dirkdeklein

  • The other side of Hugh Hefner

    Now before you all get exited expecting to see lots of pictures of naked women(not that there is anything wrong with that} This is not that type of blog. This is about the time that Hugh Heffner during the World War 2 years and just after the war. Years before founding what would become the

    Read more →

  • Words can kill

    The Nazis not only imposed their will by military force, but also through the Dutch Civil Service. A typewriter could be just as deadly as a bullet. Until the end of 1944 this typewriter was used in the Scholtenhuis on the Grote Markt, the main square in Groningen, in the north east of Netherlands. In

    Read more →

  • Jane Austen & Limerick,Ireland.

    I never got the whole Jane Austen hype. I find her stories boring and there is nothing I can identify with. However the fact that there is a Limerick connection to her I do find intriguing. And I believe if she had lived in Limerick her stories may have been a lot more exiting, but

    Read more →

  • Heavy Metal Meets Humanitarianism In the 1980s, heavy metal dominated the music scene, filling arenas with roaring crowds and electrifying performances. Yet, despite its popularity, the genre was often stigmatized as reckless, dangerous, and indifferent to social issues. Meanwhile, the world was captivated by charity supergroups like Band Aid and USA for Africa, who used

    Read more →

  • The one thing that always baffled me is the vehement hate the Nazis had for Jazz music. It was considered “Entartete Musik”—degenerate music, a label applied in the 1930s by the Nazis to Jazz and also other forms of music. I wrote a piece about Johnny & Jones before, this is not so much a

    Read more →

  • I sincerely believe that some people are just born evil. If it hadn’t been for the war, their evil ways—would probably have been displayed in other ways. Dr. Ernst Knorr was born Heiligenbeil, Germany on October 13, 1899. He died in Scheveningen, the Netherlands on 7 July 1945. He was an SS officer in the

    Read more →

  • Maastricht Liberated.

    Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands and one of the first settlements. It was also the first city to be liberated in World War 2. On 13 and 14 September 1944 it was the first Dutch city to be liberated by Allied forces of the US Old Hickory Division.. These are

    Read more →

  • Harry Dobkin-Blitz Murderer

    One can imaging that the Blitz must have been a terrifying time in Great Britain, but it also must have been a time where people ceased the opportunity amidst the chaos to do things they usually wouldn’t dare to do for the fear of being caught. Harry Dobkin was one of these folks. Harry Dobkin

    Read more →

  • Yesterday- 60 Years ago!

    “Yesterday” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. First released on the 1965 album Help!, it was issued as a U.S. single the following September, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, it appeared on the EP Yesterday in March

    Read more →

  • The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 left the world not only devastated by years of total war but also confronted with the unparalleled crimes of the Holocaust. Among the many perpetrators brought before courts in the immediate aftermath was Amon Leopold Göth, the Austrian SS officer who had served as commandant of the Płaszów

    Read more →