Elisabeth Becker was born 20 July 1923 in Neuteich, Danzig to a German family.  In 1936, aged 13, she joined the Leaque of German Girls . In 1938 she became a cook in Danzig. In 1939 the Germans arrived in the city, and Becker reportedly adapted successfully. In 1940 she began working for the firm Dokendorf… Read more »

On 23-05-1945, Heinrich Himmler,  chief of the SS, assistant chief of the Gestapo, and architect of Hitler’s program to exterminate European Jews, commits suicide one day after being arrested by the British. As head of the Waffen-Schutzstaffel (“Armed Black Shirts”), the military arm of the Nazi Party, and assistant chief of the Gestapo, the secret… Read more »

Operation Market Garden from 17–25 September 1944, was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the World War II. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time. Delivering over 34.600 men of the 101st  under General Maxwell Davenport Taylor,  82nd under General James “Slim Jim” Gavin  and 1st Airborne Division  Major-General Roy Urqhart  who died on 13 December… Read more »

There are few German formations surrounded by as much legend and notoriety as the Hitler Youth Division. There is very good reason for that. The 12th SS Panzer Division “Hitlerjugend” was one of the premier formations of the entire Nazi military apparatus despite being composed largely of boys below the age of 18. Let’s take… Read more »

Luftwaffe pilots blitzed on crystal meth, Goering injecting morphine with a gold syringe and the Fuhrer with the arms of a junkie. How drugs fueled the Nazis: High Hitler. On the surface, this all sounds like a modern scene, a snapshot from a 21st-century rave party or rock concert, where youngsters blow their minds on… Read more »

Captain Werner G. Goering,   was the nephew of Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, and an American citizen, flew bombing missions over Germany as a command pilot for the 303rd Bomb Group. He was accompanied by his co-pilot, Jack Rencher   a sharpshooting, straight-talking Arizonan with a top-secret mission. Werner a son of Goering brother Karl Ernst, who immigrated to… Read more »

The purpose of the SS tattoo was to identify a soldier’s blood type in case a blood transfusion was needed while unconscious, or his Erkennungsmarke (dog tag) or Soldbuch (pay book) were missing. The tattoo was generally applied by the unit’s Sanitäter (medic) in basic training, but could have been applied by anyone assigned to… Read more »

Josef “Sepp” Allerberger, was an Austrian sniper assigned to the II Battalion 144 Regiment of the 3rd Gebirgsjäger Mountain Division under command of General der Gebirgstruppe Julius Ringel  unit operated on the Eastern Front. Allerberger was credited with 257 deaths in his military career. Julius Ringel died 11 February 1967, age 77. Born in the vicinity of… Read more »

Tsutomu Yamaguchi (March 16, 1916 – January 4, 2010) was a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb during World War II. Although at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.   A resident of Nagasaki,… Read more »

Herta Bothe was born in Teterow, Mecklenburg-Scwerin on 08-01-1921. In 1938, at age seventeen, Bothe  helped her father in his small Teterow wood shop, then worked temporarily in a factory, then as a hospital nurse. In 1939, Bothe was a member of the Leaque of German Girls . In September 1942, Bothe became the  SS… Read more »