The anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany was the first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history. Anti-tobacco movements grew in many nations from the beginning of the 20th century, but these had little success except in Germany where the campaign was supported by the government after the Nazis came to power. It was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Nazi leadership condemned smoking and several of them openly criticized tobacco consumption. Research on smoking and its effects on health thrived under Nazi rule and was the most important of its type at that time. Hitler's personal distaste for tobacco and the Nazi reproductive policies were among the motivating factors behind their campaign against smoking, and this campaign was associated with both antisemitism and racism. The Nazi anti-tobacco campaign included banning smoking in trams, buses and city trains, promoting health education, limiting cigarette rations in the Wehrmacht, organizing medical lectures for soldiers and raising the tobacco tax. The Nazis also imposed restrictions on tobacco advertising, tobacco rationing for women, and smoking in public spaces, and they regulated restaurants and coffeehouses. The anti-tobacco movement did not have much effect in the early years of the Nazi regime and tobacco use increased between 1933 and 1939, but smoking by military personnel declined from 1939 to 1945. In short he was all bad was he...or for the smokers amongst you, you have good cause to liken the current government to the Nazi Party !
Approximately 10,000 young Germans known as the Ritchie Boys served in the United States Army in World War II helping conduct psychological warfare against Nazi Germany?
From Ultra information, the allies knew of operation "Barbarossa," Hitler's plan to invade Russia. Stalin was duly warned, but the British could not reveal the source of their information, for fear that the Germans would realize their coded messages were being read. Stalin, perhaps in the belief that England was trying to drive a wedge between Russia and Germany, ignored the warning. Stalin had been given details about Germany's invasion plan from his Master spy Richard Sorge ….but he did not believe in it! Richard Sorge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Another "funny" story: When allied armies reached the Rhine, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton who had himself photographed in the act.
Approximately 10,000 young Germans known as the Ritchie Boys served in the United States Army in World War II helping conduct psychological warfare against Nazi Germany? Interesting, got any more details?
The projected national expenditure for veteran’s benefits in 2004 was $62 billion! No doubt far more than here in the UK
Although not an attack on Mexican territory, the sinking of the Mexican tanker Faja de Oro and El Potrero de Llano by the German U-boat, U-160, on May 21, 1942 off Key West, prompted the entry of Mexico against Germany, Japan and Italy into World War II. Mexico and Brazil were the only Latin American countries to send troops to fight overseas against Germany and Japan.
THE FIRST GERMAN GENERALto be executed during the war by the Allies was General der Infanterie, Anton Dostler. On March 22/23, 1944, during a small scale operation behind enemy lines in northern Italy, a group of 15 Italian-Americans were on a mission to blow up an important railway tunnel but were captured and taken prisoner before the mission was completed. They were summarily shot on the instructions of 55 year old General Dostler who had simply passed on the order from higher authority (Hitler's Füfrerbefehl of October 18, 1942) which stated that all enemy encountered in Commando actions were to be executed. The plea of superior orders did not save Dostler from the firing squad. After a five day trial he was found guilty of a war crime and sentenced to death. On November 27, 1944, the Mediterranean Theatre Commander, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, confirmed the sentence. At 8 a.m. on the morning of December 1, 1944, General Dostler was tied to a stake on the firing range of the 803rd Military Police Battalion located near Aversa, Italy. A black hood was placed over his head, a white marker pinned to his chest and the order to fire was given to the 12 enlisted men of the US Army who composed the firing squad. (General Dostler lies buried in the German War Cemetery at Pomezia some miles south of Rome) General Dostler receives the Last Sacrament
On March 3, 1943 In Victoria Park, near the Bethnal Green underground station in London's East End, an army defence unit was using a new type of rocket launcher. The whining noise they made sounded like falling bombs. The air-raid alert sounded at 8.17 pm and hearing this many families in the area rushed to the underground tube station for safety. At this time it was being used only as an air-raid shelter and already over 500 people had entered. A woman carrying a baby tripped and fell at the bottom of the nineteen step dimly lit staircase. The rushing crowd behind, in sheer panic, was unable to stop and fell in a heap on top of her and the baby, suffocating each other. In all, 173 persons died, crushed under the sheer weight of bodies. The dead included 27 men, 84 women and 62 children.
San Francisco was the main port where WWII vets from the Pacific Theater returned to muster out. Gay vets liked the tolerance and diversity of The City so much may gay servicemen decided to stay and so the gay community in San Francisco was born.
Stalin's son, Yakov Djugashvili, from his first wife Ekaterina, now a 2nd Lieutenant in the artillery corps, was captured on May 16, 1942 and interned in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where he was later shot while trying to escape. (Some sources say he committed suicide by throwing himself at the perimeter fence to force the guards to shoot him.) In 1943, an attempt was made by the Germans to exchange Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus who was captured after the fall of Stalingrad. The request was refused by Stalin. Although he grieved for his 36 year old son he is quoted as saying "I will not exchange a private for a Field Marshal". Over two million Soviet prisoners of war were liberated by the Red Army. All were to suffer at the hands of Stalin who always maintained that Russia had no POW's in German hands. All were considered traitors to the Motherland for allowing themselves to be captured.
Although not generally known, Albert Göring, the younger brother of Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, was an outspoken anti-Nazi. Arrested several times by the Gestapo, each time being released by the intervention of the Reich Marshal. Albert was born near Mauterndorf in 1900 and became a successful businessman and in later life the Export Director at the Skoda Armament Works in Czechoslovakia. During his work there he helped many Jews escape the horrors of the Holocaust by forging his brother's signature on their travel documents. The Jewish wife of composer Franz Lehar was one of those helped by Albert. Returning to Germany after the war he was everywhere shunned just because of his name. Living on a government pension he married his housekeeper as a sign of gratitude so she could receive his pension after he died. One week later he died, in 1966.
In 1942, the German authorities announced that all residents of the Channel Islands who were not born in the Islands, as well as those men who had served as officers in World War I, were to be deported. The majority of them were transported to the southwest of Germany, notably to Ilag V-B at Biberach an der Riss and Ilag VII at Laufen. This deportation decision came directly from Adolf Hitler, as a reprisal for German civilians in Iran being deported and interned. The ratio was twenty Channel Islanders to be interned for every one German interned.
Was the highest Allied ranking Officer to be killed during WW2 in a 'friendly fire' incident. He was killed in his foxhole July 25, 1944 near St. Lo during Operation Cobra, by an errant aerial bomb dropped during a pre-attack bombardment by heavy strategic bombers of the Eighth Air Force.
Approximately 10,000 young Germans known as the Ritchie Boys served in the United States Army in World War II helping conduct psychological warfare against Nazi Germany? The Ritchie Boys - showing on The History Channel "The Ritchie Boys" is the untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned to Europe as soldiers in US-uniforms. They knew the psychology and the language of the enemy better than anybody else. In Camp Ritchie, Maryland, they were trained in intelligence and psychological warfare. Not only courageous, but determined, bright, and inventive they fought their own kind of war. They saved lives. They were victors, not victims.
You just know that senior navy brass would have sent that carrier on operations in the South Pacific!
