Free Republic

The Soviet armies advancing into East Prussia in January 1945, in huge, long columns, were an extraordinary mixture of modern and medieval: tank troops in padded black helmets, Cossack cavalrymen on shaggy mounts with loot strapped to the saddle, lend-lease Studebakers and Dodges towing light field guns, and then a second echelon in horse-drawn carts. The variety of character among the soldiers was almost as great as that of their military equipment. There were freebooters who drank and raped quite shamelessly, and there were idealistic, austere communists and members of the intelligentsia appalled by such behaviour. Beria and Stalin, back...

"Heroes are not to be criticized..." The official Soviet narrative of the Second World War used the concept of heroism to imbue war commemoration with an obligation towards the State. Such a concept was designed to make subsequent generations feel inferior to their predecessors and obliged to give of their best. Today, the victory serves as the strongest connection between Soviet and modern Russian patriotism. The paper argues that the memory of the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) as treated in museums in St Petersburg today is an appropriation by present-day Russian propaganda of the Soviet narrative. Soviet memorial sites are...

Germany's Constitutional Court has ruled that a 96-year-old German must go to jail over his role in mass murders committed at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during World War Two, refusing to overturn a lower court ruling. Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" for his job counting cash taken from the camp's victims, was sentenced to four years' jail in 2015, but wrangling over his health and age have delayed the start of his sentence. The Constitutional Court rejected the argument by Groening's lawyers that imprisonment at his advanced age would violate his right to life, adding...

A tent riddled with Nazi bullets, bikinis on parade and a spaniel in a life jacket: Colourized WW2 images reveal what life was like for troops when they weren't fighting on the front lineFascinating colourised photos have revealed what life was like for Second World War troops when they weren't fighting on the front line. Images, transformed from black and whites by a design expert, show troops taking a break in a hospital tent riddled with bullet holes from a long range Nazi gun in Sicily. They also show a serviceman standing to attention next to a line-up of bikini-clad...

The classic World War II film Casablanca premiered 75 years ago. It starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, and it told a story of romance, intrigue and sacrifice. It was also passionately anti-Nazi — but not for the Germans who first got to see it. Casablanca was released in the U.S. in 1942, in the middle of World War II, but it wasn't released in Germany until 1952, after the war was over. For that German version, Warner Bros. deleted all scenes with Nazis in them, and almost all mention of the war. It became a completely different story —...

Wrecks of Japanese and U.S. warships — including first American vessel to fire shot in WWII — found off PhilippinesThe sunken remains of five Japanese and two U.S. warships — including the vessel that fired the first American shot of World War II — have been found off the Philippines, a team of deep sea explorers funded by billionaire Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen have announced. Released earlier this week, ahead of the anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, underwater footage shows one of the ships is the USS Ward, the destroyer that fired...

Striking images of fighter planes and bombs used during the Second World War have been brought into the twenty-first century after being expertly colourised. The vivid colour images show crashed aircraft engulfed in flames, captured Nazi prototype planes, and military troops working to get jets and bombs into working condition.

The ghosts of thousands of long-forgotten villages haunt Britain, inhabitations suddenly deserted and left to ruin. As a new campaign begins to shed further light on these forgotten histories, the Magazine asks - what happened and why?Albert Nash, blacksmith for 44 years in the village of Imber, Wiltshire, was found by his wife Martha slumped over the anvil in his forge. He was, in her words, crying like a baby. It was the beginning of November 1943, a day or two after Mr Nash and the rest of the villagers had been told by the War Office they had 47...

Evan Sayet explains the return of nationalism in Europe and America (Brexit, Trump and more) and why it is essential to the survival of the West.

The remains of a World War II Marine who was killed in the South Pacific arrived at San Jose International Airport Friday to be returned to his family in Gilroy. The Masoni family has waited since 1943 for Frank Masoni to return home. Masoni was a Marine cook in the South Pacific but was sent into action and killed in the battle of Tarawa. His family thought his body was never recovered until the military conducted a DNA test matching it to an unknown Marine buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Turns out, it was...

November 15 is the anniversary of the birth of legendary German general Field Marshall Erwin (Johannes Eugen) Rommel (1891-1944), who became known as Der Wüstenfuchs ("the Desert Fox") as commander of the Afrika Korps in World War II. Born in Württemberg the son of a schoolmaster, Rommel joined the Imperial German Army in 1910 and served in France, Italy, and Romania during World War I, receiving the highest decorations for bravery. Between the wars, he rose steadily in the army hierarchy, becoming well known as a military educator and writer of textbooks during the early Nazi years. At the time...

Seventy-five years ago this month, the Soviet Red Army surrounded --and would soon destroy -- a huge invading German army at Stalingrad on the Volga River. Nearly 300,000 of Germany's best soldiers would never return home. The epic 1942-43 battle for the city saw the complete annihilation of the attacking German 6th Army. It marked the turning point of World War II. Before Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler regularly boasted on German radio as his victorious forces pressed their offensives worldwide. After Stalingrad, Hitler went quiet, brooding in his various bunkers for the rest of the war. During the horrific Battle of...

Arnie Pritchard of New Haven and his two brothers knew in a general way growing up that their mother, Marion Pritchard, had sheltered Jews in the Netherlands during the Holocaust. But it wasn’t until 1981 when they were well into adulthood that they learned the details and scope of her heroism when their mother received the Righteous Among the Nations award from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. It would turn out that while in her early 20s in Holland, Marion Pritchard risked her life many times over by assisting in saving some 150 Jews, mostly children, killing a man with...

A Navajo Code Talker has died in New Mexico. David Patterson Sr. served during World War Two and used the Navajo language as a communications code that was never broken. Patterson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. His service will be held in Shiprock, New Mexico on Thursday. Patterson was 94 years old.

His Only Fools and Horses character might have tried to avoid the war, but in real life actor Lennard Pearce once came face to face with Adolf Hitler, according to his co-star Nicholas Lyndhurst. Lyndhurst, who played dim Rodney in the classic BBC sitcom, has said that his on-screen grandad met the German dictator before the war, and later regretted not taking the opportunity to kill him. “He was a young actor touring Europe and they were playing some German city and the Nazis walked in," Lyndhurst said. "The top honchos of the Nazi party had seen the play and...

Poland's governing conservatives have set up a parliamentary committee tasked with looking into the extent of World War II reparations they claim is owed by Germany, the new body's head said Friday."We want to begin work in the Polish parliament that will result in an analysis of the estimated amount that Germany owes Poland," the committee's presiding lawmaker Arkadiusz Mularczyk told the Polish news agency PAP. The member of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party added that there is no set date for the committee to produce its results. The issue of war reparations -- for years considered as...

Adolf Hitler thought he was going to win. The Nazis didn’t just take battle plans and explosives into World War II; they had plans for a whole new world order. When the fighting and the bloodshed were done, they were going to build a new fascist empire over the ruins of Europe. The Nazis already had already written up the blueprints for their new order. If everything had gone according to Hitler’s plan, the world today would be a different place. And in many ways, the Nazi new world order wouldn’t have been what you’d expect.

A German Second World War pilot has made his maiden voyage in a Spitfire seven decades after he flew for the Luftwaffe. Hugo Broch, 95, who last flew in 1960, took to the skies above Kent on Tuesday as a passenger in a British TR9 MJ627 Spitfire. Born on January 6 1922, Broch is a former Messerschmitt 109 fighter pilot and Luftwaffe ace. During his career, Broch flew 324 combat missions and shot down 81 enemy aircraft on the Eastern Front, including 18 Soviet Sturmoviks. His score included twelve double victories and three triple victories.

It was on this date in 1945 that, for good or ill, the "nuclear age" began, with the explosion of the first experimental atomic bomb, code-named Trinity, in the western desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Trinity, with a yield equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT, was the first spherical implosion bomb, developed at Los Alamos under the auspices of the Manhattan Project during World War II. The weapon designers were so confident of the success of the simpler gun-barrel configuration that the device of that type dropped on Hiroshima only three weeks later had never been tested. The subsequent Nagasaki...

Swiss journalist Sacha Batthyany knew he belonged to an aristocratic family, centered around his respected aunt. He didn’t know about the murderous ball held in 1945, that led to a personal quest, threats from relatives and a book One morning in April 2007 journalist Sacha Batthyany was approached by an elderly colleague at the Swiss daily where they both worked at the time. The colleague waved a newspaper clipping in front of him. It was an investigative report entitled, “The Hostess from Hell,” published by a German daily. Glancing at the headline, Batthyany didn’t understand why he was being shown...