George C. Marshall raised his right hand in a plain white civilian suit inside a quiet War Department office on the morning of September 1, 1939, and took command of an American army that was smaller than Portugal’s, short of tanks, short of rifles, and rotten at its core. Five thousand miles away, German Panzers … Read more
BERLIN — The woman with the blonde hair and blue eyes moved through the cafés and train stations of wartime Berlin like a ghost, scanning faces, saying little, and leaving a trail of arrests that would ultimately claim more than 600 Jewish lives. Her name was Stella Goldschlag, and she was Jewish. Newly examined historical … Read more
WASHINGTON — Gen. George C. Marshall, the U. S. Army chief of staff, made one of the most consequential personnel bets of World War II when he repeatedly elevated a little-known brigadier general named Dwight D. Eisenhower, setting in motion the rise of the officer who would command the D-Day invasion and one day become … Read more
Last time we talked about Brushy Bill Roberts, the Texas man who claimed Billy the Kid didn’t die in 1881. But today’s twist doesn’t happen in Texas. It happens in an Arizona cemetery. Because in May 2005, two investigators went to the Arizona Pioneers Home Cemetery in Prescott and did something most Billy Survived stories … Read more
Sarrebourg, Frankreich — 14. Dezember 1944. Es war der kälteste Winter seit vierzig Jahren, und die Männer der 35. Infanteriedivision schliefen in Schützengräben. Nicht in Baracken. Nicht in Bauernhäusern. In Schützengräben, bei Temperaturen unter dem Gefrierpunkt, ohne Winterausrüstung, während drei Meilen hinter der Front ein Brigadegeneral in einem Schloss mit zwölf Zimmern, funktionierenden Kaminen und … Read more
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe, drafted a message to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in early January 1945 that would have forced the most consequential choice of the Second World War: keep the American commander or keep Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. One of them would have to go. … Read more
VERDUN, France — Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower looked across a cramped, map-covered barracks room at Gen. George S. Patton and asked the question that, by every rule of military logistics, had only one honest answer: no. It was Dec. 19, 1944. Three days earlier, German artillery had torn open the Ardennes Forest at 5:30 a. … Read more
LUXEMBOURG — The most dangerous man in Europe died not on a battlefield, but in a hospital bed, twelve days after a low-speed car crash that has haunted military historians for nearly eighty years. General George S. Patton Jr. , the four-star commander who drove his Third Army across France and into the heart of … Read more
The six-shooter that won the West may never have existed outside a soundstage, and a growing body of firearms scholarship suggests the revolvers Americans actually trusted with their lives have been systematically erased from popular culture. From the precision-machined Merwin Hulbert to the ten-shot Walch pocket pistol, historians and collectors say the frontier was armed … Read more
Nordafrika, Oktober 1942. Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel hat in der Nacht vor El Alamein eine Depesche erhalten, die den Zustand seiner Armee in einem einzigen bürokratischen Satz zusammenfasst: Versorgungszuteilungen seien „aufgrund logistischer Einschränkungen außerhalb unserer Kontrolle” anderen Prioritätsschauplätzen zugewiesen worden. Es ist dieselbe Formulierung wie im Vormonat. Es ist die neunte formelle Antwort auf neun formelle … Read more