Kevin Prenger's Blog - Posts Tagged "ww2"
61 days till Christmas!
There are 61 days left for Christmas 2020! If you already want to get in the mood and if you are interested in the Second World War, I would like to recommend my book Christmas under Fire, 1944: The Last Christmas of World War II. Available at Amazon.com.
Bastogne in Belgium, Christmas 1944. Plagued by biting cold and the nerve-wracking sound of exploding mortar bombs, American soldiers sang Christmas carols. They ate their meagre rations, yearning for well-laid Christmas dinner tables and roasted turkey.
On the Eastern front, German military assembled to listen to Christmas music on the radio, if they had a little respite from the bloody battle against the advancing Red Army. After reading the latest mail from Germany, they wiped away their tears, thinking of their families back home.
In liberated Paris as well as in other European cities, Christmas was celebrated no matter how limited the circumstances may have been. In the major cities in the western part of the Netherlands, occupied by the Germans, civilians scraped the very last bits of food together for a Christmas dinner that could not appease their hunger.
POWs in camps all over the world looked forward to Christmas parcels from home. Even in Nazi concentration camps, inmates found hope in Christmas, although their suffering continued inexorably.
'Christmas Under Fire, 1944' describes the circumstances in which the last Christmas of World War II was celebrated by military, civilians and camp inmates alike. Even in the midst of war’s violence, Christmas remained a hopeful beacon of western civilization.
Bastogne in Belgium, Christmas 1944. Plagued by biting cold and the nerve-wracking sound of exploding mortar bombs, American soldiers sang Christmas carols. They ate their meagre rations, yearning for well-laid Christmas dinner tables and roasted turkey.
On the Eastern front, German military assembled to listen to Christmas music on the radio, if they had a little respite from the bloody battle against the advancing Red Army. After reading the latest mail from Germany, they wiped away their tears, thinking of their families back home.
In liberated Paris as well as in other European cities, Christmas was celebrated no matter how limited the circumstances may have been. In the major cities in the western part of the Netherlands, occupied by the Germans, civilians scraped the very last bits of food together for a Christmas dinner that could not appease their hunger.
POWs in camps all over the world looked forward to Christmas parcels from home. Even in Nazi concentration camps, inmates found hope in Christmas, although their suffering continued inexorably.
'Christmas Under Fire, 1944' describes the circumstances in which the last Christmas of World War II was celebrated by military, civilians and camp inmates alike. Even in the midst of war’s violence, Christmas remained a hopeful beacon of western civilization.
Kriegsweihnacht 1944, Christmas and Nazi propaganda
In 1944, Christmas was celebrated for the sixth time since the Second World War had broken out on September 1, 1939. Men who often shared the same religious background fought each other to the death in sharp contrast with the old Christmas message of Peace on Earth. Christmas under Fire, 1944: The Last Christmas of World War II tells about this last war time Christmas. Below an excerpt from this book. This part is about how Christmas was used in Nazi propaganda.
Soldiers of the Volkssturm celebrate Christmas 1944 in a bunker in Eastern Prussia. On the table mail from the home front. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J28377 / CC-BY-SA 3.0)
On Christmas Eve in a ward in a German hospital, an Oberleutnant lay motionless in bed. It was warm and quiet in the room where he was being treated for the severe injuries he had sustained on the Murmansk front. As he lay there in the corner near the stove, his head on a white pillow, it looked as if he were already dead. His eyes in a pale face were shut, and life seemed to be slipping away from him. All of a sudden, the door of the room was carefully opened and the dark room was lit by the cheerfully shimmering candles in a small fir tree. The soft sounds of German Christmas carols sung by children came closer and closer. As if by miracle, the eyes of the injured soldier opened. Laboriously, he raised himself to see where the light and the singing were coming from. While staring at the lights in the tree, his thoughts went back to past Christmas Days at home. A little smile appeared on his face. "He wants to live," so the story continues, "to live for the Heimat (fatherland) so far away but never so close as in this fateful moment, by the light of the Christmas tree. … And he feels joyous and happy: in this holy moment his fate returns from the frontier of death to within range of life itself. He will be cured.
This story about a miraculous healing by the light of a Christmas tree was published in 1944 in the propaganda bulletin "Deutsche Kriegsweihnacht" (German War Christmas). Starting in 1941, each year prior to the Christmas holidays, the department of culture of the propaganda office of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) issued a compilation of Christmas stories for adults and children, this one being the last. The 1944 issue contained Christmas stories from the front during World War I, such as one about a soldier in France who, while on patrol close to enemy lines, risked his life while fetching a Christmas tree in order to celebrate Christmas. Furthermore, it contained letters to and from the front, poems and folk songs, all of course along the lines of the Nazi Christmas celebration. For the children, it contained fairy tales of Snow White and Mother Holle by the Grimm brothers.
Speeches by the master of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, could not be left out of course. A posthumously published contribution of an ode to the German Christmas celebration was included: National Socialist writer and poet Kurt Eggers died in 1943 at the Eastern front serving with the Waffen-SS. He argued Christmas was not about "giving love" and "legends from the far away Jewish land" but about "freedom, honor and justice." He described the Christmas tree as the symbol of the "grandeur of the struggling and defiant life that in danger and in need holds out against any fearsome and difficult situation." According to him, Christmas became "the celebration of victory and the required willingness to fight. ... We therefore do not celebrate our Weihnachtsfest in the sentimental mood, contained in so many strange Christmas carols, but in the hard and inflexible knowledge that we, as the perennial torch bearers, are destined to carry the light of freedom in the world."
Read further
Soldiers of the Volkssturm celebrate Christmas 1944 in a bunker in Eastern Prussia. On the table mail from the home front. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J28377 / CC-BY-SA 3.0)
On Christmas Eve in a ward in a German hospital, an Oberleutnant lay motionless in bed. It was warm and quiet in the room where he was being treated for the severe injuries he had sustained on the Murmansk front. As he lay there in the corner near the stove, his head on a white pillow, it looked as if he were already dead. His eyes in a pale face were shut, and life seemed to be slipping away from him. All of a sudden, the door of the room was carefully opened and the dark room was lit by the cheerfully shimmering candles in a small fir tree. The soft sounds of German Christmas carols sung by children came closer and closer. As if by miracle, the eyes of the injured soldier opened. Laboriously, he raised himself to see where the light and the singing were coming from. While staring at the lights in the tree, his thoughts went back to past Christmas Days at home. A little smile appeared on his face. "He wants to live," so the story continues, "to live for the Heimat (fatherland) so far away but never so close as in this fateful moment, by the light of the Christmas tree. … And he feels joyous and happy: in this holy moment his fate returns from the frontier of death to within range of life itself. He will be cured.
This story about a miraculous healing by the light of a Christmas tree was published in 1944 in the propaganda bulletin "Deutsche Kriegsweihnacht" (German War Christmas). Starting in 1941, each year prior to the Christmas holidays, the department of culture of the propaganda office of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) issued a compilation of Christmas stories for adults and children, this one being the last. The 1944 issue contained Christmas stories from the front during World War I, such as one about a soldier in France who, while on patrol close to enemy lines, risked his life while fetching a Christmas tree in order to celebrate Christmas. Furthermore, it contained letters to and from the front, poems and folk songs, all of course along the lines of the Nazi Christmas celebration. For the children, it contained fairy tales of Snow White and Mother Holle by the Grimm brothers.
Speeches by the master of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, could not be left out of course. A posthumously published contribution of an ode to the German Christmas celebration was included: National Socialist writer and poet Kurt Eggers died in 1943 at the Eastern front serving with the Waffen-SS. He argued Christmas was not about "giving love" and "legends from the far away Jewish land" but about "freedom, honor and justice." He described the Christmas tree as the symbol of the "grandeur of the struggling and defiant life that in danger and in need holds out against any fearsome and difficult situation." According to him, Christmas became "the celebration of victory and the required willingness to fight. ... We therefore do not celebrate our Weihnachtsfest in the sentimental mood, contained in so many strange Christmas carols, but in the hard and inflexible knowledge that we, as the perennial torch bearers, are destined to carry the light of freedom in the world."
Read further
Kolberg, 1945: Evacuation from a besieged city
From 4 to 18 March 1945, Kolberg was besieged by troops of the Red Army and the Polish People's Army. The German seaside resort on the Baltic coast had not seen war since 1807.
Postcard of Kolberg from 1901. All ships carrying evacuees leaving the harbour in 1945 passed the harbour entrance. By then, the lighthouse had already been replaced by a more modern version, which was detonated by the Germans during the siege because it was an easy landmark for enemy artillery. Source: Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen / Wikimedia Commons
Back then, the siege by Napoleon's troops had ceased after an armistice was signed between France and Prussia. The propaganda film 'Kolberg' about this siege, premiered as recently as January 1945, was supposed to encourage Germans to hold out even now.
They would not succeed, but until 17 March almost the entire civilian population was evacuated from the city by fishing, merchant and naval vessels by sea.
On TracesOfWar.com can read an excerpt from my book ' Hitler’s Last Chance: Kolberg' about this evacuation.: https://www.tracesofwar.com/news/1251...
Hitler's Last Chance: Kolberg: The Propaganda Movie and the Rise and Fall of a German City
Postcard of Kolberg from 1901. All ships carrying evacuees leaving the harbour in 1945 passed the harbour entrance. By then, the lighthouse had already been replaced by a more modern version, which was detonated by the Germans during the siege because it was an easy landmark for enemy artillery. Source: Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen / Wikimedia Commons
Back then, the siege by Napoleon's troops had ceased after an armistice was signed between France and Prussia. The propaganda film 'Kolberg' about this siege, premiered as recently as January 1945, was supposed to encourage Germans to hold out even now.
They would not succeed, but until 17 March almost the entire civilian population was evacuated from the city by fishing, merchant and naval vessels by sea.
On TracesOfWar.com can read an excerpt from my book ' Hitler’s Last Chance: Kolberg' about this evacuation.: https://www.tracesofwar.com/news/1251...
Hitler's Last Chance: Kolberg: The Propaganda Movie and the Rise and Fall of a German City
Verwacht: Van kinderwieg tot soldatengraf
Over een paar dagen verschijnt mijn negende boek, getiteld 'Van kinderwieg tot soldatengraf'. Het gaat over onderwijs en indoctrinatie van de jeugd in nazi-Duitsland.
Al vroeg in de oorlog werd gewaarschuwd voor het gevaar van geradicaliseerde nazi-jeugd. In de laatste oorlogsmaanden verdedigden Duitse tieners hun verwoeste vaderland. Van jongs af aan was hen geleerd dat het hun roeping was te strijden en te sterven voor hun land en hun geadoreerde leider, Adolf Hitler.
Al in 1941 beschreef de Amerikaanse onderwijzer en journalist Gregor Ziemer hoe Duitse kinderen van hun geboorte tot hun volwassenwording onder controle stonden van de nazi-dictatuur. Hun hele opvoeding was erop gericht ze klaar te stomen om hun Führer te dienen. De jongens als soldaten in de strijd, de meisjes aan het thuisfront als moeders van toekomstige soldaten.
Geen schoolvak bleef bespaard van nazi-beïnvloeding. Daarnaast werden Duitse kinderen niet alleen met gedrukte media, muziek, radio en film, maar ook met poppenkastvoorstellingen, gezelschapsspellen en speelgoedsoldaatjes gewonnen voor het nationaal-socialistische gedachtengoed, de bijbehorende rassenwaan en oorlogsfanatisme.
Ook de toenmalige jongeren zelf komen aan het woord. En hoe verging het de Duitse jeugd na de ineenstorting van het Derde Rijk? Kwam Gregor Ziemers vrees uit dat de gehersenspoelde jongens en meisjes een bedreiging voor de rechtsstaat zouden vormen?
Een boek met een waarschuwing voor deze tijd. De nazi-jeugd werd grootgebracht met anti-intellectualisme, ultranationalisme en feitenvrije haat. Tegenwoordig worden democratische samenlevingen hierdoor opnieuw bedreigd.
ISBN: 9789089757067 / uitgever: Just Publishers / 304 pagina's / verwacht: eind september
Al vroeg in de oorlog werd gewaarschuwd voor het gevaar van geradicaliseerde nazi-jeugd. In de laatste oorlogsmaanden verdedigden Duitse tieners hun verwoeste vaderland. Van jongs af aan was hen geleerd dat het hun roeping was te strijden en te sterven voor hun land en hun geadoreerde leider, Adolf Hitler.
Al in 1941 beschreef de Amerikaanse onderwijzer en journalist Gregor Ziemer hoe Duitse kinderen van hun geboorte tot hun volwassenwording onder controle stonden van de nazi-dictatuur. Hun hele opvoeding was erop gericht ze klaar te stomen om hun Führer te dienen. De jongens als soldaten in de strijd, de meisjes aan het thuisfront als moeders van toekomstige soldaten.
Geen schoolvak bleef bespaard van nazi-beïnvloeding. Daarnaast werden Duitse kinderen niet alleen met gedrukte media, muziek, radio en film, maar ook met poppenkastvoorstellingen, gezelschapsspellen en speelgoedsoldaatjes gewonnen voor het nationaal-socialistische gedachtengoed, de bijbehorende rassenwaan en oorlogsfanatisme.
Ook de toenmalige jongeren zelf komen aan het woord. En hoe verging het de Duitse jeugd na de ineenstorting van het Derde Rijk? Kwam Gregor Ziemers vrees uit dat de gehersenspoelde jongens en meisjes een bedreiging voor de rechtsstaat zouden vormen?
Een boek met een waarschuwing voor deze tijd. De nazi-jeugd werd grootgebracht met anti-intellectualisme, ultranationalisme en feitenvrije haat. Tegenwoordig worden democratische samenlevingen hierdoor opnieuw bedreigd.
ISBN: 9789089757067 / uitgever: Just Publishers / 304 pagina's / verwacht: eind september
New book: Righteous Behind Barbed Wire
Righteous behind Barbed Wire is my latest book translated into English. It was published in November 2024 and is available through Amazon and others.
In Germany, there are few reminders of human rights activist Armin T. Wegner and Auschwitz survivor Ludwig Wörl. In the Nazi period, both of these non-Jewish Germans stood up for their Jewish compatriots, actions for which they were honored after the war as Righteous among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Center, Yad Vashem.
Unlike the Righteous from neutral, hostile or German-occupied countries, Wegner and Wörl opposed the policy of their own government headed by dictator Adolf Hitler. Although they were citizens of the ‘perpetrators’ nation’, they stood up for the victims. In that way they showed themselves as immune to anti-Semitism and the murderous lust many compatriots either did not resist or, worse, took part in.
In addition to caring about the fate of Jews in Germany, Wegner and Wörl had another thing in common: they were themselves victims of persecution by the Nazis and were political prisoners in Hitler’s concentration camps. How did they get there, and what did they do to defend their fellow Jews from Nazi hatred?
Righteous Behind Barbed Wire: Armin Wegner & Ludwig Wörl
In Germany, there are few reminders of human rights activist Armin T. Wegner and Auschwitz survivor Ludwig Wörl. In the Nazi period, both of these non-Jewish Germans stood up for their Jewish compatriots, actions for which they were honored after the war as Righteous among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Center, Yad Vashem.
Unlike the Righteous from neutral, hostile or German-occupied countries, Wegner and Wörl opposed the policy of their own government headed by dictator Adolf Hitler. Although they were citizens of the ‘perpetrators’ nation’, they stood up for the victims. In that way they showed themselves as immune to anti-Semitism and the murderous lust many compatriots either did not resist or, worse, took part in.
In addition to caring about the fate of Jews in Germany, Wegner and Wörl had another thing in common: they were themselves victims of persecution by the Nazis and were political prisoners in Hitler’s concentration camps. How did they get there, and what did they do to defend their fellow Jews from Nazi hatred?
Righteous Behind Barbed Wire: Armin Wegner & Ludwig Wörl
