You could meet any one person from WWII...

Hallo, gentlemen!

definately I would have liked to meet a lot of people, but those would have been interesting;

Wilhelm II
Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière (like you Karl!!!)
GFM Paul von Hindenburg
GO Erich von Ludendorff
GO Erich von Falkenhayn
Ad. Graf von Spee
Ad. Albrecht von Scheer

Der Führer (Was he so charming? I would like to see him on a chair singing opera in Berchtesgaden... he he)
Josef Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Joachim von Prick... I mean Ribbentrop
Albert Speer
GFM Wilhelm Keitel (just to see if he was so dump..)
GFM Fedor von Bock (Well, my grandfather was his friend and secretary)
GFM Gerd von Runstedt (God, the typical soldier is fascinating...!)
GO Franz Halder
GFM Albert Kesselring
Grossad. Karl Dönitz

And of course, Kamerad Stalin. Did he look exactly like my father?
Grossad. Alfred von Tirpitz

 

I'm gonna have to agree with the Bill Mauldin choice, but I'd have to add Erinie Pyle as well. It would be pretty cool to sit in a dugout with him over some lucky strikes and calvadose.

 

Good choices Friedrich (De Le Periere) and Doc(Pyle). I love Ernies style of writing and have a copy of his book: "Brave men" All I can say of it is that it is simply an excellent excellent excellent book. I wonder if there was a German version of Ernie Pyle? and who wrote a book such as he?

 

Yeah, Pyle went to IU, where I got my BS and am currently working on my masters. He was from Dana, Indiana. Every year they have an Ernie Pyle festival, and the EP museum lets us set up our GI display there. They have a one room archive/museum for him here at IU in Ernie Pyle Hall, but it's been years since I've been in it.

 

If im ever inj your neck of the woods--I have to see the Ernie Pyle displays along with yours. I cruised through your site again today and really do like the set-up. PS, who was playing Der Fuhrer?

 

That was me - combed my hair down and put the comb under my nose. I've seen a private photo of a medic doing the exact same thing, only with a German helmet. Once we came upon the German truck I just figured, what the heck, and it came out pretty good.

 

Ha ha ha--that was a good one. Reminds me of a scene in the classic movie: Stalag 17. This is where Sergeant Schultz comes in for one of his inspections and all the guys in that barracks has a fake Hitler style mustache on. The head joker of the bunch is reading from an upside down copy of Mein Kampf. Schultz walks in and the joker is saying stuff like: "Is you all indoctrinated" etc.

 

Germany: Prien(U47), Rommel, Von Manstein, Guderian, Student, Dönitz, Skorzeny, Speer, Hitler, Höss, Von Ribentrop, Von Rundstedt, Bormann

Italy: Mussolini

Japan: Yamamoto, Toyo, Hirohito

England: Monty, Percival

Russia: Uncle Joe, Zhukov, Beria

USA: Bradley, McArthur, Nimitz, Kimmel

Belgium: Piron, Degrelle

Canada: Dempsey

Finland: Mannerheim

China: Tsjang-Kai-Tsjek, Mao

 

Great topic. Taken me ages to figure out who I asked to dinner.

Uncle Adolf definitely, Uncle Josef, and Uncle Winston, just to keep the evening lively.

and the rest....

Michael Wittman and Bobby Woll
Kurt Meyer
Jochem Peiper
Erich Hartman
Gunther Rall
Hans Rudel
Douglas Bader (just for inspiration)
Kretschmer and Eric Topp
George S Patton
Macarthur
Yamamoto
Manneheim
von Rundstedt

Way too many. The list could go on forever.

To be able to sit down with these guys and to talk with them about the war and their experiences and after thoughts, would be an amazing thing.

____________________________

"We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools" - Martin Luther King 1964

 

This one´s a bit hard but choosing one person only I go for Joachim Peiper. Hate to think what the French communists did to him!

 

I agree with you.

 

[ 14 October 2002, 10:09 PM: Message edited by: Military History Network ]

 

Sorry bumping another one up....

Id like to meet the guy from HMS Cossack who shouted out the Navy's here on the Altmark, and impress on him the morale booster a few words would bring to Brits in dark times ahead. And words that would be repeated by green jobs ..army...looking for evacutation in many theatres for the next few years...

Boring I know...

 

Pips Priller.

 

Major Richard Winters
Lt-Col Ronald Speirs
2nd Lt C.Carwood Lipton
Oberst Gunter Viezenz
Oberst Erich Hartmann
Captain Lewis Nixon

 

I wouldn't mind meeting Audie Murphy or Red Erwin either.

 

Sandbag time once more....Actually met 2 well known figures from ww2 and for personal reasons at the time it meant nothing to me...

1980 met General O'connor in Westminster hospital.
Frail and in a wheelchair, his driver or helper or whatever beckoned me over to meet him as I was waiting for treatment in same section of hospital and was in uniform...Didnt know anything about him at the time as I was only a young guy really and although the name rang a bell had to read up on him afterwards..Just shook hands and wished me luck..

Second was Al Deere of Battle of Britain fame...
RAF Halton hospital where he was visiting a friend..I was only youngster in the ward were we were kept after radiotherapy treatment in the Westminster hospital...Rest were quite elderly ex servicemen/women or families of...

I was in a side ward and was invited out to drink champers with them as someone had finished treatement and they were celebrating....forces hospitals being as bad as naafis/px's for the amount of booze hanging around...Now he I did know of...but was too flabergasted to say more than hello....

Give me that time again...

 

I would have to say, I'd would want to meet Douglas MacArthur. And for a non-military individual: He was opposed the atrocities of Nazism, and took part in a futile assasination plot against Hitler being hung for his efforts and strong convictions, I would have to say Deitrich Bonhoeffer.

 

MacArther Definatly!


But Wainwright would be cool too

CvM

 

Eva Braun, just so I could ask her "What the hell were you thinking!, he's a loser in a dead-end job"

But seriously, Churchill would be my man, Brains, courage and damn quotable...