On 8 May 1995, the British prime minister, John Major, referred to the end of World War II as the end of a thirty years’ war; in this, he was correct: both sides saw this war as an attempt to complete a task left undone at the close of the First World War – the show-down which ended European global domination. The Second World War was, however, the ultimate catastrophe of modern history, laying waste the heart and soul of Europe. Here you will find contributions about this conflict, its prelude, conduct, and personalities – excluding non-military Nazi personalities, which are covered under the entry “Third Reich Era.” Also covered are contributions dealing with war crimes (and lies about alleged war crimes) committed in the course of the conflict. This does not include the “Holocaust,” which has a separate entry (and is not a war crime in the strict sense).
By Richard A. Widmann ∙ February 23, 2014
In June of 2013, the media was buzzing with the announcement of the discovery of the diary of Alfred Rosenberg by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Initial reports announced that the diary “could offer new insights into the Holocaust.”[1] News conferences were held with officials from the Department…
By Ralph Raico ∙ February 23, 2014
World War One’s direct costs to the United States were: 130,000 combat deaths; 35,000 men permanently disabled; $33.5 billion (plus another $13 billion in veterans’ benefits and interest on the war debt, as of 1931, all in the dollars of those years); perhaps also some portion of the 500,000 influenza deaths among American civilians from…
By Thomas Dalton ∙ July 1, 2013
In 2006, an inebriated Mel Gibson allegedly said this: “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” There followed the predicable storm of anti-anti-Semitism, ad hominem attacks, and various other slanders against Gibson’s character. But virtually no one asked the question: Is he right? Or rather this: To what degree could he…
By Stephen Goodson ∙ July 1, 2013
Knut Hamsun[1],[2] ranks as one of the most influential and innovative European authors of all time. On December 10, 1920 his literary career was crowned with the award of the Nobel Prize for literature by the Swedish Academy for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil. His attachment to the land and family as a…
By Richard A. Widmann ∙ October 1, 2013
Charles Callan Tansill, one of the foremost American diplomatic historians of the Twentieth Century, was born in Fredericksburg, Texas, on December 9, 1890, the son of Charles and Mary Tansill.[1] Tansill earned his bachelor’s degree from the Catholic University of America in 1912 and his Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1918. At Johns…
By Ezra Macvie ∙ December 1, 2012
By Erik Larson. Crown Publishing Group, New York, 2011, 448 pp. By June 1933, the “Nazis”—a new word in the world’s lexicon—had held power in Germany for almost six months, and were not expected to last, unlikely characters as virtually all of them were. The American ambassador to Germany had left his post shortly after…
By Kerry R. Bolton ∙ October 1, 2012
At the time when the USSR was fighting alongside the Allied powers against the Axis, any mention of the atrocities and aggression of the Soviet Union was considered to be seditious and liable to place the exponent of such ideas on the black list of suspected “collaborators” and “fifth columnists.” Hence, what eventually became the…
By Richard A. Widmann ∙ October 1, 2012
On December 23, 1991, President George H. W. Bush issued proclamation 6398 to recognize National Ellis Island Day. His proclamation began:[1] “The ethnic diversity that we so proudly celebrate in the United States mirrors our rich heritage as a Nation of immigrants. ‘Here is not merely a Nation,’ wrote Walt Whitman, ‘but a teeming nation…
By Richard A. Widmann ∙ December 1, 2011
by David Irving, Focal Point Publications, England, 2011. 144pp. The first new book by British iconoclast David Irving since 2008’s Banged Up is The Night the Dams Burst. For those of us who have been waiting for the third installment of Churchill’s War or the long-promised biography of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, this release came as…
By Michael K. Smith ∙ July 1, 2011
The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes: And Other Writings on the Holocaust, Revisionism, and Historical Understanding, by Samuel Crowell, Nine Banded Books, Charleston, W. Va., 2011. 401pp. Indexed. Reading Samuel Crowell’s, The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes is a little like stumbling across the first perfectly sane inmate in an insane asylum years after being…
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