Interesting info:

"Hitler's People's State: Robbery, Racial War and National Socialism" by Goetz Aly

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...347726,00.html

Hitler, says Goetz Aly, was a "feel good dictator," a leader who not only made Germans feel important, but also made sure they were well cared-for by the state.

Despite near-constant warfare, never once during his 12 years in power did Hitler raise taxes for working class people. He also -- in great contrast to World War I -- particularly pampered soldiers and their families, offering them more than double the salaries and benefits that American and British families received.

Financing such home front "happiness" was not simple and Hitler essentially achieved it by robbing and murdering others, Aly claims. Jews. Slave laborers. Conquered lands. All offered tremendous opportunities for plunder, and the Nazis exploited it fully, he says.

Once the robberies had begun, a sort of "snowball effect" ensued and in order to stay afloat, he says Germany had to conquer and pilfer from more territory and victims.

Aly cites secret Nazi files showing that from 1941-1943 Germans robbed enough food and supplies from the Soviet Union to care for 21 million people. Meanwhile, he insists, Soviet war prisoners were systematically starved. German soldiers were also encouraged to send care packages home to their families to boost the morale of their wives and children. In the first three months of 1943, German soldiers on the Leningrad front sent more than 3 million packages stuffed with artifacts, art, valuables and food home, Aly says.

The documents include reams of complex economic, bank and tax records as well as thousands of clippings from regional newspaper archives that Aly spent the past four years scouring. In the book, he uses them to support his theory that half the war was financed by government credit and that close to 70 percent of the rest came from plunder.....

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Von Bock privately expresses outrage at the atrocities. But after repeatedly being prodded to object to Hitler personally and take concrete action to stop it, instead he sends one of his subordinate officers to lodge the complaint. When his envoy returns empty-handed, von Bock declares triumphantly:

"Gentlemen! Let it be noted that Field Marshal von Bock protested."

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Not translated to English yet

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Mosquito over Kobenhavn March 21st 1945

http://www.befrielsen1945.dk/temaer/...er/kilde3.html



Low level bombing in Europe

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/t.../INF3_1273.htm



Across the North Sea to Berlin...(?)

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/mosquito.html

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Nazi Saboteurs in America

Minutes after midnight on June 13, 1942, four men, led by George Dasch, landed on the beach in Long Island, New York. Dasch along with his three accomplices, Ernest Peter Burger, Heinrich Harm Heinck, and Richard Quirin, had enough explosives for two years of sabotage.

In Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, another four man team landed on June 17, 1942. They too had enough explosives to conduct two years of sabotage in the United States.

The goal of this mission was to bring the war to America. The eight men were to disrupt our ability to produce and transport crucial equiptment to our boys in Europe and frighten the American population.

Before being able to commit any acts of sabotage, all eight men were arrested by June 27, 1942. All eight were found guilty by a Military Commission. Six of the eight received the death penalty. The other two received prison sentences -- one received a 30 year imprisonment and the other received a life sentence.

http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/f.../nazi/nazi.htm

A bit earlier before WW2 but interesting..

After "Night of the long knives" Hitler flew back to Berlin where on arrival Sepp Dietrich reported to Hitler at the Chancellery. Hitler told Sepp: " Do you know you were also on the list...?"

( Hitler removed his name put who put it there...)

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I would not doubt it if Himmler put his name on the list. Dietrich could have been percieved as a strong rival within Himmler's SS empire until the war started and Dietrich showed more interest in leading fighting troops than policing a state.

[ 30. November 2005, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: PzJgr ]

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Agreed. I have read that Göring was another one who put more names in the list but Himmler definitely wanted Sepp out of the pic...

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M3 Grant tank:

The US were able to produce more than 6,000 M3´s in little more than 15 months...!!?

http://tuskan.huuto.net/auctionimage...ee636-orig.jpg

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No doubt the U.S. chose production over quality. They were trying to play catch-up with stop-gaps.
They chose production over R&D, until the Pershing, designed from the start as a "tank killer".
After years of hard knocks, the Pershing incorporated the lessons learned. Low profile, big gun, good suspension/mobility/speed, better armor.

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx

The Stroop Report was an album prepared by SS Major General Juergen Stroop, commander of the German forces which liquidated the Warsaw ghetto, to document the suppression of the ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943. Commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm Krueger, Higher SS and Police Leader in Krakow, and bound in leather, the report was intended as a souvenir album for Heinrich Himmler to celebrate the hard won victory, which took twenty days and 1,200 SS, Wehrmacht and police troops to accomplish. The Stroop Report consists of three parts: an introduction and summary of SS operations, a collection of daily communiques, and a series of approximately 52 photographs. Three albums were prepared: for Himmler, Krueger and Stroop, all of which were recovered after the war. One of them was introduced as evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and later published under the title, "The Stroop Report." The albums --which bear slight discrepancies in the number of photos they contain-- are currently located at the National Archives (Washington), the Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), and the Main Crimes Commission (Warsaw).

http://www1.ushmm.org/uia-cgi/uia_do...s/4207?hr=null

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Very interesting, Kai. Never knew this existed but it is fascinating....Thanks for posting.

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

You´re welcome Stevin!

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When the news of Roosevelt's death crackled over the Berlin radio, Josef Goebbels, the wily intellectual of Hitler's inner circle, had just
returned by motor car from the Eastern Front. The city was suffering bombardment, and the Adlon Hotel was burning. As he mounted the steps of the Propaganda Ministry, a German reporter said to him, "Herr Reichsminister, Roosevelt is dead."

Goebbels stood transfixed, then invited the reporter inside for some champagne. Speaking on his private line to the Fuehrerbunker beneath the Chancellery building, Goebbels informed Hitler: "My Fuehrer, I congratulate you! Roosevelt is dead. It is written in the stars that the second half of April will be the turning point for us. This is Friday, April the 13th. It is the turning point!" Hitler made a reply to Goeb*bels, and when the propaganda minister had replaced the tele*phone in its cradle, he was ecstatic.

It is not strictly true that Hitler and Goebbels believed in astrology, but several Nazi leaders such as Himmler did; this was tolerated and served to amuse the Fuehrer. Goebbels would employ astrology or any device he could think of to cheer up his leader. As he remarked after the telephone call, "Crazy times call for crazy measures."

http://www.animalfarm.org/mb/6.shtml

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The biggest jerk in ETO was Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee (USMA 1909), commander of Services of Supply (SOS). He had a most difficult job, to be sure. And of course it is in the nature of an army that everyone resents the quartermaster, and Lee was the head quartermaster for the whole of ETO.

Lee was a martinet who had an exalted opinion of himself. He also had a strong religious fervor (Eisenhower compared him to Cromwell) that struck a wrong note with everyone. He handed out the equipment as if it were a personal gift. He hated waste; once he was walking through a mess hall, reached into the garbage barrel, pulled out a half-eaten loaf of bread, started chomping on it, and gave the cooks hell for throwing away perfectly good food. He had what Bradley politely called "an unfortunate pomposity" and was cordially hated. Officers and men gave him a nickname based on his initials, J.C.H. -- Jesus Christ Himself.

http://edition.cnn.com/books/beginni...tizen.soldier/

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Supply and Overlord

By June ( July?) the Allied were 30% behind in planned port capacity. In August 207 ships sat waiting to be unloaded but there was nowhere to go. Cargo ships began to be used as floating warehouses. In the fall of 1944 American divisions arriving in France were forced to sit idle because there was no way to support them.

1944 Americans in Brest
Jonathan Gawne

http://www.militaria.com/brittany/bob.html

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Why does this topic say part 4? Are there three other parts? Ther were quite a few "t" , "h", "r" and "e" in rapid sucession, in that last question. That last statement rhymed.

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...Just smash your piano...

This forum has been in action for five years, and popular threads sometimes have to be segregated to remain accessible.

There are indeed three previous elements to this thread which can be found by scrolling down through previous pages, or by doing a simple search ( I just input the word 'lesser' to find them ).

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

21/09/1944

The Eighth Army’s Greek Mountain Brigade take Rimini on the Adriatic coast.

http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/...index-1944.htm

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The piecharts of deaths on both sides are quite "interesting".

WW2 military deaths allied Russia 65%
China 25%

WW2 military deaths axis
Germany 65%
Japan 23%

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Aircraft losses

Germany: Estimated total losses for the war totaled 116,584 aircraft, of which 70,000 were total losses and the remainder significantly damaged. By type, losses totaled 41,452 fighters, 22,037 bombers, 15,428 trainers, 10,221 twin-engine fighters, 8,548 ground attack, 6,733 reconnaissance, and 6,141 transports

Japan: Estimates vary from 35,000 to 50,000 total losses, with about 20,000 lost operationally.

Italy: Total losses were 5,272 aircraft, of which 3,269 were lost in combat.

Where are those Allied aces??

And:

Soviet Union: Estimated total losses were over 100,000 from all causes.

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Heinz Guderian was consulted by Erich von Manstein when he was developing what became known as the Manstein Plan ( 1940 ).


Manstein asked me if tank movements would be possible through the Ardennes in the direction of Sedan. He explained his plan of breaking through the extension of the Maginot Line near Sedan, in order to avoid the old-fashioned Schliefien plan, familiar to the enemy and likely to be expected once more. I knew the terrain from World War I, and, after studying the map, confirmed his view. Manstein then convinced General von Rundstedt and a memorandum was sent to O.K.H. (on December 4th). O.K.H. refused to accept Manstein's idea. But the latter succeeded in bringing his idea to Hitler's knowledge.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERguderian.htm

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Kai, I might be able to answer part of your question of Allied aces. There weren't that many due to the availability of pilots and of course the oppertunity to rotate out, at least for American pilots.
According to my Fathers squadron records they made (in less than two years) 771 air to air kills, and over 350 planes destroyed on the ground.
Quite an accomplishment for the 42 Mustangs of the 353rd fighter squadron, 354th fighter group, 9th Army Air Corp.
Their #1 ace Frank Beerbower got 26. No one else was even close, 17 and below. Frank was killed by anti-aircraft over France.
The math doesn't add up, does it?
Massive rotation, and a chance to be a trainer state-side.
He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day, or so the saying went back then.

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There's one way to find out if a man is honest-ask him. If he says "Yes", you know he's a crook. Groucho Marx

Anouther factor for aircraft losses are operational accidents and training accidents. Young, inexperienced pilots in bad weather or flying formation = accidents. The loss rate for the Me-109 and it's narrow landing gear was really high. RAF Bomber Command lost lots of bombers due to poor weather and the crews getting lost and running out of fuel. Training crews for the B-26 "Widow Maker" killed lots of crews before they even left the States. Toward the end of the war German and Japanese pilots recieved a fraction of the training they did early in the war and this caused more losses. Landing on a carrier wrecked many planes. Ferry pilots taken planes from the US to Russian are still being found today as well as transport planes flying the "hump" from India to China.

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I need a bailout of only $500,000

Read about these accidents and always will remember one quote:

"One a day in Tampa Bay"

http://www.b-26marauderarchive.org/DA/PA505/PA505.htm

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Attacks on North American soil during World War II

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“This is a tale you will tell your grandchildren, and mightily bored they’ll be.” Lt. Gen. Brian Horrocks commander of British XXX Corps September 16, 1944 prior to Operation Market.

The Nuremberg Rallies

Every rally was given a programmatic title, which related to recent national events.

1939 The name "Rally of Peace" (Reichsparteitag des Friedens) was to reiterate the German will to peace, to the population and other countries. It was cancelled on short notice, as one day before the planned date on September 1st, Germany began its offensive against Poland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_rallies

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