N1104 On January 12, 1948, a 44-year-old historian died of cancer in a hospital in Hanover. His name was Hans Gerd von Rundstedt. Weeks earlier, his father had been allowed to leave a British prison camp to sit at his bedside before being taken back to England. That father was Gerd von Rundstedt, the German army's … Read more
On the evening of October 15, 1946, Hermann Göring sat on the edge of his cot in cell block C of Nuremberg prison, eating black bread. In two hours, the International Military Tribunal would read his sentence. Everyone in courtroom 600 already knew what it would be. What they did not know was that three … Read more
On the evening of October 15, 1946, Hermann Göring sat on the edge of his cot in cell block C of Nuremberg prison, eating black bread. In two hours, the International Military Tribunal would read his sentence. Everyone in courtroom 600 already knew what it would be, and Göring knew it too. What the guards … Read more
Princess Victoria Elizabeth Augusta Charlotte was born on July 24, 1860, at the New Palace in Potsdam, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia. She was the eldest daughter and second child of Prince Frederick William of Prussia, later Emperor Frederick III, and Victoria, the Princess Royal of Great Britain. Through her mother, she was … Read more
Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director and co-host of "The Rest Is Politics US," has publicly argued that organized crime was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He made the case during an appearance on a podcast, where he was described as a vigorous proponent of the mob theory. Scaramucci … Read more
On March 12, 1945, a German general walked into the Reich Chancellery with his cavalry saber still at his hip and his monocle fixed in his eye. By that point in the war, almost no one argued with Hitler anymore. The man crossing the marble floor was about to do three forbidden things in the … Read more
Ernst Kaltenbrunner was born on October 4, 1903, in Ried im Innkreis in northern Austria. After secondary school, he studied law at the University of Graz and earned his degree in the late 1920s. He joined the Austrian Nazi Party in 1930, at a time when membership carried real personal risk. The party was banned, … Read more
In the spring of 1945, the mark that had been meant to save a soldier's life became the thing that could destroy him. It was a small tattoo, the size of a fingernail, on the underside of the left arm near the armpit. It showed a blood group, applied so that a medic pulling an … Read more
When Germany surrendered in May 1945, its most famous tank commanders scattered in every direction. One went home and spent the next 55 years running a pharmacy. One went back to drilling teeth. One became a small town fire chief. The two biggest names of all were already dead. And for decades, nobody could find … Read more
One of history’s most notorious Nazi war criminals died a free man on a Brazilian beach, and the world would not know for six years that the “Angel of Death” of Auschwitz had finally been claimed by the sea rather than by justice. On February 7, 1979, an elderly German pensioner named Wolfgang Gerhard waded … Read more