dirkdeklein

  • We have all heard of Coors beer and some of us probably drink it every once in a while. I do. But not so many of us know the story and the drama behind the name.Adolph Coors stowed away to America at the age of 21 with a dream of brewing great beers. He realized…

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  • On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident (sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident  involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. The aircraft was carrying four hydrogen bombs on a Cold War “Chrome Dome” alert mission over Baffin Bay when a cabin fire forced the crew to abandon the aircraft before they could carry out an emergency landing at Thule…

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  • I have done hundreds of blogs on WWII and the Holocaust and it often is difficult to see and read about the horrors inflicted on innocent lives.And at times I feel like giving up because these stories do leave emotional scars, but then sometimes I stumble across stories which lift my soul and give me…

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  • Many people forget that the Japanese war crimes were as bad if not worse then those committed by the Nazi’s albeit it on a marginal lesser scale. Beside the crimes and experiment committed by Unit 731 there were a great number of other atrocities, including cannibalism. https://dirkdeklein.net/2016/07/01/unit-731-japanese-wwii-experiments/   In “The Knights of Bushido”, Lord Russell…

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  • The Auschwitz guards

    There were 40 defendants at the Auschwitz trial. 39 were sentenced and 1 was acquitted.Of the 39 sentences there were 23 death sentences, 2 of which were later commuted to life imprisonment. The other sentences varied from life to 3 years imprisonment. 39 People convicted even though there had been close to 10,000 in the Auschwitz garrison.…

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  • Although Switzerland remained neutral throughout World War II, it had to deal with numerous violations of its airspace by combatants from both sides – initially by German aircraft, especially during their invasion of France in 1940. Zealous Swiss pilots attacked and shot down eleven German aircraft, losing two of their own, before a threatening memorandum…

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  •   The 1936 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IV Olympic Winter Games , was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1936 in the market town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria, Germany. Germany also hosted the Summer Olympics the same year in Berlin. 1936 is the last year in which the Summer and Winter…

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  • The picture is of a vacant building in the town center of Geleen in the Netherlands. The building wasn’t always empty. It used to be a clothes shop called “Modehuis” or Fashion House. It was a shop that catered more for the older ladies, my mother liked to shop there A few doors next to…

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  • Paedagogium Achisomog was an institution for Jewish children with intellectual disabilities. The institution was opened in 1925 and was a subsidiary of the Apeldoornsche Bosch. At Paedagogium Achisomog about 75 children lived in small groups. On the night of 21 to 22 January 1943, Paedagogium Achisomog was evacuated together with the Apeldoornsche Bosch. On 10…

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  • ABBA and World War II

    There will be only a few people who may not have heard of ABBA. The Swedish band shot to world fame in 1974 after winning the Eurovision Song Contest on 9 April 1974 with their song ‘Waterloo.” However, not all of them were born in Sweden. Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad was born on 15 November 1945…

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