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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile.

The Germans first discuused counterfeiting currency as a method of economic warfare in Sept., 1939. The target was the British.

Desultory efforts led to the SS SD taking over the project [renamed Operation ‘Bernhard’, after the OIC]. Run out of, I believe, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the operation used a variety of skilled prisoners[ but no professional counterfeiters until late in the war], because Heydrich, as Chief of Interpol in 1939-1940 forbade it.

Operation Bernhard was very succesful. The Swiss eventually stopped accepting British 5 pound notes, and the German 10, 20 and 50s were very good as well. U.S currency was tackled until almost the end of the war.

Day 57 of the Winter War, January 25, 1940

The voluntary defence organization Maan Turva is collecting musical instruments, games and books to entertain the patients in the military hospitals.
Photo: SA-KUVA

British aid fund for Finland already over 100,000 pounds

Central Isthmus: an enemy detachment of company strength attempts another attack on the island of Suursaari in Lake Muolaanjärvi.
Ladoga Karelia: enemy pressure on the Finnish positions to the northeast of Lake Ladoga continues for the fifth day.
Eastern Isthmus: in the Taipale sector, Finnish troops repulse an attempted enemy assault in the early morning.
The Finnish 7th Division defending Taipale announces its overall losses since the beginning of the war: 37 officers and 779 men killed, and 40 officers and 1,980 men wounded.
Ladoga Karelia: the difficult situation causes the Commander-in-Chief to change Group Talvela's mission in the Tolvajärvi sector to allow it to adopt delaying tactics if necessary.
Enemy offensives on different fronts are successfully repulsed.
Elias Simojoki, a former Member of Parliament for the People's Patriotic Movement, is killed by an enemy bullet on the ice of Lake Ladoga as he is destroying an injured horse.
The voluntary defence organization Maan Turva is collecting musical instruments, games and books to entertain the patients in the military hospitals.
Abroad: the British aid fund for Finland has already collected over 100,000 pounds (about 25 million markkaa).
The Norwegian author Sigrid Undset is donating her 1928 Nobel Medal to Finland.
The French Academy expresses its warm sympathy for the Finnish people.