Germany

Himmler’s Recruits

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

Nuremberg Prosecutor: Brigadier General Telford Taylor

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

Beasts of War

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

Canadian Capture of Vimy Ridge

By the fall of 1916, Canadian soldiers fighting in the trenches on the Western Front had already distinguished themselves in battle. Read more

Germany

The Deadly Defector from the USSR

“I’ve come to you from Moscow. The Central Committee of the Communist Party has ordered your liquidation.” Read more

Germany

Napoleon Bonaparte: Moving Toward Destiny at the Battle of Austerlitz

During the summer of 1802, Europe was at peace for the first time in 13 years. The Treaty of Amiens (March 27, 1802), had ended what would later be seen as the opening round of the Napoleonic Wars. Read more

Germany

Mildred Gillars (a.k.a. ‘Axis Sally’) in WWII

“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

Operation Uranus: Marshal Georgi Zhukov’s Stalingrad Trap

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 Syrian Refugee Crisis: A Repeat of the 1930s?

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

Operation Greif and Otto “Scarface” Skorzeny

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

The Nazi ‘Gold Train Incident’

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

Germany in World War II: The Long Surrender

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

May 8, 1945: V-E Day and the Surrender of 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

WW I Tanks at Amiens

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

Gustavus Adolphus: Lion of the North

Oddly, the fall of the brilliant King Gustavus Adolphus on the field of battle marked both the beginning of Sweden’s rise to power and the end of one of the most aggressive ages of military reform. Read more

Germany

The Gothic Wars Battle of Adrianople

In 376 AD the Goths appeared on the lower Danube frontier of the Roman Empire. They came as a whole tribe, with warriors, women and children. Read more

Germany

Operation Aphrodite: Drones versus V2 Rockets

In 1944, air traffic over southern Britain was almost at the New York City rush- hour level. On any given early morning, heavily laden B-17s and B-24s would be circling, laboriously assembling into formation for runs to targets in France and Germany. Read more

Germany

Walking in the Footsteps of Heroes

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

The Kingdom of Italy & the Triple Entente

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

German Zeppelins: Terrorizing The British And RAF During WW1

Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson was not a happy man, and his sour mood was made worse by the weather. Read more