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By Dick Martin
Nazi doctrine pigeonholed their women as obedient mothers and wives, but a cadre of strong female supporters aided the rise of the Fuhrer and some of his most trusted men.
Hitler’s always spoke of his mother, Klara, as a saintly figure, whose major accomplishment was having him as a son. She was born on August 12, 1860 and died in 1907 at the age of 47. She was a simple woman whose birthday was designated as a “day of honor” for the German mothers. Hitler’s broader message for German women was to serve their husbands and raise children leaving nearly everything else to men. Specifically, they were to raise sons who would become warriors and daughters to become mothers of future warriors. As a reward for having many children, the Nazis handed out the Cross of Honor of the German Mother – a bronze one for four or five children, silver for six or seven, and gold for eight or more. From his earliest days in Munich, Hitler recognized the importance of appealing to women and remained a bachelor to exude what he thought was a sexually charged magnetism. In his early rallies, he even placed women in the front rows to exploit their enthusiasm. They persuaded their husbands to join Hitler and they devoted themselves utterly and selflessly to the Nazi Party’s interests. Throughout his reign, women taught Hitler the social graces he lacked, provided a maternal influence, and the funds and connections to mix it up with the German elite. Other than Eva Braun, three women would significantly influence Hitler: Winifred Wagner, Helene Beckstein, and Elsa Bruckmann. Despite all this, Hitler was thought to be impotent, a neuter! Two women who would probably know are his mistresses, Eva Braun and Geli Raubal, both victims of suicide. Hitler’s women never abandoned their self-justifying fantasies, thus demonstrating the Fuhrer’s continued power over them-even after he had perished along with his millions of victims. Taken and edited from a piece by Andrew Nagorski in the April 2020 edition of WWII magazine
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By Dick Martin  Happy Birthday!
Do you remember what you were doing one week after your 19th birthday? Charles (Chuck) Dawes does! In a scene you won’t see in the movies, Chuck and 65 of his colleagues were surrendering to the German Army in a farmhouse in France in November of 1944, less than a month after entering WWII at Marseilles, France. After days of being subjected to artillery fire, Chuck and his unit and some medical personnel found a farmhouse to take refuge for the night. During the night, Chuck and his colleagues were taken prisoner by the German Army. Were they the survivors of a frontal assault by the German Army on the farmhouse or were Chuck’s guards overwhelmed by the Germans. No, a polite German officer knocked on the farmhouse door, where the Americans were sleeping and asked them to surrender or he threatened to grenade the farmhouse. At that point Chuck and the rest of the group were lined up and marched to a German prison camp.  Old Country! After being part of the defeat of the German army in Europe, Lawrence Namminga Sr. pulled off an unimaginable feat by obtaining a jeep with five days leave and the proper clearances and driving 390 miles from Grafental, Germany to his ancestral home of Friesland in northern Holland. There, he was received as a heroic American soldier and was able to connect with many close relatives. It was an unexpected joyful reunion at the end of a great war. During his short stay, Lawrence, with his jeep, was able to aid his relatives in transporting relatives to the service for the family patriarch, killed by the Germans. The five days was a fitting end for Lawrence to a great war and an adventure that would live big with him for the rest of his life. By Dick Martin  In the early part of WWII, to free up resources in its Battle of Britain, Hitler formed a pact with Russia to neutralize his Eastern front while he dealt with Britain. Hitler hated the Communists but needed the extra resources on the western front to deal with the Brits.
After Hitler gave up on the Battle of Britain, he re-concentrated his efforts on his eastern front by reneging on his agreement with Stalin and invading Russia. Hitler hoped to solicit help from Japan by declaring war on the United States bringing Japan into the war to help against Russia. Not believing Hitler would double cross him, Stalin was visibly shook and “dropped out” for a time; only to come back with a vengeance against the Wehrmacht. As the German soldiers entered Eastern Europe and Western Russia, they instituted a rape, pillage, and plunder campaign that would unwittingly come back to haunt them later in the war. It never occurred to the German soldiers that they could see the same lands again as they retreated back across the same territory, full of anti-Germans wanting to take revenge on them for their bad conduct. As the Wehrmacht made its inexorable march across western Russia towards Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Russian people instituted a “scorched earth” policy performing miracles in moving their industrial factories and government, brick by brick farther East out of harm’s way, and destroying everything else. In the meantime, Stalin was throwing his manpower advantage at the Germans, causing the Germans to retreat back across land they had already conquered. The Russians and other anti-Germans were waiting for them. German soldiers soon found it healthier to surrender to the West than to Russia. After the war, Stalin, in concert with other Communist subordinates, planned to expel all ethnic Germans from their homes east of the Oder and lands which from May 1945 fell inside the Soviet occupation zones. Twelve to 14.6 million Germans fled into Allied occupied Germany. The expulsions and flight of ethnic Germans resulted in a heavy price for the Germans, estimated at a death toll of 500,000 to 3,000,000.  By Dick Martin      For Dan Mejstrik's full biography, see the Sunday Feature published July 28, 2019.    By Dick Martin  Did you ever wonder how the German Wehrmacht kept its blitzkrieg pace going across Poland and Northern Europe? Drugs! More specifically Crystal Methadone (Pervitin.)
In addition, at the start of the war, Hitler suffered from gas, for which he was soon taking a cocktail of morphine, crystal meth, and laxatives. Cocaine and morphine were a favorite of the Germans and could be easily and cheaply obtained at dreary German night clubs. When the Nazis rose to power, illegal drug consumption fell. Suddenly, drugs were regarded as toxic to the German body and addicts were looked at as undesirable social elements. However, Pervitin, was distributed by the millions to Wehrmacht troop before the successful invasion of France in 1940. Before that, Pervitin was initially marketed in the 1930’s as a recreational pick-me-up. It was initially experimented with to see how long student users could stay awake and still perform well on exams. As the Wehrmacht rolled across Europe, something was needed to keep the blitzkrieg’s “war on exhaustion” going. With the use of Pervitin, soldiers could keep going for days. Nazi medical officials who were increasingly aware of Pervitin’s risks, i.e. critical thinking skills, declined the longer use as two thirds of those taking the drug suffered from psychosis after a few years. The risks were thought to be worth it since twenty minutes after ingesting Pervitin, the nerve cells in the soldiers’ brains started releasing neurotransmitters, putting the soldiers in an alert state allowing them to continue functioning. When it came to Nazi leaders, research suggests they all favored their own particular drugs of choice. The allies inadvertently found Pervitin in a downed German plane. As the war dragged on, the allies discovered the risks of taking Chrystal Meth and took Benzedrine as a substitute, another topic. Submitted by Laura Genant Martin from the 12/07/19 issue of the Sioux City Journal 
Submitted by Laura Martin from CriticalPast, an archive of historic footage.
Even before WW II, through great lengths and dire circumstances, our government has provided Thanksgiving dinner for our troops. The following is an unedited video of US soldiers receiving their turkey and all the trimmings.
 Follow the link below for a truly moving experience
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=525320321353762 |
