World War II

On September 7, 1941 German forces were preparing to begin what would become one of the most deadly battles in the history of the world, the Siege of Leningrad. Before the battle ended on January 27, 1944, more than a million of the city’s civilians starved to death.

- Wikipedia article on the Siege of Leningrad.
- Official website of the City of St. Petersburg
- Results of a Flickr search for “Leningrad.”
- YouTube: “Leningrad: The Siege Begins.” (A little discrepancy here on the date, but lots of good Russia related WWII footage in the “related” links.)
- The Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad

WWII, German, siege, Leningrad, St. Petersburg

Even those of us who are not Jewish can have a rabbi, a wise counselor who listens and dispenses advice on difficult subjects. In the case of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, the rabbi was a rabbi, Judah Nadich.

Nadich, a military chaplain, served as an adviser to General Eisenhower on Jewish matters after the discovery and liberation of the concentration camps. Rabbi Nadich died of a heart attack at his home in Manhattan on August 26 at the venerable age of 95 years.

In April 1945 Nadich was a lieutenant colonel and the senior Jewish army chaplain in Europe. Eisenhower was one of my early heroes and I vividly recall the photos of the general, grim-faced and tight-lipped, as he toured the camps. For all of his life Eisenhower struggled with his temper. His anger over the Holocaust was towering and he ordered the entire population of neighboring German towns to walk through the horror about which they claimed they had no knowledge.

In later life Rabbi Nadich was the author of several books including Eisenhower and the Jews published in 1953. (The book is available on Amazon for a whopping $93. If you’re interested, I suggest calling the library and looking into interlibrary loan.) You can read the Wikipedia entry on Rabbi Nadich here.

We will never know what Rabbi Nadich and General Eisenhower discussed in private, but I cannot imagine a time when a man in a position of authority needed a wise adviser more than Ike in those days after the war. The Rabbi outlived the general, going on to fight for women’s rights and undoubtedly to see his children and grandchildren prosper.

May his memory be for a blessing.

WWII, Rabbi Judah Nadich, Dwight D. Eisenhower, concentration camps

On August 24, I wrote a post about the discovery of the wreck of the USS Grunion off the Aleutians. (See “Sons Locate Father’s WWII Submarine.”) The Grunion disappeared the night of July 30, 1942 and was rediscovered August 22, 2007 by an expedition funded by the three sons of the submarine’s skipper Lt. Cmdr. Mannert L. Aberle.

Today I ran across a lovely notice from a North Dakota news site. (See: World War II Sub Recovered.) A member of the Grunion’s 70-man crew, Sidney Loe was a native of North Dakota. Mike Loe, the deceased man’s nephew, told the reporter that his father, Amber Loe, was informed of the discovery of the Grunion just days before his death last week at 84. The news gave him a sense of closure about his brother’s fate after so many years of uncertainty.

There’s a marker in the Sanish Riverview Cemetery honoring Sidney Loe, but now his people know where he actually rests, with his shipmates, in a thousand feet of water. I’m sure that the experience of locating the Grunion was incredibly moving for Lt. Cmdr. Aberle’s sons, but were I in their position, I would be equally moved to know that my actions had given an 84-year-old man an even greater measure of peace at his passing. No matter what anyone says, these World War II recovery operations matter. They really do.

WWII, USS Grunion, Mannert Aberle, Sidney Loe, submarine, Aleutians

I took Labor Day off from blogging, but World War II followed me. during supper we were watching Antiques Roadshow and just left PBS on since History Detectives was next. And what was one of the segments about? Hitler’s home movies. (Click here for the description on the show’s website.)

The material being investigated comprised cannisters of film brought home from Germany by a soldier who served during the occupation. The interesting thing is that neither he nor his family had ever opened the cans or tried to see the movies. One of the movies was footage of Hitler and his chief henchmen (Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, et al) at the annual Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth.

With reasonable accuracy, the conclusion was that the previously unseen footage was shot by Hitler’s chef Willy Kannenberg. I haven’t been able to find out much more about the man, but as a member of Hitler’s inner circle he had relatively free access to the Fuhrer and was able to shoot the candid moments unfettered. Fortunately the film has now been digitized as the original, like most films of that period, is in serious danger of simply disintegrating.

The story does make me wonder how many more hidden gems of World War II history are languishing forgotten in attics and basements around the country. In this case, the man who recovered the cannisters was still alive to be interviewed, but in all too many instances the item survives the person who can tell the tale. I know I beat this drum, but I’m beating it again. If you know an aging WWII vet, get the stories now before they become mysteries even the History Detectives can’t solve.

WWII, Hitler, Wagner, Bayreuth, Kannenberg

Sorry to be a day late with this week’s five but it pushed us over to a truly seminal event. Today is the 68th anniversary of the Nazi “blitzkreig” invasion of Poland that ignited World War II in Europe.

- Wikipedia article on the 1939 Invasion of Poland.
- British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s speech to the House of Commons on September 1, 1939.
- Article “German Invasion of Poland: Jewish Refugees, 1939” from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- Flickr search results for “Poland 1939.”
- German battle footage from the Poland invasion on YouTube. (Length - 6:19.)

Note: Based on the comments on the YouTube page to which I have linked this post, it would appear that some viewers find politically questionable and anti-Polish content in the material. I link to this material for its value as battle footage ONLY. I do not speak fluent German so I do not know what the narration references nor do I support any political ideas endorsed by this YouTube poster. My interest is only in the visual.)