Mail Call

American soldiers in the Pacific Theater in 1944.

Mail Call

German soldiers on the Eastern Front in 1941.

The Eiffel Tower During The German Occupation

A German soldier on the Champ de Mars, being photographed with the Eiffel Tower in the background, during The German Occupation.

26 April 1925: The DNVP Campaigns For Hindenburg

Supporters of the German National People’s Party (DNVP) campaign for Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg in Berlin in April 1925.

Believing that a Leftist candidate was destined to win that year’s Presidential Election in Germany, the DNVP withdrew its own candidate and—with the support of other conservative parties—pressured Hindenburg to enter the race.

Hindenburg, always a political independent, agreed with great reluctance to become a candidate—solely to prevent the election of a Leftist.

Hindenburg, as expected, won the election for a seven-year term—and won reelection in 1932, dying in office in 1934.

1943: Oslo

Hirden, the paramilitary wing of the Norwegian Nazi Party, marches through Oslo in 1943. The Hirden insignia, seen on the banner, was ubiquitous in Norway from 1940 until 1945.

I am amazed that crowds lined the streets, not even bothering to turn their backs on the Norwegian Nazis.

Norway has an unpleasant if not sordid history, going back hundreds of years. Among other things, the Constitution of Norway prohibited persons of Jewish faith even from entering the country between 1814 and 1851—and the provision was enforced.

Kaiser Wilhelm’s Library At Manor Doorn

After abdicating the German throne, Kaiser Wilhelm lived in exile in The Netherlands for the final twenty-three years of his life. Twenty-one of those years were spent at Manor Doorn, a stately mansion the Kaiser purchased as his residence-in-exile.

Wilhelm spent hours and hours in his library at Manor Doorn, corresponding with a wide range of persons.

The anti-Semitic comments in his letters are legion. In a 1940 letter to his sister, Princess Margaret, Wilhelm wrote:

The hand of God is creating a new world and working miracles. We [Germany] are becoming the United States Of Europe under German leadership, a united European continent. The Jews are being thrust out of their nefarious positions in all countries, which they have driven to hostility for centuries.

Wilhelm’s death occurred at the height of German conquest: he died seven days before Germany’s invasion of Russia.

1945: Dessau

546 British bombers destroyed the city of Dessau on March 7, 1945, two months before Germany’s capitulation.

Dessau, in Eastern Germany, had remained untouched by Allied bombers until the war’s final weeks.

The destruction of Dessau was purposeless, as the advancing Soviet Army was nearby—and quickly closing in on the city.

Official death tolls for Dessau were never determined—in part because Soviet troops were soon to swarm into the city and wreak additional havoc.

In the war’s final days, it became impossible for officials—all over Germany—to arrive at reasonably-accurate death tolls.

1942: Lorient

U-123 returning to the U-boat pens at Lorient in February 1942.

U-123, in service from 1940 until 1944, was one of few German U-Boats to survive the war. At war’s end, U-123 was turned over to The French Navy. The vessel remained in some form of service until 1959.

The submarine pens at Lorient were impervious to 1940s ammunition, what with the yards of concrete overhead.

The Allies, consequently, destroyed the town of Lorient—knowing that destroying the town would render the pens useless. And, by early 1943, the pens at Lorient indeed had become useless, there no longer being in place a support system that could re-supply the boats with fuel, weapons and provisions.

After Spring 1943, boats that harbored in Lorient could no longer be returned to service. The boats had to go elsewhere for re-provisioning or wait out the rest of the war.

German soldiers continued to occupy the fortress-like subway pens at Lorient for nine months after the Allies had freed France. It was only upon Germany’s unconditional surrender in May 1945 that German soldiers finally vacated the subway pens at Lorient.

The French Navy used the Lorient subway pens for two or three decades after the war.

Portions of the pens are now open for public tourism.

I would like to visit them one day.

1944: Detroit

Ford Motor Company’s giant Willow Run plant in 1944.

Willow Run produced the massive, four-engine B-24 Liberator bomber.

One B-24 rolled off the Willow Run assembly line, ready to fly, each hour for three years.

A similar plant in Fort Worth, Texas, also produced one B-24 Liberator per hour.

1941: Oslo

Anti-Jewish graffiti on a shop in Oslo during the second year of The German Occupation.

Norway had a minute Jewish population at the time—there were fewer than 3,000 persons of Jewish faith in the entire country in 1941—and displays of anti-Jewish sentiment during a brutal occupation would seem incomprehensible.

The graffiti at the front reads, in English: “The Jew Parasite Got Us On April 9” (April 9 had been the date of the German invasion of Norway).

The graffiti at the side reads, in English: “Palestine calls for all Jews. We don’t stand them any more in Norway.”

1943: German Troops In Copenhagen

German troops in Copenhagen in 1943.

The German soldiers in the photograph are nothing more than a couple of kids, probably half-scared much of the time.

An intensive examination of the behavior of the Danish population during The German Occupation has yet to be written. Danes, on the whole, did not sheathe themselves with honor from 1940 to 1945—and the story should be told, in all its gruesome details, to provide an accurate assessment of a nation showing itself in want of moral fiber.

Kutno Poland 1939

An elderly Jewish man speaks with German officers during the roundup of Kutno’s Jewish residents in 1939.

Once its invasion of Poland was complete, Germany wasted no time in rounding up Poland’s citizens of Jewish faith—often with the willing assistance of Poland’s Gentiles, as appears to be the case in the scene captured in the photograph.

This photograph was taken by one of Hitler’s favorite photographers, given free rein—and color film, quite rare at the time—to photograph whatever he liked in newly-occupied Poland.

The photographs—more than a thousand in all—have come to light only in recent years. Only a handful has yet to be published.

Camouflage Class New York University 1943

A camouflage class at New York University in 1943.

Students were trained to create models from aerial photographs; such models were intended to assist in the detection of camouflage schemes.

Detecting camouflages was to be useful not only in the upcoming Normandy campaign but also in aerial bombardments of military and industrial targets in Germany.

26 May 1945: The Berghof

The Berghof, Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgaden, three weeks after cessation of hostilities.

The Berghof had been bombed repeatedly in the final months of the war.

In the photograph, a P-47 Thunderbolt of the U.S. Army 12th Air Force may be seen flying low over the crumbled ruins.

The crater in the background is enormous; it demonstrates that the Allies used significant weaponry at Berchtesgaden.

Field Mass In Normandy

Only days into the Normandy campaign, American soldiers participate in a spontaneous field mass, with a French priest as celebrant.

A German Anti-Tank Gun On The Eastern Front

A German anti-tank gun in action on The Eastern Front.

The photograph is one of countless color photographs released by Russian archives in the last decade, all of which were captured from German sources in Berlin at war’s end.

Given the excellent conditions of the German soldiers and their uniforms, I suspect the photograph was taken in the first days of Germany’s invasion of Russia.

6 June 1944: German Soldiers Captured In Normandy

German soldiers captured in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The German soldiers in the photograph were just kids, much younger than the American soldiers holding them captive.

The afternoon of June 6, 1944, in Normandy was beautiful: clear, warm and sunny. The bad weather of that morning had abated by midday.

This worked to the advantage of the Allies.

American aircraft had total command of the skies and could attack fixed or moving targets with impunity. One result was that German reinforcements—men and materiel—could not move in from inland until darkness set.

By that time, the Allies were firmly on the Continent . . . more than 160,000 of them . . . and they were not going to budge.

Hitler Slept Until Noon

At the present time, it is still too early to say whether this is a large-scale diversionary attack or the main effort.

Morning Report for 6 June 1944, German Command in the West

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The only high-command officer who responded correctly to the crisis at hand was Field Marshal Rundstedt, the old man who was there for window dressing and who was so scorned by Hitler and OKW.

Two hours before the sea-borne landings began, Rundstedt ordered the two reserve panzer divisions available for counterattack in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer and Panzer Lehr, to move immediately toward Caen. He did so on the basis of an intuitive judgment that the airborne landings were on such a large scale that they could not be a mere deception maneuver (as some of his staff argued) and would have to be reinforced from the sea.

The only place such landings could come in lower Normandy were on the Calvados and Cotentin coasts. Runstedt wanted armor there to meet the attack.

Rundstedt's reasoning was sound, his action decisive, his orders clear.

But the panzer divisions were not under Runstedt’s command. They were in OKW reserve. To save precious time, Rundstedt had first ordered them to move out, then requested OKW approval.

OKW did not approve. At 0730 OKW informed Rundstedt that the two divisions could not be committed until Hitler gave the order, and Hitler was still sleeping.

Rundstedt had to countermand the move-out order.

Hitler slept until noon.

Stephen E. Ambrose

“The Hollow Years”

After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, France remained unsettled for the rest of the decade. The nation was deeply divided on a wide array of issues, foreign and domestic, and was unable to develop a national consensus—and take effective action—on any matter.

There were pro-Fascist and anti-Fascist factions (and everything in between) in France in the 1930s. Public rallies and public displays of political muscle were the order of the day. Placards were everywhere. Elections were constant, the results generally inconclusive.

It was a decade that was to grow increasingly uneasy—in France, the 1930s are often referred to as “The Hollow Years”—and end in war in late summer 1939.

Berlin: July 1945

Another rare color photograph of central Berlin in July 1945.