t1703 One of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals, SS Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper, has died in a fire at his home in eastern France, bringing a violent end to a man whose name became synonymous with the cold-blooded murder of American prisoners of war during the Battle of the Bulge. Peiper, 61, was killed on … Read more
Sie dachte, ich sei fertig. Sie dachte, der Beiname „die Rückgratlose“ wäre ein dauerhafter Zustand, eine Eigenschaft, die man mir 2016 beim Familientheater in Bad Homburg verpasst hatte und die ich seither wie ein hässliches Erbstück mit mir herumtrage. Julia stand da, in ihrem schrecklich teuren, schrecklich neuen Kleid, und hielt diese Rede über Zusammenhalt, … Read more
PRAGUE — Karel Čurda, the Czechoslovak paratrooper whose betrayal of the assassins of Nazi Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich condemned hundreds of resistance fighters and their families to execution, was hanged at Pankrác Prison in Prague at dawn on April 29, 1947, closing one of the darkest chapters of the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. … Read more
A teenage girl with braided pigtails walked up to a woman sitting alone on a park bench in Haarlem, Netherlands, in 1943, asked her name, confirmed her identity, and shot her dead before pedaling away on her bicycle — an act of assassination that saved hundreds of Jewish lives and opened one of the most … Read more
World War II hero Richard “Dick” Winters, the stoic commander of Easy Company whose story became the heart of HBO’s acclaimed miniseries “Band of Brothers,” once threatened to sever all ties with executive producer Tom Hanks in a furious dispute over profanity and a 𝒔𝒆𝒙 scene that he believed would desecrate the legacy of the … Read more
Als Amelie die Tür aufschloss, wusste sie noch nicht, dass dieser Abend ihr ganzes Leben zertrümmern würde. Aber als sie in den Flur trat, in dem es nach Sandelholz und einer süßlichen Blume roch, die nicht zu ihr passte, blieb sie stehen. Sie hörte Tills Lachen. Dieses tiefe, polternde Lachen, das sie früher geliebt hatte. … Read more
General George S. Patton Jr. ordered the execution of a German infantry general by firing squad at 6 a. m. on April 23, 1945, bypassing the Nuremberg tribunal system entirely, according to a handwritten pencil order composed at 11:47 the previous night on standard army notepad paper. The order was four sentences long. The last … Read more
LUXEMBOURG — A captured SS officer who threatened General George S. Patton inside his own headquarters during the Battle of the Bulge learned in devastating fashion that the American commander was not a man to be intimidated, according to accounts of the confrontation that have circulated among military historians and veterans of the Third Army. … Read more
Die Nachricht kam mitten in der Nacht, und ich wusste es, noch bevor ich das Telefon abhob. Reiner hatte einen Schlaganfall erlitten. Ich stellte das Telefon einfach auf die Anrichte und nickte, als die Schwester weitersprach. Sie hatte zuerst mich angerufen, weil ich nicht rangegangen war. Ich hätte keinen weiteren Anruf mitten in der Nacht … Read more
METZ, France — A four-star general climbed into a muddy drainage ditch in the rain of a November morning in 1944 and crouched beside a wounded private who had been waiting three days for someone to come back for him. The private, 22-year-old Pfc. Thomas Garrett of Tennessee, looked up and asked the only question … Read more