

The crematoria next door still has ash remains of victims in its ovens.

The Nazis built hundreds of concentration camps across occupied Europe before and during WWII.

The two largest groups prisoners, both numbering in the millions, were Polish Jews and Soviet prisoners of war.

There were also large numbers of Roma, ethnic Poles, political prisoners, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholic clergy, Eastern European intellectuals and others.

Western Allied aviators were also sent to concentration camps as spies.
TRAGIC HISTORY OF MAJDANEK PRISON CAMP

Camp built on on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, during Nazi occupation of Poland
Initially used for forced labour and not for extermination
Used for mass killings during Operation Reinhard: the Nazi plan to murder all Polish Jews
More than 79,000 people were killed at the camp (59,000 of them Polish Jews) in just 34 months
The camp was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army
Remains the best preserved Nazi concentration camp from the Holocaust
Named 'Majdanek' (translated as 'little Majdan') by local people because it was near to the district of Majdan Tatarski in Lublin

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198599/Fury-plan-new-crematorium-gas-chambers-ovens-Nazi-death-camp-80-000-died.html

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A British war hero’s secret paintings depicting prisoner life inside Colditz Castle are being sold nearly 70 years later to help pay for the site's upkeep.

Captive Major William Anderson turned to painting during his four long years locked up in the Nazi prison camp.

His paintings show scenes from the grim prison camp including one where PoWs gathered in the courtyard in the depths of winter.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198097/British-Army-officers-paintings-years-Colditz-Castle-sold-notorious-Nazi-prison-camp-open-public.html
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Old September 6th, 2012 #57
Adrian Hartley
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'Germany's last remaining U-Boat captain decorated twice by Hitler - gets modern military honour':

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ry-honour.html
 
Old September 8th, 2012 #58
Bev
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A garment shop that was inaugurated in Ahmedabad about a fortnight ago now stands in the middle of a raging controversy.

The shop, which deals in western men's wear, has been named after Adolf Hitler, much to the chagrin of Gujarat's Jew community.

It also carries a Nazi Swastika as the dot of the letter 'I' in Hitler. Rajesh Shah, the owner, is unfazed despite his shop's name hurting the sentiments of the of Jews in the state.



The shop in Ahmedabad named after Hitler

'I don't understand what the fuss is about, especially when the population of Jews is not so big,' he told MAIL TODAY. Shah claimed he was ignorant about Hitler and his legacy and said the name was suggested by his partner, who is a doctor.


'My partner's grandfather was a disciplinarian and was nicknamed Hitler,' Shah added. 'The name sounded short and crisp and people won't forget it easily, that's why we chose it,' he said.

Prof Benson Agarkar, a Jew, said: 'I feel hurt and sorry. It's not just about the Jews but that Hitler's crimes against humanity need to be remembered while using his name in such fashion.

'It is a sorry state of affairs when people use such names for their establishments,' he added.

When told about Shah's claim of ignorance, Agarkar said even if he had named his shop in ignorance, after all the media glare and outcry, he must have learnt the implications of the name.

'What he had done in his ignorance, he can wash it off with his knowledge and just change the name,' Agarkar added.

But Shah said: 'As of now, we have not decided on changing the name.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2197359/Hitler-shop-raises-stink-Gujarat-Owner-claims-ignorant-dictator.html
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Old September 8th, 2012 #59
Soldatul Vostru
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It's not just about the Jews
Bullshit! It is ALL about you fucking Jews!

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but that Hitler's crimes against humanity need to be remembered while using his name in such fashion.
What "crimes against humanity"?
 
Old September 9th, 2012 #60
Bev
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A Second World War veteran has been reunited with the Spitfire he flew on his final mission nearly seventy years ago.

Lieutenant Rolf Kolling, now 91, returned to North Weald Airfield in Essex last Friday to catch another glimpse of the Mark IX Spitfire.

He was joined by wingman and compatriot Eigel Stigset at the home of 332 Squadron, where celebrations were taking place this weekend to mark the 70th anniversary of the wartime links between North Weald and Norway.


The pair are the two surviving veterans of the last combat mission flown by the RAF's Norwegian wing in the Second World War.

As they and five other veterans, their families, and senior serving Norwegian officers arrived at the airfield, near Epping, they were warmly greeted by an honour guard of veterans bearing RAF Association standards and local schoolchildren waving Norwegian flags.

Returning to the base, where Norwegian pilots arrived from 1942, brought back bittersweet memories for Kolling, who in his combat career of 120 sorties was credited with one confirmed kill and a share in one probable.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200527/Final-mission-Veteran-pilot-91-reunited-Spitfire-flew-1945.html
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