People sometimes ask me if I am Jewish and are surprised when I say I am not. There are even a few who complain to me for writing about the Holocaust as a non-Jewish person. Although the Jews were the largest sect of victims during the Holocaust, the Nazis also specifically targeted other groups. I acknowledge that I am not Jewish but have had family murdered during World War II and a stepfather who experienced World War II in the Pacific, which gives me a unique vantage point concerning World War II, including the Holocaust.
As mentioned earlier, I am not Jewish and know little about Judaism. Therefore, I have no knowledge of how the hierarchy of Judaism works.
However, I do know that Regina Jonas was the first female Rabbi and not to the contrary, I believe Sally Jane Priesand was ordained a Rabbi in 1972 at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati. Regina Jonas was murdered before Sally Jane Priesand was even born.
Regina Jonas was born into a Jewish-Orthodox family in Berlin on August 3, 1902. She was the second child of Wolf Jonas and Sara Hess, and her father, Wolf, died when she was 13 years old. She grew up in poor conditions in the Scheunenviertel neighbourhood. She was enrolled at the Jewish School for Girls in the Orthodox synagogue on the Rykestrasse and excelled in all subjects related to Judaism—the Hebrew language and Jewish culture. Even then, she told other schoolmates she wanted to become a rabbi.
In 1924, she began her studies at the Berlin Academy for the Science of Judaism.
Although Regina would have preferred an orthodox school, the liberal college was the only one that considered training a woman to be a rabbi. Accordingly, she wrote her thesis on the subject: “May a Woman Hold Rabbinic Office?” It is a remarkable work, which shows her vast knowledge of Talmudic and Halachic subjects and texts and her total certainty and belief in herself. She wrote in conclusion, “Except for prejudice and unfamiliarity, there is almost nothing Halachically against the holding of the rabbinic office by a woman.”
Jonas graduated in 1930, and her diploma stated she was an Academic Teacher of Religion. Jonas then applied to Rabbi Leo Baeck, spiritual leader of German Jewry, who had taught her at the seminary. Baeck, while acknowledging Jonas as a “thinking and agile preacher,” refused to make the title official because the ordination of a female rabbi would have caused massive intra-Jewish communal problems with the Orthodox rabbinate in Germany.
However, becoming a rabbi did not guarantee Regina a place to preach. She had not been given a congregation of her own. She continued to teach, speak in the more liberal synagogues, visit the sick and the elderly in hospitals, and serve as a chaplain at the prison for women. When many of her male colleagues either emigrated or were arrested, she travelled to various communities across the country where Jews were left without religious leadership. Regina had dedicated herself to German Jewry, and when the Nazis rose to power, she could not think about fleeing the Jewish community she loved or exposing her elderly mother to the upheavals of exile. The Reich Association of Jews in Germany allowed Jonas to travel to Prussia to continue her preaching; however, the Jewish situation under the Nazi regime quickly degraded. Even if there had been a synagogue willing to host her, the duress of Nazi persecution made it impossible for Jonas to hold services at a proper house of worship. Despite this, she continued her rabbinical work by teaching and holding impromptu services.
In 1941 Jonas was drafted, like all Berlin Jews over 14, into factory work. Gad Beck, a survivor who worked with her, described her rabbinical work, “…Even in the factories, her synagogue was everywhere.” Despite the frequent suggestions that she should leave Germany, Jonas refused. In November 1942, the Nazis deported Jonas and her mother to Theresienstadt, where Jonas continued teaching, studying and preaching.
She was officially part of the Referat für Psychische Hygiene (Department of Mental Hygiene), led by Viktor Frankl.
On October 12, 1944, she and her mother were deported to Auschwitz and probably were killed that same day. The last writing from Regina Jonas at Theresienstadt before she was deported to Auschwitz was, “To be ‘blessed’ by God means to bestow blessings, goodness and loyalty—regardless of place or situation.”
What surprised me was that this feminist trailblazer was nearly forgotten. It was only decades after her murder that some historians started to look into her story.
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“The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That’s why the Olympic Flame should never die.”
One could be forgiven for thinking that the words above were uttered by someone with noble intentions. However, that would assumption would be wrong. Those were words by Adolf Hitler, commenting on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Those exact words are also a clear indication that the primary aim of the 1936 Olympic Games was propaganda.
One of the elements was the Olympics Torch Relay, which is still a part of the Olympics.
The 1936 Summer Olympics torch relay was the first of its kind, following the reintroduction of the Olympic Flame at the 1928 Games. It pioneered the modern convention of moving the flame via a relay system from Greece to the Olympic venue. Adolf Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.
For a fortnight in August 1936, between the 1st and 16th, the Adolf Hitler Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. It played down its anti-Semitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion. The regime exploited the Games to impress foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.
The construction of the Olympic Village was to be overseen by Hauptmann Wolfgang Fürstner.
However, less than two months before the start of the Olympic Games, Fürstner was abruptly demoted to a vice commander position and was replaced by Oberstleutnant Werner von Gilsa, Commander of the Berlin Guard Regiment. The official reason for the replacement was, Fürstner had not acted with the necessary energy to prevent damage to the site, as 370,000 visitors passed through between 1 May and 15 June. However, this was a cover story to explain the sudden demotion of the half-Jewish officer. When the 1935 Nuremberg Laws passed, Fürstner oversaw the Olympic Village. They had classified him as a Jew.
Fürstner committed suicide by pistol on 19 August 1936, three days after the end of the games. He had been awarded the Olympic Medal First Class and attended the banquet for his successor, Gilsa. Fürstner, a career officer, had learned that according to the Nuremberg Laws, he was classified as a Jew and was to be dismissed from the Wehrmacht. His grandfather Dr Karl Fürstner had been a Jew who converted to Christianity. The government covered up the suicide to protect the international reputation of Germany. The official Nazi report read that Fürstner had died in a car accident.
In 1931, two years before the Nazis acquired power, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. The choice signalled Germany’s return to the world community after its isolation in the aftermath of defeat in World War I.
As a token gesture to placate international opinion, German authorities allowed the star fencer Helene Mayer to represent Germany at the Olympic Games in Berlin. Mayer was viewed as a non-Aryan because her father was Jewish. She won a silver medal in the women‘s individual fencing and, like all other medalists for Germany, gave the Nazi salute on the podium. No other Jewish athlete competed for Germany in the Summer Games.
Despite the pomp & ceremony and the glorification of Hitler, all did not go according to plan. There was a rather humorous aspect in the opening ceremony—the U.S. distance runner Louis Zamperini, one of the athletes present, recalled this incident:
“They released 25,000 pigeons, the sky was clouded with pigeons, the pigeons circled overhead, and then they shot a cannon, and they scared the poop out of the pigeons, and we had straw hats, flat straw hats, and you could heard the pitter-patter on our straw hats, but we felt sorry for the women, for they got it in their hair, but I mean there were a mass of droppings, and I say it was so funny.”
Zamperini himself had several miraculous escapes during World War II, which were chronicled in the book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and in the 2014 movie Unbroken, directed by Angelina Jolie.
Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy. The official Nazi party paper, the Völkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms—that Jewish and black people should not be allowed to participate in the games. However, when threatened with a boycott of the Games by other nations, he relented and allowed black and Jews to participate. In their attempt to clean up the host city, the German Ministry of the Interior authorized the chief of police to arrest all Romani and keep them in a special camp, the Berlin-Marzahn Concentration Camp.
Nine athletes who were Jewish or of Jewish parentage won medals in the Berlin Olympics, including Mayer and five Hungarians. Seven Jewish male athletes from the United States went to Berlin. Like some of the European Jewish competitors at the Olympics, many of these young men were pressured by Jewish organizations to boycott the Games. These athletes chose to compete for a variety of reasons. Most did not fully grasp at the time the extent and purpose of Nazi persecution of Jews and other groups.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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When you opened your Google page today, you would have seen a doodle celebrating the 122nd birthday of the birthday of Dr Mohamed Helmy. Before I go into the important story of this great man, I want to highlight a disturbing trend that is becoming more and more of a problem. Warnings are now given about the Holocaust. When I opened the doodle this morning it opened up this warning for me.
Not only is this disrespectful to those who were murdered during the Holocaust, but also to the survivors and indeed to the heroes like Dr Mohamed Helmy, because it diminishes the good work they have done.
Dr Mohamed Helmy is the first Arab to be recognized as a righteous person by Yad Vashem for his courageous actions during World War II.
He was born on July 25, 1901, to an Egyptian father and a German mother in Khartoum, the present-day capital of Sudan. Helmy moved to Germany in 1922, where he studied medicine. After completing his studies, he went to work at the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin. He became head of the urology department.
Helmy witnessed the dismissal of Jewish doctors from the hospital following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the implementation of anti-Jewish legislation. According to Nazi racial laws, Helmy was classified as a “Hamite” after Ham, the son of Noah in the Old Testament. This term was adopted from 19th-century racial science and used to classify natives of North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the historical region of South Arabia. Those classified as Hamitic were considered non-Aryan and subject to harassment and persecution.
Helmy’s colleagues were also aware that the consultant was continuing to treat Jewish patients — even driving out to their homes during work hours
Helmy was fired from the hospital in 1938 and barred from practising medicine. , and was also not allowed to marry his German fiancée, Annie Ernst. Moreover, in 1939 and again in 1940 he was arrested together with other Egyptian nationals but released a year later because of health problems.
Most of the Egyptians interned in Wülzburg were not released until June 1941. The Egyptian embassy was able to secure Helmy’s early release in 1940 due to his poor health. Until May 1941, he was forced to report to the police twice a day and provide proof every four weeks that he was unfit for internment.
After his release, Helmy was conscripted to the practice of Dr Johannes Wedekind in Charlottenburg. While there, he wrote sick notes for foreign workers to help them return home and also for Germans to help them avoid conscription for heavy labour or militia service.
Despite being constantly targeted by the regime, Helmy spoke out against Nazi policies, and notwithstanding the great danger, risked his life and helped his Jewish friends. When the deportations of the Jews from Berlin began, and Anna Boros (Gutman after the war), a family friend, was in need of a hiding place, Helmy brought her to a cabin he owned in the Berlin neighbourhood of Buch, which became her safe haven until the end of the war. At times of danger when he was under police investigation, Helmy would arrange for her to hide elsewhere. “A good friend of our family, Dr Helmy, hid me in his cabin in Berlin-Buch from 10 March until the end of the war. As of 1942 I no longer had any contact with the outside world. The Gestapo knew that Dr Helmy was our family physician, and they knew that he owned a cabin in Berlin-Buch,” Anna Gutman wrote after the war. “He managed to evade all their interrogations. In such cases he would bring me to friends where I would stay for several days, introducing me as his cousin from Dresden. When the danger would pass, I would return to his cabin… Dr Helmy did everything for me out of the generosity of his heart and I will be grateful to him for eternity.”
Helmy also provided assistance to Boros’ mother, Julianna; her stepfather, Georg Wehr; and her grandmother, Cecilie Rudnik. He arranged for Rudnik to be hidden in the home of Frieda Szturmann, a German friend of his. For over a year, Szturmann hid and shared her food rations with the elderly woman.
In 1943, Helmy was summoned to the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais, the notorious Berlin headquarters of the SS. He was tasked with providing Muslim guests including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, with medical care.
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine and Adolf Hitler.
Helmy arranged for Boros to hide elsewhere, doing everything in his power to protect her. He obtained a certificate from the Central Islamic Institute in Berlin attesting to Boros’ conversion to Islam and also arranged for a marriage certificate (in Arabic) stating that she was married to an Egyptian man in a ceremony held in Helmy’s home.
In 1944, Julianna Wehr was arrested and during her interrogation, revealed that Helmy was hiding her daughter, Anna. Helmy immediately took Boros to Szturmann’s home. Helmy had Boros write him a letter stating that she had deceived him about her true identity and was leaving to search for her mother and to seek out her aunt in Dessau. Helmy was able to avoid arrest by showing the letter to the Gestapo.
Thanks to the help and courage of Dr Helmy and Frieda Szturmann the four family members survived the Holocaust. After the war, they immigrated to the United States, but never forgot their rescuers, and in the 1950s and early 1960’s wrote letters on their behalf to the Berlin Senate so that they would be honoured as rescuers of Jews.
Dr Helmy remained in Berlin and was finally able to marry his fiancée. He died in 1982. Frieda Szturmann passed away in 1962.
In 1960, Anna, who emigrated to the United States after the war, swore an affidavit requesting Berlin’s mayor honour Helmy. He was, she said, a “wonderful human being” who had never sought gratitude for his wartime bravery. While Helmy had still not been recognized at the time of his death in 1982, 30 years later, in 2013, Yad Vashem decided to honour the doctor, making him the first Arab to join the list of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” Helmy’s relatives in Cairo, however, refused to accept an award issued by Israel.
Dr Mohammed Helmy and Anna Boros Gutman
The Israeli filmmaker Taliya Finkel was researching Helmy’s story since 2014. In 2017 her film “Mohamed and Anna – In Plain Sight” was released on the Israeli TV channel Kan 11. Finkel had located and made contact with Helmy’s nephew Dr Nasser Kotby, who agreed to participate in a new film and to be the 1st Arab to ever talk about the holocaust in a film. Finkel offered Dr Kotby to accept the Yad Vashem award in Berlin and Kotby agreed. He is the 1st Arab to ever receive the Righteous Among the Nations award in a ceremony that took place on October 27, 2018.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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I have done similar posts before, but I do think it is extremely important that people understand this. The Holocaust didn’t start with the killing of Jews and other groups, it started with the actions of well-educated people. It started with something we call nowadays cancel culture.
On this day, 90 years ago. university students in 34 university towns across Germany burned over 25,000 books. The works of Jewish authors like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud went up in flames alongside blacklisted American authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller, while students gave the Nazi salute.
Four days previously, on 6 May 1933, the Institute of Sexology, an academic foundation devoted to sexological research and the advocacy of homosexual rights, was broken into and occupied by Nazi-supporting youth. Several days later the entire contents of the library were removed and burned.
It is presumed that Dora Richter was killed in the attack, the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender reassignment surgery, although it is possible she was arrested and died in custody. It’s not known just how many people were murdered after the institute’s records fell into the hands of the Gestapo and the police.
Dr Wolfgang Herrmann had created a black list of those books that should be removed from bookstores and libraries, List 1: Fiction and List 2: Politics and Political Science. At the same time, there were indications for books whose purchase is recommended. On 1 May 1933, Herrmann forwarded the selection list to the National Socialist German student body in order to direct the plundering of the stocks of libraries, lending libraries and scientific institutions in the campaign, “Against the un-German spirit.”
Surprisingly it also included works from Waldemar Bonsels: everything except Maya the Bee, heavenly people, and journey to India. Bonsels was an outspoken anti-semite and expressed his approval of Nazi politics against Jews in 1933, calling the Jew—a deadly enemy, who was poisoning the culture in an article (NSDAP und Judentum) which was widely published.
The lists were published in several newspapers and magazines at the beginning of May 1933. They contained summaries of four anthologies and 130 authors. Some exceptions were noted if only certain works of a writer were affected. The list was submitted to the Ministry of Propaganda but was never officially approved.
students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books in the square at the State Opera, Berlin, thereby presaging an era of uncompromising state censorship. In many other university towns, nationalist students marched in torch-lit parades against the “un-German” spirit. The scripted rituals of this night called for high Nazi officials, professors, rectors, and student leaders to address the participants and spectators. At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged, banned books into the bonfires with a great joyous ceremony that included live music, singing, “fire oaths,” and incantations. In Berlin, some 40,000 people heard Joseph Goebbels deliver an address: “No to decadence and moral corruption!” Goebbels enjoined the crowd.
“Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser, and Erich Kästner. The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path…The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. As a young person, to already have the courage to face the pitiless glare, to overcome the fear of death, and to regain respect for death – this is the task of this young generation. And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames of the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great and symbolic deed – a deed which should document the following for the world to know – Here the intellectual foundation of the November Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage, the phoenix of a new spirit will triumphantly rise.”
On April 8, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union (DSt) . had already announced a nationwide “Action against the Un-German Spirit”, which was to climax in a literary purge or “cleansing” (“Säuberung”) by fire. On the same day, the student union published ‘The Twelve Thesis’
Against the un-German spirit!
Language and literature have their roots in the Folk. It is the German Folk’s responsibility to assure that its language and literature are the pure and unadulterated expression of its Folk traditions.
At present there is a chasm between literature and German tradition. This situation is a disgrace.
The purity of language and literature is your responsibility! Your Folk has entrusted you with the duty of faithfully preserving your language.
Our most dangerous enemy is the Jew and those who are his slaves.
A Jew can only think Jewish. If he writes in German, he is lying. The German who writes in German, but thinks un-German, is a traitor! The student who speaks and writes un-German is, in addition, thoughtless and has abandoned his duties.
We want to eradicate lies, we want to denounce treason, and we want institutions of discipline and political education for us the students, not mindlessness.
We want to regard the Jew as alien and we want to respect the traditions of the Folk.
Therefore, we demand the censor: Jewish writings are to be published in Hebrew. If they appear in German, they must be identified as translations. Strongest actions against the abuse of the German script. German script is only available to Germans. The un-German spirit is to be eradicated from public libraries.
We demand the German students the desire and capability for independent knowledge and decisions.
We demand German students have the desire and capability to maintain the purity of the German language.
We demand German students have the desire and capability to overcome Jewish intellectualism and the resulting liberal decay in the German spirit.
We demand the selection of students and professors in accordance with their reliability and commitment to the German spirit.
We demand that German universities be a stronghold of the German Folk tradition and a battleground reflecting the power of the German mind.
The German Student Association.
These are just some names of authors whose books were burned that day 90 years ago.
Vicki Baum, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Franz Boas, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Engels, Etta Federn, Lion Feuchtwanger, Marieluise Fleißer, Leonhard Frank, Sigmund Freud, Iwan Goll, Jaroslav Hašek, Werner Hegemann, Hermann Hesse, Ödön von Horvath, Heinrich Eduard Jacob, Franz Kafka, Georg Kaiser, Alfred Kerr, Egon Kisch, Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor Lessing, Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Karl Liebknecht, Georg Lukács, Rosa Luxemburg, Klaus Mann, Ludwig Marcuse, Karl Marx, Robert Musil, Carl von Ossietzky, Erwin Piscator, Alfred Polgar, Gertrud von Puttkamer, Erich Maria Remarque,Ludwig Renn, Joachim Ringelnatz, Joseph Roth, Nelly Sachs, Felix Salten,[16] Anna Seghers, Abraham Nahum Stencl, Carl Sternheim, Bertha von Suttner, Ernst Toller, Frank Wedekind, Franz Werfel, Grete Weiskopf, and Arnold Zweig.
Not only were German-speaking authors’ books burnt, but also French authors such as Henri Barbusse, André Gide, Victor Hugo and Romain Rolland; American writers such as John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Margaret Sanger; as well as British authors Joseph Conrad, Radclyffe Hall, Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence, Henry de Vere Stacpoole, H.G. Wells, Irish authors James Joyce and Oscar Wilde; and Russian authors including Isaac Babel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ilya Ehrenburg, Maxim Gorki, Vladimir Lenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Leo Tolstoy, and Leon Trotsky.
What really concerns me is that 90 years on and people are talking about banning books again, and also cancelling other cultural media. Free speech is important, if you don’t like what you read or hear, you don’t cancel it, you fight your corner with persuasion.
If you limit education, you will breed ignorance and indifference, throw in hate, and you have three main pillars to create a genocide.
Shortly after a war it would be quite unnerving to see a bomber flying over your city.
However in West Berlin in 1948, this was a welcome sight. It probably was the equivalent of Santa delivering presents early. After World War 2, when Soviet Union leader Josef Stalin occupied West Berlin in 1948, Halvorsen participated in the Berlin Airlift, a joint military effort between America and the United Kingdom to deliver food and aid to the German city.
Lieutenant Halvorsen’s role in the Berlin Airlift was to fly one of many C-54 cargo planes used to ferry supplies into the starving city. During his flights he would first fly to Berlin, then deeper into Soviet-controlled areas. Halvorsen had an interest in photography and on his days off often went sightseeing in Berlin and shot film on his personal handheld movie camera. One day in July, he was filming planes taking off and landing at Tempelhof, the main landing site for the airlift. While there, he saw about thirty children lined up behind one of the barbed-wire fences. He went to meet them and noticed that the children had nothing. Halvorsen remembers: “I met about thirty children at the barbed wire fence that protected Tempelhof’s huge area. They were excited and told me that ‘when the weather gets so bad that you can’t land, don’t worry about us. We can get by on a little food, but if we lose our freedom, we may never get it back.'”Touched, Halvorsen reached into his pocket and took out two sticks of gum to give to the children. The kids broke them into little pieces and shared them; the ones who did not get any sniffed the wrappers.
Watching the children, so many of whom had absolutely nothing, Halvorsen regretted not having more to give them. Halvorsen recorded that he wanted to do more for the children, and so told them that the following day he would have enough gum for all of them, and he would drop it out of his plane. According to Halvorsen, one child asked “How will we know it is your plane?” to which Halvorsen responded that he would wiggle his wings, something he had done for his parents when he first got his pilot’s license in 1941.
That night, Halvorsen, his copilot, and his engineer pooled their candy rations for the next day’s drop. The accumulated candy was heavy, so in order to ensure that no children were hurt by the falling package, Halvorsen made three parachutes out of handkerchiefs and tied them to the rations.In the morning when Halvorsen and his crew made regular supply drops, they also dropped three boxes of candy attached to handkerchiefs. They made these drops once a week for three weeks. Each week, the group of children waiting at the Tempelhof airport fence grew significantly.
When word reached the airlift commander, Lieutenant General William H. Tunner, he ordered it expanded into Operation “Little Vittles”, named as a play on the airlift’s name of Operation Vittles. Operation Little Vittles began officially on September 22, 1948. Support for this effort to provide the children of Berlin with chocolate and gum grew quickly, first among Halvorsen’s friends, then to the whole squadron. As news of Operation Little Vittles reached the United States, children and candymakers from all over the US began contributing candy. By November 1948, Halvorsen could no longer keep up with the amount of candy and handkerchiefs being sent from across America. College student Mary C. Connors of Chicopee, Massachusetts offered to take charge of the now national project and worked with the National Confectioner’s Association to prepare the candy and tie the handkerchiefs. With the groundswell of support, Little Vittles pilots, of which Halvorsen was now one of many, were dropping candy every other day. Children all over Berlin had sweets, and more and more artwork was getting sent back with kind letters attached to them.The American candy bombers became known as the Rosinenbomber (Raisin Bombers), while Halvorsen himself became known by many nicknames to the children of Berlin, including his original moniker of “Uncle Wiggly Wings”, as well as “The Chocolate Uncle”, “The Gum Drop Kid” and “The Chocolate Flier”.
Operation “Little Vittles” was in effect from September 22, 1948, to May 13, 1949. Although Lieutenant Halvorsen returned home in January 1949, he passed on leadership of the operation to one of his friends, Captain Lawrence Caskey. Upon his return home, Halvorsen met with several individuals who were key in making Operation “Little Vittles” a success. Halvorsen personally thanked his biggest supporter Dorothy Groeger, a homebound woman who nonetheless enlisted the help of all of her friends and acquaintances to sew handkerchiefs and donate funds. He also met the schoolchildren and “Little Vittles” committee of Chicopee, Massachusetts who were responsible for preparing over 18 tons of candy and gum from across the country and shipping it to Germany. In total, it is estimated that Operation “Little Vittles” was responsible for dropping over 23 tons of candy from over 250,000 parachutes.
Halvorsen tells HistoryNet’s David Lauterborn that an encounter with a group of young German children watching Allied soldiers arrive at the Templehof air base helped put things into perspective. Through a barbed-wire perimeter fence, they spoke to him.
“These kids were giving me a lecture, telling me, “Don’t give up on us. If we lose our freedom, we’ll never get it back,” Halvorsen tells HistoryNet. “I just flipped. Got so interested, I forgot what time it was.”
The pilot then handed the children two sticks of gum and told them to come back the next day, when he planned to airdrop more sweets. He would wiggle the wings of his aircraft so they would know it was him, reports the Boston Globe.
Halvorsen lived up to his promise, asking other pilots to donate their candy rations and having his flight engineer rock the airplane during the drop. Things grew from there, as more and more children showed up to catch his airdrops and letters began to arrive “requesting special airdrops at other points in the city,” writes the Air Force. The peculiar wing maneuver was how Halvorsen earned his other nickname: ‘Uncle Wiggly Wings.’
During the airlift, Allied planes carrying supplies landed every 45 seconds at Templehoff Airport in Berlin. From June 1948, the pilots delivered 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other necessities on 278,000 flights up until the end of the Soviet blockade in May 1949, according to the AP.
Halvorsen remained in the military after the war, retiring as a colonel in 1974 from the Air Force, reports Richard Goldstein for the New York Times. He moved back to Utah and became assistant dean of student life at Brigham Young University in Provo.
That same year, Halvorsen received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his efforts as the “Candy Bomber,” per the Boston Globe.
Gail Seymour “The Candy Bomber” Halvorsen was born on October 10, 1920 and lived a very long life, He died aged 101 on February 16, 2022.
Halvorsen died from respiratory failure in Provo on February 16, 2022, at the age of 101.After funeral services conducted for him with full military honors, which included a flyover by a KC-135R of the Utah Air National Guard’s 151st Air Refueling Wing and a 21-gun salute by honor guard members from the Air Force ROTC units from BYU and Utah Valley University, he was buried at the Provo City Cemetery.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the star of the 1936 Olympic Games was Jesse Owens. But there was another medal winner who became more infamous than famous. He came 3rd behind in the Men’s 100 metres sprint behind Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe and third place in the Men’s 200 metres sprint behind Jesse Owens and Mack Robinson. The name of this double bronze medal winner is Tinus Osendarp.
In the 100 m final, Tinus Osendarp ran 10.5 s just behind the American Jesse Owens’ 10.3 s and Ralph Metcalfe’s 10.4 s. During the medal ceremony Osendarp raised his arm in the Nazi salute. Upon his return home, Osendarp was called “the best white sprinter” by the Dutch press.
Tinus (Martinus) Osendarp was born on 21 May 1916 in Delft, the son of Bernardus Osendarp, owner of a fruit and vegetable export company. The Osendarp family moved to Rijswijk when the VUC football association was flourishing there, with a small athletics department. However, Tinus wanted to become a famous footballer above all else. With his innate speed, he ascribed to a great future on the football field.
Tinus Osendarp started sprinting for fun, and one day a talent scout discovered him. His first success came in 1934, when he placed third in the 200 m at the inaugural European Championships, won by compatriot Chris Berger. Osendarp finished fifth in the 100 metres and won a second bronze medal in the 4×100 metres relay (with Tjeerd Boersma, Chris Berger, and the non-Olympian Robert Jansen).
He increased his popularity by winning the 100 m and the 200 m at the 1938 European Championships in Paris.
He first came under the influence of SS propaganda in Berlin. That became the foundation for his future involvement in National Socialism.
Working as a policeman in The Hague, Osendarp joined the NSB (the Dutch National Socialist Party) in 1941 and the SS in 1943. Working for the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), he was involved with the arrests of various resistance fighters and helping with the deportation of Dutch Jews. The payment for each captured Jewish man or woman was 7.50 Dutch Guilders, [the equivalent of $50 or €42 today]. Many he arrested/betrayed the Nazis murdered.
In 1948, Osendarp’s sentence was 12 years in prison. Instead, he was allowed to carry out his sentence by working in the coal mines in the Southeast of the Netherlands to support his family.
Convicted Nazis on the way back to the camps they stayed in after working in the Maurits Coal mine, (The photo is the street where I grew up.)
Osendarp was released in early 1953 and moved to Limburg to work in the mines. In 1958, he became an athletics coach at Kimbria in Maastricht, and then from 1972 on, he was a coach at Achilles-Top in Kerkrade. He died in 2002 at the age of 86 in Heerlen. Although he was a relatively minor perpetrator—I think the sentence was too lenient. I would have sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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On this day 81 years ago, the fate of 11 million European citizens, was decided in this beautiful and majestic building.
These 11 million citizens had only one thing in common—they were Jewish. That was reason enough for the Nazi regime to murder every single one. What is so disturbing about this was the business-like language used during this conference, the so-called Wannsee Conference.
I find it striking that the name Wannsee is so similar to the German word for madness Wahnsinn.
Below are the ‘minutes’ of that meeting.
The English text of the Wannsee protocol is based on the official U.S. government translation and was prepared for evidence in trials at Nuremberg, as reproduced in John Mendelsohn, ed., The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol. 11: The Wannsee Protocol and a 1944 Report on Auschwitz by the Office of Strategic Services (New York: Garland, 1982), 18-32. Substantial revisions to the Nuremberg text have been made to add clarity and, in some cases, to correct mistakes in an obviously hasty translation.
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stamp: Top Secret
30 copies 16th copy
Minutes of discussion.
I. The following persons took part in the discussion about the final solution of the Jewish question which took place in Berlin, am Grossen Wannsee No. 56/58 on 20 January 1942.
Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and Reichsamt- Reich Ministry for Leiter Dr. Leibbrandt the Occupied Eastern territories
Secretary of State Dr. Stuckart Reich Ministry for the Interior
Secretary of State Neumann Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan
Secretary of State Dr. Freisler Reich Ministry of Justice
Secretary of State Dr. Buehler Office of the Government General
Under Secretary of State Dr. Luther Foreign Office
SS-Oberfuehrer Klopfer Party Chancellery
Ministerialdirektor Kritzinger Reich Chancellery
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann Race and Settlement Main Office
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Mueller Reich Main Security SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann Office
SS-Oberfuehrer Dr. Schoengarth Security Police and SD Chief of the Security Police and the SD in the Government General
SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Lange Security Police and SD Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the General-District Latvia, as deputy of the Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the Reich Commissariat “Eastland”.
II. At the beginning of the discussion Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him to delegate for the preparations for the final solution to the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions.
The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual and material interests concerning the final solution to the Jewish question in Europe, make a necessary the initial common action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions to bring their general activities into line.
The Reichsfuehrer-SS and the Chief of the German Police
(Chief of the Security Police and the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution of the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders.
The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a
short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following:
a) the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of
the German people,
b) the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the
German people.
In carrying out these efforts, an increased and planned
acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory was started, as the only possible present solution.
By order of the Reich Marshal, a Reich Central Office for
Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939 and the Chief of the Security Police and SD were entrusted with the management. Its most important tasks were
a) to make all necessary arrangements for the preparation
for an increased emigration of the Jews,
b) to direct the flow of emigration,
c) to speed up the procedure of emigration in each individual
case.
The aim of all this was to cleanse German living space of
Jews in a legal manner.
All the offices realized the drawbacks of such enforced
accelerated emigration. For the time being, they had, however, tolerated it on account of the lack of other possible solutions of the problem.
The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a
German problem, but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal with. Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing, the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the cancelling of such increased extraordinarily the difficulties of emigration. Despite these difficulties, 537,000 Jews were sent out of the country between the takeover of power and the deadline of 31 October 1941. Of these
approximately 360,000 were in Germany proper on 30 January
1933
approximately 147,000 were in Austria (Ostmark) on 15 March
1939
approximately 30,000 were in the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia on 15 March 1939.
The Jews themselves, or their Jewish political
organizations financed the emigration. To avoid impoverished Jews’ remaining behind, the principle was followed that wealthy Jews have to finance the emigration of poor Jews; this was arranged by imposing a suitable tax, i.e., an emigration tax, which was used for financial arrangements in connection with the emigration of poor Jews and was imposed according to income.
Apart from the necessary Reichsmark exchange, foreign
currency had to be presented at the time of landing. To save foreign exchange held by Germany, the foreign Jewish financial organizations were – with the help of Jewish organizations in Germany – made responsible for arranging an adequate amount of foreign currency. Up to 30 October 1941, these foreign Jews donated a total of around 9,500,000 dollars.
In the meantime the Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German
Police had prohibited the emigration of Jews due to the dangers of an emigration in wartime and due to the possibilities of the East.
III. Another possible solution of the problem has now taken the place of emigration, i.e. the evacuation to the Jews to the East, provided that the Fuehrer gives the appropriate approval in advance.
These actions are, however, only to be considered
provisional, but practical experience is already being collected which is of the greatest importance in relation to the future final solution to the Jewish question.
Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final
solution of the European Jewish question, distributed as follows among the individual countries:
Germany 131,800 Austria 43,700 Eastern territories 420,000 General Government 2,284,000 Bialystok 400,000 Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia 74,200 Estonia – free of Jews – Latvia 3,500 Lithuania 34,000 Belgium 43,000 Denmark 5,600 France / occupied territory 165,000 unoccupied territory 700,000 Greece 69,600 Netherlands 160,800 Norway 1,300
Bulgaria 48,000 England 330,000 Finland 2,300 Ireland 4,000 Italy including Sardinia 58,000 Albania 200 Croatia 40,000 Portugal 3,000 Roumania including Bessarabia 342,000 Sweden 8,000 Switzerland 18,000 Serbia 10,000 Slovakia 88,000 Spain 6,000 Turkey (European portion) 55,500 Hungary 742,800 USSR 5,000,000 Ukraine 2,994,684 White Russia excluding Bialystok 446,484
Total over 11,000,000
The number of Jews given here to foreign countries
includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith, since some countries still do not have a definition of the term “Jew” according to racial principles.
The handling of the problem in individual countries will
meet with difficulties due to the attitude and outlook of the people there, especially in Hungary and Roumania. Thus, for example, even today the Jew can buy documents in Roumania that will officially prove his foreign citizenship.
The influence of the Jews in all walks of life in the USSR
is well known. Approximately five million Jews live in the European part of the USSR and the Asian part scarcely 1/4 million.
The breakdown of Jews residing in the European part of the
USSR according to trades was approximate as follows:
Agriculture 9.1 %
Urban workers 14.8 %
In trade 20.0 %
Employed by the state 23.4 %
In private occupations such as
medical profession, press, theatre, etc. 32. 7%
Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution
the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labour in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.
The possible final remnant will since it will undoubtedly
consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)
In the course of the practical execution of the final
solution, Europe will be combed through from west to east. Germany proper, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia will have to be handled first due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities.
The evacuated Jews will first be sent, group by group, to
so-called transit ghettos, from which they will be transported to the East.
SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich went on to say that an
important prerequisite for the evacuation as such to the exact definition of the persons involved.
It is not intended to evacuate Jews over 65 years old, but
to send them to an old-age ghetto—Theresienstadt is being considered for this purpose.
In addition to these age groups - of the approximately
280,000 Jews in Germany proper and Austria on 31 October 1941, approximately 30% are over 65 years old—severely wounded veterans and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross I) will be accepted in the old-age ghettos. With this expedient solution, in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented.
The beginning of the individual larger evacuation actions
will largely depend on military developments. Regarding the handling of the final solution in those European countries occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the appropriate expert of the Foreign Office to discuss the matter with the responsible official of the Security Police and SD.
In Slovakia and Croatia, the matter is no longer so
difficult, since the most substantial problems in this respect have already been brought near a solution. In Roumania, the government in the meantime also appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs. In order to settle the question in Hungary, it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto the Hungarian government.
With regard to taking up preparations for dealing with the
problem in Italy, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich considers it opportune to contact the chief of police with a view to these problems.
In occupied and unoccupied France, the registration of Jews
for evacuation will in all probability proceed without great difficulty.
Under Secretary of State Luther, calls attention to this
matter to the fact that in some countries, such as the Scandinavian states, difficulties will arise if this problem is dealt with thoroughly and that it will therefore be advisable to defer actions in these countries. Besides, in view of the small numbers of Jews affected, this deferral will not cause any substantial limitation.
The Foreign Office sees no great difficulties in the Southeast
and Western Europe.
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann plans to send an expert to Hungary
from the Race and Settlement Main Office for general orientation at the time when the Chief of the Security Police and SD take up the matter there. It was decided to assign this expert from the Race and Settlement Main Office, who will not work actively, as an assistant to the police attache.
IV. In the course of the final solution plans, the Nuremberg Laws should provide a certain foundation, in which a prerequisite for the absolute solution to the problem is also the solution to the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood.
The Chief of the Security Police and the SD discuss the
following points, at first theoretically, in regard to a letter from the chief of the Reich chancellery:
1) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree will, as regards
the final solution to the Jewish question, be treated as Jews.
From this treatment the following exceptions will be made:
a) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree married to
persons of German blood if their marriage has resulted
in children (persons of mixed blood of the second
degree). These persons of mixed blood of the second
degree are to be treated essentially as Germans.
b) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree, for whom
the highest offices of the Party and State have already
issued exemption permits in any sphere of life.
Individual cases must be examined, and it is not
ruled out that the decision may be made to the
detriment of the person with mixed blood.
The prerequisite for any exemption must always be the
personal merit of the person of mixed blood. (Not the merit of the parent or spouse of German blood.)
Persons of mixed blood of the first degree who are exempted
from evacuation will be sterilized in order to prevent any offspring and to eliminate the problem of persons of mixed blood once and for all. Such sterilization will be voluntary. But it is required to remain in the Reich. The sterilized “person of mixed blood” is thereafter free of all restrictions to which he was previously subjected.
2) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree
Persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be treated
fundamentally as persons of German blood, with the exception of the following cases, in which the persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be considered as Jews:
a) The person of mixed blood of the second degree was born
of a marriage in which both parents are persons of
mixed blood.
b) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a
racially especially undesirable appearance that marks
him outwardly as a Jew.
c) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a
particularly bad police and political record that shows
that he feels and behaves like a Jew.
Also in these cases, exemptions should not be made if the
person of mixed blood of the second degree has married a person of German blood.
3) Marriages between Full Jews and Persons of German Blood.
Here it must be decided from case to case whether the Jewish
partner will be evacuated or whether, with regard to the effects of such a step on the German relatives, [this mixed marriage] should be sent to an old-age ghetto.
4) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of German Blood.
a) Without Children.
If no children have resulted from the marriage, the
person of mixed blood of the first degree will be
evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto (the same
treatment as in the case of marriages between full
Jews and persons of German blood, point 3.)
b) With Children.
If children have resulted from the marriage (persons
of mixed blood of the second degree), they will, if
they are to be treated as Jews, be evacuated or sent
to a ghetto along with the parent of mixed blood of
the first degree. If these children are to be
treated as Germans (regular cases) are exempted from
evacuation as is therefore the parent of mixed blood
of the first degree.
5) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree or Jews.
In these marriages. (including the children) all members
of the family will be treated as Jews and therefore be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto.
6) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree.
In these marriages both partners will be evacuated or sent
to an old-age ghetto without consideration of whether the marriage has produced children since possible children will as a rule have stronger Jewish blood than the Jewish person of mixed blood of the second degree.
SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann advocates the opinion that
sterilization will have to be widely used, since the person of mixed blood who is given the choice of whether he will be evacuated or sterilized would rather undergo sterilization.
State Secretary Dr. Stuckart maintains that carrying out in
the practice of the just mentioned possibilities for solving the the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood will create endless administrative work. In second place the biological facts cannot be disregarded in any case, State Secretary Dr. Stuckart proposed proceeding with forced sterilization.
Furthermore, to simplify the problem of mixed marriages
possibilities must be considered with the goal of the legislator saying something like: “These marriages have been dissolved.”
With regard to the issue of the effect of the evacuation of
Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann stated that Jews who are working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated.
SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich indicated that these Jews
would not be evacuated according to the rules he had approved for carrying out the evacuations then underway.
State Secretary Dr. Buehler stated that the General
Government would welcome it if the final solution to this problem could be begun in the General Government, since on the one hand transportation does not play such a large role here nor would problems of labour supply hamper this action. Jews must be removed from the territory of the General Government as quickly as possible, since it is especially here that the Jew as an epidemic carrier represents an extreme danger and on the other hand, he is causing permanent chaos in the economic structure of the country through continued black market dealings. Moreover, of the approximately 2 1/2 million Jews concerned, the majority is unfit for work.
State Secretary Dr. Buehler stated further that the solution
to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and his efforts would be supported by the officials of the General Government. He had only one request, to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, the different types of possible solutions
were discussed, during which discussion both Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and State Secretary Dr. Buehler took the position that certain preparatory activities for the final solution should be carried out immediately in the territories in question, in which the process alarming the populace must be avoided.
The meeting was closed at the request of the Chief of the
Security Police and the SD to the participants that they afford him appropriate support during the carrying out of the tasks involved in the solution.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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I watched ‘Charité at War’ on Netflix the last few nights. Although I felt that one or two portrayals gave a bit too much credit to some characters, overall I believe it was a good reflection of the situation in the hospital during the last years of the war.
The show takes place in 1943 at the hospital under the Nazi regime during World War II and shows how the war affected the doctors, nurses and students at Berlin’s renowned learning hospital. The series includes the using of archival film from the time to set the tone. It has a mix of fictional and real characters.
There are a few subtle nuances which I found quite powerful, but may not have been picked up by everyone watching the show. For example there is reference made how the mother of one of the Doctors could not visit Berlin because a shortage of trains.
One character in the show, although not a main character. was Dr. Georg Bressau. he was a German pediatrician and university professor. There are a lot of aspects to Dr Bressau’s career. for example in 1939 he introduced the preventive treatment of rickets with vitamin D in infants.
But there is a much more evil side to him too.
In Berlin he was continuing following his well-known research into a dead vaccine against tuberculosis. After the Lübeck vaccination accident in 1931, the use of live vaccines was banned.
The incident was a disaster caused by use of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) for tuberculosis vaccination, which struck the German city of Lübeck. During 1929 and 1930, 72 babies died from tuberculosis out of 252 vaccinated. Many other infants were made ill as a result of vaccination. The vaccine used was later found to have been contaminated with a human tuberculosis strain being studied in same lab where the vaccine was produced.
Initially Bressau conducted animal experiments and there were promising signs for the experimental vaccine. However he then continued doing experiments on humans .For the experiment Bessau used physically and mentally disabled children from several children wards and hospitals . These were institutions that continued to covertly pursue the killing of disabled children after the end of the “T4 action”. In Berlin it was the children psychiatric clinic “Im Wiesengrund” in the Reinickendorf district.
Between 1942 and 1945, 175 children were tortured here. And 81 were murdered. These children were seen as rejects by the state and therefore no consent was needed from the parents to experiment on these kids.
The picture at the start of the blog is of the clinic.
Bressau wasn’t the only Doctor carrying out these experiments, but he was one of the most senior ones.
In his honor, the intensive care unit of the children’s clinic at the University of Giessen (now the University Clinic Giessen and Marburg ) was named “Ward Bessau” until a few years ago.
Dr Bressau wasn’t the only Doctor portrayed in the show. Dr Ferdinand Sauerbruch, is a prominent figure in the show. Although they do make some sort of reference to him signing some approvals, they don’t mention that he allegedly personally approved the funds which financed August Hirt’s experiments with mustard gas on prisoners at Natzweiler concentration camp from 1941 until 1944.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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Aside from their murderous practices, the SS also had several businesses.
On January 23, 1939 Oswald Pohl .the head of “SS Main Economic and Administrative Office” founded the “German Research Institute for Nutrition and Food Provision Ltd.” The shareholders were the SS concern “German Earth and Stone Works Ltd.” and a member of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Although his name is not found in available sources, it can be assumed that the individual concerned was the SS-Standartenfuhrer (Colonel) Dr. Salpeter whose name was recorded as that of a trusted shareholder at the end of 1939. The major aim of the undertaking was the cultivation and study of medicinal plants and spices. Its management was the responsibility of Hauptsturmfuhrer (Captain) Heinrich Vogel in the Office of Economic Administration of the WVHA. According to the partnership agreement the research institute had the following tasks:
a) Systematic research and cultivation of those medicinal herbs native to Germany in the interest of the national economy b) Supplying German and foreign markets with German drugs. c) Production of new drugs and new syntheses based on scientific research. d) Maintenance of laboratories. e) Acquisition of plots f) The organization of all commercial and agricultural transactions arising in connection with the enterprise e.g. poultry and animal farms etc.
The plantation at the Dachau concentration camp was the centerpiece of the whole venture which came to include a wide range of assorted projects. While at the end of 1939 there were in total only three in operation (Dachau, Ravensbruck, Bretsteintal in der Steiermark.) by the end of 1944 the “German Research Institute for Nutrition and Food Provisions Ltd” comprised over twenty agricultural enterprises as well as fish hatcheries and the administration and oversight of properties in the occupied territories of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union.
One of these enterprises was the herb garden in Dachau, Known as the plantation.
The plantation at Dachau and the smaller one at Ravensbruck concentration camp were distinctive in the sense that they were cultivated almost exclusively by prisoners. The other projects, which were spread across Germany an Austria, employed a good deal more civilian workers and were cultivated only in part by prisoners. They were also less labor intensive, being based around experiments with biodynamic cultivation methods in which both Himmler and Pohl were believers as well as cattle and sheep breeding and experimenting with veterinary medicine etc.
Ernst-Günther Schenck was tasked to set up the plantation.in Dachau concentration camp, which contained over 200,000 medicinal plants, from which, among other things, vitamin supplements for the Waffen-SS were manufactured.
In 1940 he was appointed as inspector of nutrition for the SS. In 1943 Schenck developed a protein sausage, which was meant for the SS frontline troops. Prior to its adoption it was tested on 370 prisoners in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, some of whom died of hunger.
The extensive cultivation of medicinal herbs, however, particularly in the given climate conditions, was highly labor intensive: such a project under the the prevailing wage conditions was hardly feasible. For the initiators of the project to use concentration camp prisoners was therefore an obvious one. Using a labor force that could be exploited could guarantee the viability of the whole undertaking.
The plantation was located outside the prisoner camp. It was a large nursery with areas of cultivated land that, from 1938 onwards, the prisoners were forced to lay out and work on. The SS described this agricultural operation euphemistically as the “herb garden”. Today, the area is mostly overbuilt with industrial buildings.
The complex comprised numerous structures, including a maintenance building, a teaching and research institute, a shop, an equipment shed, a bee house, greenhouses, as well as large sections of productive land. It was Heinrich Himmler’s idea that by cultivating and studying medicinal and aromatic herbs the Nazi state could itself independent of its reliance on foreign medicines and herbs. Establishing a “Volk medicine” in close touch with nature was a prestige project of Nazi health policy and was avidly supported by the leader of the SS. Responsible for selling the produce from the experiments and testing was the SS-owned company “Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Ernährung und Verpflegung GmbH” (DVA).
The residents of Dachau, as in the town Dachau, and neighboring areas could purchase the produce of the “herb garden” in a shop. There individual prisoners succeeded in secretly establishing contact with the civilian population who helped them, at the risk of death, to smuggle goods and information in and out of the camp.
The prisoners called the feared deployment to the outdoor areas of the “herb garden” the “plantation” work detail. They were forced to do the extremely arduous and exhausting work no matter the weather. Inadequate clothing, malnutrition, bullying and abuse by the SS turned the already hard outdoor work into a perilous torture. The working conditions in the buildings and greenhouses were less brutal. A work detail of illustrators had to compile a herbarium.
The former administrative and institute building as well as remnants of three greenhouses with added end structures have survived. There are plans to restore the building ensemble, which is in the possession of the City of Dachau authority. Based on a new utilization concept, the historical structures are to be integrated into the Memorial Site and become part of its ‘space of memory’.
In April 1945 Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck volunteered to work in an emergency casualty station located in the large cellar of the Reich Chancellery, near the Vorbunker and Führerbunker,during the battle in Berlin.
Although he was not trained as a surgeon and lacked the experience, as well as the supplies and instruments necessary to operate on battle victims, he nonetheless assisted in major surgical operations. During these surgeries, Schenck was aided by Dr. Werner Haase, who also served as one of Hitler’s private physicians. Although Haase had much more surgical experience than Schenck, he was greatly weakened by tuberculosis, and often had to lie down while giving verbal advice to Schenck.
During the end time in Berlin, Schenck saw Hitler in person twice, for only a brief time: once when Hitler wanted to thank him, Haase, and nurse Erna Flegel for their emergency medical services, and once during the reception after Hitler’s marriage to Eva Braun.
Because of this chance encounter with Adolf Hitler his memoirs proved historically valuable. His accounts of this period are prominent in the works of Joachim Fest and James P. O’Donnell regarding the end of Hitler’s life, and were included in the film Downfall (2004).
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
Sometime you come across stories and you are amazed that they are not widely known. We all have heard about Oskar Schindler because of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” , but the story of Otto Weidt is probably just as amazing.
It is a story which is close to me due to the fact that I am half blind, and more then likely at some stage in the future I will become completely blind, I hope it will a long time into the future. At one stage I was actually blind for about 6 months, so I have an idea on how it is not being able to see.
Otto Weidt’s decreasing eyesight forced him to give up his job in wallpapering. He adapted and learned the business of brush making and broom binding.
Otto Weidt and Else Nast met in Berlin in 1931 and married five years later, on September 22, 1936. This was Otto Weidt’s third marriage; he had two sons from his first marriage.
In 1936 Otto Weidt opened a Workshop for the Blind in Kreuzberg in Berlin; Else Weidt worked there with him. Otto Weidt took great risks in trying to help his Jewish workers persecuted by the Nazis; his wife gave him constant support. After Otto Weidt died on December 22, 1947, Else Weidt took over the management of the Workshop for the Blind. She died aged 72 on June 8, 1974.
In 1936 he established a company with the name “Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind” in the basement of Großbeerenstraße 92 in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. From 1940 on the workshop was based at Rosenthaler Straße 39 in the Mitte district, occupying the entire first floor of the side wing of the building. As one of his customers was the Wehrmacht, Weidt managed to have his business classified as vital to the war effort.
Up to 30 blind and deaf Jews were employed at his shop between the years of 1941 and 1943.When the Gestapo began to arrest and deport his Jewish employees, he fought to secure their safety by falsifying documents, bribing officers and hiding them in the back of his shop. But in February and March 1943 many were arrested and deported to concentration camps during the police raids known as “Operation Factory”.
Aside from the blind, Weidt also employed healthy Jewish workers in his office. This was strictly forbidden, as all Jewish workers had to be mediated through the labor employment office, which would ordinarily post them to forced-labor assignments. However, Weidt, managed to hire them by bribery.
The Jewish Inge Deutschkron was among the eight healthy Jews employed at the workshop. Inge and her mother were living in hiding to live , Weidt arranged an Aryan work permit for Deutschkron which he had acquired from a prostitute, who had no use for it.
Unfortunately, the permit had to be discarded three months later when the police arrested the prostitute.
One of Weidt’s most spectacular exploits involved the rescue of a Jewish girl who had been deported to the camps in Poland. In February 1943 Otto Weidt hid the Licht family in a storage room in the workshop for the blind at Neanderstraße 12 in Berlin-Mitte. The Gestapo arrested the family in October 1943 and deported them to the Theresienstadt ghetto on November 15, 1943.
There Weidt could support them with food parcels. All of 150 parcels arrived. After 6 months Alice and her parents were deported to KZ Birkenau. Alice managed to send a postcard to Weidt who promptly traveled to Auschwitz in attempt to help her.
Weidt found out that as Auschwitz was emptied, Alice was moved to the labor camp/ammunition plant Christianstadt. He hid clothes and money for her, in a nearby pension to aid her return. Through one of the civilian workers he contacted Alice and made her runaway and return to Berlin possible.
Alice eventually managed to return to Berlin in January 1945, and lived in hiding with the Weidt’s until the end of the war.
Alice’s parents both were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau
In the period from March 1943 until the end of the war there were only a few employees left in Weidt’s workshop. Apart from three non-Jewish workers, there were Jews married to non-Jews or people who had one Jewish parent, as well as several people in hiding like Inge Deutschkron, Alice Licht, Erich Frey, and Chaim and Max Horn.
Of the 33 only 7 survived.
After the war Otto Weidt supported the establishment of the Jewish Home for Children and the Aged at Moltkestraße 8-11 in the Berlin district of Niederschönhausen. After Liberation it was the first secure place for children and elderly people who escaped Nazi persecution.
All of this make Otto Weidt a hero, in my opinion. Just think of it, not only did he help Jews, he helped blind and deaf Jews. They were seen as lesser human beings in 2 categories as per the Nuremberg Laws. Otto died of heart failure in 1947, at 64 years of age.
On September 7, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized Otto Weidt as Righteous Among the Nations.
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History of Sorts 
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