Adolf Hitler – Page 2 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Battle of Stalingrad Defined Struggle Between Fascism and Bolshevism

the-boy-from-stalingrad-columbia-1943 — *The Boy from Stalingrad* was a 1943 Columbia Pictures movie about Russian youths fighting the German assault on Stalingrad. The propaganda film was officially approved by the U.S. government, which briefly worked to maintain its wartime alliance with the Soviets.

By Jim O’Neal

While the siege of Leningrad was under way, a ferocious battle was beginning over Stalingrad, a sprawling provincial city of half a million, outlining the banks of the Volga River.

If there was one battle that defined the struggle between fascism and Bolshevism – the essential confrontation that Adolf Hitler had long dreamed of winning – it was this one. From a strategic standpoint, it would allow Germany to cut off the supply route to the Russian Army up north and open the way for the Wehrmacht to control the oil fields surrounding the Caucasus Mountains.

But Hitler wanted Stalingrad for a personal reason, too. Joseph Stalin had named this city in 1925 to honor the battle he had led there during the Russian Civil War. Its capture would be a symbolic victory and erode Russia’s willpower. However, Stalingrad would prove important to both sides and together they would expend the lives of 1 million people in just five months.

The drama began with the Germans attacking the city’s northern edge and discovering Russian civilians, many of them women in dresses, firing the guns. It was a harbinger of the legendary Russian resistance. That night, an enormous roar deafened Stalingrad, the sound of 600 German planes descending at once. They dropped bombs carrying incendiary devices and when they ignited, the city was so bright from flames that soldiers 40 miles away claimed they could read a newspaper. In all, 40,000 civilians died that night and the worst was yet to come.

Since the city was home to several prized armament plants, tanks rolled off the assembly line directly into battle. Yet it was hand-to-hand combat that came to dominate the fighting – building by building, block by block, rooftop to rooftop – until giant piles of rubble remained. Snipers worked from every garret, booby traps appeared at every turn, and hand grenades came flying from every angle. The insanity of the fighting was obvious even to impotent commanders, but the two leaders in Moscow and occupied Ukraine insisted their armies fight on.

Ignoring the pleas of his advisors, Hitler failed to protect his flanks and fresh Russian troops encircled the city, trapping the entire German army inside. Now they were the ones under siege, starving and freezing while they waited for the promised reinforcements that never came.

By January 1943, the battle was over and 80,000 German troops were marched off to Soviet camps, where all but a handful would eventually die. Things would only go downhill from here as the German people lost faith and the Allies started their offense directly against the Fatherland.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Siege of Leningrad was Devastating for Russian People

nicolai-fechin-russian-girl — Nicolai Fechin’s *Russian Girl*, an oil on canvas laid on masonite, sold for $109,375 at a November 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The suffering brought on by World War II was enormous, but when the total picture is considered there is little doubt that the greatest pain was borne by the people who lived within the grasp of the century’s most vicious tyrants: Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

While Americans were busy managing the factories that made them the “Arsenal of Democracy” and focusing on Japan, the people of Central Europe and Western Russia were in a life-and-death struggle fought on the very streets of their cities.

Throughout the winter of 1941-42 and onward for 900 days, the people of Leningrad were suffering dramatically. Concerned that his German army might encounter enormous losses if they launched an all-out assault, Hitler ordered a blockade of the city. By starving its 3 million people, he hoped to break Russian morale and force them to surrender.

Since Leningrad was closed on the west by the Baltic Sea, to the east by the 80-mile-wide Lake Ladoga and to the north by the Finnish army, the Wehrmacht only needed to seal the southern flank to isolate the city. But even as the Germans closed ranks around them and started bombing warehouses and supply routes, the hearty citizens showed they would not be so easily defeated. Volunteers built thousands of air-raid shelters and pillboxes, and cut down trees to block the Germans’ path.

By late December 1941, Leningrad was down to two days’ supply of flour and people had to make bread from cellulose, sawdust and floor sweepings of flour. Animal feed became human food, weeds were boiled to create soup and the dead were hidden so families could continue receiving their daily rations. 53,000 perished that month, and by February another 200,000 would join them.

Somehow the city hung on.

Then came a breakthrough. Scientists discovered Lake Ladoga had frozen so deeply that it could support truck traffic. They cautiously started sending convoys across the “Road of Life.” In the first seven days, 40 trucks sunk to the bottom, but dozens of others made it and returned with precious food. Then women and children were evacuated and the city limped along in darkness and silence since there was no oil to light the lamps and even the birds were dead. In fact, every creature – living or dead, including the human corpses in the gutters – had been picked over by the hungry hordes.

Leningrad Radio broadcast from the generator of a ship frozen in a river and aired the sound of a metronome between programs to let listeners know the city was not dead, yet. By the time Leningrad was liberated in January 1944, nearly 1 million people had died.

There were more civilians dead than in any city, in any war, in the history of mankind.

During this siege, Hitler became obsessed with conquering Stalingrad and that proved to be a fatal mistake that cost him the war. The little colonel from Bavaria proved to be a poor general.

As America Played, Europe’s Dictators Set Stage for World War II

This 1939 edition of *New York World’s Fair Comics*, featuring a blond Superman on its cover and graded CGC VF/NM 9.0, sold for $25,300 at a July 2002 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Spring 1939 was a season of triumph for Europe’s trio of new dictators. Francisco Franco finished up his work in Spain at a cost of 1 million dead. Benito Mussolini seized Albania and Adolf Hitler marched unopposed into Prague and claimed the rest of Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain and his Munich Pact would be enshrined in the hall of naïveté for eternity. Another diplomatic fantasy dashed.

War fever was ratcheted up a notch, but most of the world pretended not to notice.

In the United States, people sought escape in entertainment, particularly in New York, where the flashy World’s Fair offered them a glimpse into “The World of Tomorrow.” The pavilions of 33 states, 58 countries (minus Nazi Germany) and 1,300 companies filled the imaginations of visitors with modern marvels like television, nylons, robots and man-made electricity.

The popular General Motors “Futurama” exhibit drew 28,000 visitors daily and featured their vision of life in 1960, where everyone would be fit and tan, take two-month vacations and drive cars powered by “liquid air.” Visitors left with a button reading “I have seen the future” — wandering the 1,200 acres like members of a congregation that had witnessed a divine miracle.

The 1938 film *Love Finds Andy Hardy* marked the second pairing of the popular Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.

In June, the King and Queen of England came to America and their parade in New York attracted over 3 million people (second only to Charles Lindbergh) and another 600,000 in Washington, D.C. Eleanor Roosevelt famously served them genuine American hot dogs when they finally made it to the White House.

Fantasy also reigned at the movies, where Walt Disney in 1937 introduced his first full-length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and was hard at work on an animated paean to classical music, Fantasia. But the hottest box-office draw in 1938 was the freckle-faced teenager Mickey Rooney and his small-town exploits as Andy Hardy. Then came the most anticipated event in movie history, the premiere of Gone with the Wind and its epic romance in Civil War Georgia.

Awash in fairy tales and cartoons, science-fiction and nostalgia, people had little patience for bad news. However, when it started, there seemed to be no end. A surprise agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union and on Sept. 1, 1939, the killing began. After a faked Polish invasion of Germany, they unleashed 1½ million German soldiers in “response,” backed up by the most powerful war machine ever known to man.

Fantasy time had ended.

Hitler Used Unrest to Decimate Rivals, Set Europe On Path to War

By 1941, Adolf Hitler (“The Mad Merchant of Hate”) and his Axis allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. This copy of *Daredevil Comics* #1 (Lev Gleason, 1941) sold for $41,825 at an August 2007 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On June 28, 1919 – exactly five years after Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand – Germany reluctantly signed the Treaty of Versailles that ended their participation in World War I. The terms of the treaty were so punitive that the German people were stunned. After all, the treaty had been signed without any of their borders being crossed and many believed the army had been betrayed by politicians. There was even talk of restarting the war as crowds demonstrated in the streets.

The treaty was a long, extensive document that included extraordinarily high reparations (the “War Guilt” clause) covering everything from lost farmland to veteran pensions and anything in between. The French were especially eager to punish the Germans since over 1 million Frenchmen had been killed, mostly within their country. However, the Allies were also vindictive and determined to render Germany incapable of ever starting another war.

The German delegation had attempted to mitigate the harsh terms with a 400-plus page counter-proposal, but it was a futile effort and they were forced to accept the Allies’ conditions verbatim. What had been intended to cease all hostilities, ironically, merely extended them by the crushing burden imposed on the German people.

The implications turned out to be significant.

For the next two to three decades, Germans harbored deep resentment over such an unfair agreement and were susceptible to radical ideas for revenge. Further, the slowing European economies made everyday life difficult for broad swaths of people everywhere. Extremist fascist and communist ideologies seemed to offer solutions to national problems in Spain, Italy and Russia.

The National Socialist (or Nazi) Party was founded in Germany with racism as a formal guiding principle. The gradual disintegration of formal government structures cleared the way for Adolf Hitler to become chancellor. In 1933, when fire broke out at the Reichstag – the German parliament building – Hitler claimed it was a communist plot. This was all he needed as an excuse to decimate his rivals, assume an absolute dictatorship and set Europe back on the path to war.

However, it was the seeds that were planted in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles that sprouted into the conflagration that would become another war. Sadly, the whole world again would join the war, and we still bear the scars of our involvement.

William Tecumseh Sherman was right when he declared that war is hell, a lesson that every generation seems to need to learn for themselves.

In Mid-1930s, News Joined Entertainment to Shape American Culture

The Fibber McGee and Molly radio show premiered in 1935 and aired for nearly 25 years.

By Jim O’Neal

In the mid-1930s, neither of the two big radio networks – NBC and CBS – had a news department. All they did was air a couple of daily five-minute news broadcasts that were supplied by the Press Radio Bureau. But toward the end of the decade, the country began to count on getting its news from both networks.

It became a standard evening ritual in houses. People gathered around rather large radio sets when it was time for the news and there was little conversation until it was over. They listened to commentator H.V. Kaltenborn with coverage of the Spanish Civil War, including the crackle of genuine gunfire … a real first on the radio.

In fact, as radio brought news into people’s homes, it began affecting public opinion on things going on in the world. So when something important happened in Europe, the country was eager to listen. Prior to this, they were mildly interested, but didn’t feel that they were intimately involved. Now, they were fascinated.

When Adolf Hitler annexed Austria, there was a full hour of coverage with correspondents in Paris, Berlin, London and New York acting like today’s Anderson Cooper. Then, in 1939, came the Czech crises, which was a major radio event and the country was enthralled by it … listening as much as possible. The minute-by-minute coverage monopolized the attention of the country and it was a great novelty to hear Hitler speak or British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich waving a paper and saying, “This means peace in our time!”

To hear the actual words was simply amazing.

It is no exaggeration to say that radio brought the country together, all at the same time, everyone listening to the same things. And the country liked being tied together that way. In the morning, people would say, “Did you hear that last night? What do you think?”

People didn’t quite see how all those things overseas were going to affect them personally, but it was the greatest show they’d ever been offered, and it helped the country overall achieve the melting-pot effect. Radio played a major role in helping people escape the daily humdrum with the soaps during the day and Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Bob Hope, and Fibber McGee and Molly at night.

Politics could never compete with The Shadow in my book.

Now we have to listen to both sides of every issue (sometime all sides) from “talking heads” who claim to be experts, who debate every point and counterpoint. Who are these people? How to judge their expertise or veracity when the ether is filled with so many divergent views? If you don’t have an opinion, just pick one and you can amaze your friends with your brilliant insights.

My advice is to watch the Fishing Channel. These folks really know their stuff and you can probably believe most of it … except when you hear “You should have been here last week. They were really biting!”

100 Years Later, Battle of Verdun Remains an Example of Senseless, Protracted Warfare

This World War I propaganda poster issued by the U.S. government in 1917 realized $15,535 at a July 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

After every great war, heads of state invariably declare, “This must never be allowed to happen again” – as though their pronouncements will have some profound, magical effect on future generations determined to use force to rectify some grievance they have suffered.

That was certainly the case in 1984 when German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand met at Verdun, an ancient town on the Meuse River in eastern France. Later this year, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel will again hold a ceremony in Verdun, this time to inaugurate a renovated museum.

One can only assume that their prepared remarks will contain similar definitive declarations.

This year marks the centennial of the Battle of Verdun, which was part of the First World War. The fighting erupted on Feb. 21, 1916, when German artillery began firing on French troops. It’s estimated that 1 million shells fell on the first day and an astonishing 60 million more in the next 300 days.

Historians and military experts are still asking a simple question: Why?

There was nothing strategic about Verdun in the context of the much broader war being waged, yet the battle raged for a remarkable 10 months – often cited as the single longest battle of WWI, if not history. In addition to 300,000 casualties, the lush forestland around Verdun, “an area larger than the city of Paris,” was devastated. Even today, arsenic, unexploded bombs, tracks of barbed wire and remains of the dead lurk under deceptive greenery.

The most popular theory is that the Germans were hoping they could lure French troops into a war of attrition by diverting their reserve troops from the main battlefronts. Then they intended to “bleed the French army white” as they attempted to defend their homeland and honor.

When the battle finally ended, the French could claim victory, but they had actually only moved a few hundred yards and without any tangible benefits – just immense suffering in a senseless, protracted battle that was part of an even more “tragic accident,” as World War I has often been described.

Twenty-six years later, in November 1942, Adolf Hitler would declare, “I do not want this to be another Verdun!” – referring to the siege of Stalingrad that would end up costing him his entire Sixth Army!

And still the question of “Why?” remains unanswered as Verdun maintains its eerie silence.

For Germany, Economic Development Has Trumped Disastrous Wars

Stanley Kramer’s 1961 film about the trial of Nazi war criminals, *Judgment at Nuremberg,* featured some of the best actors working in Hollywood, including Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Spencer Tracy and Maximilian Schell.

By Jim O’Neal

The 34th Academy Awards ceremony was held on April 9, 1962, to honor films from 1961. West Side Story dominated the field with 11 nominations and 10 Oscar winners.

Another strong contender was Judgment at Nuremberg with 11 nominations, including two for best actor: Maximilian Schell (winner) and Spencer Tracy for his portrayal of Chief Judge Dan Haywood, a fictionalized character. Many moviegoers (and probably others) naturally assumed this was the extent of post-war judicial actions. In fact, the film only represented the third (“The Judges’ Trial”) of 12 trials for German war crimes.

Even before Germany surrendered, the Allies had planned to establish courts to try Nazi military and political leaders for their actions during the war. On May 2, 1945, President Harry S. Truman selected Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to organize the proceedings and represent the United States.

Judge Jackson started by developing the London Charter, which established the International Military Tribunal and trial procedures. It was agreed to hold the trials in Nuremberg, where the Nazis held their annual rallies. Much of the city was damaged, but the huge Palace of Justice and a prison remained intact.

On Nov. 20, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began.

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.” – Justice Robert Jackson, November 1945

In the first trial, 22 Nazis faced one or more charges of war crimes, crimes against peace or crimes against humanity. The defendants included Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess and the Fuhrer’s successor Admiral Karl Donitz. (Martin Bormann was tried in absentia and Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler had committed suicide.)

Over the next 10 months, prosecutors offered evidence of propaganda movies, vivid films of concentration camp liberations and damning testimony from many eyewitnesses. The evidence was so overwhelming, the 250 journalists attending the trial were often heard weeping in the courtroom or sobbing in the hallways.

On Oct. 1, 1946, the court handed down the verdicts.

Twelve high-ranking men, including Goering, were sentenced to death by hanging. Three more were sentenced to life sentences in prison. Four got prison sentences of 10 to 20 years and three minor political figures were acquitted.

The Nazi leaders had been tried in courtroom 600 of the Palace of Justice, where all proceedings were recorded. Some were broadcast in radio reports. Many people still claim it was the first time they learned of Nazi atrocities, the concentration camps or the gas chamber horrors (“The Final Solution”).

What is interesting, at least to me, is just how much more the Germans have accomplished through economic development than they ever did with guns, planes and tanks. Just ask the Greeks.

American Resolve at the Battle of the Bulge Changed Course of WWII

Illustrator Dan Brereton completed this original cover art for *Sgt. Rock Special #2* (DC Comics, 1994) commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. It went to auction in October 2002.

By Jim O’Neal

A monumental military engagement took place on the European western front between December 1944 and January 1945. It was one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of World War II. It involved 500,000 German, 600,000 American and 56,000 British troops. The American casualties of 82,000 made the “Battle of the Bulge” the costliest U.S. engagement of the entire war.

Beginning in early June on D-Day (the invasion of Normandy), the summer of 1944 was long, hot and weary for the German army. Then in July, the Allies broke out of Normandy and two German armies were forced back toward their homeland. On the eastern front, a massive Soviet offensive shattered the Germany army there, while two more German armies were forced up the Italian boot by American forces.

But by September, the Allied offensive came to a grinding halt after moving so fast that they ran out of fuel, ammunition and spare parts. As the Allies paused, the Germans stopped their retreat. On Dec. 16, 1944, much to the American’s surprise, the Germans started counterattacks in France.

The surprise German bombardment involved 600 light, medium and heavy guns, as well as the Nebelwerfer (multiple rocket launchers), followed by the German 6th Panzer Army in the north and the 5th and 7th Panzer divisions in the south. A thousand paratroopers were dropped behind Allied lines to cut off any support.

This massive German counteroffensive against the U.S. Army in the Ardennes was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. “I have come to a momentous decision. I shall go over to the counterattack.” He had spotted an opportunity to divide the American armies and force them to sue for peace, which would allow the Germans to focus all their forces on the Soviets.

It almost worked.

But the Americans dug in at Bastogne, under the command of a tough, no nonsense officer, General Anthony McAuliffe. Despite little ammunition (10 rounds per day for each soldier) and some troops without guns and winter clothing, they repeatedly repulsed the German attacks.

However, they were gradually surrounded by German armored troops and on Dec. 22, four men carried a note to General McAuliffe asking for his “honorable surrender” or they would totally destroy Bastogne. McAuliffe’s quick reply is now legendary:

To the German Commander,

NUTS!

From the American Commander

The next day, the skies cleared, American reinforcements started pouring in and General George Patton’s tanks forged a narrow corridor to Bastogne. The Germans began to pull back on all fronts, so skillfully, in fact, that the Allies didn’t realize they were gone.

With very few reserves – and the Russians pressing from the east – it was now just a matter of time before the Allies secured the total defeat of Germany!

Winston Churchill Rallied Britain to Its Finest Hour

This Winston Churchill inscribed photograph sold for $17,925 at an April 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In June 1940, Great Britain was in mortal danger. Germany had captured all of Western Europe and had begun preparations for an invasion of Britain. It was the most serious threat to their security since the Spanish Armada in 1588. If Hitler’s panzer divisions were able to cross the channel they would overwhelm the British Army.

The new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, knew his county faced a daunting challenge. On June 18, he stood before the House of Commons: “The Battle of France is over … the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon it depends our British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us on this island or lose the war … Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say … ‘This was their finest hour!’ ”

Operation Sea Lowe or “Sea Lion” was the Nazi plan to invade Great Britain. The United States had not yet entered the war, so if successful, the Fuhrer’s “Thousand Year Reich” might become a reality.

German war planners fixed the invasion date for mid-September, despite Britain’s powerful navy being a serious threat to any invasion. The plan was for the German air force, the Luftwaffe, to clear the skies and then destroy the Royal Navy. Then the invasion could begin unimpeded.

The Luftwaffe was stationed in Norway, Belgium and France. It comprised 2,670 fighters and bombers, compared to only 640 British Spitfires. The Battle of Britain – the first large-scale battle to be fought exclusively in the air – was about to begin.

An epic air battle was fought in two successive phases with heroics on both sides. However, the Germans did not realize the Royal Air Force was actually in dire straits, but then suddenly something happened that changed the entire course of the war.

German bombers accidentally dropped a load of bombs on South London, the first times civilians had ever been attacked. Enraged British forces retaliated by bombing Berlin! This shocked the Germans, who had faithfully promised their people they were entirely safe from any war.

What followed was the final phase of the Battle of Britain.

Beginning on Sept. 7, 200 German bombers – each night – assaulted London using incendiary devices to create fires and high-explosive bombs to destroy structures. On Sept. 15, two massive waves of Germans attacked England, but were somehow repulsed by furious RAF counterattacks. Then another bomber force was repulsed and caused Hitler to first postpone the invasion, and then abandon the idea entirely.

So the threat of invasion was lifted, but the bombing intensified.

On the terrible evening of Oct. 15, nearly 500 German planes dropped 386 tons of explosives and an astonishing 17,000 incendiary devices on London proper. The “blitz” continued throughout the 1940-41 winter as German planes continued to haunt the skies each night.

A major attack on May 10, 1941, turned out to be the last one as five weeks later, Hitler decided to invade Russia. Most Luftwaffe squadrons on the Atlantic were redeployed to the Eastern front.

The British had not been broken and the Battle of Britain did indeed turn out to be “Their Finest Hour.”