Germany
Within hours of the entry of Great Britain and France into World War II on September 3, 1939, the British liner SS Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat off the northwestern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 112 dead, including 28 American citizens. Read more
Germany
Throughout World War II the Allies enjoyed a certain advantage over the Axis that was purely the product of geography. Read more
Germany
In August 1942, with Operation Barbarossa at its height, the invader in coal shuttle helmet and field gray uniform crawled on his elbows through brush up the hillock, pistol in his right hand. Read more
Germany
On March 23, 1991, at a reunion of the postwar Nuremberg International Military Tribunal staffers in Washington, I had occasion to meet the former American prosecutor, Brigadier General Telford Taylor. Read more
Germany
Not all World War II heroes were men or women. Some were four-legged, hoofed, or winged. They included horses and mules, elephants, and dogs as well as more exotic animals such as bats, camels, reindeer, and pigeons. Read more
Germany
By the fall of 1916, Canadian soldiers fighting in the trenches on the Western Front had already distinguished themselves in battle. Read more
Germany
“I’ve come to you from Moscow. The Central Committee of the Communist Party has ordered your liquidation.” Read more
Germany
“This is Berlin calling the American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And I’d just like to say, girls, when Berlin calls it pays to listen.” Read more
Germany
In the fall of 1942, in a prelude to the now-famous Operation Uranus, the Red Army had its back to the wall once again. Read more
Germany
The pictures are heartbreaking.
Thousands of refugees fleeing persecution by their government and possible death in their homeland, leaving all their possessions behind, spending their life savings and risking almost anything to escape an existence that had become intolerable. Read more
Germany
With a quarter of a million German troops pouring through the Ardennes Forest, three Americans fleeing in a jeep should have raised no alarm. Read more
Germany
By the spring of 1945, Hitler’s thousand year Reich had come crashing down in flames. The Allied armies that had landed at Normandy almost one year earlier had penetrated deep inside Germany. Read more
Germany
It was said on May 8, 1945, that some of the victors wandered around in a daze. They were puzzled by a strange silence. Read more
Germany
In May 1945—70 years ago—the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) sent out a terse, unemotional, 15-word communiqué: “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7, 1945.” Read more
Germany
The tank was created to break the bloody deadlock along the Western Front. It was originally envisioned as a kind of “land battleship” that could cross trenches and barbed-wire entanglements. Read more
Germany
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
Germany
When the Triple Alliance was concluded between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy in the spring of 1882, Italy was, like Germany, a young nation recently unified after years of military conflicts and occupation by various European powers. Read more
Germany
Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson was not a happy man, and his sour mood was made worse by the weather. Read more
Germany
The old proverb that states, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” gained significant meaning for the government and people of Great Britain at the turn of the 20th century. Read more
Germany
On a dark night in September 1941, moving at periscope depth, an Italian submarine edged into Gibraltar Bay near the British harbor. Read more
