Austria Archives

Against the odds, Detroit defied reality to help win World War II.

Austria

Ford’s Willow Run Factory

By Samantha L. Quigley

They said it couldn’t be done. Doubters chided Henry Ford for declaring that his Willow Run Bomber Plant could turn out a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber every hour. Read more

Monsignor Josef Tiso led Slovakia into an alliance with Hitler and the Nazis.

Austria

According to the 1960 memoirs of Henriette Hoffmann von Schirach, Adolf Hitler called Father Josef Tiso, a monsignor in the Roman Catholic Church and premier of Fascist Slovakia, “The little parson.” Read more

Shifty Powers, one of the “Band of Brothers,” recalls how he survived the war without a scratch, only to be nearly killed at war’s end.

Austria

Darrell “Shifty” Powers: Easy Company’s Sharpshooter

By Marcus Brotherton

Darrell “Shifty” Powers was a soft-spoken machinist who never aspired to greatness. He was born, grew up, got married, raised his family, worked, retired, and died in Clinchco, a remote mining town in southwest Virginia. Read more

Austria

A Soviet Red Army Victory at Vienna

by Major General Michael Reynolds

In mid-March 1945, the Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Red Army launched a major offensive with the aim of clearing Axis forces out of Hungary and forcing them back to the very borders of Hitler’s Greater German Reich. Read more

Austria

Otto von Knobelsdorff: Panzer Commander

By Harry Yeide

While many in the English-speaking world have heard of Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian, few today know the name of Otto von Knobelsdorff, a German panzer general who commanded troops in battles every bit as pivotal as his contemporaries did, in quantity and quality, and who also fought against General George S. Read more

Austria

The Irish Brigade in WWII

By Tim Newark

It was a letter in the London Times that caught the attention of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Read more

The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression pact of 1939 shocked the world.

Austria

Deal of the Devils: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

By Mark Albertson

On August 23, 1939, Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.P. Potemkin, waited at the Moscow Airport for Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Read more

Austria

Napoleon’s Stunning Debut: The Italian Campaign

By Dana Lombardy

Barthélemy Schérer, commander of the French Army, gazed at the new military orders from Paris in disbelief. The grandoise strategy, detailing an advance on three fronts with the armies uniting in Tyrol for a concentrated thrust at Vienna, were far beyond the capabilities of the starving southern army he commanded along the French Riveria against the combined forces of Austria and Sardinia. Read more

Intrigue still surrounds the execution of Mussolini and his mistress Claretta Petacci by communist partisans in 1945.

Austria

The Killing of Il Duce

By Blaine Taylor

At 3 am on Sunday, April 29, 1945, a yellow furniture truck stopped at the Piazzale Loreto, a vast, open traffic roundabout where five roads intersected in the northern Italian city of Milan. Read more

During the 1683 Battle of Vienna, relief came out of the woods and down from the heights...

Austria

The 1683 Battle of Vienna: What Went Wrong for the Ottoman Empire

by Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

For nearly two long months, from July 14 to early September 1683, Vienna endured the siege from the Ottoman Empire. Read more

Waffen SS General Felix Steiner was an able commander who refused to sacrifice his troops needlessly.

Austria

Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

by Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

Austria

Frederick The Great’s First Defeat

By Arnold Blumberg

Frederick the Great’s prescription for warfare was simple. The Prussian monarch wanted “short and lively wars” that relied on swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Read more

Austria

The Girandoni Air Rifle: The Lewis and Clark Expedition’s Secret Weapon

By Frederick J. Chiaventone

When one thinks of the guns that won the West, one naturally envisions such familiar weapons as the Winchester, Henry, and Spencer repeating rifles, the trapdoor Springfield, the Smith & Wesson revolver, and the Colt Peacemaker. Read more

Austria

Chevau-Légers Polonais: Napoleon’s Polish Cavalry Charge at Somosierra Pass

By Alexander Zarkzewski

On the foggy morning of November 30, 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, watched impatiently as his Grande Armée lumbered up the rocky slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains of central Spain. Read more