Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought-provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Interview with Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff     jewishpress.com :: 2009-11-20
Nazi hunting. Sounds like a glamorous job, until you read "Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice" by Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff. In the book he recounts painstaking efforts in finding aging Nazis around the world and persuading reluctant local governments to act. (Q) Some of the war criminals are over 90 years old. Why track down people for crimes committed over 60 years ago? (A) The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the killers. We don't think people deserve a medal simply because they reach an old age. (Q) The least cooperative country? (A) Austria has not successfully prosecuted a Nazi war criminal in more than 30 years. [Buy from Amazon: US, UK, CA, DE, FR]     [Nazi hunters]

B-26 Marauder Historical Society preserves B-26 memorabilia     azstarnet.com :: 2009-11-20
Philip Henderson spent a lot of time behind the controls of a B-26 Marauder during World War II, facing Anti-aircraft flak and German Me 262 fighters. Today, he honors the memory of the plane he flew as a volunteer with the B-26 Marauder Historical Society, which has over 1,600 members worldwide. The Marauder had a reputation for crashing early on due to design flaws and accelerated training. Military personnel had several nicknames for the plane: "Widowmaker" and "B-Dash Crash". The group also funds an archive - at the Pima Air and Space Museum - which consists of photo, flight records, personnel files, leather flight jackets, military uniforms.     [Aircrafts of WWII]

Video clip: World War II tank blows up bungalow     bbc.co.uk :: 2009-11-19
A 1930s bungalow at the front of the Royal Armouries Museum at Fort Nelson has been blown up after being shot at by a Second World War Sexton self-propelled gun.    

WW2 vet who played bagpipes during D-Day landings to be immortalised in a life-sized statue     telegraph.co.uk :: 2009-11-19
D-Day piper Bill Millin raised the morale of incoming troops with his tunes, as shells exploded above and machinegun fire swept across Sword Beach. The picture of the 21-year-old commando became one of the enduring images of the D-Day landings. Now he is to be immortalised in a life-sized statue by the people of Colleville Montgomery, which he helped to liberate in 1944. Recently a group of French officials travelled to UK to show him a model of the statue. The military high command had ordered pipers not to play, but that decision was ignored by Lord Lovat, commander of he 1st Commando Brigade, who ordered Millin to lead his troops ashore to the sound of the pipes.     [D-Day, Normandy & Operation Overlord]

Documentary film "Nazi Mystery: Twins from Brazil" follows the trail of Joseph Mengele     monstersandcritics.com :: 2009-11-18
Almost 50 sets of blond hair and blue eyed twins live in a tiny town in the Brazilian outback. The rate of twins in the town is almost a 1000% above the global average. The theory that this phenomenon is the work of Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele - known as the Angel of Death - who took his dream of engineering an Aryan master race to South America. Now, the largest investigation to date seeks to solve the mystery: National Geographic Channel's Explorer: Nazi Mystery: Twins from Brazil unveils the truth behind the strange number of twins in the town of Cândido Godói, Brazil.     [Dr Josef Mengele - Nazi Doctor & Experiments]

Adolf Storms, a member of 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, charged over mass shooting of Jews     timesonline.co.uk :: 2009-11-18
Adolf Storms, a member of an elite Waffen SS unit, has been charged with killing 58 Hungarian Jews. His name was discovered in the records related to Hitler Youth detachment which dug the mass grave. Storms was a member of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking which fought on the Eastern Front, including the tank battles of Kharkov and Kursk. By the 1945 the unit was moving to Austria to surrender to the Americans rather than to the Red Army. But first the Waffen SS unit, led in the early days by General Felix Steiner, cleaned up the evidence against by killing the slave labourers who had dug its defensive lines. As yet no witness has been found to testify in the case.     [Waffen SS: Combat Divisions, German Soldiers]

Germany puts names of 700,000 captured Soviet POWs online     timeslive.co.za :: 2009-11-17
German authorities put online the names of 700,000 captured Soviet soldiers, most of whom perished in Nazi POW camps during the World War Two. The lists had previously been kept by German authorities who help people in former Soviet nations to discover how their ancestors died. "Now people will be able to do the research all by themselves," said Klaus-Dieter Mueller, of the State of Saxony Memorials Foundation in Dresden, which manages several state-run concentration-camp memorials that document Nazi crimes. The twin websites, dokst.de and dokst.ru, contain the alphabetical list of men in German and in Russian.     [World War II records and Nazi Archives]

Clara Petacci's diary reveals: Benito Mussolini thought Adolf Hitler was very nice, a big softy     msnbc.msn.com :: 2009-11-17
The dairies (1932-1938) kept by Benito Mussolini's mistress Claretta (Clara) Petacci are finally published in book Secret Mussolini. "I have been a racist since 1921. I don't know how they can think I'm imitating Hitler," Mussolini boasted in August 1938. "These disgusting Jews, I must destroy them all," he said in October 1938. Mussolini had kind words for Adolf Hitler, whom he said was "very nice" and had tears in his eyes when he met the Italian dictator in Munich. "Hitler is a big softy, deep down," Mussolini told Petacci on Oct. 1, 1938. Mussolini was explicit about his desire for his mistress and felt sorry for having affairs with several other women.     [Benito Mussolini]

Jack Sue was a member of the elite Z force in World War II     heraldsun.com.au :: 2009-11-17
Jack Sue was an RAAF officer who was transferred to Z Special Unit, an allied intelligence and commando unit which operated behind enemy lines in South-East Asia during World War II. The special forces reconnaissance unit was the forerunner of the current SAS (Special Air Service) Regiment, based in Perth's western suburbs, Australia. Sue spent months behind enemy lines in Borneo and claimed in his book that Z force commandos in that country killed 1700 Japanese, while training 6000 guerillas. After the war he went on to instruct SAS soldiers in jungle warfare and set up the Z Special Unit International Incorporated - a group for members of the unit.     [SAS in World War II]

P-47 remains, discovered by a fisherman, excite Italian aviation buffs     stripes.com :: 2009-11-16
It doesn't look like much: casual observers might be hard-pressed to figure out it used to be a plane. But on closer inspection, the wings and cockpit can be identified: P-47 Thunderbolt. Italian aviation enthusiasts hope to id the aircraft and the pilot - and restore the aircraft. At least three P-47s are known to have fallen into the northern Adriatic during the war. No human remains were found with the wreckage.     [World War 2 Plane Crashes]

Nuremberg trial Interrogator John Dolibois recalls talks with Hitler's Inner Circle     cincinnati.com :: 2009-11-16
During Nuremberg trial John Dolibois looked into the eyes of evil as a top interrogator of the captured Nazi leaders. His mind is a warehouse stocked with memories - and later generations of U.S government Nazi hunters still pick his brain for information and interrogation techniques. After the war Dolibois gained the trust of some members of Adolf Hitler's inner circle: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Karl Doenitz, Julius Streicher and Albert Speer. Goering had "a terrific sense of humor. He was full of jokes. He would tell jokes about himself and other Nazis. He was easy to interrogate. He did not deny anything. He said 'Yes, we did that.'"     [Nuremberg Trials: Nazi War Criminals]

WWII veterans attack Antony Beevor D-Day book, which brands 51st Highland Division as cowards     telegraph.co.uk :: 2009-11-16
In "D-Day - The Battle for Normandy" Antony Beevor quotes a Canadian major as saying the 51st Highland Division dropped their weapons and fled. He also quotes a memo from Field Marshal Montgomery: "Regret to report it is considered opinion Crocker, Dempsey, and myself that 51st Division is at present not - NOT - battleworthy." But surviving veterans said they were "disgusted" by the interpretation and accused Beevor of "lazy research" by relying on secondary sources. Tom Renouf, a Black Watch veteran who served in Normandy, is the secretary of the 51st Highland Division Veterans Association, which is calling for Antony Beevor make a formal apology.    

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2009. All rights reserved.