Buchenwald
When most people think of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, the first image that usually comes to mind is that of the heavy bombers, the B-17s and B-24s, that ravaged targets in Europe and the B-29s that wreaked havoc on Japanese cities in the Pacific. Read more
Buchenwald
By Steven Karras
Prologue:Once they escaped from Nazi-dominated Europe, hundreds of German and Austrian Jews joined the American and British military to help bring an end to the Nazis’ reign of terror. Read more
Buchenwald
The 83rd U.S. Infantry Division had been mobilized for World War I in September 1917. Its unit patch was a downward-pointing black triangle with the letters O-H-I-O stitched as an abstract gold monogram in the center. Read more
Buchenwald
BACKSTORY: The final months of World War II in the European Theater were a harrowing and desperate time for the soldiers who fought there. Read more
Buchenwald
In early 1945, the 50,000 starved and brutalized prisoners incarcerated at KL Buchenwald—the infamous concentration camp located atop a hill known as the Ettersberg, just to the northwest of Germany’s cultural capital of Weimar—were growing desperate. Read more
Buchenwald
Down in the basement of my father’s medical office a Nazi helmet stood guard. It sat on top of the pea-green Army trunk, CAPT R LEVINSON stenciled in white letters under a beaten-up leather handle. Read more
Buchenwald
The 1937 Paris International Exposition once again centered world attention on the French capital that had previously been the stage for five world’s fairs, including the famous 1889 Paris Exhibition and the raison d’être for the construction of the Eiffel Tower, at 984 feet then the tallest structure in the world. Read more
Buchenwald
Perhaps the most feared group of accused criminals in the annals of history was a potpourri of personalities who had been associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Read more
Buchenwald
I wrote previously about my guided three D-Day tours in the summer of 2014. I repeated the tour-guiding experience in May and June this year for the Minnesota World War II History Roundtable during a tour of Fifth Army battlefields in Italy. Read more
