World War II

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Dead Hitler, Eva Slumped on Sofa: Recording

SS officer, valet describe finding Nazi leader's corpse

(Newser) - German researchers have unearthed recorded testimony from the first people to find Adolf Hitler's body after he committed suicide. "When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa," said valet Heinz Linge. "Hitler had his head bent forward somewhat and I could see a...

Last of Anne Frank's Guardians Dead at 100

Miep Gies kept girl's papers, helped father assemble diary

(Newser) - The last surviving member of the Dutch group that protected famed diarist Anne Frank and her family in Amsterdam during World War II died today at 100. Miep Gies assembled Anne’s papers after she and her family were discovered by the Nazis in 1944 and, because they were Jewish,...

WWII Internees Finally Get Degrees

Ceremony honors Japanese-American students forced into camps

(Newser) - UC Berkeley righted a wrong yesterday, issuing honorary degrees to Japanese-American students whose studies were cut short by confinement in World War II internment camps. Surviving students, now in their 80s or older, opted for celebration over recrimination. “There is a Japanese saying, 'shikata ga nai,' which means,...

Obama, Beware: Afghanistan Is 'Another Vietnam'
Obama, Beware: Afghanistan Is 'Another Vietnam'
george mcgovern
Dec 13, 2009 12:10 PM CST

Obama, Beware: Afghanistan Is 'Another Vietnam'

Domestic issues must trump unwinnable war: Dem elder statesman

(Newser) - When George McGovern hears about President Obama's plans for Afghanistan, he reluctantly reaches an unavoidable conclusion. "I can only think: another Vietnam," the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee writes in the Washington Post . "I hope I am incorrect, but history tells me otherwise." After 9 years at...

Americans Staying Put Amid Recession

Number of people moving at lowest since WWII

(Newser) - The recession, with its attendant falloff in home prices and job opportunities, has pared back the traditional American activity of relocation to its lowest level since World War II. A new study shows that 12% of Americans moved in the last two years, compared to 14% earlier this decade, 17%...

Ex-Nazi: 'I Was Just Following Orders'

Boere says he had no choice but to kill Dutch civilians

(Newser) - A former Nazi hitman on trial in Germany confessed to killing three Dutch civilians but offered prosecutors a familiar excuse. "As a simple soldier, I learned to carry out orders," Heinrich Boere told the court. "And I knew that if I didn't carry out my orders I...

How 'White Christmas' Stole Our Hearts—and Ears

Classic tune recalls America's loss of innocence on entering WWII

(Newser) - The best-selling record of all time is a deceptively simple 15-line song about longing for home, writes Roy J. Harris for the Wall Street Journal , in a look at how the Bing Crosby-crooned, Irving Berlin-penned "White Christmas" has managed to sell an estimated 100 million copies over the last...

Cancer May Have Killed FDR
 Cancer May Have Killed FDR 
NEW BOOK
Nov 24, 2009 2:11 PM CST

Cancer May Have Killed FDR

Possible deception in 1944 election raises lots of what-if questions

(Newser) - Speculating about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s real cause of death has been a popular sport for years, and now two authors have a provocative theory: brain cancer. The shifting opinions are well documented: FDR’s own doctor, who at first likened the deadly brain hemorrhage to a “bolt of...

Best War Movies Ever
 Best War Movies Ever 
VETERANS DAY
Nov 11, 2009 7:29 PM CST

Best War Movies Ever

Watch clips from Patton to Glory to Full Metal Jacket

(Newser) - In honor of Veterans Day, the Huffington Post runs down the best war movies of all time:
  • Apocalypse Now: Vietnam War
  • From Here to Eternity: Pearl Harbor
  • Patton: World War II
  • Braveheart: Scotland’s battle for independence
  • Lawrence of Arabia: World War I
  • Band of Brothers: World War II (and,
...

Hitler's Last Aide Dies
 Hitler's Last Aide Dies 
Oct 30, 2009 6:46 AM CDT

Hitler's Last Aide Dies

Fritz Darges still thought Fuhrer 'greatest man who ever lived'

(Newser) - The last surviving member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle died this week, at 96, and historians hope his soon-to-be released memoirs will silence once and for all claims from revisionists that Hitler wasn't aware of the Holocaust. Fritz Darges was present at most of Hitler's conferences until 1944, when he...

Nazi Hitman Goes on Trial
 Nazi Hitman Goes on Trial 
Oct 28, 2009 2:59 AM CDT

Nazi Hitman Goes on Trial

88-year-old who killed Dutch civilians faces German court

(Newser) - A Dutch Nazi collaborator who killed his countrymen in reprisals for anti-German actions has gone on trial in Germany. Heinrich Boere, 88, has admitted gunning down three civilians as part of a Waffen SS death squad. He fled to Germany after the war and dodged extradition attempts for years. Prosecutors...

WWII GI Returns Looted 16th Century German Books

Vet took 400-year-old legal volumes home as souvenirs

(Newser) - Retired optometrist Robert Thomas handed a pair of books he filched as an 18-year-old GI 64 years ago to the German ambassador in a ceremony at the National Archives this week. Thomas, 83, found the 400-year-old legal volumes stashed among millions of others in a salt mine while inspecting recently...

Only Footage of Anne Frank Hits YouTube

Film of neighbor's wedding in 1941 was given to Holocaust victim's family in the 50s

(Newser) - The Anne Frank House has posted the only surviving video of the young diarist and Holocaust victim on YouTube. “The footage is very moving and very unique because these are the only moving images of Anne Frank,” a museum representative tells the Guardian. The film, of an Amsterdam...

Skull Not Hitler's; Suicide in Doubt

Bullet-pierced skull fragment belongs to woman under 40, say scientists

(Newser) - A portion of bullet-pierced skull believed to be Adolf Hitler's is actually from the head of a woman under 40, throwing into question how the Nazi dictator died, American scientists have revealed. The skull portion, seized by Russians after soldiers stormed Hitler's bunker, has the DNA, bone thickness and fusion...

Adidas, Puma End 60-Year Feud—With a Soccer Game

Founding brothers had falling out in 1948

(Newser) - The family feud is over. Adidas and Puma are putting aside their differences, 60 years after the brothers who founded the German sportswear giants had a falling-out. Adi and Rudolf Dassler divided the town when each started his own company in Herzogenaurach, Germany, after a disagreement during World War II....

Rings Writer Tolkien Trained as WWII Spy

Hobbit creator turned down chance to join codebreaking team

(Newser) - Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien secretly trained as a British spy in early 1939, the Daily Telegraph reports. Newly released records show that Tolkien—one of his generation's foremost linguists—was given spy training along with 50 other intellectuals and had been picked to join the team trying...

The Human Condition Is 9.5 Hours, in Japanese...
The Human Condition Is
9.5 Hours, in Japanese...
DVD REVIEW
Sep 16, 2009 5:13 PM CDT

The Human Condition Is 9.5 Hours, in Japanese...

...and 'the greatest film ever made'

(Newser) - The Criterion Collection re-release of Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition does high-definition justice to the WWII film critic David Shipman has called “unequivocally the greatest film ever made,” according to Very Short List. The movie follows a good—and handsome—man through the “innumerable trials in...

Brooks: Humility Is Dead
 Brooks: Humility Is Dead 
OPINION
Sep 15, 2009 10:45 AM CDT

Brooks: Humility Is Dead

Kanye, Joe Wilson lead age of attention-seeking

(Newser) - What happened to humility in America? In the past few days, we’ve seen Joe Wilson interrupt a presidential speech, Kanye West steal Taylor Swift’s microphone to voice his opinion, and Michael Jordan offer up an “egomaniacal” Hall of Fame speech, writes David Brooks in the New York ...

Jewish Engineer Designed Beetle: Historian

Hitler ordered Porsche to replicated Josef Ganz's prototype

(Newser) - Adolf Hitler took the original design for the Volkswagen Beetle from the brainchild of a Jewish engineer, the Jerusalem Post reports. Historian Paul Schilperoord claims in his forthcoming book The True History of the Beetle that a prototype Josef Ganz designed in the late '20s had many of the Beetle’...

British PM Apologizes to Gay WWII Codebreaker

Gordon Brown slams 'horrifying' treatment of late mathematician Alan Turing

(Newser) - Gordon Brown has issued a posthumous apology to WWII codebreaking genius Alan Turing, the Guardian reports. Turing's work cracking German codes helped the Allies win the war, but he was later prosecuted for having a gay relationship. He was chemically castrated after being forced to choose between that or prison,...

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