Did You Know 4.
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Did You Know 4
Heinrich Himmler an average man and chicken farmer becomes a serial murder
Himmler was born in Munich, the son of a Roman Catholic teacher. He was old enough to serve in the German Army in 1918 and saw out the last days of World War I. After the war, he became a salesman for a fertiliser company. He joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and quickly developed a reputation for thoroughness and efficiency. He was a standard bearer at the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and marched at the side of Ernst Röhm before the march was broken up. 
From 1925 to 1930, he was propaganda leader for the Nazis in Bavaria, Swabia and the Palatinate. Himmler still needed an income as the Nazis were far from a wealthy party during the “Golden Era” of Weimar. Between 1925 and 1929, he was an unsuccessful chicken farmer.
Himmler who made sure that the ‘cattle’ trains ran on time and that each camp was run on business lines so that they paid for themselves and made profits where possible. Ironically, for a man associated with the spilling of so much blood, Himmler himself would nearly faint at the sight of blood.
Himmler committed suicide in British captivity with a cyanide capsule, age 44 on 23-05-1945.
* Jesse Owens and Adolf Hitler, Olympia 1936.
Hitler shook hands with only the German victors and then left the stadium. Olympic committee officials insisted Hitler greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations
Hitler did’t shake hands with Jesse Owens but Owens said at the time:
Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave. It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters. But before he left I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the ‘man of the hour’ in another country.
* Hitler suffered seriously of chronic flatulence and took 28 different drugs to fight it. I guess he gassed a lot of people.
* Hitler viewed the Jewish race as a menial race of people that where below the pure bread German Aryan, this hatred eventually caused Hitler to try to exterminate the Jewish Race in what became known as the Holocaust. The word Holocaust is from the Greek words “”holos” (whole) and “kaustos” (burned)”
* 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, Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on business for his employer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries when the city was bombed at 8:15 am, on August 6, 1945. He returned to Nagasaki the following day, and despite his wounds, he returned to work on August 9, the day of the second atomic bombing. In 1957, he was recognized as a hibakusha (explosion-affected person) of the Nagasaki bombing, but it was not until March 24, 2009, that the government of Japan officially recognized his presence in Hiroshima three days earlier.*
* During the course of April 29, 1945, Hitler learned of the death of his ally Benito Mussolini, 
who had been executed by Italian partisans. This, along with the fact the Soviet Army was closing in on his location, led Hitler to strengthen his resolve not to allow himself or his wife to be captured. That afternoon, Hitler expressed doubts about the cyanide capsules he had received through Heinrich Himmler’s SS. To verify the capsules’ potency, Hitler ordered Dr. Werner Haase 
to test them on his dog Blondi, and the dog died as a result. Hitler became completely inconsolable. Haase die in the Russian prison camp Butyrka in Moscow, age 50 on 30-11-1950..
According to a report commissioned by Joseph Stalin and based on eye-witness accounts, Hitler’s dog-handler, Feldwebel Fritz Tornow
took Blondi’s pups and shot them in the garden of the bunker complex on April 30, after Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide. He also killed Eva Braun’s two dogs, Frau Gerd Christian’s dogs and his own dachshund.
* Code talkers are people in the 20th century who used obscure languages as a means of secret communication during wartime. The term is now usually associated with the United States soldiers during the world wars who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In particular, there were approximately 400–500 Native Americans in the United States Marine whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted these messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formal or informally developed codes built upon their native Languages. Their service improved the speed of encryption of communications at both ends in front line operations during World War II.
The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theatre. Code talking, however, was pioneered by Cherokee and Choctaw Indians during World War I.
Other Native American code talkers were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Lakota, Meskwaki, and Comanche soldiers. Soldiers of Basque ancestry were also used for code talking by the U.S. Marines during World War II in areas where other Basque speakers were not expected to be operating.
* Like eleven other Virginia communities, Bedford provided a company of soldiers (Company A) to the 29th Infantry Division, nickname “Blue and Gray” 
when the National Guard’s 116th Infantry Regiment, nickname “Stonewall Brigade” 
was activated on 03-02-1941. Some thirty Bedford soldiers were still in that company on D-Day; several more from Bedford were in other D-Day companies, including one who, two years earlier, had been reassigned from the 116th Infantry, under then colonel, later General, Charles Draper William Canham, to the First Infantry Division, under General Clarence Ralph Huebner. Thus he had already landed in both Northern Africa and Sicily before coming ashore on D-Day at Omaha Beach with the Big Red One. Company A of the 116th Infantry assaulted Omaha Beach as part of the First Division’s Task Force O.
By day’s end, nineteen of the company’s Bedford soldiers were dead. Two more Bedford soldiers died later in the Normandy campaign, as did yet another two assigned to other 116th Infantry companies.
* Adolf Hitler was obsessed with America’s Old West and red all the books of Karl May (a German writer).
*France had more tanks, guns and men than Germany in 1940.
It is always assumed that during the Second World War the Germans bludgeoned their way to victory with a highly modern and mechanised army and Air Force that was superior to anything the Allies could muster in May 1940. The reality was very different.
On 10 May 1940, when the Germans attacked, only 16 of their 135 divisions were mechanised – that is, equipped with motorised transport. The rest depended on horses and cart or feet. France alone had 117 divisions. 
France also had more guns: Germany had 7,378 artillery pieces and France 10,700. It didn’t stop there: the Germans could muster 2,439 tanks while the French had 3,254, most of which were bigger, better armed and armoured than the German panzer.
* The first German serviceman killed in the war was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937)
* In the 1928 elections, less than 3% of Germans voted for the Nazi party. In 1938, Hitler was Time magazine’s man of the year.
* The first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940).
* 80% of Soviet males born in 1923 didn’t survive World War II.
* Germany had total military casualties of 4,429,875 men during WW2. Nearly 80% of these casualties were lost to Russia.
* The highest ranking American, before wounded several times, killed was Lieutenant General Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps in France.
* Between 1939 and 1945 the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs, An average of about 27,700 tons of bombs each month.
* Stalin killed more people than Hitler during purges of undesirables. Stalin killed a estimated total of 25 million people versus Hitlers 12 million during ww2 (6 Million of which were Jews, during the Holocaust).
*On July 14, 1941, the Soviets introduced a new weapon, the Katyusha, which could fire 320 rockets in 25 seconds.
* 12,000 heavy bombers were shot down in World War II.
* Hitler designed the Nazi flag. Red stood for the social idea of Nazism, white for nationalism, and the black swastika for the struggle of the Aryan man.
* 2/3 of Allied bomber crews were lost for each plane destroyed.
* From 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945 in Europe the Allies had 200,000 dead and 550,000 wounded.
*
The hamburger was renamed “liberty steak” during WWII in order to sound less German.
* 3 or 4 ground men were wounded for each killed.
* 6 bomber crewmen were killed for each one wounded.
* More V2 rockets fell on Belgium than did the United Kingdom.
* 
* Hamburgers
During WWII, hamburgers in the U.S. were dubbed “Liberty Steaks” to avoid the German-sounding name.
* When the D-Day forces landed, Hitler was asleep. None of his generals dared send re-enforcements without his permission, and no-one dared wake him.
* Over 100,000 Allied bomber crewmen were killed over Europe.
* There were 433 Medals of Honor awarded during World War II, 219 of them were given after the receipiant’s death.
* From 6 June 1944 to 8 May 1945 in Europe the Allies had 200,000 dead and 550,000 wounded.
* The invasion of Okinawa was larger than that of D-Day.
* The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham,
USN. He was wounded in combat and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress).
* At the time of Pearl Harbor, the top US Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced “sink us”), the shoulder patch of the US Army’s 45th Infantry Division was the swastika 
later nicknamed “Thunderbird” 
, The division suffered 3,650 killed in action, 13,729 wounded in action, 3,615 missing in action, 266 captured, and 41,647 non-battle casualties for a total of 62,907 casualties during the war. Hitler’s private train was named “Amerika”. 
All three were soon changed for PR purposes.
* Germany lost 110 Division Commanders in combat. One was the Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin, shot and scaled at the beginning of Operation Market Garden near Arnhem, Holland.
* 40,000 men served on U-Boats during World War II; 30,000 never returned.
* More US servicemen died in the Air Corps that the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions, your chance of being killed was 71%. Not that bombers were helpless. A B-17 carried 4 tons of bombs and 1.5 tons of machine gun ammo. The US 8th Air Force 
shot down 6,098 fighter planes, 1 for every 12,700 shots fired.
* Germany’s power grid was much more vulnerable than realized. One estimate is that if just 1% of the bombs dropped on German industry had instead been dropped on power plants, German industry would have collapsed.
* Generally speaking, there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance, Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane. 
Nishizawa, who had believed that he could never be shot down in aerial combat, died 25-10-1944, age 24, a helpless passenger–probably the victim of Lt. j.g. Harold P. Newell, who was credited with a “Helen” (Allied code name for the Nakajima Ki.49 Donryu army bomber) northeast of Mindoro that morning.
* It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th found with a tracer round to aid in aiming. That was a mistake. The tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target, 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet, the tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. That was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.
* When allied armies reached the Rhine, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and General George Smith. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act).
* German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn’t worth the effort.
* A number of air crewmen died of farts. (ascending to 20,000 ft. in an un-pressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%!
* Germany lost 40-45% of their aircraft during World War II to accidents.
* The Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by ramming them in midair (they also sometimes cleared minefields by marching over them). “It takes a brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army”. – Joseph Stalin.
* The US Army had more ships that the US Navy.
* The German Air Force had 22 infantry divisions, 2 armor divisions, and 11 paratroop divisions. None of them were capable of airborne operations. The German Army had paratroops who WERE capable of airborne operations.
* When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment brought ashore were 3 complete Coca Cola bottling plants.
* 84 German Generals were executed by Hitler.
* Among the first “Germans” captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were capture by the US Army.
* The Graf Spee never sank, The scuttling attempt failed and the ship was bought by the British. On board was Germany’s newest radar system.
* One of Japan’s methods of destroying tanks was to bury a very large artillery shell with on ly the nose exposed. When a tank came near the enough a soldier would whack the shell with a hammer. “Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat.” – 
Lieutenant General Renya Mataguchi. 
* Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska. 21 troops were killed in the fire-fight. It would have been worse if there had been Japanese on the island.
* The MISS ME was an unarmed Piper Cub. While spotting for US artillery her pilot saw a similar German plane doing the same thing. He dove on the German plane and he and his co-pilot fired their pistols damaging the German plane enough that it had to make a forced landing. Whereupon they landed and took the Germans prisoner. It is unknown where they put them since the MISS ME only had two seats.
* Most members of the Waffen SS were not German. 
* Air attacks caused 1/3 of German Generals’ deaths.
* By D-Day, the Germans had 1.5 million railway workers operating 988,000 freight cars and used 29,000 per day.
* The only nation that Germany declared war on was the USA.
* During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong, British officers objected to Canadian infantrymen taking up positions in the officer’s mess. No enlisted men allowed!
* By D-Day, 35% of all German soldiers had been wounded at least once, 11% twice, 6% three times, 2% four times and 2% more than 4 times.
* Nuclear physicist Niels Bohr 
was rescued in the nick of time from German occupied Denmark. While Danish resistance fighters provided covering fire he ran out the back door of his home stopping momentarily to grab a beer bottle full of precious “heavy water”. He finally reached England still clutching the bottle, which contained beer. Perhaps some German drank the heavy water…
* Germany lost 136 Generals, which averages out to be 1 dead General every 2 weeks. The first at the beginning of Operation Market Garden in Holland was Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin.
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* In World War II, British soldiers got a ration of three sheets of toilet paper a day. Americans got 22.
* The first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
* A World War II draftee, Eddie Slovik was sent to France to serve with the 28th Infantry in Aug 1944. As combat replacements, Slovik and a companion become lost while trying to join the unit at the front lines and they ended up joining a Canadian unit that took them in.Slovik stayed on with the Canadians until October 5, when they turned him and his buddy over to the American military police, who reunited them with the 28th Division, now in Elsenborn, Belgium. No charges were brought; replacements getting lost early on in their tours of duty were not unusual. But exactly one day after Slovik returned to his unit, he claimed he was “too scared and too nervous” to be a rifleman and threatened to run away if forced into combat. His admission was ignored-and Slovik took off. One day after that he returned, and Slovik signed a confession of desertion, claiming he would run away again if forced to fight, and submitted it to an officer of the 28th. The officer advised Slovik to take the confession back, as the consequences would be serious. Slovik refused, and he was confined to the stockade. 
Slovik admitted in his confession that he was so scared at times that he “couldn’t move.” He wrote: “I said that if I had to go out their again I’d run away. He said their was nothing he could do for me so I ran away again AND ILL RUN AWAY AGAIN IF I HAVE TO GO OUT THEIR [sic].”
His trial lasted less than two hours, and he was sentenced to death by firing squad. His sentence was carried out on Jan. 31, 1945, Business Insider reported.
Before he was killed, Slovik said : “They’re not shooting me for deserting; thousands of guys have done that. They just need to make an example out of somebody and I’m it … I used to steal things when I was a kid, and that’s what they’re shooting me for. They’re shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old.”
When Allied troops invading Germany in 1945 reached the Rhine, they urinated in it.
A new weapon first used by the Soviets on July 14, 1941, the Katyusha, 
could fire 320 rockets within 25 seconds.
For each soldier killed in the war, three or four were wounded.
Allied bomber crews lost 100,000 men in Europe.
The US Medal of Honor 
was awarded to 464 persons. Of these, 266 had died in service.
Margraten American cemetery in 1945
In the long campaign to free Western Europe, (June 6, 1944, to May 8, 1945) Britain, the USA and their allies lost 200,000 dead and 550,000 wounded.
Only 15% of Germans survived Russian Prisoner of War camps.
Hitler lost 136 of his Generals during the war, averaging 1 every 2 weeks.
110 German Division Commanders perished.
More Chinese were killed by the Japanese during World War II than Jews in the Holocaust.
