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My greatest contact with these men started about age nine when my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had kind of a weird back swing, because he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. I often ended up as a dishwasher at Michelbook Country Club. I noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the...

Sunday night, Les Schrenk will watch a war story on TV -- about himself. The documentary "Mortal Enemies" will tell the tale of the act of mercy that haunted him for 68 years. Schrenk, 91, is alive today because a German pilot mysteriously spared his life during World War II. And he is at peace today because he finally found out why -- after an odyssey spanning seven decades of dogged research. Schrenk said that when he finally met the pilot, he called it a "reunion," as if they were long-lost friends. The meeting would be full of answers for...

A specially painted Eurofighter Typhoon commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain has been unveiled. The jet has been painted in the colours used at the time of the battle, which ran from July to September 1940. It also bears a red devil emblem in honour of the only RAF Fighter Command pilot awarded a Victoria Cross in the conflict. It was revealed during a ceremony at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire. The Battle of Britain was the German air force's attempt to gain air superiority over the RAF. Their ultimate failure was one of the turning points of the...

Goebbels was a frustrated intellectual and brittle womanizer: “I need women . . . like a balm on a wound.”In the autumn of 1923, a melancholy young man in the German Rhineland began keeping a diary. A frustrated writer and occasional journalist, he had a Ph.D. in literature and a moody disposition. He had been given the diary by a girlfriend as a way of assuaging the crisis into which he believed his life had spiraled. He recorded his gratitude on the opening page: “My dear, kind love!” he wrote in the first entry. “You raise me up and g

Jewish groups expressed “shock” on Friday over news that the unveiling of a Holocaust monument in Kavala, Greece was delayed because locals reportedly sought the removal of a Jewish star. -snip- The monument in question memorializes the 1,484 Jews of Kavala who were exterminated during the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II. The monument was set to be unveiled when, just two days before, the mayor and a majority at the city council insisted on the removal of the image of a Star of David from the memorial. Meanwhile, Greek Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture, Education,...

Another of the remaining survivors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis has died...

May 8 marked the end of World War II in Europe 70 years ago -- a horrific conflict that is still fought over by historians. More than 60 million people perished -- some 50 million of them in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China. The prewar Soviet state in the 1920s and 1930s had killed perhaps 20 million of its own citizens in purges, exiles, collectivizations, forced famines and show trials. Then it lost an estimated 25 million soldiers and civilians to the German army on the Eastern Front. Hitler's Germany by late 1942 had occupied almost 1...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Wednesday that Israel would defend itself against Iran, calling an emerging nuclear pact “a mistake that will cost dearly.” Speaking at the Knesset during a discussion devoted to the victory of the Allied forces in World War II 70 years ago, Netanyahu said world powers should learn a lesson from the rise of Nazi Germany and not go ahead with an agreement that would allow Tehran to continue enriching uranium and lift sanctions. “The lesson of history is never to make concessions to a radical regime which waves the banner of genocide and expansionism,” he...

Days after Hitler’s suicide a group of American soldiers, French prisoners, and, yes, German soldiers defended an Austrian castle against an SS division—the only time Germans and Allies fought together in World War II. Andrew Roberts on a story so wild that it has to be made into a movie. The most extraordinary things about Stephen Harding’s The Last Battle, a truly incredible tale of World War II, are that it hasn’t been told before in English, and that it hasn’t already been made into a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after...

Events are being held in many countries to mark 70 years since the end of World War II in Europe on May 8, 1945, but in fact the last large-scale engagement of the conflict began three days after the Nazi capitulation. More than a thousand people, mostly German soldiers, were killed in a largely forgotten battle against U.S. and Soviet troops plus Czech irregulars on May 11-12, 1945. (RFE/RL)

The most extraordinary things about this truly incredible tale of World War II are that it hasn’t been told before in English, and that it hasn’t already been made into a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after Hitler’s suicide—three Sherman tanks from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division under the command of Capt. John C. ‘Jack’ Lee Jr., liberated an Austrian castle called Schloss Itter in the Tyrol, a special prison that housed various French VIPs, including the ex-prime ministers Paul Reynaud and Eduard Daladier and former commanders-in-chief...

The most extraordinary things about Stephen Harding's The Last Battle, a truly incredible tale of World War II, are that it hasn’t been told before in English, and that it hasn’t already been made into a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after Hitler’s suicide—three Sherman tanks from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division under the command of Capt. John C. ‘Jack’ Lee Jr., liberated an Austrian castle called Schloss Itter in the Tyrol, a special prison that housed various French VIPs, including the ex-prime ministers Paul Reynaud and...

Dignitaries and veterans commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe at a ceremony at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Speakers included White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice and author and World War II historian Alex Kershaw. The ceremony was followed by a flyover by dozens of World War II aircraft. May 8, 1945, marked the formal acceptance by the Allied forces of Germany’s unconditional surrender.

A series of incredible photographs showing more than 150 lost World War Two aircraft 130-feet under the Pacific Ocean has been released. The stunning images show the planes surrounded by coral and fish as they lie - sometimes vertically - on the seabed more than seven decades after they were dumped there. The find includes historic American aircraft including Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, F4U Corsair and TBF/TBM Avengers.Amazingly, many of the planes have remained intact, with only a few broken tails and wings littering the floor. Brandi Mueller, from Cameron, Wisconsin, discovered the planes while scuba diving around five...

When the guns finally fell silent in Europe 70 years ago today, St. Paul prayed and drank. It was called V-E Day -- Victory in Europe -- when Nazi leaders still alive in Germany agreed to unconditional surrender ending World War II on the European continent. In St. Paul, it was celebrated with a prayer service at the Municipal Auditorium attended by 6,000 people. "The audience ranged from fur-draped women to women in defense plant coveralls and bandannas, and from white-collared business executives to work-stained garage mechanics," according to the St. Paul Dispatch. The city's churches also were packed, as...

The last known surviving member of the German engineering team that designed the rocket that took US astronauts to the Moon has died in Alabama. Oscar Holderer, who was 95, suffered a stroke last week and did not recover, his son Michael said. Mr Holderer was one of about 120 engineers who moved to the US after World War Two, bringing technology used in the German V2 rocket. They played a key role in the Saturn V rocket used in the 1969 Moon landing. The team, led by Wernher von Braun, was part of a project called Operation Paperclip that...

ABC 7:30 Report on USA Mutiny on Australian soil. [Video]

..liberating US troops took revenge by executing dozens of German guards American soldiers executed dozens of German guards at the Dachau WWII concentration camp after screaming: 'Let's get those Nazi dogs!' The US troops opened fire on 50 members of the SS and the Wehrmacht with a machine gun after lining them up and saying: 'Take no prisoners!' One commander shot dead four other Germans and became so hysterical that his own colonel had to hit him with the butt of his gun to stop him battering a fifth. According to a new book, the Americans took revenge because they...

Adolf Hitler’s Suicide and Nazism’s Irrational RationalityPosted By Vladimir Tismaneanu and Marius Stan On May 4, 2015 @ 12:25 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments [1]Seven decades ago, on April 30, 1945, amid the irresistible offensive of the Red Army, the man who had imagined himself anointed by History to retrace the steps of such historical figures as Friedrich the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte committed suicide in Berlin together with his partner—who on the eve of their departure from this world became his wife—, Eva Braun. An age of apocalyptic delirium and ideological trance—whose effect was a universal carnage...

Reports claimed the government was prepared to reduce at least three different VAT rates to one, and limit exemptions. Prime minister Alexis Tsipras had opposed the move, claiming that the change would hit poorer people. The country will also press-on with privatisations it had also previously vowed to block, according to reports. However, Syriza has said that demands by creditors to reverse an increase in the minimum wage and cut pensions remain "red lines" that the leftist leadership is unwilling to cross... Mr Sakellaridis said that failure to reach an "honest compromise" with creditors would most likely lead to a...