World War II

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Poland: Minnesota Man Was Nazi Commander

The nation seeks to extradite Michael Karkoc

(Newser) - Poland will seek the arrest and extradition of a Minnesota man exposed by the AP as a former commander in an SS-led unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians in World War II, prosecutors said Monday. Prosecutor Robert Janicki said evidence gathered over years of investigation into US citizen...

Boy With Metal Detector Hits WWII-Era Jackpot

Danish teen and dad find German WWII fighter plane, remains of pilot

(Newser) - Young boys tend not to forget fantastical stories told by their grandpas, especially if those stories involve downed World War II fighter planes. Klaus Kristiansen of Denmark apparently couldn't get the tale his own grandfather had told him out of his head—that an aircraft had crashed behind their...

Expert Claims 'Hitler's Phone' Is a Fake

Accusation has made British major very angry

(Newser) - It's been called history's "most destructive 'weapon'" —but it might just be a convincing forgery. Frank Gnegel, head of collections at the Frankfurt Museum for Communication, believes the telephone auctioned off as Adolf Hitler's personal phone is "clearly a fake." The...

One of History's Deadliest Phones Sells for $243K

To an unnamed bidder

(Newser) - The telephone Adolf Hitler used to bark out orders that led to the deaths of millions is apparently worth $243,000 to someone. Hitler's chipped red phone, which is engraved on the backside with the Fuhrer's name and a swastika, sold to an unnamed bidder who made his...

Executive Order 9066 Was Signed 75 Years Ago Today
Executive Order 9066 Was
Signed 75 Years Ago Today
the rundown
Feb 19, 2017 3:51 PM CST

Executive Order 9066 Was Signed 75 Years Ago Today

Paved way for internment of more than 120K people

(Newser) - There's one date that will live in infamy, per President Roosevelt, but Feb. 19, 1942, might qualify, too. It was on this day 75 years ago that FDR signed Executive Order 9066, which laid the groundwork for the internment of Japanese Americans. NBC News reports that some 80,000...

DOD Jumps Into Mystery of Vanished WWII Sailors

More than 130 deemed 'missing' after ship explosion could be in Long Island cemetery

(Newser) - Could we be one step closer to finding more than 130 US sailors who went missing after a World War II catastrophe? More than 70 years after the USS Turner exploded and sank near New York Harbor—leaving about half of the 300 or so men aboard alive, the other...

Woman Seeking Soldier Finds Siblings Half a World Away

Search by Florence Heene of Belgium ends in Canada

(Newser) - For 71 years, "we didn't even know about her. I'm getting tears now just thinking about it," says Thelma Janes of Canada, days after discovering she has a Belgian sister. Janes' father, Herbert Louis Hellyer, married and had five children in British Columbia before heading off...

Search for 5K Nazi Sites Yields 8 Times as Many

Holocaust Museum's encyclopedia identifies 42.5K sites

(Newser) - Four hundred Jewish boys, including Noah Lederman's great-grandfather, were ordered to bury 12,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis while imprisoned at a forced labor camp in Poland during World War II. But until recently, the camp was "nonexistent" on paper. That's now changed with the creation...

Cub Reporter Who Scooped Start of WWII Dies at 105


Cub Reporter Who Scooped
Start of WWII Dies at 105
OBITUARY
Jan 10, 2017 11:49 AM CST

Cub Reporter Who Scooped Start of WWII Dies at 105

Clare Hollingworth had been on the job less than a week when she saw Germans on Poland's border

(Newser) - A young reporter for the Daily Telegraph was journeying from Poland to Germany in August 1939 when she spotted what would turn out to be the "scoop of the century": German troops huddled along the border, per the BBC . Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 , jump-starting World...

One of the Most 'Disgustingly Brilliant' Escapes of All Time

WWII POWs spent months toiling away in excrement to escape from the Germans

(Newser) - A 25-year-old Texan named William Ash and a 21-year old from Quebec named Eddy Asselin climbed into a toilet and dropped into a sewage pit—and that's how the story of "one of history's most disgustingly brilliant escape schemes" begins on Narratively . Stephen Dando-Collins presents this excerpt...

75 Years After Pearl Harbor, Brothers Will Be Reunited

4K to gather at commemoration ceremony in Hawaii

(Newser) - When bombs began raining from the sky at Pearl Harbor, John Anderson—in a turret aboard the USS Arizona—thought immediately of his twin brother, Jake, on deck. It appears Jake never left his mind. Forced into a rescue boat, Anderson reached shore only to grab a spare boat and...

Nazi POW Leaves Life Savings to Village Where He Was Held

Heinrich Steinmeyer wanted his money to help the elderly in Comrie

(Newser) - A former German soldier has left his life's savings to a small Scottish village where he was held as a prisoner of war during World War II, the AP reports. Heinrich Steinmeyer, a Waffen SS soldier, was 19 when he was brought to POW camp at Cultybraggan near the...

100-Year-Old Antiseptic Could Battle Viruses and Superbugs

It does double duty, binding to DNA of both patients and bacteria

(Newser) - An antiseptic that German scientists invented in 1912 using coal tar has the potential to help treat and prevent both viral and bacterial infections, according to new research out of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Australia. Acriflavine was used throughout both world wars as a shotgun approach to...

Oldest Remaining Tuskegee Airman Dies

Willie Rogers 'lived by the greatest commandment—to love one another'

(Newser) - The oldest remaining member of the Tuskegee Airmen has died. Willie Rogers of St. Petersburg, Fla., died Friday from complications of a stroke. He was 101. Rogers served in logistics and administration as part of the US Armed Forces' first all-black aviation squadron during World War II, but only revealed...

Sailors Marked as Missing Since 1944 Could Be in NY

Military historian Ted Darcy's research points to that possibility

(Newser) - It's a confounding mystery of World War II: What happened to the 136 missing sailors from the explosion and sinking of the USS Turner? After all, the ship did not go down in battle or even in the open sea, but while anchored near New York Harbor in 1944,...

3 Shipwrecks Sat on the Seabed. Then They Were Gone

Salvage companies eyed in Java Sea mystery

(Newser) - In 2002, divers stumbled upon the wrecks of three Dutch warships that took 900 crew members to their watery graves during World War II's Battle of the Java Sea. Finding them again has so far proved, well, impossible. Divers hoping to examine the wrecks ahead of the 75th anniversary...

VW's New Headache: Historian Who Exposed Nazi Past

Open letter from 75 academics says Manfred Grieger was punished for exposing Nazi ties

(Newser) - Volkswagen's troubles continue after its record-breaking $14.7 billion emissions-scandal settlement last week, with the controversy now swirling around a historian who helped uncover the company's Nazi past. The New York Times dives into the sudden end of Manfred Grieger's contract with VW, now being criticized for...

Holocaust Hero Declared Dead After 71 Years

Swedish diplomat saved thousands of Jews

(Newser) - Some 71 years after he disappeared in circumstances that remain murky to this day, the World War II hero known as the "Swedish Schindler" has finally been declared dead. Raoul Wallenberg, a diplomat who was sent to Budapest, Hungary, in July of 1944, saved at least 20,000 Jews...

US Aviation Hero Who Escaped Nazis in Their Own Plane Dies

Bob Hoover went on to test-flight glory, was Chuck Yeager's wingman

(Newser) - One of America's greatest aviation heroes has died, reports Yahoo . Bob Hoover, a World War II fighter pilot who escaped the Nazis by stealing one of their planes, died of congestive heart failure Tuesday near Los Angeles, reports the Washington Post . He was 94. Born in Tennessee, Hoover was...

Austria to Tear Down House Where Hitler Was Born

Feared the house becoming a rallying point for neo-Nazis

(Newser) - After a long national debate, Austria has agreed—in principle—to demolish the house where Adolf Hitler was born, the BBC reports. The infamous German dictator was born on April 20, 1889, in a rented room on the top floor of a guesthouse in the town of Braunau am Inn,...

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