During the Second World War, a soldier obtained leave allowing him to return to his home.
As soon as he reached the street near his house, he saw a parked military truck loaded with corpses and knew that the enemy had bombed his city.
The truck was carrying dozens of dead bodies and was preparing to transport them to a mass grave.
The soldier stood in front of the piled-up corpses to take a last look at them and noticed that a shoe on a woman’s foot looked like a shoe he had previously bought for his wife.
He went to his house in a hurry to check on her but didn’t find her. He quickly retreated and went back to the truck again to check the body and found his wife.
He was left shocked. He said, “I’ll not want my wife buried in a mass grave”.
So he asked her body be pulled from the truck in preparation for a proper burial.
During the transfer, it was found that she was still breathing slowly but with difficulty. He carried her to the hospital where the necessary first aid was given to her and she came back to life again.
Years after this incident and at the end of the war, the wife who was almost buried alive became pregnant and gave birth to a boy in the picture above named “Vladimir Putin”
He is the current president of Russia.
Putin’s Presidential yacht “Graceful”, built for $100 million (US dollar equivalent)
It is true that tiny dedicated groups of German young people, the best known among them were the WHITE ROSE group of students at Munich University (Munich was the city in which the Nazi party was first organized, and where “Mein Kampf” was written) were murdered in their attempts to arouse the German people to the atrocities committed in their name and the need to take action against Naziism. Only recently was the story of the heroine commemorated below been revealed. https://whiterosemagazine.com/ exists in memory of the WHITE ROSE group, along with various commemorative sites in Germany and France. None so far exists anywhere in memory of Mildred Harnack.
The untold tale of the only American to lead a resistance group against the Nazis
“All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” by: Rebecca Donner; Little, Brown (576 pages, $32)
Wisconsin native Mildred Harnack was the only American to help lead a Nazi-resistance group in Germany during World War II — and you’ve probably never heard of her.
Her largely unknown story is brought to light in “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” by Rebecca Donner, also the author of a novel, a graphic novel and many essays. But this book is personal — Mildred Harnack was her great-great-aunt.
“Three generations separate us. She preferred anonymity, so I will whisper her name: Mildred Harnack,” she writes.
Donner relies on surviving family letters, declassified intelligence documents and interviews with survivors to tell Harnack’s story. Photos and snippets of letters and papers are sprinkled throughout this compelling book, which reads like a tragic novel where we wish we didn’t know the ending.
Harnack was guillotined on Feb. 16, 1943, at the age of 40 on Adolf Hitler’s direct orders, which we learn on page 6. Yet knowing her terrible fate from the onset shouldn’t dissuade you from reading this page-turner about Harnack’s perilous journey, no matter how much you know about the Holocaust and the brave resistance movement.
Born in Milwaukee, Mildred Fish was studying for a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin when she met German doctoral student Arvid Harnack. The two married and she followed him to his homeland, where she taught American literary history at the University of Berlin. Mildred quickly became troubled by the rise of Nazism.
Donner’s descriptive style takes us inside Nazi Germany and makes the book hard to put down. “Swastikas are cropping up like daisies everywhere: on posters pasted to the walls of U-Bahn stations, on flags and banners and pamphlets,” she writes.
Mildred is most anxious about the politician gaining popularity, “a high-school dropout named Adolf Hitler who, Mildred predicts, will bring ‘a great increase of misery and oppression.’”
She begins holding secret resistance meetings in her apartment, forming a group she and Arvid name The Circle. She recruits like-minded members who first distribute leaflets urging Germans to “resist, resist, resist,” and later put their lives at risk feeding intelligence about Hitler’s expansion plans to the U.S. and elsewhere.
We see Hitler’s rise to power and increasingly violent crackdown on his perceived enemies through the eyes of Mildred and Arvid. Donner’s book documents their sham trials on charges of treason. Its title stems from what a chaplain observed when he visited Mildred in prison, emaciated and struggling with tuberculosis, yet intensely focused on translating a volume of Goethe’s poems into English.
“In all the frequent troubles of our days / A God gave compensation — more his praise / In looking sky- and heavenward as duty / In sunshine and in virtue and in beauty.”
Mildred Harnack didn’t survive to see the end of the war or Hitler’s downfall. But her heroic actions may now get the attention they deserve through this heartbreaking work written by her descendant.
Come rain or shine this weekend (and it’s looking like a mix of both) you can join in with our Indoor Archery event (King Richard III Visitor Centre, Leicester UK) and take aim to see how many points you can score.
As it’s all about archery this weekend we asked Joe from our Visitor Services team to look back on one of the most famous types of soldier and weapons in English history – the longbowman and his bow:
There’s a lot of misunderstanding about longbows and their users and just as many interesting bits of trivia that our visitors might not know! Here’s a few facts about longbowmen to whet your appetite in time for the weekend…
Longbow Power English longbows were powerful. You may have already assumed that but it’s hard to emphasise just how powerful they were. If you have ever had a go at archery before, you’ll be familiar with Olympic bows. They tend to have a reasonable “poundage” of about 50lbs, meaning it requires 50lbs of force to draw the bow. This is also reduced by modern technologies and mechanisms that make them easier to draw. In addition, modern bows have sights and rests to make aiming much easier.
No such luck with medieval longbows! Every aspect of using an English longbow was manual – your knuckle was used to rest your arrow as you drew it back and aiming was done largely through muscle memory and practice. Couple this with draw weights of anywhere between 100 and 200lbs and you can see why the longbow was such a devastating weapon!
Longbowmen skeletons The skeletons of English archers were deformed from years of archery! The high poundage of war bows, coupled with years of training in their use from a young age, led to skeletons having over-developed shoulder and arm bones to compensate for the growth of muscle around those areas.
Below is an image of a reconstruction of the skeleton of an English longbowman. Notice how the arms are slightly bowed, the shoulders unusually hunched and that the right shoulder, the drawing arm, sits higher than the left.
The ‘English’ Longbow The English longbow is legendary. It is known as the weapon that brought France to its knees and saw English domination of the medieval battlefield, a weapon that is quintessentially English… Except it isn’t! The ‘English’ longbow was in fact a weapon of Welsh origins.
It was first encountered by the English during William the Conqueror’s invasion of Wales in the 11th Century and impressed the Normans so much with its effectiveness that they adopted it for themselves. In fact, throughout much of what is considered the golden age of the longbow, a large proportion of longbowmen deployed in English armies were Welsh, the Welsh still being considered the best longbowmen in the land!
The Professional Archer To this day there is a prevailing idea of the longbowman being a peasant soldier; a man forced by law to train in archery all the time and plucked from his farm to fight on foreign soil.
This has led to many of our ideas of the cream of the French nobility felled by a rabble of barely trained peasants. The truth is more complicated. Whilst it is true that a royal edict demanded that able bodied men above the age of 14 practice archery for two hours a week, the truth is that most archers in service to the king were professional soldiers.
The majority of the peasantry wouldn’t have been skilled enough with the minimal amount of training decreed by law (a law that was rarely enforced) and probably wouldn’t have even been able to afford bows powerful enough to use as war bows.
In reality, most archers were professional soldiers from what could be seen as a sort of early middle class and were paid a wage on par with a trained tradesman, such as a stonemason. They certainly weren’t nobles and there were definitely peasants amongst their ranks but to say that all English longbowmen were peasants is somewhat misleading.
Fire Arrows One of the most popular images in Hollywood when it comes to archery is of the fire arrow. We’ve all seen the moment in a pitched battle when the archers light the end of their arrows to rain fiery death upon their enemies. This is very much “Hollywood” as it didn’t really happen.
Fire arrows definitely existed, in fact the siege of Oran in 1404 saw extensive use of flaming arrows loosed from low poundage bows to ignite houses. But that was basically their only use, as a siege weapon.
Against infantry, fire arrows would have been woefully ineffective as most medieval armour wasn’t highly flammable, the fire cage arrow had very poor penetration due to its shape and it simply couldn’t be loosed at high speeds from powerful bows without extinguishing the flames before reaching their target.
So, if you see archers in films using fire arrows against anything other than a building, it’s probably fantasy!
Below is a replica of a medieval fire cage arrow head. Cloth would be wrapped through the cage and ignited.
(Thanks to Sabana Grande, c/o Medium)
What We Didn’t Know About Longbows and Archers
British longbows, or “war bows,” were considered a superweapon during the Medieval ages. Despite that, many historians claimed that their power was exaggerated as the results described in old manuscripts could not be reproduced by modern replicas of longbows.
For example, these bows were supposed to be able to pierce even the thickest of steel plate armor. One account by a 12th-century clergyman called Gerald of Wales claimed that an arrow fired from a longbow once pierced a soldier’s armor, went through his thigh, and actually killed the horse he was riding on.
But when historians attempted to make longbows like these, they found that their draw weight of 60–80 lbs simply could not produce enough force to do that. In 1982, they were proven wrong as the 172 bows on the Mary Rose were, in fact, way more powerful than ever imagined.
Their draw weight was an estimated 100–200lbs (45-90kg). Given that the bows themselves were about 6.5ft (2m) in length, it seemed as if they were weapons made for giants or immensely powerful ogres to wield. The greatest archers of the day were able to fire 6–12 arrows per minute. This meant pulling back a weight possibly as heavy or heavier than their bodies with one arm up to 12 times!
To put this in perspective, the bows used by today’s Olympic athletes who trained their whole lives only have a draw weight of about 50 lbs. And many of the archers have lifelong shoulder problems after retiring.
But there was a reasonable explanation for why Englishmen from over 500 years ago could use these powerful weapons.
Everyone Had to Practice Archery by Law — Until Their Bodies Were Deformed
During Tudor times, archery was not only one of the most popular sports, but its practice was actually mandatory for all able-bodied men. Children as young as six years old were trained for 8–10 years before they became proficient at the use of longbows. This led to their bodies becoming deformed.
The first thing they would have noticed was that their left shoulders grew larger and more striated from holding the bow. The right sides of their backs would have similarly been more muscular than their left from pulling the strings.
But the skeletons on board the Mary Rose showed that bodily changes resulting from firing longbows were not limited only to the muscles. Surprisingly, all the skeletons of archers on board actually had their right shoulder sockets further up than their left sockets, meaning that they had one shoulder higher than the other.
Furthermore, their arms were naturally bowed — ie. bent outwards. They literally had twisted bones in their arms. And their backs were also hunched.
Aside from looking quite intimidating from all the muscle they carried back when they were alive, these folk would have looked quite weird.
Conclusion
It was through the discovery of the Mary Rose warship (discovered in the mud in the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor in 1971) that historians realized exactly what it took to fire these weapons. Longbows allowed the English to dominate European wars for centuries.
They were even better than crossbows in several ways. For example, they didn’t take as long to load and fire, and their strings could easily be removed and changed when they broke, while the ones on crossbows couldn’t. They also had a longer range and, for hundreds of years, they were the more powerful armor-penetrating weapon.
The only thing that put the longbows out of use were firearms, as demonstrated by the fact that the longbows on the ship were stored among guns. In other words, they were still considered somewhat useful even then —despite the fact they required a great amount of personal sacrifice to be able to use.
Picture the scene: It’s summer in Egypt, and Cleopatra, the kingdom’s most famous ruler, knows Augustus, her mortal enemy, is in Alexandria ready to dethrone her with his legion of Roman soldiers. Cleopatra senses the end is imminent – not just for her, but for her long-time partner, the Roman general Mark Antony.
While historians debate the particular events that transpired that August in 30 BC, it’s certain that, by the end of the month, Cleopatra and Antony were no more. Over the centuries, the legend of Cleopatra’s death has overshadowed the true history of this often misrepresented, self-proclaimed goddess’s final days. However, the truth is sometimes more unbelievable than fiction, and no one proves this better than Cleopatra herself.
Photo: Justus van Egmont /
After The Battle Of Actium, She Created A Goth-Sounding Secret Society In 31 BC, a year prior to her demise, Cleopatra watched as the combined naval fleets of Egypt and Mark Antony were decimated by Augustus’s forces at the Battle of Actium. While Augustus consolidated power in Rome, the ill-fated lovers retreated back to Alexandria to bide their time before Augustus’s next move.In the year following the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra and Antony put their exorbitant wealth toward one lavish party after another. They also dissolved their drinking club, “The Society of Inimitable Livers,” and formed a new one: “Companions to the Death.”Cleopatra took this macabre obsession with her demise to the next level, erecting her own mausoleum in Alexandria. In her defense, most of her Roman allies abandoned her. The queen knew her reign was coming to an end.
Photo: Sergey Sosnovskiy
Believing Cleopatra Had Perished, Mark Antony Attempted To Do The Same. It all came to a head around August 1, 30 BC. Antony and Augustus battled on the outskirts of Alexandria, but Antony’s army was no match for his opponent’s. Antony’s men, knowing they were doomed, deserted him and joined Augustus. Antony had no choice but to surrender.When word of this reached Cleopatra, she fled to her mausoleum. She decided to fake her death by sending a note to Antony, believing he would follow suit. Some historians think Cleopatra was secretly negotiating with Augustus, and she knew Antony was doomed no matter what.Whatever her motivation, when the letter about Cleopatra’s demise reached Antony, he was devastated. As the Greek historian Plutarch tells it, Antony spoke these words:”O Cleopatra, I am not distressed to have lost you, for I shall straightaway join you; but I am grieved that a commander as great as I should be found to be inferior to a woman in courage.” Antony then stabbed himself in the stomach with his own sword.
Photo: Pompeo Batoni
A Fatally Wounded Antony Was Carried To Cleopatra’s Tomb. The self-inflicted wound did not end Antony’s life. When word of his condition made it to Cleopatra, she had her injured lover brought to the mausoleum. Soon after, Antony expired in Cleopatra’s arms. Without her companion, Cleopatra likely worked many angles to win Augustus’s favor. It’s clear the would-be Roman emperor only cared about one thing: obtaining Cleopatra’s wealth, which she stockpiled in the mausoleum.
Plutarch wrote that Augustus “was fearful about the treasures in her funeral pyre, and he thought it would add greatly to the glory of his triumph if she were led in the procession” of victory back home in Rome.If there’s anything Cleopatra refused to be, it was a trophy.
Augustus Apparently Allowed Her To Give Antony A Proper Burial.
Nearly two weeks transpired between the passings of Antony and Cleopatra. While popular lore often excludes this detail, Augustus granted Cleopatra permission to tend to Antony’s body. Antony was either embalmed, inhumed, or cremated according to Egyptian customs.This funerary ritual may have filled Cleopatra with a sense of foreboding and dread, as she was well aware that a similar destiny awaited her.
Photo: Peter Paul Rubens
She May Have Used A Snake To End Her Own Life. Museums around the world are full of paintings depicting a scantily clad Cleopatra grasping a venomous snake. As the story goes, the ruler lured a cobra or viper into her chamber, which promptly bit her. The snake’s venomous bite brought Cleopatra’s 39 years of life to an abrupt end.Spoiler alert: No one knows exactly how Cleopatra perished on or around August 12. Augustus made it clear her only option was to return to Rome with him, where she would be paraded around like a conquest. It’s on-brand that this powerful, female ruler would rather take her own life than be subjected to so much ridicule.Many historians believe Cleopatra either poisoned herself or was assassinated by Augustus. A hundred years after her demise, Plutarch hypothesized in his published annals that Augustus developed the snake bite narrative as a propaganda tool to amplify his power in Rome. Other ancient historians, most of them Roman, stand by the snake bite tale. More and more contemporary historians, though, think Plutarch’s theory is a more realistic one.
Photo: Juan Luna
Two Of Her Maidservants Passed With Her. From the beginning of the ordeal, two of Cleopatra’s closest maidservants stayed by her side: Iras and Charmion. In multiple chronicles and works of art, the women flank the lifeless body of their ruler, having succumbed to the same plight as Cleopatra.Most portrayals show the three pallid women in Cleopatra’s mausoleum, surrounded by vestiges of her riches. If the saga is true, it’s less likely one venomous snake could be responsible for three fatalities, and more likely the women came into contact with a lethal concoction or poison.Ultimately, though, as the second-century writer Cassius Dio declares in his Roman History, “No one knows clearly in what way [they] perished.”
Before She Passed, Cleopatra Was Considered An Enemy Of The Roman StateBefore the Battle of Actium, Augustus and Antony vied for control of Rome in the wake of Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC. The two generals essentially split the growing Roman Empire between them, and Cleopatra sided with Antony.As Cleopatra and Antony’s romance blossomed, Antony neglected his wife in Rome – Octavia, Augustus’s sister. Augustus used the affair between Cleopatra and Antony to rile up his fellow Roman statesmen. When Antony officially divorced Octavia, Augustus used his power to declare war on Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, in 32 BC.The move was a strategic one for Augustus, who later journaled about how the declaration improved his chances of defeating Antony: “The whole of Italy voluntarily took oath of allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader in the war in which I was victorious at Actium.”
Photo: John William Waterhouse
Her Only Child With Julius Caesar Also Met A Terrible Fate. Antony was not the first Roman general Cleopatra fell for. In 47 BC, she gave birth to a son named Caesarion, whose father was allegedly Julius Caesar. After Caesar was taken out by Roman senators, Cleopatra shacked up with Antony, with whom she had three children: one girl and two boys.When she lost the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra sent the teenaged Caesarion away, convinced he would be assassinated on the spot by Augustus’s army. Caesarion and part of his mother’s royal treasury sailed up the Nile River, where he hoped to eventually make it all the way to India.Unfortunately, the 17-year-old Caesarion was caught along the way and didn’t survive the trip.
While Her Daughter Survived, The Fate Of Her Two Sons With Antony Remains Unknown. Cleopatra and Antony shared twins (one female, the other male) and a young son. After their parents perished, the children were shipped to Rome and put under the care of Octavia, Antony’s former wife.The daughter, Cleopatra Selene, by all accounts went on to live a full life. The boys, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, eventually disappeared without a trace. What happened to the young men remains shrouded in mystery.
The Ptolemaic Dynasty Ended With Cleopatra. Even though she donned the title Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra was not ethnically North African. Her royal family, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, were all Macedonian Greeks who controlled Egypt for nearly 300 years. The first ruler, Ptolemy I Soter, rose to power after the demise of Alexander the Great, reigning as both an Egyptian Pharaoh and a Greek monarch.The Ptolemies, as they came to be known, isolated themselves in their capital city, Alexandria, and married within the family line in order to keep their lineage Greek. The kingdom came crashing down when Cleopatra perished, and what remained of it was eventually absorbed into the Roman Empire.
The so-far undiscovered tomb?
Photo: The Boucicaut Master
Antony And Cleopatra Were Buried Together In An Alexandrian Tomb. Honoring Cleopatra’s final wishes, Augustus buried the deceased ruler next to Antony in a large tomb somewhere around Alexandria. Like something out of a Shakespearean play, the two lovers were reunited in their final rest.This story was corroborated by Plutarch, who wrote that Augustus declared that Cleopatra’s “body should be buried with that of Antony in splendid and regal fashion.” Another ancient historian, Suetonius, backs this up, explaining that Augustus “allowed them both the honor of burial, and in the same tomb, giving orders that the mausoleum which they had begun should be finished.”
The Location Of Their Tomb Has Yet To Be Discovered. Where is the fabled tomb that contains the remains of Cleopatra and Antony? What other treasures, if any, exist inside it? Despite what some archaeologists have claimed over the years, the location of the tomb remains unclear. One recent theory is that her tomb lies 30 miles outside of Alexandria in the ancient temple site of Taposiris Magna.Scientists have searched far and wide in and around Alexandria for clues, but the hunt continues for the queen of Egypt and her Roman lover.
Below example is from Norfolk Virginia——————————Clearly, the “leakage” of firearms into challenged neighborhoods is the principal driver of gun violence. Perpetrators of gun crimes may have been “set up” by lead in their environment as children——shouldn’t we do something about this?
UWM study finds over half of gun violence perpetrators and victims had elevated blood lead levels as children
More than half of the people who were perpetrators or victims of gun violence in Milwaukee in recent years had elevated blood lead levels as children, according to a study released Friday by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The study of nearly 90,000 residents, conducted at the University’s Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health, suggests a link between early childhood lead exposure and gun violence in later years.
Lindsay R. Emer, the study’s lead author, said it was conducted using public health, education and criminal justice data.
After reviewing the records of 89,129 people who were born in Milwaukee between June 1, 1986, and Dec. 31, 2003, and given blood lead tests before the age of 6, Emer and other researchers found a correlation between elevated blood lead levels and the risk of being involved in gun violence.
Emer said that while the study was not able to definitively prove cause and effect, the link is striking:
According to their findings, 56% of the shooters and 51% of the victims were found to have blood lead levels equal to or greater than the recommended limit of lead exposure of 5 micrograms per deciliter.
The study
The study originated from a dissertation Emer started she while still a doctoral student at UWM.
Since then, she has earned and defended her Ph.D., worked with the Medical College of Wisconsin and is currently a senior research consultant at the National Center for State Court.
The publication of her study, “Association of childhood blood lead levels with firearm violence perpetration and victimization in Milwaukee,” is a culmination of years of work.
Emer said she and other researchers gathered their sample size from people who had consistent Milwaukee addresses for their lead test(s) and were documented in the Milwaukee Public Schools system.
They then compared that group with those who were listed as gun violence victims or perpetrators in Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission data. The commission — created by Mallory O’Brien, also listed as an author in this study — gathered data only between 2005 and 2015.
Because of that, Emer said, she chose birth years from 1986 to 2003 because that would make her sample size young adults by the time the review commission was active.
During those years, deteriorating lead paint and household dust were contaminating children, many of whom were more likely to be poor and/or African American.
Those same racial and socioeconomic disparities were reflected in the racial and socioeconomic disparity of people overrepresented in the review commission as perpetrators or victims of gun violence.
The study follows a consistent vein of prior research connecting lead exposure and violence:
Researchers at Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley published a study in 2016 that concluded that cities that used lead water pipes had homicide rates that were 24% higher than cities that did not.
Two researchers published a paper in 2017 for the National Bureau of Economic Research that studied the link between lead exposure and juvenile delinquency and found that as blood lead levels increased, so did the probability of suspension from school.
That trend is highlighted by this latest study, which concluded, “In Milwaukee, during a period of high lead exposures, childhood levels may have substantially contributed to adult firearm violence.”
The implications
This more localized study comes as Milwaukee children continue to experience elevated blood lead levels; an average of 3,000 of the 25,000 Milwaukee children tested for lead each year have elevated levels, the Journal Sentinel has reported.
Childhood lead exposure has been proven to reduce IQ scores and increase attention disorders, both of which put children at risk for increased delinquency.
Bruce Lanphear, professor of health sciences and epidemiology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, described lead exposure in children as insidious.
“If it’s not overt poison, one of the challenges is you don’t really see acute symptoms,” he said. “You do see symptoms more like acting-out type behaviors: ADHD type behaviors, problems with schoolwork, risk-taking behaviors, impulsive behaviors in kids, delinquency in kids.”
Those behavioral challenges, he noted, don’t just disappear once someone turns 18.
“Conduct disorder in children matures into delinquent and sometimes even criminal behavior,” he said.
Robert Miranda, a spokesperson for the Freshwater for Life Act Coalition, said the study confirms a long line of research that has several implications.
For example, he said the city should consider testing prisoners’ blood lead levels and seeing if certain treatments targeting the effects of lead exposure can help reduce recidivism.
Moreover, he said more conclusive evidence of what lead poisoning can do should encourage the city to move urgently — more urgently, he said, than what its current plan calls for.
“Replacing 1,000 lead service lines a year isn’t going to cut it,” he said. “The damage done by lead poisoning is irreversible. So those children who have been harmed today are pretty much damaged for the rest of their lives.
“What we need to get focused on is treating those children who have been harmed today, but to remove this toxic poison from our environment completely so more children can be saved.”
Lead abatement in Milwaukee
Earlier this month, the city received a grant of nearly $6 million for lead abatement, in addition to the $21 million Mayor Tom Barrett earmarked in his 2020 budget.
Last month, lead-free activists at Hephatha Lutheran Church gathered pledges from local politicians to support a $240,000 program to provide lead-education kits to new mothers in the hospital.
Supporters of that pledge included Aldermen Ashanti Hamilton, Russell Stamper, Jose Perez, Nik Kovac and Mark Borkowski and Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik.
Contact Talis Shelbourne at (414) 223-5261 or tshelbourn@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @talisseer and Facebook at @talisseer.
LET’S START WITH THE ORIGIN OF A MADMAN OF RECENT MEMORY———–
THE COMING RACE (a Victorian novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton) and its attendant barmy mysticism would have sunk into obscurity if it hadn’t been for the First World War. At the end of the war, Germany was plunged into violent anarchy and a host of extremist politicians and cult leaders stepped into the breach and battled for power. Chief of these was the occult Thule Society – and its inner sect, the Vril Society.
The Vril Society was noted for it’s use of orgies to summon up occult energies – and to father a ‘master race’ of children to repopulate a devastated Germany. It is said that women in such orgies would become possessed by spirits and begin speaking in tongues. And their prophesies were treated with deadly seriousness.
“But the darkest side of the Vril was their propensity for sacrificing young children,” says Michael Fitzgerald, author of Stormtroopers of Satan. “They would stab them in the chest and cut their throats.
“At the height of their power in 1920s Munich, hundreds of children disappeared. Many are presumed to have been killed by the cult to summon up Vril energy. This may seem like an outlandish claim but when you consider what these people went on to do in the Third Reich, it seems almost tame.”
Central to the Vril Society was the search for a German Messiah who would lead the Aryan’s to world domination and exterminate all other races – especially the Jews. And his rise was predicted by a spirit calling itself the “Beast of the Book of Revelation.”
In a séance attended by the cult followers Alfred Rosenberg and Dietrich Eckart, the Beast is said to have proclaimed that a man named “Hitler” would seize the “Spear of Destiny” and lead the Aryans to power.
And within a few weeks, a fiery young man of shabby appearance began attending Thule Society meetings. His name was Adolf Hitler. Below may be his final claim to infamy.
Neal Scroggs, A Most Viewed Writer on World War II.
Updated Thu · Upvoted by Gary Schuster, M.S. Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering & History, University of North Dakota (2017)
On 10 July 1945, a German submarine, U-530, a Type IXC/40 boat, appeared in the Argentine port of Plata del Mar and surrendered to the Armada de la República Argentina, an officially belligerent but Nazi-sympathetic navy, more than two months after the formal surrender of Nazi Germany and the direct order of Admiral Karl Dönitz to all u-boats at sea to surface and immediately surrender to the nearest Allied authority.
Not only were the actions of U-530’s commander a direct contravention of the surrender terms formalized on 8 May 1945 between the Allied Powers and the German government and military, but the circumstances of the last voyage of the U-530 were also very mysterious, and remain so to this day. When taken over by the Argentines, U-530 was completely devoid of ships papers — the logbook, manifest, written orders, dockyard papers, etc. The personal identity documents of the crew, their soldbuchs and ID disks, were also missing. There was virtually nothing on board to account for the movements and mission of the vessel since leaving Horten Naval Base in Norway shortly before the war ended except for the personal testimony of the commander and his crew, and they weren’t very talkative.
When asked to explain why he had not followed Admiral Dönitz’s surrender directives, Oberleutnant zur See Otto Wermuth, would only say he was under orders “from Berlin”, which could only mean direct orders from Hitler himself, since in the German submarine service in WWII there was no one with higher authority than Dönitz except Hitler as commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht.
The condition of the submarine itself was highly suspicious. The casing (the outer superstructure built over the pressure hull) and the conning tower were extremely rusty, and much of the paint was missing, having been either scraped or burned off. Her 10.5cm SK C/32 deck gun and mount were missing along with its ammunition, apparently having been jettisoned at sea. Also, there were no torpedoes or torpedo racks in her torpedo spaces fore and aft. No explanation of the vessel’s condition was offered by Wermuth or his subordinates.
After the sub and its crew were turned over to the Americans, the crew were further interrogated by ONI officers, but nothing more was learned (or more precisely, nothing more was learned that was published.) Wermuth and his men were eventually released and repatriated to Germany, because the only viable war crime charge that could be preferred against Wermuth or the crew, the postwar sinking of the Brazilian cruiser Bahia on 4 July 1945, was shown to be false. The submarine itself was sunk as a torpedo training target by USS Toro on 28 November 1947.
There are many theories offered to explain the voyage of the U-530. The most outlandish ones suggest that the sub was transporting high-ranking Nazi military and political figures, perhaps even Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun themselves, to a secret landing somewhere on the coast of Argentina or Uruguay. These speculations account for the large empty spaces fore and aft (i.e. accommodation for passengers) and her surrender to Argentina but do not account for the delay. U-530 was a schnorkel-equipped vessel and could have sustained 6 knots submerged all the way from Norway, about 48 days. U-530 was at sea 63 days after the surrender.
Another theory is both more plausible and more sinister. There is reason to believe that after the firebombing of Dresden (13–15 February 1945) Hitler ordered a revenge attack on the United States in the form of a nerve gas assault on New York City by submarine. By 1945 Germany had invented and stockpiled at least two nerve agents able to be deployed by explosive ordnance, Sarin and Tabun, which could have been made into shells capable of being fired by U-530’s 10.5cm deck gun. Surfacing at night in the East River would have made a catastrophic nerve gas bombardment of Manhatten and Brooklyn possible, but almost certainly suicidal. Hitler was talked out of this gas attack by his most trusted underlings, including Albert Speer, as self-defeating because it would give the Americans a justification of using its chemical warfare agents on Germany or so says the tale. However, it may be that Hitler resurrected his submarine-launched gas attack plan as a final gesture of defiance.
The gas attack on NYC theory explains much of the known facts about U-530’s last patrol. First, there is the absence of torpedoes and torpedo racks. Both the forward and after torpedo rooms had watertight (and therefore airtight) interior hatches and torpedo loading hatches leading to the weather deck. Without torpedos or torpedo racks these spaces could be used as chemical ammunitions handling rooms for the deck mount that would not endanger the rest of the crew spaces should there be an accident.
Secondly, it explains the absence of ship and crew documents. Wermuth and his men would rightly fear prosecution for war crimes if their participation in a gas attack scheme were ever exposed.
Thirdly, the poor physical condition of the boat can be explained as a consequence of a mutiny aboard U-530. Consider the following scenario: After putting to sea under sealed orders and having been supplied with a huge load of “special” shells for the deck gun in lieu of torpedoes, the crew discovers the true nature of their mission. Not wanting to be hanged by the Allies or to give the Americans an excuse to attack Germany in kind they hatch a mutiny plot. While running on the surface the lookouts seize Oblt.z.S. Wermuth or his first officer. They also gain control of the conning tower and foredeck hatches to prevent U-530 submerging to drown the mutineers. After gaining at least partial control of the boat the mutinous crewmen proceed to foil the gas attack plot by detaching the deck mount and throwing it overboard. Further suppose, that while laboring to jettison the deck gun or fighting with loyal crew members the mutineers somehow set fire to the weather deck, which burns off the much of the paint. This would explain the severely rusted appearance of U-530’supperworks.
With his deck gun jettisoned, Wermuth has no means to use the deadly shells stored in the torpedos spaces. Consequently, he agrees to the mutineers’ demands: He must take the u-boat to some deserted stretch of deep water where the nerve gas shells can be safely thrown overboard without significant risk of encountering a witness. Next, he must agree to destroy all documents that could be used to link the ship and its crew to the gas attack plot.
To dispose of their deadly cargo there could hardly be a better spot than the Scotia Sea.
In June and July 1945 the Scotia Sea was among the most deserted waters on the planet. June and July are winter months in the Southern Hemisphere, and in the 1940s much of the ship traffic in the Scotia Sea consisted of fishing and whaling vessels. In winter the whales are gone, and the sea is generally too rough for fishing assuming there is much fish to catch. Furthermore, the waters there are very deep — 19,000 feet and more. In other words, perfect for the mutineers’ purpose. This putative voyage to the Scotia Sea accounts fairly well for the 63 days delay in surrendering.
Addenda
Soldbuch (literally pay book). When a young German presented himself for active duty, he received an Erkennungsmarke (dog tag) and a Soldbuch, which was the basic identity document that the soldier or sailor would carry on his person for the rest of his active military career. The title “pay book” is somewhat misleading, because little or no pay is actually recorded in the document. Instead, the book gave the serviceman the authority to draw pay, and in fact, the original intent of the document was to allow individuals to draw pay from a unit other than their own. In practice, the Soldbuch was the identity document that most concerned active duty personnel. Inside its tan leather cover, the 24 pages contained an array of information that included the serviceman’s current and past assigned units (former units were crossed out but legible), pay rate, awards, equipment/weapons issued, clothing, Erkennungsmarke number, and some medical history.
On the matter of Argentine and Urugyuan belligerence in WWII.Both countries had, and have to this day, a large German-speaking population who often celebrated their Germanic culture and expressed sympathy for Germany during the war. Both nations tried to maintain a neutral stance during the whole course of the conflict and failed. Under economic and political pressure from the United States, both Argentina and Uruguay declared war on the Axis powers, Uruguay in February 1945 and Argentina about five weeks later.
The sinking of cruiser Bahia. U-530 was suspected of having destroyed the Bahia because the u-boat could have been nearby when the Brazilian warship sank on 4 July 1945. However, survivor testimony revealed that the sinking was accidental. Bahia was scheduled to escort aircraft supply ships to the Pacific. In preparation for deployment to areas where Japanese attacks could occur Bahia’s crew drilled with her AA suite by firing at a kite. One of the anti-aircraft guns aimed too low and hit one or more depth charges on the stern racks. The resultant explosion tore the stern off Bahia, which sank in three minutes.
Sailing time to Argentina. My estimate of 48 days assumes a steady pace of six knots, which is about the maximum sustained speed of Type IX boat using a schnorkel. However, the actual speed would likely be faster. Though the schnorkel allowed the diesel motors to operate while submerged there was still a need to surface every two days to ventilate the breathing air which would otherwise be polluted with toxic levels of CO₂ and CO. During those ventilation runs the boat could dash ahead at her best speed of about 18 knots. U-530 was equipped with the FuMO 61 Hohentwiel radar transmitter and theFuMB 26 Tunis radar detection system. Using these sensors the vessel could operate on the surface at night with greater safety than most u-boats. Maintaining an average speed of 8 knots U-530 could reach the Scotia Sea and return as far as Plata del Mar in almost exactly 63 days.
The lesson here is how mad rulers take revenge on those driving them from power. Should we be concerned about this in the United States of 2019?
Note also the blame despots place upon their most loyal followers when the end of their regime looms. Here is an example from Hitler: “The German people has not fought heroically, it deserves to perish. It is not I who have lost the war, but the German people”.’
Consider the encounter between Rand Paul (Senator?) and Dr. Anthony Fauci–“If anyone is lying here, Senator, it is you!” July 20, 2021.
1954, June 9, the Army McCarthy Hearings
“Have you no sense of decency?” Sen. Joseph McCarthy is asked in hearing.
JOSEPH N. WELCH
In a dramatic confrontation, Joseph Welch, special counsel for the U.S. Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether communism has infiltrated the U.S. armed forces. Welch’s verbal assault marked the end of McCarthy’s power during the anticommunist hysteria of the Red Scare in America.
Senator McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) experienced a meteoric rise to fame and power in the U.S. Senate when he charged in February 1950 that “hundreds” of “known communists” were in the Department of State. In the years that followed, McCarthy became the acknowledged leader of the so-called Red Scare, a time when millions of Americans became convinced that communists had infiltrated every aspect of American life. Behind closed-door hearings, McCarthy bullied, lied, and smeared his way to power, destroying many careers and lives in the process. Prior to 1953, the Republican Party tolerated his antics because his attacks were directed against the Democratic administration of Harry S. Truman. When Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the White House in 1953, however, McCarthy’s recklessness and increasingly erratic behavior became unacceptable and the senator saw his clout slowly ebbing away. In a last-ditch effort to revitalize his anticommunist crusade, McCarthy made a crucial mistake. He charged in early 1954 that the U.S. Army was “soft” on communism. As Chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, McCarthy opened hearings into the Army.
Joseph N. Welch, a soft-spoken lawyer with an incisive wit and intelligence, represented the Army. During the course of weeks of hearings, Welch blunted every one of McCarthy’s charges. The senator, in turn, became increasingly enraged, bellowing “point of order, point of order,” screaming at witnesses, and declaring that one highly decorated general was a “disgrace” to his uniform. On June 9, 1954, McCarthy again became agitated at Welch’s steady destruction of each of his arguments and witnesses. In response, McCarthy charged that Frederick G. Fisher, a young associate in Welch’s law firm, had been a long-time member of an organization that was a “legal arm of the Communist Party.” Welch was stunned. As he struggled to maintain his composure, he looked at McCarthy and declared, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” It was then McCarthy’s turn to be stunned into silence, as Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” The audience of citizens and newspaper and television reporters burst into wild applause. Just a week later, the hearings into the Army came to a close. McCarthy, exposed as a reckless bully, was officially condemned by the U.S. Senate for contempt against his colleagues in December 1954. During the next two-and-a-half years McCarthy spiraled into alcoholism. Still in office, he died 4 years later.
Recollections of Warren Harkey, a friend and lifelong resident of New Mexico, USA
Thought you might find this amusing. It concern’s my father’s career.
Southern Pacific depot at Ancho New Mexico
The application under the for our future home was made under the terms of the Homestead act, which was filed 10/05/1936. I was born in August 1937 and vaguely remember living in the back of the depot at Ancho, New Mexico. Remember crawling around trying to find the what was making a dripping sound on the bottom of the icebox we had there. Pop got ice from the railroad cars to put in the icebox.
Don’t know when we moved to the house Pop built. No AC power, just kerosene lamps. I remember watching Pop working in the office at the depot with headphones on and typing instructions to the incoming train which were attached to loops with a handle and the engineer slowed down and reached out and grabbed the loop and removed the note, better known as “orders” and pitched the loop back down. All communication in and out were by landline Morse code! I wanted to learn it but never made it!
Rural Railroad Station Manager at work
Until the 1950s, train movements were coordinated primarily by telegraphed messages. Orders conveyed by the dots and dashes of Morse code directed trains to use specified routes to avoid collisions and kept dispatchers up to the minute on train locations. There were no radios, so depot telegraphers delivered the orders to train crews as written or typed messages grabbed by train drivers ( “engineers”) as the train passed the station.
Locomotive tender water tank being filled, this had to be done every 20 or 30 milesCoal would be loaded into the tender (always directly coupled to the locomotive) at the beginning of every tripLocomotive fireman had to shovel coal from tender into firebox continuously during a trip-he might become an engineer (train driver) after several years
All engines were steam engines, so water had to be available every few miles. I remember the water from Bonito lake was piped to Coyote (between Ancho and Carrizozo) by gravity and huge steam driven pumps at Coyote forced the water up to Ancho and Luna and I don’t remember if it went further. Coyote had dual steam plants and dual pumps to make sure the trains could keep going. The steam plants were huge!, everything was fueled by coal which came in by rail also. Every station had water available for the steam engines.
The pumps were manned 24 hrs/day and Uncle Elbert Brown worked there. Pop took us down to visit with Elbert and I got a tour of the place-very impressive. A large water storage facility was there also just in case. Just after the war, in 1945 or 6 trains switched to diesel and hundreds were out of a job. The water from Bonito was diverted to Alamogordo. Pop’s job moved to Carrizozo and he had a longer commute. Ancho, Luna and Coyote died.
Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov talking with Gustav Hilger (center) and Adolf Hitler, Berlin, November 1940 (Source: AKG Images)
The Europe of 1940 witnessed the rapid victory of German troops over Western allies, much to the surprise of military observers. The fighting continued with a strong air offensive on England, a very costly form of confrontation with fuel consumption and the loss of quality aircraft. Adolf Hitler needed strategic resources and found them with the support of the Soviet Union, to be more exact, with the help of Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
The Soviet Union’s demands
The relations between these great powers were resolved by meetings at the highest level, and in November 1940, Commissioner Veaceslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Comrade Stalin’s right-hand man, visited Berlin. Only oil and grain should have flowed, but Adolf Hitler was shocked to learn of the Kremlin’s wishes. Moscow demanded, among other things, points of support for the Soviet fleet in the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, as well as in Thessaloniki, Greece being a coveted space by the Italian ally. Adolf Hitler had to agree with Soviet rule in Iran and communist bases in the Persian Gulf. It would have been a huge step towards achieving the ideological goal they called the ‘world revolution’ by capturing British oil reserves.
The strategic bombers would have controlled the entire Arab region and the paratroopers would have occupied everything that was essential to maintain control of communist Moscow. The BT series fast tanks would have been perfect for large space operations. Points of support on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia were not forgotten, and Bulgaria had to be included in the communist world. Sofia’s entry into the communist sphere would have had a special geostrategic impact.
Germany: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov talking with Gustav Hilger (center) and Adolf Hitler, Berlin, November 1940 (AKG Images)
The presence of Soviet troops south of the Danube would have brought the red-star tanks only 60 km from Bucharest, and the Prahova region, with the Wehrmacht’s essential refineries, was not too far away. As Romania did not have enough anti-tank weapons, the defense of the Carpatho-Danubian-Pontic country was impossible to achieve. In addition, the Soviet ground forces were approaching the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the two straits being interesting for a future outflow of the Red Fleet into the Mediterranean. It was a perfect indirect strategy action by the Kremlin.
The hosts were shocked when they heard about Soviet bases on the coast of Denmark, in order to have access to the North Sea and, implicitly, to the Atlantic Ocean. Soviet units were allegedly introduced into territory occupied in April 1940 by German troops. No other claim by the Kremlin went down well with those in Berlin. Romania had lost, in June 1940, the territories of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Herta County, following an ultimatum issued by Commissioner Molotov.
Romania caught between two powers
The Romanian army, lacking anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, was forced to withdraw without a fight and abandon the population to a new communist experiment, with deportations and exterminations. At the time, Moscow was also demanding the sovereignty of Southern Bukovina, which would have meant that the city of Suceava would have fallen beyond possible future borders.
Romanian Troops in 1940 (Source: Russia Beyond)
Adolf Hitler did not have a high degree in the military arts, but he could not help but notice the critical situation in which Romania found itself. The army of Bucharest would have had its flank uncovered and the defense of the city of Iasi would have been impossible. The capital of Romania went from 429 km starting from Chernivtsi to 358 km departing by air from Suceava. Berlin was interested in defending the oil-rich Prahova region, which was essential for the operation of the tank-aircraft binomial needed for large-scale offensive operations such as operation Barbarosa, which would follow two years later. The Soviet armies were approaching from the north and the one from the east was about 200 km away.
Secret Military summit conference at the Berghof, July 1940 (Source: World Future Fund)
Although official relations remained seemingly good and trade continued, both sides moved onto military training for supremacy in Europe and, implicitly, in the world. The German chancellor ordered the Barbarossa Plan to be drawn up, and the path of war was seen as the only solution to the problems in the socialist camp.
The reason as to why it is imperative to mention Romania so much in this agreement is due to the important role they played during the war. Despite its small army, as well as its small territory, Romania always gave everything it had towards winning the war. This includes their most valuable resource at the time, oil. As the Soviet Union had an abundance of oil at the time, they weren’t interested in Romania for this exact reason. However, Germany could not get enough oil to power its mechanic military power.
Romania was not only located in the epicenter of the Second World War but also, it had a very important geographical location, as it allowed the Axis powers from the west to move in their troops through Bessarabia into the Soviet Union.
Even if this agreement had worked, it would not have lasted for a long time, as we are talking about two of the biggest military powers of the 20th century showing their hunger for more and more power. They were deeply influenced by both fascism and communism. Germany would end up declaring war, taking over most of Europe, and starting Operation Barbarossa on the 5th of December 1941. This operation consisted of a plan to use the Blitzkrieg tactic (Lighting War) to take over the whole of the Soviet Union.
Moses never got his passport or drivers license, so we can’t be certain. Neither did White Wolf, the Chippewa Indian Chief, sometimes called by his Anglo name of John Smith.
Just looking at the picture, I’d say that his tombstone is probably right.
White Wolf had eight wives, fought many battles with the Lakota/Sioux Indians and remembered the War of 1812. At the age of 116, he got hit by a locomotive; that would normally be the ticket to the Other Side, but White Wolf had a full recovery in three weeks. And living in Minnesota, he would occasionally encounter bears on his long treks to no place in particular. When they got in attack mode, standing high on their rear paws, White Wolf would point his cane at the predator and give it a stern warning to go away; at the age of 138, he couldn’t be bothered.
RIP John Smith, also known as White Wolf, also known as Kaa-be-naag-wii-wlss
I believe you.
Was healthy outdoor living his secret? Notice the ancient Mississipian culture symbol, the swastika,
appropriated by a certain criminal gang in Germany in 1920. Below is another version of this symbol, with
eagle associations and imagery. Referred to as the Feathered Serpent symbol.
The Europe of 1940 witnessed the rapid victory of German troops over Western allies, much to the surprise of military observers. The fighting continued with a strong air offensive on England, a very costly form of confrontation with fuel consumption and the loss of quality aircraft. Adolf Hitler needed strategic resources and found them with the support of the Soviet Union, to be more exact, with the help of Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
KILROY'S WORLD (AT 84) 
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