Sebastian P. Breit's Blog, page 12

As you can see from the app on the right sidebar I've started a crowdfunding campaign for Clash of Eagles , the sequel to my novel Wolf Hunt . Please, check it out. 




If you like what you see, spread the word or lend your support directly. Everything will help me make Clash the best novel possible, and everything will be greatly appreciated. The perks you can unlock in return range from exclusive ebook editions of Wolf Hunt up to featuring a major character named after you in the next book. 




Please, help me get this done. Thank you.

Gen. Patton


Bellingham resident Kenneth Cowden has driven all kinds of big rigs: military vehicles, gravel trucks and intimidatingly large logging trucks.

But the most nerve-wracking ride of his life was driving a command car in 1943 with Gen. George Patton and French Gen. Charles de Gaulle - who would later become that country's president - in the backseat, along with several other notable military figures.

"I was loaded with brass," said the World War II veteran, who is now 88.

Cowden, a private first class in the 7th Army, was Patton's driver for the second half of 1943 during the campaign in Sicily. It's a period of his life he'll never forget, when he had unfettered access to one of the most powerful men in the war.

"He's a guy that scares you to death, of course," he said. "Gen. Patton was a big guy. I always thought of him as a real statesman. He was very disciplined. He was a great guy."

Particularly memorable, though, was that sweltering July day when he was tasked with driving Patton, de Gaulle, Gen. Hobart Gay and the others from the airfield to Patton's headquarters on a Sicilian mountaintop. They were escorted by motorcycle guards, and were passing traffic on the Sicilian roads. Cowden didn't realize it, but included in the motorcade was a car containing Gen. Omar Bradley behind him.

Patton had yelled at Cowden to slow down a couple times while he was passing a big Army wrecker, and on his third attempt to pass it, Patton stood up and smacked him on the back of the head. Cowden was so surprised that he slammed on the brakes and Patton toppled out of the car into the road.

The other car in their motorcade pulled up and Patton sat in the road talking to Bradley.

Cowden was terrified.

"I thought that was the end of it all," Cowden said. "Anybody else would've had a fit, but (Patton), never."

Not only had Patton fallen out of the car, but Cowden's hat had flown into the road as well. He felt out of uniform without it but couldn't get out to grab it.

After he finished talking with Bradley, Patton just stood up and smiled at Cowden, picked up the hat and said, "Let's go now, driver."

A few minutes later, as Cowden was driving the group up the steep, winding road to headquarters, he almost crashed when an English truck hauling two trailers came around a switchback toward him. He swerved the car of the way, hitting a cement kilometer marker and coming within inches of going off the hillside. No one said a word as he got the car back on the road and brought them safely to headquarters. Patton never mentioned it.

"He was the boss," Cowden said. "I don't think he was scared of anything."

The most devastating was the carnage of the Dachau concentration camp. He drove in the day after if was liberated and saw stacks and stacks of bodies.

"That was something I'll never forget," he said. "You see all those people, some of them you can't tell if they're dead or alive they're so skinny. You just couldn't believe it."

Despite the worst, he's never regretted his time serving, doing his duty for his country.

Cowden was chosen to bring out the first ball at Safeco Field before a Seattle Mariners game for the annual Boeing Salute to Armed Forces Day Saturday, April 21.

"It's a long walk out there," he said, smiling as he remembered the noise of the crowd as he waved the ball high in the air on the pitcher's mound. "That was quite an experience. That was fantastic."

Originally published here.

Part of Osprey Publishing's Man-at-Arms series of books, detailing Nazi
German NSSK and it's Japanese counterpart, paramilitary charity
organizations/secret police charged with maintaining morale on the home
front.



Neither the picture or the quote are mine btw.

Under the Nazi regime in Germany there was some disagreement among the Kaiserliche Reichspost, RLM,
SS and other organizations over the membership of Santa Claus, but in
the end, an independent organization called the 'National Socialist
Santa Claus Corps' (aka. NS-Samichlauskorps;NSSK) was created and
Reichsführer-Santa took command.

 * * *

On a slightly more serious note, the Men at Arms series is an excellent and comparably inexpensive way to get a great overview about the uniforms, equipment and organization of a whole slew of historic armies and paramilitary organizations like the Sturmabteilung (SA). I'm using a number of them to flesh out the sequels (yes, plural) to Wolf Hunt and can highly recommend them.



And yes, the post obviously is meant as a joke...

With the copyright set to expire in 2015, German officials hope that publishing an annotated, educational version of Mein Kampf, with notes on the dangerous implications of the racist ideology it outlines, will help to "demystify" the book and prevent Neo-Nazis or any right-wing extremists from capitalizing on the publication in the future.

Although publication of the text has never been technically outlawed, the southern German state of Bavaria has controlled the copyright since the end of the Second World War and has intentionally prohibited its publication.

After long discussions with both advocates and opponents, Der Spiegel, a well-known German newsmagazine, reported that Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder had decided to publish an educational version of the book.

"The expiration of the copyright in three years' time could lead to more young people reading 'Mein Kampf'," Söder said on Tuesday, announcing the decision to publish a school version. "We want to make clear what nonsense is in there," he explained. The Bavarian government wants to show, by adding notes that are easy for all young people to understand, "what a worldwide catastrophe this dangerous body of thought led to".

But how are Germans reacting?

Many are shocked by this decision, especially since displaying the swastika and other Nazi symbols remains illegal in Germany and punishable by up to three years behind bars.

Furthermore, not everyone believes that this preemptive move to publish is a good idea, or that any annotation could possibly explain Hitler's extreme and dangerous ideas.

"I think the idea is absurd," Wolfgang Benz, head of the Center for Antisemitism Research (ZfA) in Berlin, told Der Spiegel. "How can you annotate an 800-page monologue exposing Hitler's insane worldview? After every single line you would have to write, 'Hitler is wrong here,' and then 'Hitler is completely off the rails here,' and so on. The neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists will publish it anyway once the copyright expires," Benz added.

According to the BBC, Germany does not plan to outlaw the book's publication once the copyright expires unless it is used to "incite racial hatred."

Others, however, are not worried about publication. Der Spiegel also sought the opinion of Salomon Korn, the vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who feels that the book is so poorly written it could hardly have much influence on anyone anyway. "It's so badly written," he said, "with such a mishmash of illogical ideas, that any sensible reader would simply throw it aside."

 

* * *




Personally, I think republishing it will indeed de-mystify the tome. And since I welcome almost every step towards less censorship and a less emotionally charged atmosphere of discussion this gets my full approval.

Awesome! The War Blog just broke through the 50,000 page views barrier today! Thank you, all of you, for following my little blog. Onward to 100,000!

Inmates of the Jasenovac KZ.


The Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and its Ustasha
regime operated Jasenovac and other death camps, that became places of
mass slaughter of Serbs, Jews and Roma during the Second World War. Serbia will commemorate the victims by laying wreaths at the
monument to the WWII genocide victims and at the Staro Sajmište (Old
Fairgrounds) concentration camp memorial complex in Belgrade. The camp
was set up and operated by the occupying German Nazi forces.


The ceremony will be led by Labor and Social Policy Ministry State
Secretary Negovan Stanković and it will be attended by representatives
of the city of Belgrade. The Association of Jewish Communities in
Serbia and Roma National Council and representatives of Israel, Germany
and other states will pay their respects to the victims.


According to official data, confirmed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center,
500,000 Serbs, 80,000 Roma and 32,000 Jews and dozens of thousands of
antifascists of various ethnicities perished in the Jasenovac camps.
The Independent State of Croatia even had special camps for children,
the Sisak and Jastrebarsko camps, in which 20,000 children younger than
the age of 14 died. The biggest concentration camp in the territory of Serbia was Banjica, where 80,000 people were killed.


A memorial service at the Donja Gradina memorial park, near Kozarska
Dubica in the RS marked the start of a commemoration for the victims of
the Ustasha genocide, attended by RS top officials and Serbia's Prime
Minister Mirko Cvetković.

The RS on Sunday commemorated the
WWII victims of the Ustasha genocide, which included Serbs, Roma, Jews
and anti-fascists of various nationalities. The central
ceremony was held in the memorial area of Donja Gradina, the largest
execution site in the Jasenovac concentration camp complex.


Representatives of the RS, Serbia and Israel and representatives of
associations of surviving prisoners of the camp and veteran
organizations laid wreaths and lit candles at the Topole burial site in
Donja Gradina. The Memorial Day for victims of the Ustasha
genocide in the former Independent State of Croatia (NDH) marks an
attempted escape of around 1,000 prisoners from the Jasenovac death camp
in the night between April 21 and 22, 1945. Only 118 prisoners managed
to escape.

A liturgy was served at the Church of Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Kozarska Dubica on Sunday.


Donja Gradina was the largest execution site in the Jasenovac
concentration camp complex, which was opened in August 1941, shortly
after the declaration of independence by the NDH.




Original Source.

1. Katyn: Little guilt, no honour

Moscow, under current management, has a problem. In other policy areas Moscow has insisted that it is the legal continuation of the USSR. Russia accepted responsibility for Soviet-era international debt and, of course, kept the Soviet Union's place as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However, it also insists that Russia can not be held responsible for the crimes of the Stalin period, of which the Katyn killings were a particularly monstrous example. In part because Moscow wants to show that there has been substantive political and moral discontinuity between the USSR and the New Russia. In part because it fears unending law suits over Katyn and other WW2 war crimes. Indeed, the Russian state has never accepted that Katyn even was a war crime. ...

2. Prince Philip Reveals his Role in Battle of Cape Matapan

Prince Philip in WW 2
The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, has revealed the moment "all hell broke loose" during the Battle of Cape Matapan in the Second World War, in a rare recollection of his time as a serving navy officer.

3. The Mareth Line: Retracing WW2 in Tunisia

The Mareth Line, known as the Maginot Line, is located southeast of Mareth city in the governorate of Gabès. The site was once a fortification line, stretching from the Mediterranean coast to the 700m heights of Matmata – an Amazigh village in same governorate.



The reinforced trench is 45-35km long, and was built between 1936 and 1940 by the French army during World War II (WWII). The defensive line was constructed to thwart Italian incursions from Libya, an Italian colony at that time, into the French protectorate of Tunisia. ...

4. Twenty Spitfires buried in Burma to be returned to the UK

David Cameron struck up the deal with Burmese president Thein Sein in a bid to thaw relations. The move will see the historic fighter planes located, dug up and shipped back to the UK almost 67 years after they were hidden more than 12m (40ft) below ground under British instruction.

A Downing Street source said: 'The Spitfire is arguably the most important plane in the history of aviation, playing a crucial role in the Second World War. 'It is hoped this will be an opportunity to work with the reforming Burmese government, uncover, restore and display these fighter planes and get them gracing the skies of Britain once again.' ...

Source: IPN




According to Russian media, Moscow will not be held to account in the European Court of Human Rights for the 1940 Katyn massacre of over 22,000 Poles.



Though the judgment will be officially made on 16 April, the Russian newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti has reported that Moscow will not have to bear responsibility for the WWII Katyn massacre and that Russia will emerge relatively unscathed from the current trial in Strasbourg.



“The Polish side has almost completely lost this case,” the newspaper reported, Thursday, after a tip off from anonymous source at the European Court of Human Rights ahead of Monday's ruling.



The paper also reports that victims' relatives who had filed the case would not receive “a single cent in compensation”.



Some 22,500 Polish citizens, largely reserve officers, were executed on Stalin’s orders in 1940, at various points across the Soviet Union, including the Katyn Forest.



“We will not have to answer for Stalin,” the newspaper writes.



However, the newspaper also claims that Moscow will be held to account for not cooperating with the European Court of Human Rights in the case.



Russia refused to provide the court with details from its investigation into the crime.

The Polish plaintiffs have accused Russian authorities of not conducting an effective investigation - the inquiry was broken off in 2004 - and unacceptable treatment of the bereaved families.



Andrzej Melak, chairman of Poland's Katyn Committee, is playing down the report, however. “I heard this [report] with disbelief and will wait calmly for the verdict of the court,” he said

Just thought I'd bring a couple of books to your attention which might be interesting. I haven't read any of them, so you'll have to decide for yourselves. 1. ) Charles Ota Heller of Arnold grew up in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and lost more than 20 members of his family in concentration camps. His memoir, "Prague: My Long Journey Home," was published in December.

[image error] 2.) Werner Goering, a United States B-17 pilot during World War II for the Mighty 8th Air Force, had a hurdle to overcome - his uncle is Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler's second in command. Unbeknown to him, Goering's co-pilot,
Hell Above Earth: The Incredible True Story of an American WWII Bomber Commander and the Copilot Ordered to Kill Him 

3.) Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East

from Amazon: On June 22, 1941, Germany launched the greatest land assault in history on the Soviet Union, an attack that Adolf Hitler deemed crucial to ensure German economic and political survival. As the key theater of the war for the Germans, the eastern front consumed enormous levels of resources and accounted for 75 percent of all German casualties. Despite the significance of this campaign to Germany and to the war as a whole, few English-language publications of the last thirty-five years have addressed these pivotal events.In Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East, Stephen G. Fritz bridges the gap in scholarship by incorporating historical research from the last several decades into an accessible, comprehensive, and coherent narrative. His analysis of the Russo-German War from a German perspective covers all aspects of the eastern front, demonstrating the interrelation of military events, economic policy, resource exploitation, and racial policy that first motivated the invasion. This in-depth account challenges accepted notions about World War II and promotes greater understanding of a topic that has been neglected by historians.

A nice, uplifting story I present in full:



A former army bandsman, deafened after being blown up three times by the Nazis, has heard birds singing this spring for the first time in 60 years after a life-changing operation.



Second World War hero Kenneth Broom was discharged as medically unfit from the army in 1950 because of his severe hearing loss, and by 1971 he had become completely deaf.



But last October Mr Broom, 89, had a cochlear implant in his right ear and he is now gradually re-discovering a lost and much-missed world of music and speech.



'It's absolutely marvellous - a new lease of life,' said Mr Broom now a resident at Royal British Legion care home in Cromer, Norfolk. New lease of life: Kenneth Broom, 89, who was deafened after he was blown up three times fighting the Nazis, can now enjoy music again



He spoke of his delight at a hearing new sounds.

'I was in the lift the other day and I thought I was going mad because I could hear a voice talking and then I realised it was the recorded lady's voice saying "Lift going up".'



He recently sat on a bench overlooking the sea at Cromer and heard the waves.



'I could hear a noise but I couldn't work out what it was for a time - it was actually the sound of the waves. I couldn't believe it - I could hear the sea again.'



Mr Broom was also thrilled while watching an old programme on TV when he was able to identify and hum along with the song Beautiful Dreamer.



'I hadn't heard it since I was a boy,' said Mr Broom who joined the Middlesex Regiment as a drummer boy, aged 14, and also played flute and bugle before going deaf.



He lost the ability to hear high tones, such as bird song, 60 years ago and slowly all sound became 'duller and duller' until silence, except for distressing ringing of tinnitus.



Proud hero: Mr Broom, pictured during the war and outside his care-home, now has about 60 per cent of his hearing



Mr Broom's hearing problems began during the wartime Italian campaign when he was close to exploding bombs and deafened three times.



On one occasion, at Monte Cassino, he was blown off the cliff top by enemy firing and his machine gun tripod fell on top of him, splitting open his head. He lay undiscovered until the next day.



And in the last weeks of the war, April 1945, he was helping man four Vickers machine guns on the River Senio which each fired 40,000 rounds over four hours.



'We were all stone deaf for a while after that - and sick from all the cordite fumes,' he recalled.



Post-war doctors in London told Mr Broom that nothing could be done to help and when he later enquired about a cochlear implant he was told he was too old.



But a couple of years ago he underwent more hearing tests at both Cromer Hospital, and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, and was referred for the operation at Addenbrooke's, Cambridge.



The procedure involves an implant under the skin behind the ear connected to an electrode array surgically placed into the inner ear. A magnetic head piece on the outside fits against the implant and is connected by a lead to a behind-the-ear speech processor.



Mr Broom said the operation was not a miracle cure and he has to do regular 'homework' to help him distinguish sounds and cope with the change.



He estimates that, supplemented by lip reading, he has now recovered about 60 per cent of his hearing and he is profoundly grateful to all the medics who have helped him along the way.



There are some sounds however that are new since Mr Broom became deaf and which do not fill him with delight.



He said: 'I was near a bus the other day and there was this terrible "beep, beep, beep" noise going on. I didn't know what it was but I've been told it was the sound they now make when they're reversing.'