World War 2

  • On this day 75 years ago the  first V-2 missile was fired successfully from Peenemunde, heralding the start of space travel. German scientists, led by von Braun, had been working on the development of these long-range missiles since the 1930s. Three trial launches had already failed; the fourth in the series, known as A-4, finally…

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  • I know what you are thinking “We are still several months away from Halloween and he is already starting telling ghost stories” Well yes and no, you see the Ghost Army wasn’t an army of real ghosts however it did scare many German units, without firing one shot. During World War II, Americans of many…

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  • Before the Nazis retreated from Kiev, they attempted to conceal the many atrocities they had committed at Babi Yar. Paul Blobel, who was in control of the mass murders in Babi Yar two years earlier, supervised the Sonderaktion 1005 in eliminating its traces. For six weeks from August to September 1943, more than 300 chained prisoners were…

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  • The first of the Babi Yar massacres was particularly sickening because the victims were given some hope before they were butchered.I decided not to put any pictures that are too disturbing in this blog. The story is disturbing enough Axis forces, mainly German, occupied Kiev on 19 September 1941. Between 20 and 28 September, explosives…

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  • Operation Petticoat is a 1959 American World War II submarine comedy film in Eastmancolor from Universal-International, produced by Robert Arthur, directed by Blake Edwards, that stars Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. The film tells in flashback the misadventures of the fictional U. S. Navy submarine, USS Sea Tiger, during the opening days of the United States involvement in World War II. Some elements of the screenplay were taken from actual incidents that…

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  • The world’s leading transport and logistics company Kühne + Nagel is portrayed in a new study as the removal firm of choice for the Nazis during the Holocaust. Under the code name “Furniture Action” or also “M-Action” (abbreviation for “Möbel-Aktion”), the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg” looted approximately 70,000 homes since early 1942 of French, Belgian, and…

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  • ++++++Text is in Dutch++++++++++ ‘Westerbork-Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Westerbork’ staat op dit metalen treinbord. De terugreis die wordt vermeld wordt door niemand gemaakt. Op 15 en 16 juli 1942 vertrekken de eerste twee treinen met ruim 2000 joden van doorgangskamp Westerbork naar het vernietigingskamp Auschwitz in Polen. De geschiedenis van kamp Westerbork is onlosmakelijk verbonden met het lot…

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  • This is a blog with some rare WWII images. It is said a picture paints a thousand words.The above picture is of German prisoners of war marching east under the supervision of Soviet soldiers, 1944. Take note of the Soviet woman showing a ‘dulya'(a mildly obscene gesture that uses two fingers and a thumb)  to the Germans as…

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  • On September 23, 1944, Roosevelt opened the 1944 presidential campaign in Washington, D.C., speaking at a dinner with the International Teamsters Union. The half-hour speech was also broadcast on all U.S. radio networks.In the speech, Roosevelt attacked Republican opponents in Congress and detailed their attacks on him. Late in the speech, Roosevelt addressed Republican charges that he had accidentally left Fala behind on…

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  • The persecution of the Jews began systematically almost as soon as Hitler came to power. The Nazis established many new anti-Jewish laws. These were introduced slowly at first, so that the civilian population would not realise the extent of the Nazi party’s anti-Semitism. Below is a chart showing a small selection of the 2,000 Nazi anti-Jewish…

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