dirkdeklein
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Anyone who grew up in Germany or the Netherlands would likely have seen at least one episode of Derrick, the German police drama set in Munich. The show ran from 1974 to 1998 and was so popular that even Pope John Paul II was rumored to be a fan. A while ago, I watched Faking…
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The title of this blog is a line from a song by the hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I chose it because it speaks a simple truth—a child does not know how to be evil. The boy in the picture above is Samuel Siegfried Opdenberg. He was born on February 7, 1940,…
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The Frankfurt Auschwitz trial (1963–1965) was one of the most significant post-war trials of Nazi war criminals in West Germany. It prosecuted former SS officers and personnel involved in the operation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp during the Holocaust. The trial, held in Frankfurt am Main, was led by Fritz Bauer, a German-Jewish…
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The song tells the story of a recording session in Montreux, Switzerland, that didn’t go as planned. At the time, Deep Purple had traveled to the lakeside town to record their sixth album, Machine Head, at the Montreux Casino. The venue was not only a renowned concert hall but also the main location for the…
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Annick (Germaine Mathilde) van Hardeveld Annick (Germaine Mathilde) van Hardeveld was born in 1923 in Amsterdam. She was the first child of her father, Jan van Hardeveld, and her French mother, Germaine Bertin. A few years later, a baby brother was born: Yann Emile. When the war broke out in May 1940, Annick was sixteen…
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The Santo Tomas Internment Camp, located in Manila, Philippines, was one of the largest civilian internment camps established by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. It was used to imprison Allied civilians, mostly Americans, British, Australians, and other nationalities, who were residing in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded in 1941. The camp,…
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Andrée Dumon, known by her codename “Nadine,” was a prominent figure in the Belgian Resistance during World War II. Born on September 5, 1922, in Brussels, she became an integral member of the Comet Line, a network dedicated to aiding Allied airmen shot down over occupied Europe. Her courageous efforts and unwavering commitment to the…
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The conditions for the Jewish community in Libya deteriorated significantly following the passage of Italy’s Manifesto of Race in 1938. Discrimination intensified, and the situation worsened further after German intervention in 1941. The Nazis deported many Jews to concentration camps in continental Europe, where survivors remained until the end of World War II. Jewish Communities…
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On February 3, 1959, the world of rock and roll suffered an unimaginable tragedy when a small plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson crashed in a snow-covered field in Clear Lake, Iowa. This devastating event, immortalized in Don McLean’s 1971 hit song American Pie, is often referred to as…
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For the last few weeks, I have been playing Wordle, a web-based word game created and developed by Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle. Players have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a World War II blog based on five-letter word subjects? TanksWorld War II tanks played a crucial…
History of Sorts 