While the rest of the world languished in the aftermath of the financial collapse of 1929, peacetime Germany under Hitler experienced dramatic growth as an economic power. These years also saw the stellar rise of German science and technology, when Germans developed the jet engine and the rocket engine; by the end of WWII, an inventory of German “firsts” would include rocket propelled aircraft, ballistic missiles, jet fighters, helicopters, stealth submarines, as well as plans for building space shuttles and stealth bombers; they had also invented nerve gases, discovered nuclear energy, developed coal gasification, invented artificial rubber, the video telephone, the amateur video camera, infrared-based night vision devices, tape recording, TV, live TV, color TV, cable TV, microwave ovens, the anti-baby pill, discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer, built the first computer (Zuse, tube-based), and, last but not least, the electron microscope… A master race after all, perhaps? Hardly, but there is something special about this nation…
By Daniel D. Desjardins ∙ August 24, 1999
As an alumnus of Williston Northampton School, one of our nation’s finer prepatory schools, I am struck by comparison of two course descriptions in its 1997-1998 course of studies brochure regarding “Russian History” and “Hitler and Nazi Germany.” The description for the semester course on Russian history reads: The transformation of Russia into the Union…
By AnswerMan ∙ January 1, 1998
Dear AnswerMan, Both the 1971 and the 1996 edition of Michael Elkins' book *Forged in Fury* include a passage that describes the aftermath of the Aug. 2, 1943 uprising at the Treblinka concentration camp in Poland. Both editions describe the hunt for the Treblinka escapees—its Jewish inmates—in these terms: “For four days, the Germans prowled…
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