Politics
-
A while ago, I discovered a Jewish Cemetery in Limerick. It was across from a landmark pub in the city called the The Hurlers Pub. There was a small laneway across from Hurlers leading to the small cemetery. One of the graves was of Simon Gewurz. He was originally from Bratislava in Slovakia and moved…
-
On April 1, 1933, Nazi Germany carried out a nationwide economic boycott targeting Jewish businesses, professionals, and institutions. This event was one of the first major public steps in Adolf Hitler’s campaign of anti-Semitic persecution and laid the groundwork for subsequent discriminatory legislation and, ultimately, the Holocaust. The boycott emerged in the immediate aftermath of…
-
While the Nazis are rightly remembered for the horrific crimes they committed before and during World War II, the Soviet Union also carried out its own brutal acts. From 23 August 1939 to 22 June 1941, the two regimes were bound by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, effectively making them partners. After signing the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in…
-
The connection between Adolf Hitler and Karl May is an unusual but revealing example of how literature can shape ideology, identity, and even political imagination. Although the two men never met—May died in 1912, years before Hitler rose to prominence—May’s adventure novels played a significant role in influencing Hitler’s worldview, particularly in his youth and…
-
The Arbeidsinzet (labor deployment) is the term for the forced employment of the Netherlands. It is estimated that over half a million Dutch people worked in Germany (and German-occupied territories) during the war. Some went voluntarily, but most were forced against their will. The forced labor deployment of Dutch people in Germany happened in different…
-
Just to make it clear this post is not meant as an accusation or finger-pointing. I am forever grateful for what the US, and especially the US Army, did for my country. The outcome of World War II would have been more than likely—completely different—without the intervention of the US. However, this doesn’t mean I…
-
One thing about World War II I often wondered about was the transporting of injured troops back to the United States. The photo above shows the first American casualties from the Battle of Normandy arriving in the Eastern U.S. on 29 June 1944, after a 19-hour plane trip from the British Isles. The wounded—a U.S.…
-
I was going to give this piece the title Confessions of a Young Fan of Hitler, but I decided to stick with the one I am using. Hitler thought that he who had the youth, had the future. Alfons Heck (3 November 1928 – 11 April 2005) was a Hitler Youth member who eventually became a Hitler…
-
The slogan America First was not first used by Donald J Trump but by President Woodrow Wilson, and also by Warren G. Harding during the 1920 US Presidential elections. On September 4th 1940 R. Douglas Stuart Jr., who was a student at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, founded the America First Committee. It would become…
