PBS NOVA Bombing Hitler's Supergun New Documentary 2016

There are same things in this presentation that I didn't know which makes it very interesting.  I wasn't even aware of a V-3 super-gun program.  This really was some gun.  It was pointed directly to London and that was the target.  It had five shafts, with five barrels in each shaft.  That would have been 25 barrels hurling projectiles towards London.  The effect could have been devastating.  The guns did not rely on just one explosion but a series of explosions to hurl the shell.  They had a cannon that could reach England, but not London.  In a big way, Hitler was relying on this weapon to turn the war.  After the Allies discover the existence of the bunkers, with a barrel, they set on a bombing program, which was not effective.  Two other programs were devised, one by England and the other by The United States.  The United State program involved the first use of a drone.  The drone used early television and remote control.  It required a pilot and copilot to take off, and get the plane in motion.  Joe Kennedy, the brother of John Kennedy was the pilot.  His father Joe Sr.  had groomed him to be the first Catholic President.  The English plan involved the first use of buster busting bombs.  This attack actually took place a month before the American attack.  The aerial photos after the attack showed that there were big holes in the bunker, but no one could see inside the bunker.  SO the American plan went through.  However there was a fault with the remote arming devise in the American plane that caused it to explode prematurely.  Joe Kennedy and his copilot were lost.  When the Allies finally reached the area where the bunker was located, the discovered that the buster bunker bombs had caused irreparable damage.

HBO's "Nazi Gold in Argentina" Trailer

The video above is to the trailer, however I watched the full documentary on Netflix.  I am not sure what to think after watching this.  Much of the documentary was reenactment, and much of it was boring, but the basic premise was that by examining declassified American documents, and international plot to move Nazis and Nazi gold to Argentina took place during the time that Juan Peron was president of Argentina.  Rudolfo Freude, who was close with the brother of Eva Peron, managed the network which facilitated so many Nazis to escape to Argentina, in exchange for gold which had been stolen from Jews were had been killed in concentration camps.  Apparently much of the Peron's wealth came from these sources.  There was a German community by Bariloche, in the South of Argentina which had a significant population at one time.  After Eva passed away, her brother was later arrested for his involvement.
A murder plot had been set up for Peron.  However this video also shows that Peron fled to the Delta (close to Tigre) and stayed in the residence of a German national.  Because he broke his normal routine, his life was spared.  From here Peron was eventually arrested, but there was time to organize the labor movement who clamored for his release.  From there his election to the presidency was almost foregone.
I still don't know what to think.  The producers contend that dead men don't talk, and there were many murders to maintain the secrecy of this program.  However the secrecy held for 60 years if their contention is true.

Documentary Review: World War II in Colour: Victory in Europe: Episode 12

As the end of the war approached, the question was which of the Allies was going to claim which territory.  Stalin continued to push for a bigger piece of the pie.  The Nazis faced enemies on three sides, the Russians in the East, the United States and Britain on the West and South.  The Third Reich which was suppose to last a 1000 years was crumbling after five.  As the American finally made it across the Rhine, and moved towards Berlin, they too came across horrendous conditions in the concentrations camps, and piles of bodies who had been systematically killed.  Tough fighting faced the Allies, as well as huge gains, one day 350,000 nazi soldiers were surrendered.  The Russians approached Berlin.  The Battle for Berlin was terrible.  And even after Adolf Hitler and his new wife Eva Braun suicided, the battle in Berlin continued.  In the South the Italians relinquished and surrendered, and finally the Germans did the same.  First to Montgomery, who said he could only accept the surrender of those in front of him.  The surrender of the entire German force would have to include a wider audience.  Victory in Europe Day is May 8, 1945.  The country was split between the Allies, and even though Berlin was within the Russian sector, it too was split.  The other task after the war was to separate the war criminals.  To the Nuremberg Trials was given this task.  Some were sentenced to 10 years in prison, and other hung.  Many more committed suicide to avoid the fate of hanging.

The Story of Margret Ray, H.A. Ray and Curious George

The story of the Rays is remarkable.  Margret and H.A. or Hans were German Jews.  Hans developed a love of drawing, living across the street from the Hamburg zoo.  Margret was a writer.  They met in Brazil.  Hans was there selling bath tubs.  After marrying the returned to Europe to live in Paris.  There they published their first book, which introduced Curious George.  The book, "Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys" introduced a little monkey, Fifi, who would later become George.
Just before Paris fell to the Nazis, the Rays fled on bicycles.  They had the pictures for a new book, about George on the bicycles with them.  The crossed the French-Spanish border, and caught a train for Lisbon. Portugal.  From there the sailed to Brazil.  They were able to use Han's Brazilian passport to gain entry to the United States.  Margret minded the business end of things and negotiated for a publisher.  They were able to produce the first Curious George book in 1941.  However with the war, subsequent books were put on hold.  There was not enough paper to produce children's books at the time.  However the Rays would write and illustrate seven Curious George books.  Some of them dealt with going to the hospital, some helped teach younger children to read.  George goes up in to space in a rocket, and in another wins a medal.  He also deals with an ostrich at the zoo.  What ever the story, they are delightful, and the Rays knew how to entertain children.  They did not have any children of their own, but were often involved in projects to improve the lives of children.

Documentary Review: World War II In Colour 2: Lightning War

Lightning war refers to a tactic employed by the Germans.  Blitzkrieg, or lightning war referred to moving fast with armored columns, bypassing the strongest positions, and letting the infantry follow and mop up.  Such was the strategy used by the Germans in Poland in 1939.  Germany used its superiority in air power and in tanks to take territory quickly.  And so it was that Poland was conquered quickly.  With this the British and French troops prepared for invasion of France, thinking the Germans would use similar tactics to the invasion in WWI, through Belgium.  In this they were fooled.  First the Germans attacked north rather than into France.  They conquered Norway, and then other Scandinavian countries, one after the other using similar tactics.  When it came to France, the expected attack was along the coastal areas.  However Germany attacked with their panzer division south and just north of the heavily defended areas considered impenetrable.  The attack was not expected over the rough terrain.  The German's were able to get behind the French and English forces, forces them back so as to avoid being cut off.  German air superiority again played a key roll.  The French and British armies were able to fight their way to Dunkirk, but there they were cut off.  The only hope for the forces was removal.  Churchill mustered a flotilla of any available vessel, but these were kept from the port by the many dive bombers.  He then recruited even smaller vessels who could go and gather the men, and take them to the larger vessels for transportation to Great Britain.  In this way the British Arm was save, as well as many of the French.   However the country of France was lost, and the Germans marched almost unopposed into Paris.

Documentary Review: Nazi Mega Weapons: Jet Fighter Me262

The Nazis developed the first jet airplanes during WWII.  They were hoping they would change the tide of the war, but they were used incorrectly, and they were too few too late.  Hitler wanted explosive bombs to be attached to them so they could bomb the oncoming onslaught by the Allies.  The air force saw them more as a way to equalize the air war, as they were faster than any other plane flying at the time.  Allied bombers and even their fighter planes were no match for these planes.  Fortunately Hitler's lack of focus, and the lateness in development left these planes subject to Allied occupation.  The lateness in development was partially due to Allied air attack to the runways and the facilities where the planes were being built.  The Nazis moved their development into caves.  With this change came great misery for many of those in concentration camps.  They would be used as forced labor, and beaten if they could not perform their task, even though they were never given proper nourishment and were unskilled laborers at best.  The bat caves where the planes were to be built were never completed.

Documentary: Nazi Mega Weapons: U-boat Hangar

One of the largest construction projects ever undertaken was the building of the submarine hangar in France at the sea port of --.  This in truth was three projects, each more astounding than the one before.  At first the Nazis used existing equipment to dry dock he submarines.  This was effective in get the submarines out of the water for repair, but left them vulnerable to air attach as there was no protection.  The Nazis constructed two large hangars where the boats could be stored.  These were made of thick concrete.  They also had rounded roofs so bombs would bounce off.  However these large hangars were yet too small to accommodate the larger U-boats.  A large project was undertaken.  Hangars K-1 and K-2 were build.  The foundation. Was too soft, even with driving steal beams into the earth for a foundation.  This limited the weight and the strength of he protecting ceiling.  These two hangars required transfer from one to the other with a delicate mechanism, and vulnerability to Allied aircraft.  An even larger bunker was needed.  This time the dug to bedrock for an even stronger foundation.  The roof was essentially nine feet twice, with a layer of air between two thick concret roofs.  A special bunker buster bomb call a "tall boy" was used.  This bomb destroyed the first roof where it hit, but did nothing to the second layer.  Since the hangar could not be destroyed, the Allies bombed the town.  They destroyed the town, but not the hangar and the submarines where still protected when in port.  Finally the plan shifted to killing the submarines at sea.  With better technology, and cracking the enigma code, the Allies were able to destroy the U-boats at sea.  They attacked them with planes, destroyers and destroyer escorts.  The hangar was impenetrable, and did not surrender until two days after the surrender of Germany.  However the Allies did win the battle for the Atlantic.

Science and the Swastika: The Deadly Experiment

This is a very disturbing documentary.  It starts talking about how the medical profession was a part of the holocaust.  Medical doctors directed who would die, and who was fit to work.  They declared many children needed to die, and sent them to the gas chambers.  In fact, they were involved in devising the method of death, and practiced how to keep people calm.  One approach was to have a medical vehicle at the gate so people brought to the gas chambers would be reassured.  I guess you don't believe that medical people can do such evil things; but they can.  A jewish doctor confronted them about the Hippocratic Oath.  The doctor responded that the Jewish people were a cancer, and they were just cutting out a cancer.  However the killing was not limited to just Jews.  It also included gypsies, those who were mentally ill, those who were using doctor beds which were needed for the wounded, and many more.
Some of the most evil things done were the experiments performed on people in the name of science.  One of these was the development of ways to make women infertile.  They would inject concoctions into the cervix of women, which would cause them to become infected.  Some died, and others were rendered infertile.  Other inhuman experiments were performed on twins, not always identical, and in fact sometimes close siblings snuck into the experiments.  Some of these people stayed alive.  Dr. Josef Mengele was the doctor villain who conducted these experiments.  They would involve infecting one twin with disease or other trauma, and then killing both twins and comparing the results.  Other times only one twin would did, and the other would survive.  Dr. Mengele also conducted experiments in Siamese twins.  Who would have perfectly healthy twins sewn together so he could watch what would happen.  Often his work also involved harvesting organs for experiments and for research hospitals.  Sometimes he would have to kill people to be able to harvest their organs.
This is pure evil.  Not all of these doctors paid for their crimes; although some did.  Dr. Mengele fled to South America, and was not found.

Documentary Review: Secret Lives

At the start of WWII there were 1.5 million Jewish Children in eastern Europe.  Only one in ten would survive.  All would be effected.  More would have not survived if not for people who stepped forward as rescuers, and took the children in despite the risks to themselves and their neighbors.  For many this risk could have included execution. 
How does a country get to a point where they feel they are entitled to eliminate a race, killing innocent men, women and children by the millions.  They obviously had no humanity. 
This movie is made by a survivor of the holocaust, Aviva Slesen.  She found her rescuers after many years, and decided to find more, as well as those rescued.  She talks to a small group of rescuers as well as rescued.  The stories are fascinating.  The daughter of a rescue family, who resented her parents putting them at risk and the parents being taken away by the Jewish children  The boy who after so many years of silence, at the end of the war grabbed a Dutch flag and took to the streets, "I am Jewish, I am Jewish!"  The girl who couldn't accept her Jewish mother as her mother, she had no hair, was thin and ill, and she was a Catholic.  There are a few who stayed with their rescuers.  There are many who were orphans.  Some were taken in by relatives.  There was a move by the Jewish community that the children be repatriated.  They had lost enough of their people. 
This movie keeps one thinking, and is well presented.  There are no easy answers sometimes.  Every Jew was effected by these horrific events.

Documentary Review: A Film Unfinished: The Ghetto (Warsaw Ghetto)

This documentary is based on an unfinished propaganda film which was made by Nazi film team, under the direction of the SS in the Warsaw Ghetto.  Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the German ghettos for Jewish persons.  It was walled in in 1940.  The ghetto held about 400,000 people; 30 percent of the population of Warsaw on 2.5 percent of the area.  Conditions were crowded.  In addition to this the area was walled in, meaning there was no economic base.  The citizens were allowed 184 calories a day.  The film shows a monthly allotment.  2.5 eggs per year, 6 ounces of vegetables a month, it was just crazy.  Smuggling items from outside the ghetto was the only way to survive.  Many small children were involved in smuggling.  If they were caught, they were killed.
"The Ghetto" was filmed in 1842.  Rumors were flying of the death camps, but exportation from the Warsaw Ghetto had not begun.  The motivation of the film was two-fold as far as I could tell.  One they tried to make the life in the ghetto to not be that bad.  To do this they staged many scenes--a large funeral procession, a woman putting on lipstick, a party, an opulent home, a thriving market with meat and other items.  It also tried to show the callousness of the rich Jews towards the poor.  They would show poor beggar Jews, and the opulent people ignoring them.  They tried to show this contrast in several different ways.  Another thing they showed was corpses on the street, and everyone avoiding them.  They were trying to make a statement.
When the film was first discovered in German vaults, it was taken as on-the-street filming.  However it was only after finding takes in another area, and talking to people from the ghetto, ad one of the film makers, that the pieced together that much of what is shown is scripted, while some of it is what was happening.
Adam Czerniaków was the Jewish administrator.  He cooperated with the Nazis.  He also documented in his journal some of the filming, some of which was done in his residence, trying to show the opulent Jewish population.  Of course this was only 20 or 30 people of the 400,000.  Czerniakow committed suicide the day the exportations to death chambers started.  240,000 to 300,000 were sent to termination camps from the ghetto.  Possible as many as 100,000 more died from the conditions, typhus and hunger, and murdered by the Nazis.
There are a couple of depictions that are very moving, but also hard to watch.  The first is a group of men, and then women who are made to get naked and participate in a ritual bath.    It does show nudity.  They were healthier.  I think as a way of showing the contrast between the poor and the rich.
The second is a few of corpses.  The camera man indicated that there were corpse upon corpse, he couldn't tell how many.  They are all naked.  They are thrown around like sacks of potatoes, as they are slid into a mass grave. 
This documentary was never finished.  But that it was conceived shows a special kind of viciousness.  Those who were shown in the film were not saved from the gas chambers.  For many this is a documentation of those who would die in just a could of months. 

Holocaust Survivor Misha Defonseca

This story is from Readers Digest: Incredible Journeys.  This is an incredible story in survival and perseverance about Mila Defonseca who was a six year old Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Belgium.  When the Nazis occupied Belgium in 1940, the family went into hiding.  While she was at school, her parents were taken by the Nazis, to the "East" she was told.  She was one of 5000 Belgium children rescued by the underground.  Initially she was able to see relatives, but as Nazi control increased this was harder.  Rather than stay with a caretaker who was mean to her, she decided to go and find her parents, after all, they didn't look very far away on the map.  And so she ran away, and headed east.  She had a compass, and a knapsack with a little food.  What are the chances of a six-year-old Jewish girl surviving in Nazi occupied territory with little or nothing to eat. She at worms, berries, leaves, dirt, whatever she could.  She also relied on carcasses of animals she would find by watching the crows fly around.  She made it to Poland (over 800 miles), having traveled through Germany.  Sometimes she would join with other children in a street gang, but mostly she traveled by herself, keeping to the woods.  She was surprised while raiding a home, and someone threw a brick at her, hitting her in the back, breaking a vertebrae.  She was in pain, and a wolf took care of her.  The wolf was shot by a man, and then she lived with a pack of wolves for a time.  She eventually walked back to Belgium, thinking perhaps her parents had returned.  They never returned as they were Hitler Holocaust victims.  For some time she was weary of people, preferring isolation or animals.  She had difficulty reintegrating into society, but eventually did, marrying and coming to America. 

Lead Up to WWII: The Platform of the Nazi Party

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm

An important consideration in thinking about the lead up to WWII is to look at the platform of the Nazi Party first presented in 1920.  This platform had 25 points, many of which, particularly those putting down industry and assuring health benefits, were never taken seriously.  However the first two articles in the platform give us an idea of the assumption of power, and other articles talk about the Jew and the foreigner. 
1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.
These two premises explain many of the early moves made by the Germans under Hitler.  The re-militarized the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.   They forced the inclusion of Austria into  Czechoslovakia had a similar goal, of united German people.  In pursuing this goal further, they assumed more and more of Czechoslovakia.  First they set themselves up as a protectorate, and when the government of Czechoslovakia came to them for protection instead of protection they were forced to sign under threat and duress the rest of the country over to Germany.  The threat was that Germany would send bombers to bomb the cities.  The duress was that they leader was forced to stay up most of the night until he signed the agreement. 
It also portended poorly for Poland, where many German people also lived.  Germany began making demands that these areas also become part of Germany, as many Germans lived there.
This platform expresses the antisemitism which was part of the party rhetoric. 
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately. 
24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.
The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the pinciple:
COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

Then to carry out these goals, and talks about the type of government necessary.  

25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations. 

It advocates a strong central government.  The power being centralized in the hands of a few is not always a good thing.   Different parties and beliefs need to work together rather than calling each other traitors or other derogatory terms.

The Nazis, the Jews and the Danish People

The Nazis, the Jews and the Danish People
http://auschwitz.dk/denmark.htm
I recently read a children’s book “Number the Stars,” and was introduced to a story I had not heard of, or if I had heard of it I had forgotten.  Denmark was occupied by Germany from 1940-1945.  During this time, the Danish government was allowed to remain in place, supervised by Germany.  The Germans planned to relocate the Jewish people of Denmark on Oct 1, 1943.  A German maritime attaché Georg Duckwitz leaked this information to the Danish government.  Two days before the move, the Jewish people were informed of these plans.  Ships were in the harbor waiting to take them.   However, when the day came the Nazis were frustrated. 
The Jewish people were hidden by their neighbors.  There was a deep sense among the Danish people that it was wrong to treat others differently because of their ethnicity.  There was a resistance movement in place, that helped with this, however many different people were heroes in this effort.  The fishermen of Gilleleje transported at least a quarter of those who escaped in their boats to Sweden.  They would hide in the hulls of the ships, behind false walls.  There were over 7000 Jews in Denmark, and less than 500 of them were captured by the Nazis and removed. 
The author of the book, “Number the Stars,” Lois Lowry, tells the story of how several of the Jewish families were found in the boats using dogs.  When this happened the scientist of Denmark developed a solutions, using a handkerchief and which the put rabbits blood and cocaine.  The rabbit’s blood would attract the dogs’ attention.  They would then sniff closely and the cocaine would affect their olfactory senses such that they were unable to detect the people hidden in the hulls of the boats. 
Those of the Danish Jews who were relocated, were not forgotten by the Danish people.  They followed them and provided food shipments and medicines and vitamins.  They wrote to government officials asking for their return, and made sure they were not lost.  As such, very few of them were actually executed.  Most of them were able to return home at the end of the war.
Lowry also talked about the resistance movement in Denmark, mostly young people.  One of the characters in the book is based on a young man, Kim Malthe-Bruun who was caught and executed by the Nazis when he was 21.  He wrote a letter to his mother before he was killed. 
…and I want you all to remember—that you must not dream yourselves back to the times before the war, but the dream for you all, young and old, must be to create an ideal of human decency, and not a narrow-minded and prejudiced one.  That is the great gift our country hungers for, something every little peasant boy can look forward to, and with pleasure feel he is a part of—something he can work and fight for.
I feel I have learned something from these people of Denmark.  That there is a time to take a stand and say “no” to evil.