History Commons^™

Spiritual Leader Of A Nation, L. B. Kuppenheimer

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Willi Gautschi, translated by Karl Vonlanthen . General Henri Guisan: Commander-in-Chief of the Swiss Army in World War II. New York: Front Street Press, 2003 . xvi+ 698pp. Photographs, maps, notes and index.

For nations of the world engaged in combat during World War Two, the stakes were national survival and the price was blood and treasure. And, for the five countries that elected to remain neutral, the stakes were no less grave , for at any moment an aggressor could chose to invade with no doubt as to the outcome. Of all the neutral nations , Switzerland was both …

“The American Committee For The Defense Of British Homes”, Stephanie Philbrick

Maine History

No abstract provided.

"You Must All Be Interned": Identity Among Internees In Great Britain During World War Ii, Elizabeth A. Atkins

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Between 1933 and 1940, the United States, Great Britain and most other developed nations saw an influx of German refugees entering their borders attempting to be free of the tyranny of Hitler’s National Socialism. Many of those fleeing from Germany were intellectuals: authors, teachers, artists, or thinkers who faced persecution in their homeland. For the men, women, and children who chose the British Isles as their new home, Great Britain symbolized hope for a life free from persecution. By 1941, however, many refugees from Germany found themselves arrested and put into camps, not by the Nazis, but by their protectors, …

The 55th College Training Detachment Of The Army Air Corps Program On The Gettysburg College Campus, 1943-1944, Julia Grover

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The 55th College Training Detachment of the Air Force Cadet Program came to Gettysburg College in 1943. It was a separate program designed to provide educated officers for the Air Corps in the United States Army. These trainees would not only learn military drill, physical training, medical aid and flight skills, but they would also study physics, math, English, history, and geography. They were taught by members of the Gettysburg College staff and housed on campus, in dorms and fraternity houses.Their presence on campus was a constant reminder for regular students that the country was in the midst of a …

Broken Bodies, Shattered Dreams: The Aftermath Of A Life As A Korean "Comfort Woman", Jessica Wininger

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The Pacific War in Asia is infamous for the sickening atrocities committed by the military forces of both the Allies and Japan. Proof of the carnage is undeniable and is often discussed in textbooks, history classes, and documentaries around the world. The forced recruitment of women to serve as sex slaves to the Japanese military is included on the long list of wartime tragedies, however it often remains on the periphery of discussions on wartime violence. The negligence is due in part to the half century of silence that followed the victimization of the women most often known as “ianfu,” …

Review Essay: What Did You Do In The "Good War"?, Robert Messer

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Klaus Umer, "Let's Swallow Switzerland": Hitler's Plans Against the Swiss Confederation (Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland, 2001)

Stephen Tanner, Refuge from the Reich: American Airmen and Switzerland During World War II (Sarpedon Publishers, Rockville Center, New York, 2000)

Angelo M. Codevilla, Between the Alps and a Hard Place: Switzerland in World War II and Moral Blackmail Today (Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C., 2000)

If, as in Tom Wolfe's phrase, the 1970s were the decade of the "me generation", perhaps the 1990s could be termed the "mea culpa" decade. The United States government belatedly and properly apologized and paid reparations to thousands of …

12/7 And 9/11: War, Liberties, And The Lessons Of History, Eric L. Muller

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wwii Pacific Theatre Maps, Jacqueline D. Goins

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Memories Of World War Two, Alice Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Each family was obligated to get a plot of land in order to grow vegetables, potatoes, and Indian corn. I abhorred working in field and garden, but luckily my younger sister enjoyed such tasks. Therefore I did the household chores, mended clothes and, for instance, spent hours undoing the runs in nylon stockings with a special hair-thin hook. The stockings were so expensive, so special, and so dearly beloved, yet one was not to wear them with runs.

Book Review: Schattenkrieg Gegen Hitler: Das Dritte Reich Im Visier Der Amerikanischen Geheimdienste, Christof Muenger

Swiss American Historical Society Review

In the 1980' s the United States government decided to declassify the files of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which was the organization preceding the CIA. Christoph Mauch, a German historian and Deputy Director of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, thoroughly studied the numerous now available documents. His research in the National Archives as well as in various other archives in the United States and Europe resulted in his Habilitationsschrift [a scholar's second study after the doctoral dissertation to make one eligible for a university position in Germany]. A shortened and revised version of the study has …

Book Review: Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality In World War Ii., Karl Wood

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Stephen P. Halbrook's 1998 book, Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II is a well-narrated account of the Swiss preparedness to resist any possible invasion by a hostile power, but most especially by the Nazis, through the critical years of the 1930s and 1940s. The author brings to bear his considerable skills of persuasion and journalistic perception, reminiscent of the late William Shirer, of whose work he makes extensive use for historical perspective. He offers an argument that the "true Swiss experience in the war" lay not in the recently much-discussed accommodations made to the Nazis, "a regrettable …

Warrior-Club Traditions In Medieval Switzerland, Arnold H. Price

Swiss American Historical Society Review

This article endeavors to serve as an extension (as well as a confirmation) of my research on the role of warrior clubs during the era of migrations, the so-called Völkerwanderung. In regard to the Völkerwanderung terminology I am relying in this study primarily on the ground-breaking work of the late Hans Georg Wackemagel, whose novel anthropological approach unearthed and analyzed a substantial body of pagan traditions surviving in medieval Helvetia.

World War Ii: On The Home Front - M. Francis Coulson Interview, Jenny Sonnenberg

Adams County History

Americans love anniversaries. The fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War has afforded citizens an opportunity to remember with pride the great men and events of a war that saved the world from totalitarian tyranny. Happily, memories of World War II have not been restricted to recalling battlefield heroics or diplomatic intrigues. Across the United States, public libraries and local historical societies have commemorated the Home Front during the war years with exhibits that recapture the texture of life on farms, factories, in classrooms, and at home during what Studs Terkel has labeled "the Good War." These …

Bombing The Sister Republic: The United States And Switzerland During World War Ii, James H. Hutson

Swiss American Historical Society Review

At 11:10 A.M., April 1, 1944, American military authorities in London received the following "strike message" from aircraft attacking a target in Europe: "392 Group bombed Last Resort with poor results at 10:50 hours. " This terse communication described the "gravest violation " of Swiss neutrality during the Second World War--in fact, during the entire twentieth century: the bombing of the city of Schafthausen by planes of the 2nd Division of the American 8th Army Air Force.

Kai Eduard Rasmussen: A Danish American Hero, Val Hempel

The Bridge

Over the years, ever since immigration to the United States began, hundreds and thousands of Danes have crossed the Atlantic to begin new lives, to work, to settle and to become Americans. The vast majority of them have helped strengthen and build their adopted land, enrich its culture and add durable strands to that multicolored fabric that is America. Many stepped lightly and left few tracks while others broke bold new trails. A few fashioned memorable evidences of their journeys. Names such as Peter Lassen, Jacob Riis, William S. Knudsen, Jean Hersholdt, Victor Borge and others are known to millions. …

"Patriotic" Traitors: Dutch National Socialists In Peace And War, Gerlof Homan

Pro Rege

From "Suffering and Survival: The Netherlands, 1940-1945," a four-day conference held at Dordt College in the fall of 1990 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands and the 45th anniversary of The Netherlands' liberation.

Democracy Or Dictatorship: An American Reaction To The Developments In The Netherlands Between 1935 And 1945, Bert Hopman

Pro Rege

From "Suffering and Survival: The Netherlands, 1940-1945," a four-day conference held at Dordt College in the fall of 1990 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands and the 45th anniversary of The Netherlands' liberation.

Canadian Army And The Liberated Netherlands, Michiel Horn

Pro Rege

From "Suffering and Survival: The Netherlands, 1940-1945," a four-day conference held at Dordt College in the fall of 1990 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands and the 45th anniversary of The Netherlands' liberation.

Untimeliness Of The Second World War, Louis M. Tamminga

Pro Rege

From "Suffering and Survival: The Netherlands, 1940-1945," a four-day conference held at Dordt College in the fall of 1990 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands and the 45th anniversary of The Netherlands' liberation.

Impact Of Ww Ii On The Reformed Dutch In The Netherlands And Canada: A Comparison, Harry A. Van Belle

Pro Rege

From "Suffering and Survival: The Netherlands, 1940-1945," a four-day conference held at Dordt College in the fall of 1990 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands and the 45th anniversary of The Netherlands' liberation.

Many Little Sparrows Fell From The Rooftops, Nicholas B. Knoppers

Pro Rege

This article was the Suffering and Survival Convocation Address given at Dordt College, September 27, 1990.

Commentary: Blacks In U.S. History, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

During Black History Month many people paused to discuss and reflect on the presence and the contributions of African-Americans in the history of the United States. During February two years ago we had a visit from a white Navy veteran from nearby Quincy, Massachusetts, who had his own black history story — although he did not express it as such.

Telling The Story Of The Early Black Aviators, Philip S. Hart

Trotter Review

The story of America’s early black aviators from the 1920s and 1930s has been one of the neglected themes in American aviation history. My interest in this topic began with research into family history. My mother’s uncle, J. Herman Banning, was a pioneer black aviator during this nation’s Golden Age of Aviation. I remember my mother, aunt, and grandmother talking about J. Herman Banning back when I was little, and in my teenage years I tried to find out more than I had learned from these family stories and photographs, but it was difficult for me to locate any information …

The Clouds: A Portrait Of One Family In Wartime Cambridge, Fanny Howe

New England Journal of Public Policy

The following is a portion of a work in progress, a biography of Mark DeWolfe and Helen Howe, two Bostonians born soon after the turn of the century. The book describes the adult years of this sister and brother, each of whom participated in American life at many levels important to the social and intellectual currents of the country. This section of the biography describes Cambridge in the World War II years.

The Polish Resistance Movement In Second World War, Chester M. Nowak

Bridgewater Review

The European Resistance Movement provides us with one of the more engaging and captivating stories of the Second World War, and the Polish Resistance Movement has a central place in that story. Yet, the history and the struggles of the Polish Resistance are not well known. Few people are aware, therefore, of the Polish Underground’s reports about the German extermination of Jews and about German preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union; the penetration of the German rocket center at Peenemunde by Polish agents, or the fact that Poles delivered into Allied hands the plans and actual parts of …

Nuclear Warfare: Then And Now, Russell W. Maatman

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

"On Swiss American Relations In The Aftermath Of World War Ii, Dr. Werner Imhoof, Dr. Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Address by Dr. Imhoof: We are concerned here with Prof. Heinz Meier's latest book, Friendship Under Stress, U.S.-Swiss Relations 1900-1950, published by Herbert Lang & Co. in Fern this winter. It has been very favorably reviewed, as many of you may know. Prof. Max Silberschmidt published a very positive appreciation in its thoroughness as well as in its perspective - a much-needed book, and my remarks are meant to recommend it very warmly to you.