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Wartime Paris?

9/22/2019

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By Dick Martin
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A few years ago, I took my family to Europe to tour the main WWII battlefields.  On a couple of nights, we stayed on Omaha Beach.   As long as we were going that far, we decided to spend a few days in Paris before we began our battlefield explorations.  As we walked around Paris, I marveled at the excellent shape the city was in, despite the German occupation and abandonment of the city.  It was obvious that the French Capital had escaped destruction during WWII that many other European cities had experienced.  The story of Paris’ escape from destruction intrigued me.   I knew there had to be an interesting story behind it.   A friend clued me in that Paris escaped Hitler’s scorched earth policy because the man Hitler chose as his commander in Paris was General Dietrich von Cholitz, who disobeyed Hitler’s orders to lay waste to the city as the German Army left.

Cholitz, who has been known as the “Savior of Paris,” was determined to save Paris almost as soon as he was appointed its commander by Adolf Hitler.  After three years of distinguished service on the Russian front, Hitler had brought General Cholitz west to head the German effort in Paris.  It is thought that he obtained his beliefs about saving Paris from Robert Ley, leader of the German Workers’ Party, on a long train ride from the Fuhrer’s headquarters.  At great risk to his family back in Germany, Cholitz disobeyed Hitler’s orders and is credited with saving Paris and saving thousands of prisoners from execution.
 
There is some skepticism of Cholitz’s actions against the Jews and other war crimes and even in saving Paris.  For example, if he had been responsible for destroying Paris, he would be eternally held responsible for it destruction.   He felt that it was acceptable for Paris to be damaged in the course of the war; but he wanted nothing to do with its destruction in a Hitler scorched earth policy of the city.

It cannot be argued that he surrendered the 17,000 man German garrison in Paris to the Free French and kept bridges and roads open despite Hitler’s orders.  Hitler felt that if he could not have the cultural and artistic nucleus of Western civilization, no one else should have it either.  It seems that Cholitz felt the opposite in Hitler’s plans for the city.

Paris did not really have any military value so Eisenhower and the allies planned to bypass it by going south of the city in its eastward advance across Europe.   However, General Charles de Gaulle saw differently and thought bypassing Paris would somehow jeopardize his post war ambitions to head the French government.   Eisenhower had many different pressures on him influencing his moves in Europe.  If Cholitz’s actions in Paris saved the city from vengeful destruction, we can only be thankful and the world is a better place.



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Corporal Larry Talsma

9/15/2019

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Miscellaneous Information

9/8/2019

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By Dick Martin
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While doing research for Sunday’s Feature, I have run across miscellaneous information that may be of value to all of you amateur historians to keep at the back of your mind as you pick your way through whatever segment of history you may prefer to study.

  1.  The D in D-Day stands for day.  I thought it meant departure which makes more sense.   It seems redundant if it stands for Day, ie D-Day would then be Day-Day.
  2.  During the war, in 1943 to save copper, pennies were made out of steel.  In a glitch in quality control, 10 to 15 were made out of copper.   Because there were so few in circulation, recently one was auctioned for $204,000.  As a youth, I was an amateur coin collector.  I had quite a few of the steel pennies.  Many steel pennies were minted and are now worth less than $10.00 each. 
  3. New research has revealed that the highest “killing frenzy” of Jews during the World War II Holocaust occurred from July 27 to November 4, 1942 when 445,700 men women and children were murdered per month or 15,000 a day.  I thought the killing frenzy would have peaked as the war in Europe came to an end.  However, Hitler’s power probably peaked towards the end of 1942 and began a downward spiral thereafter making it more difficult to equal the killing efficiency before that time.  In a tour of Dachau, north of Munich, our guide informed us that none of the concentration camps on German territory during WWII were used to exterminate the Jews.  Many were worked to death, but supposedly none were sent to the crematoriums.  Most of concentration camps used to exterminate Jews, Soviet POWs, gypsies, homosexuals, etc were in Poland.  There was a reason for this, but I do not know what it is.
  4. At one time senators were picked by the state legislatures in each state and the presidential nominee for each party was picked at a national party convention.  There were no primaries or election by popular vote of senators.  In 1913, the 17th amendment provided for two senators in each state to be picked by popular vote. 
  5. Party conventions do not provide much of a function anymore.   The only convention intrigue is the naming of a vice president picked by the party nominee, who has already been picked by popular vote in primaries in each state.  Prior to the rise of party conventions, the presidential candidates of national parties were chosen by members of Congress.
  6. Until 1936, Democrats required a two-thirds majority to nominate a candidate, and resultantly, held seven conventions requiring more than ten ballots between 1832 and 1932. The last multi-ballot conventions were the 1948 Republican convention and the 1952 Democratic convention.   The 1968 Democratic convention was among the most contentious party meetings in history, and dissatisfaction with its results provided motivation for the reforms that changed the nomination system and led to the rise of the current primary-dominated system. In 1968, as was customary, most Democratic convention delegates were selected in caucuses of party functionaries. Such caucuses were generally not well publicized, and were sometimes held more than a year before the convention.  In 1968, the majority of delegates selected in Democratic caucuses supported Vice President Humphrey who, by virtue of his position within the Johnson Administration, was perceived as a candidate who would continue American involvement in the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, two anti-war candidates, Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, together won over two-thirds of the votes cast in Democratic primaries. Humphrey, who contested no primaries, nevertheless won the nomination. The system had produced a candidate who did not reflect the views of activists, particularly on the issue of the Vietnam War, and the convention was acrimonious.
  7. The assassination of President Lincoln was only one part of a cabal that was intended to murder others as well.  Another assassin, at least, made a serious and nearly successful attempt on the life of Secretary of State William Seward.   While Seward survived the attack, he sustained a severe wound, as did his son.  All of these other parts of the cabal were lost in history because of the attention given to Lincoln’s assassination.

If anyone has any new or different information about the above, please enter it in the comment section.  Also, we sure would love to hear from others who have come across information like the above that surprised them.
Dick Martin

 
 

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Major Charles "Lee" Morton

9/1/2019

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This web page is a work in progress. It has been created through the donated efforts of Laura Genant Martin, Dick Martin, and Jim Hornstra. When Laura was made aware of what we needed, she took the initiative to research and educate herself on how to create a web site to identify, respect and honor the military veterans in Springfield. The web site had to be easy to navigate and had to provide the viewer a method of providing feedback. Most of the written material has been provided by Dick Martin over the past couple of years with some important contributions from others, i.e. Jim Kirk.  Jim Hornstra has been the reliable source as he has been the collector of information concerning Springfield Veterans and has provided Laura much of what has gone into the web site.
  • World War I
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