This is the Story of the Richie boys 15/10/20
1929 Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize for literature , he dammed the Munich agreement of 1938. He lectured to Jewish youth in St. Louis, in German with as translator and said dictators cannot be apeased
1932- 35576 Jews entered the US . Because of the depression relatives in the US could only show that they could sponsor a child not a family. To get a US visa you had to get a good conduct certificate from the German government this later stopped being a requirement for Jews by immigration.
Small German villages you could tell the wealth of a farmer by the size of his manure pile. On Friday the villiage had communal oven was used by Jewish wives to bake halla.
1933 Dachau was the first concentration camp it was a labour camp with terrible cruelty. Many governments and Chancellors till Hitler had only lasted a few months.
1933 census Jews were less than half a % of the German population, a half million out of 67 million.
1938 With Kristallnacht Nearly 100 Jews were killed and 30 thousand were arrested. Many families decided to send away their oldest son. They sewed a $10 bills into the pants cuff, or took a $75 Leica lens to sell. The Auerbach Jewish orphanage Berlin had 100 children , many were sent out of Germany.
Jewish Southern loop - enter Czeck on route to Holland via Austria, Switzerland and France.
France, a country of 40 million lost 2 million in WW1.
Poland only lasted a few weeks and had 35 million with 3 million Jews. One Jewish kid was at Kitchener Refugee camp in Kent, had 4000 Jewish refugees Once Britain declared war refugees stopped arriving. The British army set up a radio receiving station and refugees listened to monitored different German broadcasts
1940 May German invasion of Belgium Holland.. Marshall Phillip Patain was a German puppet and in 1940 started passing anti semitic laws. People fled to the south French port of Marseilles. The US consulate and HAIS helped Jews get to the US. Neutral Portuguese ships with extra large flags were used.
When France capitulated 100 000 French dead and a million and a half French soldiers interned.
At Hyde Park Farm in Virginia Under the guidance of Curt Bondi 30 German youngsters were living, working and learning agriculture, the owner decided to sell the property and their instructor suggested they go into the army. Lynchburg was the only major city in Virginia not captured by the Union Army in the Civil War
1941 All German born citizens were automatically enemy aliens. Some aliens in the army were sent to be non combatants and be in the medical corps. However Congress allowed them to be inducted into the army where they were mistrusted. The Pentagon realized that they already had in uniform Jews who knew German culture and over the next 3 years 31 sessions of 8 weeks were held at Camp Richie , Maryland. An authentic German looking village was built.
Years back the Secretary of War had shut down the cryptanalytic office saying "Gentlemen don't read each other's letters.
1942 War Powers Act. They had to be in the armed forces at least 3 months. These were fast tracked into US citizenship. Many Americanised their names and made sure their dog tag gave P for protestant and not H for Hebrew on them. 1935 German born Jewish kids got to the US before the war 1885 became Richie boys. 58 % of all credible intelligence in Europe was provided by them. After the war they never held reunions and their accents made them unwelcome in veteran clubs. They were told not to reveal their stories. For many this war was their private crusade.
34 clases went throug Camp Richie with an average of 500 graduates a months. Some interrogated German POW in the North African campaign and new anti tank intelligence helped defeat Rommel. French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Dutch and others were trained there in a university campus atmosphere.
German Uniforms captured in North Africa were used. They studied names, dates, ranks and insignia used in every German unit. When they questioned German soldiers they had to impress them of how much they knew already. As a test someone in German uniform dashed through the class and they had to identify their branch, rank, medals and ribbons and insignia. They also learned map reading and if they knew German shorthand did advanced courses.
First Army under Orma Bradley. In England they began interrogating German POWs. They also had to plan places in France where POW camps would be set up. We read about the Normandy invasion and that every unit had some Richie boys. A few had fled to France and had a French education before getting to the US. In France where the agricultural economy was hardly disturbed there were less French Resistance fighters.
Spanish slave workers had escaped from the Channels island occupied by the Germans and drew a map of the fortification antiaircraft and machine guns were installed. German soldier pay books showed all kinds of information.
Cherbourg surrendered and it included some Americans that were released. The third Army was under Gerorge Patton who had fought Pancho Villa in 1914 Mexico. Most newly captured Germans were infantry frightened and prepared to talk. Intelligence obtained through torture was always suspect.
US soldiers who came on the liner Queen Mary found it was not escorted as it was faster than submarines.
Brest was a U-boat harbour. Roetgen was the first German city captured by the allies, this was a border town near Aachen.
1944 Dec16th Half a million Germans with 600 tanks dashed to capture Antwerp in a week, through the Losheim Gap under Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. We get a description of the Battle of the Bulge which attacked US lines through the Ardennes. English speaking German in US uniforms were reported and this made it difficult for Richie boys with foreign accents. 2 Richie boys were captured and executed as Jews by Curt Bruns who later was tried and shot as a war criminal.
Some interrogators worked screening which prisoners would give useful information. A German prisoner who had been in prison as a communist became an interrogator's " trusie"working as a stenographer.
Marlene Dietrich came with the US army to entertain the troops in Algeria, Italy, Britain, France and Belgium. She was taken to see a POW camp from the outside. Germans soldiers recognized her and crowded to the fence to cheer her , despite Nazi propaganda calling her a traitor.
Hitler's latrine orderly was captured and a humorist published he said that Hitler had shriveled scrotum and this was taken seriously. Wolfsangel - Wolftrap was an early Nazi symbol used a German divison insignia.
Michelin tour guides were picked up along the way for use as maps.
Buchenwald was 5 miles from Weimer which had been the centre of German enlightenment (1650-1800) The press including Edward Murrow documented this.
1945 April 30th Hitler commited suicide. General Gavin was the youngest 2star General in the US Army and took the German capitulation by General Kurt von Tippelskirch.
They met the Russian army in the south on the Czeck German border to avoid a clash. A Yiddish speaker US soldier tried to convince a Jewish Russian soldier to defect to the west but he said if he did that it would endanger his family.
Ravensbruck was the only women's concentration camp and 130000 women had been imprisoned there. A woman internee recognised Ramdohr followed him till she saw US soldiers. A Richie boy understood her and they arrested him, any Gestapo or SS member was considered a war criminal.
One Richie boy found his cousins had survived the camps another found his mother and 2 brothers hidden in Amsterdam near where he left them.
One of these found out his younger brother had got to Palestine and was killed by the British.
V stood for Vergeltungswaffen =weapon of reprisal. 8000 V1s were launched
