dirkdeklein
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It is a lesser-known, or perhaps lesser-acknowledged, fact that the entire Wehrmacht, including the Navy and Luftwaffe, was involved in the Holocaust. It wasn’t only the SS. The Luftwaffe was directly involved through bombardments and indirectly through experiments carried out on their behalf. The aerial bombardment of the village of Vorizia by the Luftwaffe is…
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I know this blog may not sit comfortably with everyone, but I believe it’s important to look at the Holocaust from every possible angle if we are to understand its full story. What follows is a glimpse into that story, seen through the words of a man who once stood guard at Auschwitz. The letter,…
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Love her or loathe her, but there is no denying she is a musical icon Madonna (born August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur whose extraordinary popularity during the 1980s and 1990s enabled her to achieve a level of power and creative control that was almost unprecedented…
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“The Queen Remembered” Eight years ago today, the world dimmed a little when we lost the incomparable Aretha Franklin—a voice that defined an era and a soul that lifted countless hearts. On this solemn anniversary, we once again celebrate not just her extraordinary talent, but the lasting legacy she left behind. A Voice Like No…
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August 16 is not a good day in Music History. On August 16,1938, legendary Blues musician Robert Johnson died at the age of 27. Making him of the first member of the elusive club of 27. Johnson’s death was not reported publicly. Almost 30 years later, Gayle Dean Wardlow, a Mississippi-based musicologist researching Johnson’s life,…
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Josef Jakobs (30 June 1898 – 15 August 1941) was a German spy and the last person to be executed at the Tower of London. Captured shortly after parachuting into Britain during the Second World War, he was convicted of espionage under the Treachery Act 1940 and sentenced to death. Because he had broken his…
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The Omagh bombing, which took place on August 15, 1998, stands as the deadliest single atrocity of the decades-long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. Just four months after the historic signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a car bomb exploded in the busy centre of Omagh, County Tyrone, in an attack…
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A Spontaneous Act of Impulse On August 15, 1936, during the Summer Olympics in Berlin, officials, athletes, and spectators witnessed an unusual and unforgettable moment. At the men’s 1500-metre freestyle swimming final, a 43-year-old American tourist named Carla de Vries from Norwalk, California, made her way close to Hitler’s box. Clad in a red hat,…
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The title is a line from a song by Gary Moore and Phil Lynott, “Out in the Fields.” Although the song has nothing to do with the Holocaust, the particular line I used for this title was a reality for millions. Millions were murdered for no reason other than hate and a warped sense of…
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Philogelos (Greek: Φιλόγελως, meaning “Lover of Laughter”) is the title of the oldest surviving joke book in the world. It is a collection of roughly 260 jokes, preserved in Greek and traditionally attributed to Hierocles and Philagrios, probably compiled around the 4th century AD, although many of the jokes are considerably older. Here are just…
