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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. Also visit our general discussion thread.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Papua, New Guinea, 1942
Allied Advance Across Owen Stanley Mountains, 26 Sept.-15 Nov. 1942
Allied Reinforcement by Air and Advance to Buna, 14 Oct.-15 Nov. 1942
The Solomons: Guadalcanal and Florida, 1942
Southwest Russia, 1942: German Advance to Stalingrad, Operations, 24 July-18 November 1942
North Africa, 1941: Pursuit to Tunisia, November 1942-February 1943
Algeria-Tunisia, 1942: Race for Tunis, 11-17 November 1942
Special Guest Map-November Race for Tunis (from Ike: An American Hero, by Michael Korda)
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941: Status of Forces and Allied Theater Boundaries, 2 July 1942
India-Burma, 1942: Allied Lines of Communication, 1942-1943

November 15, 1942:

"The Soviet-based Jewish Antifascist Committee releases a report, 'The Liquidation of the Jews in Warsaw.'
"In an action led by Mayer List, two Jewish women partisans in Paris place two time bombs at a Nazi barracks window, which will kill several soldiers.
Mid-November 1942: "Official sources in Great Britain, the United States, and neutral nations confirm the validity of the Gerhart Riegner cable regarding the 'Final Solution'; See August 28, 1942; November 24, 1942. "

"With the onset of World War II, the Nazi regime unleashed a barrage of propaganda that blamed the Jews for inciting world opinion against Germany.
Traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes claiming that Jews controlled the media were exploited by the Nazis to demonstrate that the war was a product of international Jewry.
Top-secret Gestapo reports suggest, however, that many Germans recognized the biases portrayed in governmental propaganda."

"The German government developed extensive plans for the 'Aryan' resettlement of Eastern Europe.
On November 12, 1942, the Generalgouvernement proclaimed the Zamosc region the 'First Resettlement Area' in Poland.
As a result, about 110,000 Poles were forcibly removed from approximately 300 villages in the area.
In the process, more than 30,000 Polish children, among them the one pictured here, were taken from their parents.
While some of these children died in concentration camps, those deemed to have 'Aryan' characteristics were given to German families to raise."

Otto Thierack

"First as president theVolksgerichtshof (People's Court) and later as minister of justice, Otto Thierack used the law to subvert justice.

"Thierack joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and became president of the People's Court of Berlin in 1936.
As the nation's most feared judge, he handed down sentences with no appeal to those the Nazis declared enemies of the state.
His slavish service to Nazi ideology earned him the post of minister of justice in 1942.
That year, Thierack enacted Joseph Goebbels's proposal that various foreigners, especially Russians and Ukrainians, along with Jews and Gypsies, should be transferred to concentration camps and 'exterminated through labor.'

"A Brigadeführer in the SS, Thierack permitted Heinrich Himmler to remove Jews and other 'asocials' from the jurisdiction of the courts and turn them over to the SS. Captured in 1945, Thierack hanged himself before his trial."

In a nighttime engagement, the battleships South Dakota and Washington engaged Admiral Kondo's battleship Kirishima and four cruisers. The South Dakota suffered a power failure that rendered it unable to fire and essentially became a target ship for the Kirishima. It survived 42 large caliber hits. The Washington had established a radar lock on the Japanese battleship and nailed her with nine 16 inch and forty 5 inch rounds in seven minutes. The Kirishima was left sinking. The Americans had lost three destroyers in the engagement, but the South Dakota was able to return to port for repairs.