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Old September 9th, 2012 #61
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The outstanding war medals of legendary fighter ace John ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cunningham have sold for an astonishing 384,000 pounds.

The late Battle of Britain airman was the highest-scoring night-fighter pilot of the Second World War, downing at least 20 German bombers over the English Channel.

He became a hero of the RAF who gave him the nickname ‘Cat’s Eyes’ for his ability to see in the dark and for his skill and bravery.

Legendary fighter ace John 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham have emerged for sale for £200,000.





Cunningham's night fighting skills were used as a ruse to encourage Britain's children to eat more of the humble vegetable

He destroyed one bomber without firing a single shot after he daringly dived down through cloud at great speed and drove the enemy aircraft into the ground.

The secret to his deadly accuracy? Carrots.

Cunningham's insistence that it was the humble garden root vegetable which kept his sight in tip top form convinced generations of children to eat their vegetables.


It has since been revealed that Group Captain Cunningham’s ability to see enemy planes at night was more likely to be down to top secret radar technology that he was one of the first to trial than carrots.

But the myth was snapped up by war time health ministers as a way to encourage children towards healthy eating.

And it is hoped his legacy will continue to inspire future generations of young pilots now his impressive cluster of medals and flying memorabilia have been sold to raise money for a purpose built training centre.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199931/Medals-awarded-World-War-II-air-ace-downed-20-German-bombers-night-time-raids-sell-record-384-000.html
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Old September 20th, 2012 #62
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As Doreen Wright waved her 34-year-old husband Gilbert off to war, she made a solemn pledge: she would write to him every day.

The pair had married five years earlier following a whirlwind romance and when Gilbert, an engineer and amateur pilot, was called up to join the Auxiliary Air Force in 1939, Doreen was left alone with three children under the age of five.

After Gilbert was mobilised, Doreen, then 31, moved from the couple’s house in Buckinghamshire to his family’s rambling home, Wootton Court, in Leek Wootton, Warwickshire. There, she busied herself in the local Women’s Volunteer Service.

But at the end of every day, before retiring to bed, she picked up her pen and wrote to Gilbert, pouring out stories of her day, telling him how much she missed him and how she longed for his return. And every one she posted off to his unit at various bases around Britain.


She continued to write the letters even after Gilbert and his Hawker Hurricane were reported missing in action in northern France in the early summer of 1940. From that time on, instead of posting them, she simply wrote up her accounts of the day in an A4 diary, certain that her ‘darling one’ would return to read them when the war was over.



But that was not to be. Three years after his disappearance, it was confirmed that Gilbert had been killed by German soldiers after a forced landing near Arras.

Left alone in anguish with her children, Doreen refused to throw away the correspondence in the diaries she had accumulated. It was a cherished reminder of her beloved husband, and so she chose to squirrel her letters away in a box at her home.


And it was only after she died eight years ago, at the age of 95, that her two surviving children, twins Mary and Bill, discovered the letters in a dusty corner of the house’s attic.

‘We had no idea about them,’ says Mary Simmons, a retired PE teacher. ‘She’d mentioned a diary in passing when we were small, but we had no idea that we had this extensive memory of my father.

‘Mother said nothing about him to me — the memories were too painful — but this opened a window onto his life. That’s why the diaries are so precious to us.’

The dog-eared book of letters begins with a note dated May 29, 1940. It was written on the day that Doreen learned Gilbert, then serving as a Flying Officer, had gone missing from his squadron.

‘My darling,’ the heartbroken Doreen begins. ‘Perhaps some time, somewhere, you’ll read this letter.

‘I’m going to try to write as I would my usual daily one, so that when you come back or I get this to you, you’ll be able to read what we’ve been doing — and thinking — and how the family is living, and perhaps it will help to fill any gap there may have been.

‘I’ll try not to let too much of the heartache into it, but that will be terribly difficult as I’m one big heartache all over.’

For Doreen’s daughter, Mary, the discovery of these letters so many years later was almost too much to bear.

‘My brother found the letters and kept them from me at first,’ she recalls. ‘He said: “You won’t be able to cope with them. They’re so personal.” And he was right. When I first started reading them, well, that first line choked me.

‘I picked them up and put them down and picked them up and put them down again before I actually sat down and read them.’

But as she gradually went through the collection, Mary, now 74, discovered a heart-rending tale of unwavering love and devotion.

‘Darling one,’ wrote Doreen four months into her wait for news of her husband. ‘I’ve felt you round me all today — have you been thinking hard about me or something? Sweetheart, stay near me, it’s been so lonely.’

Doreen left no detail out of her missives. The spirited accounts tell of everything from the children’s misbehaviour (‘Tears! What a family! I do need your help with them so much, darling — Come back soon’), to her arguments with the chair of the Leek Wootton Women’s Volunteer Service (‘What a schamozzle — had a final bust and flair-up with Mrs Ryland and have resigned’).

They also provide a vivid insight into life on the Home Front. In November, six months after Gilbert’s disappearance, the nearby city of Coventry was flattened by German bombs.

That night, on November 14, 1940, she wrote to Gilbert of her terror. ‘Sounds and looks as if these beasts are trying to annihilate Coventry. There’s been the most terrific attack going on since seven o’clock and now it’s past midnight.’
Read more:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2205853/Sweetheart-ARE-Prepare-shed-tear-read-heartbreaking-letters-Second-World-War-wife-husband-knew-certainly-dead.html
(more on link)

This is in the "femail" section and is obviously an emotional story aimed at women. I suppose the DM has begun to note the over-representation of male commenters on the recent Hitler/WWII related stories and decided it needed redressing.
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #63
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Sixty-nine years after their burning plane plunged to the ground after being shot down by the Germans, the remains of seven Lancaster Bomber crewmen have been recovered.

They were discovered by a team of German historians who spent hours digging a muddy field near Frankfurt looking for the RAF crew after an eyewitness who saw the plane crash guided them to the site.

Lancaster ED427 was one of 327 bombers that took part in a raid on the Skoda armaments works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia.

On their return to their base at RAF Fiskerton, Lincs, they came under fire from German anti-aircraft flak.



Pieces of history: Sixty-nine years after their burning plane plunged to the ground after being shot by German aircraft the remains of seven Lancaster Bomber crewmen have been recovered. The team sorted the fragments they found into boxes at the site


Burnt out: The remains of a scorched parachute. They site was discovered by a team of German historians who spent hours digging a muddy field looking for the RAF crew after an eye-witness who saw the plane crash guided them to the area



Damage: The crater made by the impact of the engine. A Rolls Royce engine and landing gear of the World War Two aircraft was found followed by 'hundreds' of fragments of human bones in what would have been the cockpit
'TOO LITTLE TIME, TOO MUCH DAMAGE:' WHY DID THE CREW NOT MAKE IT OUT ALIVE?

Christian Pratt, IWM Duxford:

There are a number of possible reasons why none of the aircrew were able to save themselves by parachuting from the aircraft.

With eyewitnesses reporting the aircraft to be on fire, it seems likely that one or more anti-aircraft shells would have hit the airframe.

The explosions from these hits, and resulting shrapnel, could well have killed or mortally wounded, or disabled crew members directly.

The resulting fire and smoke may have also disabled crew members or, possibly, overwhelmed or suffocated them.

Egress from the Lancaster was difficult at the best of times (there is a large, central wing spar to climb over, and it is generally cramped inside the aircraft despite its apparent size).

In the dark, and with the aircraft damaged and on fire, it may also have been simply too difficult – too little time, or too much damage to hatches – to escape.

Ejector seats require the occupant to be conscious and capable of pulling the handle (there are some exceptions, but this is the general principle).

If the crew were indeed severely injured or unconscious, they would not have been able to operate the seat, even had they the facility available to them.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like on board during the attack, though we can reasonably assume that the crew would have made every possible effort to save themselves – and so that the circumstances preventing them from doing so were insurmountable, however highly motivated they were.

Peter Elliott, Royal Air Force Museum:

The crew were not all in 'the cockpit' although five of the seven (pilot, flight engineer, navigator, wireless operator and bomb aimer) would have been in the front part of the aircraft – the two gunners were in their turrets further back and at the tail.

If the aircraft was hit in or near the cockpit the pilot could have been killed or injured (as might other members of the crew) and he would have lost control. Others might have tried to fly the aircraft, and thereby left it too late to bail out.

Although the crew wore their parachute harnesses all the time, they would have had to find their parachute packs and clip them on to the harness, and it would have been very difficult to get to an emergency exit in the dark while the aircraft was perhaps spinning out of control – they wouldn’t have much time before the aircraft crashed.

Would ejector seats have helped? Not necessarily – some of the crew had to move around the aircraft to do their work and so may not have been in their seats when it was hit; some of them may have been killed when it was hit, and even modern ejector seats have their limits.

Eyewitness Peter Menges saw the plane on fire before it crashed into a field outside the village of Laumersheim, near Frankfurt, and exploded into a fireball.

It is not unknown why the men did not manage to parachute from the plane. Reasons could include

Peter Elliott from Royal Air Force Museum said it may have been a case of' too little time, or too much damage.'

'With eyewitnesses reporting the aircraft to be on fire, it seems likely that one or more anti-aircraft shells would have hit the airframe.

'The explosions from these hits, and resulting shrapnel, could well have killed or mortally wounded, or disabled crew members directly.

'The resulting fire and smoke may have also disabled crew members or, possibly, overwhelmed or suffocated them.'

A Rolls-Royce engine and landing gear of the World War Two aircraft was found followed by 'hundreds' of fragments of human bones in what would have been the cockpit.



The archaeological dig in Germany was questioned by some locals who couldn't understand why the team were searching for British airmen who bombed their cities.

Uwe Benkel, who led the search, said they felt obliged to find the missing men and bring comfort to their families who knew nothing of how or where they died.

Some of the relatives have now expressed their gratitude to the amateur historians and are hoping to finally bury their loved ones seven decades after their deaths.

Mr Benkel, 51, said: 'A lot of people couldn't understand what we were doing and said things like why were we digging up British airmen who bombed our cities and killed our people?

'Our view is that this is past and history, it was 70 years ago. We are another generation.

'We do research on missing men who are still in the ground.

'It doesn't make a difference if they are German or British; they were young men who fought and died for their country for which they deserve a proper burial in a cemetery.

'We do it for the families. For them, it is a bit like reading a book with the last page missing. When we find the bodies, we are writing the final page for them.'

The seven strong crew - pilot Alex Bone, flight engineer Norman Foster, navigator Cyril Yelland, wireless operator Raymond White, bomb aimer Raymond Rooney, air gunner Ronald Cope and air gunner Bruce Watt - died in April 1943.

Lancaster ED427 one of 36 bombers which failed to make it back to Britain that night.

The impact of the crash created a large crater in the ground.

The German military recovered two of the bodies from the wreckage - thought to have been Sgt Cope and Canadian Pilot Officer Watt - and buried them.








'THE BOMBERS ALONE PROVIDE THE MEANS OF VICTORY'

RAF Bomber Command's role during World War Two was to bomb the enemy's airbases, shipping, troops, communications and other industries connected to the German war effort.

Britain had to use long-range bombing after Dunkirk in 1940 until D-day in 1944 as it had no other way of attacking the Germans.
Lancaster Bomber aircraft.

The job fell to RAF air crews - some of who were just 18 - who flew increasingly heavier types of long-range bombers.

It was so successful that Hitler was forced to divert nearly a million men, 55,000 artillery guns and a large part of the German air force on to defending the nation instead of fighting offensively.

Bomber Command flew almost every day and mostly at night during the war to avoid being shot down - but this meant it was difficult to locate small targets.

In 1941 it was decided whole industrial cities should be priority targets. Larger four-engine bombers and improved navigation equipment then followed to create a formidable fighting force.

The repeated and persistent attacks on German cities which followed became a critical factor in the liberation of Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

After the war, the British Air Ministry tried to find the final resting place of the crew but with no success.

It was assumed their aircraft had crashed in the sea and their names were added to the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey dedicated to 20,000 servicemen with no known grave.

Mr Benkel, a health insurance clerk by day, began researching military plane crashes 25 years ago and now leads a voluntary recovery group that has examined 400 crashes and recovered the bodies of 38 airmen.

He recently began looking into ED427 and found Mr Menges, 83, culminating in the dig that took place last Saturday.

Mr Benkel said: 'Peter lived in the next village. He saw the plane coming down on fire and saw the explosion. His parents didn't allow him to go and see the plane that night.

'He went the next morning and the German military were there. From what he saw the majority of the parts were on the surface and taken away.

'There was a big crater in the ground, within a couple of days it was filled in with rocks and dirt and was covered up for the next 69 years.

'Peter showed me the site and we used metal detectors and radar photos to examine it.'

The team dug five metres deep in a 100 square metre area and found sections of the fuselage, cockpit, landing gear, a tyre, a burnt parachute, tools and ammunition.

Mr Benkel believes the remains they found are those of F/O Bone, Sgt Foster, Sgt Yelland, Sgt Rooney and Sgt White as these men would have been in the cockpit at the time.

Sgt Foster's daughter Hazel Snedker was three-years-old when her father was killed aged 22.



Discovery: The remains of a Merlin engine were also unearthed by the team


Storage: Ammunition collected from the crash site. It was assumed the aircraft had crashed in the sea and their names were added to the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey dedicated to 20,000 servicemen with no known grave



Fatal flight: A graphic of the site in Laumersheim, Germany, where the Lancaster crashed 69 years ago
LANCASTER BOMBERS BY NUMBERS

19 Victoria Crosses won by men of Bomber Command, including Guy Gibson, who led the Dam Busters raid

125,000 Bomber Command air crew serving during WWII

55,573 died in action, a death rate of 44 per cent

4% average chance of being shot down per mission – but crews had to complete at least 30. Chances of surviving war lower than infantry officer in First World War trenches

9,838 bomber crew became prisoners of war

1.3m tons of bombs dropped by the Allies on Germany

635,000 is the estimate of German civilians killed

72% of Bomber Command dead were British. The rest were from Canada, Australia and New Zealand

Mrs Snedker, now aged 72 and from Leamington Spa, Warks, said: 'I have no memory of my father whatsoever.

'The only memory I have is of my mother fainting when she received the telegram saying he was missing.

'My mother died from tuberculosis when I was six-years-old and I was bought up by my paternal grandparents.

'Iknow that they quietly hoped that there would be some news of their son.

'But in those days very little was spoken about it and you just carried on.

'When something like that happens you either get bitter and twisted about it or you just get on with it.

'And now, after all these years, it has all come to light.

'It is a great relief to know what did happen to him and where he is. At least he will now have a grave with a headstone.

'My father had two sisters who are still alive. I know my auntie Joan is very pleased. She wanted to know what happened to her brother.'


Commemoration: A minutes silence was held in respect by the volunteers. Members of the Bundeswehr reserve, part of the German army, are in uniform
It is thought the remains of the men will be buried in the same coffin in a single grave at a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Germany.

Respect: A poppy memorial was erected as a mark of remembrance. It is thought the remains of the men will be buried in the same coffin in a single grave at a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Germany

The British Embassy in Berlin has been made aware of the discovery.

It is thought the remains of the men will be buried in the same coffin in a single grave at a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Germany.

Mr Benkel said: 'I think it is right they share the same grave. These men flew together and died together. They should now rest together.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206547/World-War-Two-Lancaster-bomber-crewmen-s-remains-discovered-German-field-69-years-crashed.html
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #64
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It might not be many people's idea of a place to call home.

But the pub where Adolf Hitler was born in the Austrian town of Branau-am-Inn could now be turned into flats after developers submitted plans to the local council.

The mayor of Braunau, Hannes Waidbacher, who opposes alternative proposals for a Holocaust museum at the site, believes turning the Gasthaus zum Pommer into family homes would be one way of 'destigmatising' the town.



Plans: Developers want to turn the former Gasthaus zum Pommer where Hitler was born (pictured) into apartments



As it was: Pictured in 1966, the building had been, variously, a girl's school and a public library, after World War II. Most recently it has been used as a centre for disabled people




If the plan- approved by the mayor and proposed by a local building consortium - was accepted it would mean the room where Hitler was born would become a bedroom in self-contained apartments with state-of-the-art kitchens and bathrooms.

The apartments would go on the market for an estimated 400,000 pounds each.

Such a plan, say experts, would require vigorous vetting of prospective buyers to ensure that a single flat - or indeed the entire property - did not fall into the hands of neo-Nazis masking their real identities.

The little Austrian town separated from Germany by a short bridge over the River Inn, is still visited by hordes of far-right fanatics each year who come to pay homage at the site where the future Fuhrer was born on April 20 1889.



It was until recently used as a workshop for the mentally and physically disabled; the sort of people Hitler deemed as 'useless eaters' and the first to die in the Third Reich's secret euthanasia campaign before WWII.

But it has been empty for a year now with the state picking up the bill for the lease and a debate raging about what to do with the two-storey listed building.

Mayor Waidbacher said: 'Braunau has done much to process its history over the years.

'It is not necessary to build a Holocaust museum in the house as some have suggested.

'Braunau as a town is already stigmatised enough.

'Hitler spent only three years of his life here, and they were certainly not the most formative years of his life.

'Why should I or others take responsibility for him? I was born 21 years after the end of the war.'

The mayor said he was open to all suggestions, saying Braunau wants an 'affordable solution for all.'

'I can imagine all possibilities for the house,' he said.



Marker: A memorial stone (pictured) was placed outside the building in 1989 as a reminder of its history. In English the inscription reads 'For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Remind [us]'



However, Mayor Waidbacjer is against turning the building into a 'House of Peace' or a 'House of Responsibility' as Green Party members have advocated - believing the town has done enough atoning over the years for its most infamous son.

Already the newspapers in Austria and Germany are having a field day at the prospect of flats in Hitler's house.

'In the future you can live like Adolf Hitler,' said the Austrian newspaper Heute while the salzburger Nachrichten said; 'Hitler's home to become apartment block.'

The house at Salzburger Vorstadt 15 is estimated to be worth about £2.5 million to £3 million.

It was in a room on the first floor of the three-storey, 2,000 square foot premises that Hitler’s mother Klara gave birth to the future Nazi leader.

She and her husband Alois, a stern local customs official, rented a suite of rooms above the pub and continued to live in it until 1892 when they moved to Linz.

Alois, a drunkard, often availed himself of the beer on sale in the saloon downstairs before returning to the family home to abuse his timid wife who was 24 years his junior.

The house is still owned by the family after which the pub took its name.



Owner Gelinde Pommer says she wants to sell because she no longer wants to have responsibility for it.

Nothing remains inside the building to indicate its link with Hitler, not even the bedroom where he was born.

The only Nazi-era relic is on an iron gate outside, the initials MB for Hitler’s party secretary Martin Bormann, who had them placed there when he declared the house a national monument after Hitler took over Austria in 1938.

During the 12 year lifespan of the Third Reich it was a must-see place of pilgrimage for loyal Nazis.

Bormann bought the house with Nazi funds and made it a cultural centre which displayed Nazi-approved art.

It was given back to the Pommer family in 1952 and served as the town’s public library until 1965 before becoming, in turns, a school, a bank, a technical institute and finally the home and workshop for disabled people.

Those who want it turned into a site of remembrance for Hitler's crimes are pressing central government in Vienna to compulsorily purchase the property.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206263/But-bunker-beds-Pub-Hitler-born-turned-apartments-bedroom-spot-birth.html
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #65
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Secret recordings made by British intelligence during the Second World War have revealed for the first time the horrific atrocities carried out by everyday German soldiers.

For years the blame for horrific war crimes, rape and genocide were laid at the hands of the SS and Hitler's right hand men but a new book details how widespread the barbarity went.

Transcripts taken from hidden microphones on prisoners of war have been collated for the disturbing book Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying: The Secret Second World War Tapes of German POWs.



Revelations: The new book reveals how soldiers like this one callously murdered the innocent and then joked about it with fellow soldiers



Tainted: German soldiers crouch over the bodies of two shot down civilians


Recordings: The tapes reveal that many of the German soldiers were fully aware of death camps - despite many stating differently



Between 1940 and 1945 the British and Americans bugged about 13,000 German and several hundred Italian soldiers of all ranks and services - many of which in the Trent Park detention centre for POWs in north London.

It was hoped the recordings would reveal military secrets of potentially strategic importance, instead they catalogued open and uncensored conversations about war experiences - often as to boast.



Evil: It appears the atrocities carried out by the SS and Adolf Hitler's henchmen were a lot more widespread and done by ordinary soldiers

They detail not only the extreme level of violence but a disturbing sense of enjoyment from the soldiers.

One example of many recounts: 'There was an event in the market square, crowds of people, speeches given. We really sprayed them! That was fun!'

Another reveals the following conversation: 'We once did a strafing near Eastbourne. We flew up and saw a big castle; there seemed to be a ball or something – anyhow a lot of ladies in evening dress and a band.

'The first time we flew past; then we attacked and kept at it. Boy oh boy, was that fun.'

Another reveals: 'I loved dropping bombs. It makes you feel all tingly, a great feeling. It’s as good as shooting someone down.'

The book, which has been compiled by German historians Soenke Neitzel and Harald Welzer has been translated in to English for the first time, dispelling myths that German soldiers were not responsible for such war crimes.

It offers a bleak inside view of World War II and in doing so, they destroy once and for the myth of a 'clean' Wehrmacht - the German name for the armed forced.

The soldiers talk about their views of the enemy and their own leaders, discuss the details of combat missions and trade astonishingly detailed accounts of the atrocities they both witnessed and committed.



War crimes: The likes of Josef Mengele (left) known as 'The Angel of Death', Rudolf Hoss and Josef Kramer were well known war criminals but hidden microphones reveal how Wehrmacht soldiers were embroiled in the atrocities

One passage reads: Zotlöterer: 'I shot a Frenchman from behind. He was riding a bicycle.'

Weber: 'At close range?'

Zotlöterer: 'Yes.'

Heuser: 'Did he want to take you prisoner?'

Zotlöterer: 'Nonsense. I wanted the bicycle.'

The material contains disturbing accounts of sexual abuse, rape and torture as well.



Disturbing: Women and children were not spared by trigger happy soldiers, some of whom described killing as 'fun'



Executions: German soldiers line up and execute a group of Jewish men by the banks of the Danube in Hungary

In one section a passage attributed to Reimbold reads: 'In the first officers' prison camp where I was being kept here, there was a really stupid guy from Frankfurt , a young lieutenant, a young upstart.

'And he said: 'Oh, we caught this female spy who had been running around in the neighborhood.



'First we hit her in the t**s with a stick and then we beat her rear end with a bare bayonet.

Then we f***** her, and then we threw her outside and shot at her. When she was lying there on her back, we threw grenades at her.

'Every time one of them landed near her body, she screamed.'

'And just think, there were eight German officers sitting at that table with me, and they all broke out laughing.'


British intelligence: Microphones hidden on POWs at Trent Park in north London helped reveal how many soldiers boasted about their atrocities

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206982/I-liked-shoot--women-kids--kind-sport-Secret-Nazi-tapes-reveal-ordinary-German-soldiers-responsible-war-crimes-just-SS.html
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #66
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Irving "uncovered" and used these tapes in books published decades ago such as Hitler's War.Many of the eisatzgruppen commanders made no secret of their activities and even defended them in court.I for one certainly suuport their efforts on behalf of the race.
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Chase them into the swamps
 
Old September 22nd, 2012 #67
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This campaign by The Mail (I've heard The Express is almost as bad) along with that of the broadcast media and the one in the schools, is due to the fact that they can't actually prove the Holocaust and thus quell the rising awareness of the Hoax. And so if matters had been left as they were a few years ago, then the Jews, and their bought and paid for lackeys, would eventually have become subject to universal scorn and ridicule: despised by all future generations, with Israel exposed for what it really is and treated as the great pariah.
 
Old September 22nd, 2012 #68
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Originally Posted by andy View Post
Irving "uncovered" and used these tapes in books published decades ago such as Hitler's War.
Irving raised these the matter of these tapes in a public row with Robert Faurisson at an IHR conference.
 
Old September 22nd, 2012 #69
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Ah yes the Daily Wail: xenophobic about anyone who is European, but all timid and restrained if it is a nigger, paki or jew. I seem to remember one Wail article all but stated that pagans were satanists and suggested they be tried for conducting rituals at Avebury.

I am pushed to think which lot deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered first: the Guardian's or the Mail's hacks.
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #70
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The derelict military bunker at the centre of a German officer's botched plot to blow up Hitler will be opened to the public as a museum.

The Wolf’s Lair, located in the Masurian woods in northeastern Poland, has been open to the public since the end of World War II, but mainly for much criticised paintball games or as an indoor shooting range.

It was one of Hitler’s key military headquarters during the war. But is most famous as the place Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg tried to kill the dictator by placing a briefcase bomb underneath the table during a staff meeting on July 20, 1944.


New image: Tourists wander around the remains of the Wolf's Lair in Poland, which will now open as a museum to educate visitors about its history

The plan was to kill Hitler and replace him with a government which would negotiate a truce with the Allies, ending the war.

Having left the conference for a pre-arranged phone call, Colonel von Stauffenberg, whose fate was thrown back into the spotlight due to 2008 movie Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise, left the hut shortly before the bomb detonated.



However, a staff officer had moved the briefcase shortly after von Stauffenberg’s departure which saw Hitler protected from the blast and the dictator survived with minor injuries.

Von Stauffenberg was captured and executed alongside three conspirators and all their relatives were sent to concentration camps.

A total of 200 were executed as a result of the assassination attempt.



Overgrown: Part of one of the derelict bunkers on the 600 acre complex which once had its own train station


Title: Wolf's Lair, Wolfsschanze in German, was named after Hitler's self-appointed nickname: Herr Wolff

Four months after the bomb, Wolf's Lair was destroyed by the Nazi forces as the Soviet Red army advanced in 1945. Soon after it became a tourist attraction.

Nearly 70 years later, due to lax legislation, tours of the overgrown bunkers have been less informative than the Polish Government see fit and tourists can even pose for photographs in Nazi uniforms.

‘At this moment, one does not feel the tragic dimension of this place,’ historian Tomasz Chinciski told The New York Times.



Wolfsschanze meeting: Adolf Hitler and Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, far left, in the Wolf's Lair listening to General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of German Army



After the bomb: The aftermath of the assassination attempt at Wolf's Lair. Hermann Goering, pictured in a light uniform, inspects the wrecked room



Inside the lair: Hitler inside the Wolf's Lair shortly after surviving Colonel von Stauffenberg's attempt on his life

He is involved in the development of Wolf's Lair and underlines the importance of not forgetting its past.

He said: 'We need to work on new ways of telling history to make young generations want to learn it and understand it.'

The current lease of the premises is held by Wolf’s Nest, who have had the contract since the collapse of Poland’s communist regime.



Hiding place: One of the 80 buildings at the complex, which was built to protect Hitler from the Soviet Army during Operation Barbarossa in 1941

Critics have called their tours of Wolf’s Lair a 'grotesque Disneyland’ operation and have called for them to stop.

In a bid to profit from ‘Nazi tourism’, Wolf’s Nest, a private company, built a restaurant, a hotel and even an indoor shooting range located in the offices of General Alfred Jodl, a Nazi Army Commander sentenced to death at Nuremberg.

But due to the remote location, Wolf’s Nest have not had much success in luring tourists to the bunker and the 600-acre complex is in despair with overgrown buildings and pathways.

In an effort to re-build the bunker, Wolf’s Nest have agreed to work with historians, according to The Independent.


Two visitors at the Wolf's Lair scan a map of the area with explanations of the purposes for each building

The site plan reveal that there were two casinos, a cinema, a sauna as well as two tea rooms


Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National heritage gave strict instructions to the company that no new lease would be granted unless the company meet educational requirements.

The hideout - whose name references Hitler's nickname, 'Herr Wolff' - consisted of 80 buildings at its peak including its own power plant and a railway station.

The complex, built in 1940, was heavily camouflaged and surrounded by a minefield, which took ten years to clear after the war.


Never forget: A commemorative plaque in German and Polish reads ' In memory of the resistance against National Socialism'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206073/Welcome-Wolf-s-Lair-Bunker-German-army-officers-tried-assassinate-Hitler-open-public-museum.html


"never forget"? The DM continues its crusade to make sure we never forget as another war in the Middle East draws ever closer.
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #71
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They just don't stop!

Quote:
Drought reveals trove of 400-year-old sunken treasure at bottom of Polish river
Quote:
The drought also revealed other fragments of Polish history, including unexploded mines from the Second World War and pieces of Jewish gravestones - the legacy of successive Nazi and Soviet schemes to wipe out all traces of the Warsaw's Jewish community.

Researchers knew about the artefacts, but, before the drought, retrieving them was a painstaking task because they were under several feet of water.

Now though, they are lying exposed apart from a coating of foul-smelling yellow mud.


'The drought helped us a lot because what had been lying underneath is now at the surface,' said Hubert Kowalski, deputy director of the University of Warsaw Museum, who is leading the effort to retrieve the marble stonework.

Speaking at a building owned by the Warsaw river police, where some of the stonework is being temporarily stored, he said historians' knowledge about what happened four centuries ago had previously been sketchy.

'Now we have evidence, the best material evidence of the Swedish invasion so far,' Mr Kowalski said.

He said the gravestones, or matzevah, would be handed over to the city's Jewish Historical Institute. Finds of Jewish artefacts are quite common in Warsaw.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204905/Drought-reveals-trove-400-year-old-sunken-treasure-Polish-river.html
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #72
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Originally Posted by Bev View Post
"never forget"? The DM continues its crusade to make sure we never forget as another war in the Middle East draws ever closer.
Don't you know that Iran has more nuclear weapons and a more radical Muslim population than Pakistan.

Oh wait... it doesn't.
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #73
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Don't you know that Iran has more nuclear weapons and a more radical Muslim population than Pakistan.

Oh wait... it doesn't.
Iran is the biggest threat this world has ever known. The DM said so therefore it must be true.

It's pathetic and transparent. How thick do they think the readers are?
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #74
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He said: 'We need to work on new ways of telling history to make young generations want to learn it and understand it.'
Doe anyone who reads The Mail even understand what this liar means when he says this?
 
Old September 22nd, 2012 #75
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Doe anyone who reads The Mail even understand what this liar means when he says this?
I doubt it very much. I suspect only a minority would wonder if it was anything other than material tailored for a younger audience such as the "Horrible History" series or the "Boy in Striped Pyjamas" book, etc.
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #76
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It's pathetic and transparent. How thick do they think the readers are?
Well considering the Wail's readership demographic: pretty daft. You don't read the Wail or watch Fox News because you want to be informed or challenged: you do it to have your preconceived opinions constantly reinforced. Same reason you read the Morning Star, Socialist Worker or the New York Post.

The problem they've got is that the only opinion they are actually allowed to have without being prosecuted for inciting hatred is to attack the Germans via the Third Reich.

Hell I still find it difficult to believe that nobody has sued Richard Overy (the historian) yet for publicly stating that killing 10 million Germans was excused by the holohoax. Possibly the only thing that has saved him is this comments didn't receive a very wide dissemination.
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Old September 22nd, 2012 #77
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Well considering the Wail's readership demographic: pretty daft. You don't read the Wail or watch Fox News because you want to be informed or challenged: you do it to have your preconceived opinions constantly reinforced. Same reason you read the Morning Star, Socialist Worker or the New York Post.

The problem they've got is that the only opinion they are actually allowed to have without being prosecuted for inciting hatred is to attack the Germans via the Third Reich.
Good points and all true. It's the reason I go to the DM first -it's the only paper that prints the sort of news I'm interested in, although the spin and agenda is irritating when you have to wade through half a dozen 70 year old embellished and embroidered non-stories to get to the two or three immigration stories.

There is a little bit of Eastern European and "extremist muslim" (which recently seems to encompass any muslim with its mouth open) bashing permitted but that's about it in a nutshell.


Quote:
Hell I still find it difficult to believe that nobody has sued Richard Overy (the historian) yet for publicly stating that killing 10 million Germans was excused by the holohoax. Possibly the only thing that has saved him is this comments didn't receive a very wide dissemination.
I didn't even know about that caper so it couldn't have been disseminated too widely. I've just begun reading his interview with Rees. Rees says:
Quote:
Well, there is a sense in which it might be considered morally defensible
"it" being the bombing of German civilians and houses.

I wonder if he holds the same view with regards to Palestinian schools and hospitals?
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Old September 23rd, 2012 #78
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Germany has launched a war crimes investigation against an 87-year-old Philadelphia man it accuses of serving as an SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp, The Associated Press has learned, following years of failed U.S. Justice Department efforts to have the man stripped of his American citizenship and deported.

Johann "Hans" Breyer, a retired toolmaker, admits he was a guard at Auschwitz during World War II, but told the AP he was stationed outside the facility and had nothing to do with the wholesale slaughter of some 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates.

The special German office that investigates Nazi war crimes has recommended that prosecutors charge him with accessory to murder and extradite him to Germany for trial on suspicion of involvement in the killing of at least 344,000 Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in occupied Poland.

The AP also has obtained documents that raise doubts about Breyer's testimony about the timing of his departure from Auschwitz.

The case is being pursued on the same legal theory used to prosecute late Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk, who died in March while appealing his conviction in Germany on charges he served as a guard at the notorious Sobibor death camp, also in occupied Poland.

The conviction was not considered legally binding because Demjanjuk died before his appeals were exhausted. But prosecutors maintain they can still use the same legal argument to pursue Breyer.

Under that line of thinking - even without proof of participation in any specific crime - a person who served as a death camp guard can be charged with accessory to murder because the camp's sole function was to kill people.

Experts estimate that at least 80 former camp guards or others who would fall into the same category are likely still alive today, almost 70 years after the end of the war.

Authorities in the Bavarian town of Weiden, who have jurisdiction, are currently trying to determine if the evidence is sufficient for prosecution. A German official working on the case confirmed that Breyer was the target of the probe; he spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.



A U.S. Army intelligence card on Johann "Hans" Breyer, indicating he served in Auschwitz as of Dec. 29, 1944 _ four months after he said he deserted

Breyer acknowledged in an interview in his modest row house in northeastern Philadelphia that he was in the Waffen SS at Auschwitz but that he never served at the part of the camp responsible for the extermination of Jews.

"I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody - and I don't even have a traffic ticket here," he told the AP. "I didn't do anything wrong."

He said he was aware of what was going on inside the death camp, but did not witness it himself. "We could only see the outside, the gates," he said.

Breyer said he had recently suffered three "mini-strokes." But he was cogent and clear as he talked about his past for more than an hour, sitting in his living room.

For more than a decade, the Justice Department waged court battles to try to have Breyer deported. They largely revolved around whether Breyer had lied about his Nazi past in applying for immigration or whether he could have citizenship through his American-born mother.

That legal saga ended in 2003, with a ruling that allowed him to stay in the United States, mainly on the grounds that he had joined the SS as a minor and could therefore not be held legally responsible for participation in it.

Breyer testified in U.S. court that he served as a perimeter guard at Auschwitz I, which was largely for prisoners used as slave laborers, though it also had a makeshift gas chamber used early in the war; it was also the camp where SS doctor Josef Mengele carried out sadistic experiments on inmates.

But he denied ever serving in Auschwitz II, better known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the death camp area where the bulk of the people were killed. He also said he deserted in August, 1944 and never returned to the camp, though eventually rejoined his unit fighting outside Berlin in the final weeks of the war.


A U.S. Army intelligence file on Breyer, obtained by the AP, calls that statement into question.
In 1951, American military authorities in Germany carried out a background check on Breyer when he first applied for a visa to the U.S. The file from that investigation lists him as being with a SS Totenkopf, or "Death's Head," battalion in Auschwitz as late as Dec. 29, 1944 - four months after he said he deserted. The Army Investigative Records Repository file was obtained by the AP from the National Archives through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The document is significant because judges in 2003 said Breyer's testimony on desertion was part of what convinced them that his service with the Waffen SS after turning 18 might not have been voluntary, further mitigating his wartime responsibility.

Also weighing in Breyer's favor with the judges was his testimony that he refused to have the SS tattoo; he does not have such a mark today or evidence that one was removed.

Kurt Schrimm, the head of the specials prosecutors' office in Ludwigsburg, which carried out the Breyer probe before it was turned over to Weiden prosecutors, said he felt there was sufficient evidence to bring charges against Breyer, although he declined to discuss details.

"All of these guards were stationed at times on the ramps (where train transports of prisoners were unloaded), at times at the gas chambers and at times in the towers," he said.

Weiden prosecutors, who were chosen because the office is nearest where Breyer last lived in Germany, say it could take several months before deciding whether to file charges.

A former prosecutor in Schrimm's office, Thomas Walther, said he had known of the file on Breyer from his time there. He is now already representing, pro bono, a woman who lost her two siblings in Auschwitz at the time that Breyer is alleged to have been there. The woman will join any prosecution as a co-plaintiff as allowed under German law. Walther said he has established the email address auschwitz.coplaintiff(at)gmail.com for other victims' families.

"Time is swiftly running out to bring Nazi criminals to justice," Walther said. "I hope that prosecutors in Weiden will act soon on this case."

The Breyer case was handled in the U.S. by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations. Eli Rosenbaum, who previously headed the office, would not comment on any details of evidence that had been collected against him, nor say whether American agencies were involved in helping with the German probe. Rosenbaum is now with the Justice Department's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, into which the OSI was merged.

Breyer was born in 1925 in what was then Czechoslovakia to an ethnic German father and an American mother, Katharina, who was born in Philadelphia. Slovakia became a separate state in 1939 under the influence of Nazi Germany. In 1942, the Waffen SS embarked on a drive to recruit ethnic Germans there and Breyer joined at age 17. The fact he was a minor at the time was critical in the 2003 decision to allow him to stay in the United States.

Called up to duty in 1943, Breyer said he was shipped off the same day to Buchenwald - in Germany - where he was assigned to the Totenkopf.

By treaty, the U.S. can extradite its citizens to Germany. But Breyer said he would fight any attempts to take him away from the U.S. and his wife and family.

"I'm an American citizen, just as if I had been born here," he said in his Philadelphia home. "They can't deport me."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207432/Germany-launches-investigation-Philadelphia-man-87-guard-Auschwitz.html
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Old September 23rd, 2012 #79
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I had, considering I'd only managed one update to this thread today, been mulling over sending the DM a Get Well Soon e-card, but it's ok, I think they're recovering.
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The love letters, school papers and dramatic works of college-age Joseph Goebbels reveal a romantic young man beginning to show signs of anti-Semitism and egotistical and controlling behavior, according to a Connecticut auction house selling the pre-war writings of Adolf Hitler's propaganda chief.



Alexander Historical Auctions plans to sell the collection on Sept. 27 in Stamford, saying it may prove invaluable in providing historical and psychological insights.

'It sums up the formative years of the number two man in the Third Reich, who was responsible for motivating the masses in Germany to back Hitler,' said Bill Panagopulos, the company's president. 'In my opinion, it shows how this rather simple, shy and love-struck college student really just became radicalized.'

The thousands of pages include Goebbels' college dissertation, report cards, dozens of poems, school essays and letters from family members, friends and girlfriends.

'You really get a feel for what's going on in his head,' Panagopulos said. 'There's a lot of information if somebody wants to dig into the mind of this man who grew into a lunatic.'


In an early sign of his ego, Goebbels would sign some of his materials with numerous signatures. Toward the later years of the collection, Goebbels is starting to show anti-Semitic tendencies, Panagopulos said. He added that the auction house has only translated about 10 percent of the papers and has had a tough time with Goebbels' handwriting.

The sale sparked concerns by a leader of a Holocaust survivors group who criticized the auction house's sale last year of the journals written by Nazi death camp doctor Josef Mengele.


For sale: This undated photo shows a pre-World War II document by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels; on Thursday a collection of Goebbels' writings, including love letters and school reports, are being sold at auction in Connecticut

'Alexander Auction House is making a business out of selling Nazi artifacts and memorabilia,' said Menachem Rosensaft, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. 'They clearly have the legal right to profit here from such materials. I leave it to others to determine the morality of it all.'

Rosensaft said such materials belong in an archive for historians to study. He expressed concerns that at an auction, the materials could wind up in the wrong hands and be used as a shrine to the Nazi leader.

Panagopulos said museums often depend on donations made by people buying items at auction. He said neo-Nazis don't collect the material.

Addressing another concern of Rosensaft's, that there is a cottage industry of creating fake Nazi memorabilia, Panagopulos said most of the Goebbels documents up for sale have been available to experts, scholars and researchers for years and no one has questioned their authenticity. He called their provenance 'ironclad.'

He said his own morals should not be questioned, noting that his father's hometown in Greece was largely wiped out in an act of German retribution.



Adolf Hitler's second hand man: The thousands of letters offer an insight into the mind of a man who'd go onto become Adolf Hitler's number two. Goebbels and his wife, Magda are pictured with Hitler, centre, and their children

The collection, which spans the period up to shortly before he joined the Nazi party in 1924, is expected to sell for more than $200,000, Panagopulos said. It includes more than 100 letters written between Goebbels and Anka Stalherm, the first great love of his life, and show his desire to control others, he said. Letters from other girlfriends include a pair of sisters he seduced at the same time.

In a letter to his teacher after his sister died, he thanks his teacher for condolences but adds that his loss is minor compared to losses suffered by 'our fatherland.'

Goebbels and his wife killed their six children with cyanide before killing themselves the day after Hitler's suicide.



Up for auction: The thousands of pre-war writings by Goebbels are expected to reach more than $200,000

Panagopulos said the sale is on behalf of a Swiss company and would not benefit any relatives of Goebbels, but he said his auction house does not identify consignors. He said the company received the materials from a man who obtained them from an earlier owner who won the rights to the writings in a 1950s court case with Goebbels' sister.

The auction house last year said it sold the journals written by Mengele, drawing criticism from Rosensaft who said the business was profiting off the sale of materials by one of the worst mass murderers in history. Alexander officials said the Jewish buyer wanted to remain anonymous and is building a collection for a museum.

Panagopulos said at the time his profit would be $15,000 to $20,000 and that he would make a donation to a war memorial. He said Mengele's journals have historical value and that many auction houses deal with Nazi-related items and the buyers are reputable.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207523/Joseph-Goebbels-early-love-letters-wooing-sisters-school-reports-endless-poems-warning-signs-hed-anti-Semitic-tyrant.html
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Old September 24th, 2012 #80
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I was often chastised by my friends for my adoration of Adolf Hitler in the 1970s but these days I'd probably be hunted and arrested. Funny how times change.

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