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A.C. Strip has long understood the significance of the diary his older brother kept as they fled the Holocaust with their parents. He turned it into a self-published book that he gave to his brother as a 90th birthday gift.

But Strip never considered the diary to be an important historical document. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is making him rethink that.

Strip’s brother’s journal is one of more than 200 diaries written by Holocaust victims and survivors the museum hopes to digitize and make available to the public with the help of its first crowd-funding campaign. The museum is seeking $250,000 for the project and will begin soliciting donations through Kickstarter on Monday, the birthday of the most famous Holocaust diarist, Anne Frank.

Read More: Here

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Imagine how much historical knowledge wasn’t written down because our ancestors thought: “What idiot isn’t going to know this?”

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"To think historically is to recognize that all problems, all situations, all institutions exist in contexts that must be understood before informed decisions can be made."

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“As I read the names of some of the 73,000 soldiers who were never found, inscribed on the sides of the monument, I was filled with such sadness at the futility of their loss.

"Only 21 years of peace separated the end of World War I from the beginning of World War II. These young men believed they were fighting valiantly for their nations in ‘The War to End All Wars.’ When, in fact, theirs was a prelude to an even deadlier conflict.”

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CHOOSE OUR TOPIC

It's that's time again. Tell us what you want hear us discuss on the podcast: 1) The Salem Witch Trails - tripping on LSD or Voodoo? 2) The Alamo - bravery or greed? 3) Nazi Germany - good people gone bad or brainwashing? Reblog, message, or comment so I can tally the results. -N

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First World War: letters from the trenches

Writing home during the war was a constant concern for the soldiers in the trenches. They wrote as often as they were able. To receive a letter back from a loved one was a (usually but not always) happy event for a man and his comrades, as the letters were shared and read out loud. It kept the men connected to their loved ones and the lives they had once lived (and hoped to return to if they survived the war). It did not matter which side the soldier fought for, the kindest thing a friend, lover, or relative could do was write.

The letters were censored on all sides. The soldiers were not suppose to write about their geographical location, and troop movements, strategic commands they had received. They were not suppose to write about combat experiences… but they did, and the letters often slipped by the censors. With the amount of correspondence which occurred it was impossible to censor every letter so the censoring was of a representative sample only.

A British Soldier writes home

A French soldier receives a letter from home

German soldiers pass the time smoking, reading and writing home

Russian soldiers write home while serving on the Eastern Front during World War I

Canadian Soldier Writing Home

Salvation Army worker writes letter for a wounded soldier during World War I.

Some Letters:

1. Dick to Molly 

Dear Molly, 

A Happy Christmas. I am sending this to my aunt to forward to you as I do not know the address. Please tell me your [sur]name as I have forgotten it. 

Yours, 

Dick 

2. Frau S 

to her husband’s commanding officer 2 January 1917 

Dear Leader of the Company! 

I, the signer below, have a request to make of you. Although my husband has only been in the field for four months, I would like to ask you to grant him a leave of absence, namely, because of our sexual relationship. I would like to have my husband just once for the satisfaction of my natural desires. I just can’t live like this any more. I can’t stand it. It is, of course, impossible for me to be satisfied in other ways, firstly, because of all the children and secondly, because I do not want to betray my husband. So I would like to ask you very kindly to grant my request. I will then be able to carry on until we are victorious. With all reverence,  

Frau S 

(Oh I bet her husband got a merciless ribbing for this one! I wonder if it earned him some sort of manly stud nickname)

 3. Gunner Wilfrid Cove to Ethel Cove  

Tuesday 14 November 1916 

 My Darling Ethel,

I hope you have received my birthday present, but in case you haven’t here’s again wishing you many many happy returns of your birthday. It is the first of your birthdays that we have been apart since you were sweet 17 that I can remember. I hope it will be the last. Heaven send that by your next birthday – or mine come to that – this terrible war will be over & that we may both be spared & united on each of our birthdays and those of our dear little kiddies & for many years to come. It causes me many regrets and much sorrow when I remember that my selfishness has more than once caused you unhappiness and I sincerely hope that my future conduct will make you realise that notwithstanding my shortcomings I do love you with all my heart and realise I have one of the best wives in the world. 

I can now quite understand the Late Lord Kitchener’s preference for bachelors as soldiers. He must have realised, altho’ a bachelor himself, that it is not the coward’s fear of death but the fear that by death many a good soldier may thus be prevented from rejoining the wife & family he loves so much. I have just that very feeling myself at times when the shells are dropping all around us and the air is whistling with them. 

Goodnight my darling. Longing and hoping for a letter from you tomorrow. Xxxx 

4. Gunner Wilfrid Cove to his daughter Marjorie 

Monday 4 December 1916 

My dear little Marjorie, I have only just received your little letter which Mamma sent with hers on Nov 19th. Do you remember that you asked me to be home for Xmas? I only wish I could but there are many more soldiers in our Battery who are more entitled to the Xmas leave than I am, so am afraid you will have to do without Daddy this Xmas. 

Santa Claus will come as usual. I think your writing and dictation just splendid, and your drawings are getting funnier than ever. I have pinned your crayoned tulips on the wall of my dug-out bedroom beside your photograph. Daddy is as comfortable as possible. I expect even you would get tired enough to go soundly asleep in this dug-out. It would be a change from your pink bedroom. 

And how is little Daffodil getting on? I expect you quite enjoy the time when Mamma reads you more about her. It was Mamma’s book when she was a girl like you. Write again soon, dear, + send another crayoning to help cover the sand bags. 

Heaps of love & kisses, which you must share with Mamma and Betty. 

From your ever loving Daddy 

(A photograph of Gunner Wilfrid Cove’s daughters and a letter from Marjorie were found in his breast pocket when he was killed in 1917) 

Gunner Wilfred Cove’s daughters, Marjorie and Betty.

A letter from Marjorie to her father Gunner Wilfrid Cove.

 5. Ivy to Private John Bateman Beer 

 24 August 1917 

 My Dear Jack, 

 For the last month I have been endeavouring to pluck up sufficient courage to write and tell you that everything must be over between us. No doubt you will think me awfully unkind and perhaps fickle to write this while you are away, but this matter has worried me a great deal, and I have been halting between two opinions, as to whether it would be kinder to let you know now, and let myself be called unfaithful, or to wait until you come home, although knowing all the time in my heart that I was untrue. 

When you went away, and I told you that I loved you best, I really meant it Jack, but such a lot seems to have happened since then. I really thought that I had forgotten Charlie in my love for you, but it is no use Jack, I cannot help loving Charlie best. I suppose it is because he was first. At first I made up my mind to fight it down and be true to you, and if you still wish to keep me to my promise under the circumstances, I will do so. Don’t take this too much to heart Jack. I am not worth it but don’t think me altogether heartless. I would not hurt you dear unless I could help it, but unfortunately we cannot control our own feelings. 

Will you believe me when I say that I am very sorry, for I am, more so than perhaps you think. Anyway, forgive me if you can, and I trust that you will still let us be friends, whatever happens. One word about Charlie before I finish. He would have waited in honour bound until you came home. All at home send their love to you. Trusting this will find you in the best of health, 

I remain, Yours Very Sincerely, 

Ivy

6. Lothar Dietz to his mother, 1915

You at home can’t have the faintest idea of what it means to us when in the newspaper it simply and blandly says: “In Flanders today again only artillery activity.” Far better go over the top in the most foolhardy attack, cost what it may, than stick it out all day long under shell-fire, wondering all the time whether the next one will maim one or blow one to bits.

For the last three hours, a corporal has been lying groaning on my right, here in the dugout, with one arm and both legs shattered by a shell. Anyone who is badly wounded generally dies while he is being got out of here …

Only 60 yards away from us are the English, and they are very much on the alert as they would be only too glad to get back our hill. Six hundred yards behind here is our reserve position, a little wooded valley in which the most frightful hand-to-hand fighting has taken place. Trees and bushes are torn to pieces by shells and larded with rifle bullets. All about in the shell holes are still lying bodies, though we have already buried many.

As one can’t possibly feel happy in a place where all nature has been devastated, we have done our best to improve things. First we built quite a neat causeway of logs, with a railing to it, along the bottom of the valley. Then, from a pine wood close by which had also been destroyed by shells, we dragged all the best tree-tops and stuck them upright in the ground; certainly they have no roots, but we don’t expect to be here more than a month and they are sure to stay green that long. Out of the gardens of the ruined châteaux of Hollebecke and Camp we fetched rhododendrons, box, snowdrops and primroses, and made quite nice little flower-beds.

We have cleaned out the little brook which flows through the valley, and some clever comrades have built little dams and constructed pretty little water-mills - so-called “parole-clocks”, which, by their revolutions, are supposed to count how many minutes more the war is going to last. We have planted whole bushes of willow and hazel with pretty catkins on them and little firs with their roots, so that a melancholy desert is transformed into an idyllic grove.

Every dugout has its board carved with a name suited to the situation: “Villa-Woodland-Peace”, “Heart of the Rhine”, “Eagle’s Nest”, etc. Luckily there is no lack of birds, especially thrushes, which have now got used to the whistling of bullets and falling of shells. They wake us in the morning with their cheerful twittering.

(killed on April 15 1915, near Ypres).

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Did someone request German Army talk? I think so.

Hello there, N here, and the question I’m going to answer today is: Why was the German army so successful between September 1939 and the summer of 1941, but less successful afterward? Which factors—leadership (Hilter/economic), organization (economic/Nazism), doctrine (blitzkrieg), or material (rearmament/tanks/airplane)—were the most important in each case? 

In the aftermath of the First World War, German military theorists began to search for a “coherent military practice that would unify strategy, operations, and tactics and form the intramilitary basis for the autonomy of the profession.”[1] New doctrines and organizations were developed to prevent trench deadlock and “ensure” that the travesties of the First World War were not repeated—Germany’s answer was Blitzkrieg and the Wehrmacht.

The military theory of Blitzkrieg was created to secure campaign victories and thwart the possibility of Germany being launched into another war of attrition. Between 1939 and 1941 the German Blitzkrieg was incredibly effective and German success due to the “Wehrmacht’s superiority…its better understanding of the balance between the offence and defense than its enemies, its superior tactical ability, [and] the quality of its leadership and morale.”[2] During the Polish campaign, the German military was not only more experienced, but better prepared and had a near flawless technique—factors that also contributed to France’s defeat in 1940.[3]

However, the indecisiveness of the interwar period theorist devolved German strategy into two directions—reconstructing and unifying preexisting principles or creating a new practice of war.[4] In fact, it has been argued that Blitzkrieg “was merely the application of an advanced technology to tactics of infiltration, penetration and encirclement that had been developed during the First World War.” Regardless, strategic traditions must be maintained in a continuously changing national and international environment; which was a concept that German theorist struggled with as the war advanced, especially since “idealistic strategy remained remarkably vigorous and attractive for a long time.”[5] The divide between old and new strategies ultimately fragmented German doctrine, making it progressively less effective as the war developed.

Next, Germany realized that long term exhaustion, both of material and morale, had been a huge contributing factor to their loss in 1918. Hitler understood that he would need complete social exception in order to successfully wage war; and therefore aimed to unify the German people under one ideology—German supremacy. The Wehrmacht was sustained by this strong belief in Nazism and Germany supremacy, which ultimately gave them the edge on the battlefield and created a level of morale and initiative unparalleled by any other European force. The Wehrmacht’s overwhelming advantages over is enemies resulted “in all the campaigns between September 1939 and May 1941 Germany’s enemies…were defeated before the first shots of their respective campaigns were fired.”[6]

In conclusion, Germany’s failure in the Second World War ultimately derived from its inability to understand “the distinction between power and force, to realize the limitations of military force within the context of national power, to appreciate the limitations of force within the context of the international community and to grasp the limitations of German national power.” [7] If the Germans had been capable of fully understanding these differences they might have been exceptionally dangerous and the Second World War may have had a different outcome.

-N

Have any questions? Or maybe you disagree? Ask us in a polite and respectful manner and we’ll gladly oblige to an academic debate. Besides, that’s what history is all about -- differing opinions. 

Citations 

[1] Michael Geyer, “German Strategy in the Age of Machine warfare, 1914-1945” in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 528.

[2] “The Schlacht Ohne Morgen and Deep Battle.” (lecture, Norwich University, Northfield, VT, January 21, 2013) 12.

[3] Ibid., 5.

[4] Geyer, “German Strategy,” 528.

[5] Ibid., 529.

[6] “The Schlacht Ohne Morgen and Deep Battle.” 13.

[7] Ibid., 10.

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#ThrowbackThursday Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran held more speed, altitude and distance records than any other male or female pilot in aviation history at the time of her death Aug. 10, 1980. #Womenshistorymonth

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What’s it going to be?

GUYS, its time to pick our next topic! Let us know what its going be -- 1) Rise of the Third Reich 2) Bolshevik Revolution 3) It’s up to you, just message us or reblog with your idea.

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IT’S HERE! The Cold War Pt.2, where we discuss the Space Race, Proxy Wars, and the Post Cold War World. Don’t forget, you guys pick our next topic and we’ll research the shit out of it, but first you have to vote on what we tackle next!

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PELOPONNESIAN LEAGUE: 

THE Peloponnesian League (c. 550 BCE - c. 366 BCE) was a loose confederation of Greek city-states led by Sparta. The League was the oldest and longest-lasting political association in the ancient Greek world. For Sparta, the League gave it protection from uprisings within its own borders and eventually secured its dominance in the region and later, following victory in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE, the whole of Greece. Then, coming up against a rampant Thebes and their brilliant general Epaminondas, Sparta was defeated at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE. Without its dominant leader the League dissolved shortly thereafter.  

The name of the League derives from the geographical location of its member states in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. The Greeks themselves referred to the association as ‘the Lakedaimonians and their allies’. Unlike other confederacies such as the contemporary Delian League, the Peloponnesian League had no single binding agreement but was, rather, a collection of city-states (poleis) each having negotiated their own terms with dominant Sparta. In this sense, the League was no league at all as when not engaged in collective warfare city-states were even free to wage war against each other. Common features, though, of this loose association were the requirement of members to swear to hold common 'friends and enemies’, promise reciprocal assistance, and follow the military ambition of their leader (hegemon), Sparta. Only in the case of a religious obligation (e.g. the necessity to observe a particular religious festival) could members refuse participation.

Read More  

Article by Mark Cartwright on AHE

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March 11th 1864: The Great Sheffield Flood

On this day in 1864, the Dale Dyke Dam in Sheffield broke, causing one of the largest floods in English history. 650 million gallons of water swept down Loxley Valley and through areas of Sheffield. The flood destroyed 800 homes and killed around 293 people, thus making it the largest man-made disaster to befall England, and one of the deadliest floods in history. Individual stories from the disaster are particularly tragic. For example, Joseph Dawson found the currents too strong and was unable to save both his wife and two day old baby boy - the Dawsons’ unnamed child became the first victim of the floods. The destruction afterwards led one observer to remark that Sheffield was “looking like a battlefield.” While this tragedy is often forgotten in English history, many Sheffielders take this day to remember what once happened to their city.

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We just got done recording! I should have it edited and posted tomorrow.

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March 10th 1629: Charles I dissolves Parliament

On this day in 1629, King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland dissolved Parliament and began a period of Personal Rule. Charles succeeded to the throne in 1625 upon the death of his father King James I, becoming the second Stuart monarch. Charles inherited from his father a firm belief in the divine right of kings to absolute rule, which led to conflict between the King and Parliament. Charles’s Anglicanism alienated Puritans in England, and his imposition of taxes without parliamentary consent outraged the political elites. Charles dissolved Parliament three times, the last time being on March 10th 1629 in response to three Members of Parliament refusing to allow the Speaker to adjourn session and instead passing motions against the King’s actions. Charles thus resolved to rule the nation alone, without Parliament, and did not call another legislative session for eleven years. During this period of Personal Rule, the ruling classes saw his actions as increasingly tyrannical, as the King raised taxes and persecuted Puritans and Catholics, leading to an exodus of the former to the American colonies. Personal rule ended when the king attempted to interfere with the Scottish Church, and had to restore Parliament to raise the funds to fight the Scottish. The English Civil War broke out in the last years of his reign after he attempted to arrest members of Parliament, pitting the crown against Parliament. Charles’s Royalist supporters were defeated in 1646, and the King himself was eventually captured. The Parliamentarians, including general Oliver Cromwell, put Charles on trial for treason, which resulted in his execution in 1649 outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. The monarchy was then abolished, succeeded by the short-lived Commonwealth of England. A leading figure of this republic was Oliver Cromwell, though his rule as Lord Protector became increasingly authoritarian. Cromwell died of natural causes in September 1658, and the monarchy was restored in 1660 with Charles’s son in power ruling as King Charles II. The dissolution of Parliament in 1629 marks one of the most dramatic turning points in English history, and serves as a reminder of the excesses of royal power.

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Coexistence and Tolerance

Recently someone said to me, “America was founded as a Christian nation.” As a college professor of United States History, I decided to challenge this person’s claim with history. I said, “America was founded on religious freedom, and that’s completely different than saying it was founded as a Christian nation. Only uneducated people would argue such nonsense. The colonists fled from religious oppression in England and Europe. It’s important to remember that America was initially a place of religious tolerance and openly promoted coexistence (i.e. the colony of Maryland). If we really want to “get back our roots” than we should learn to be more tolerant of religions and ideals that differ from our own.”

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History is an Experience

I keep stressing to my students that the dates and names in history don’t matter nearly as much if they understand the significance of the event. When they hear the phrase “Boston Massacre” I want them to think, “that’s a trigger for the revolutionary war” not “5 colonists died in 1770 at the Boston Massacre.” Why? Because its what’s most important to me – the event and its significance. WHY do we study this? WHY do we still talk about these events 200 years later? Those are the important questions.

I think most educators have forgotten that history is an experience. It’s unlike ANY other subject. You can actually go somewhere and be where history happened. I’m sure you can travel to Mark Twain’s childhood home but will it help you understand what inspired him to write Huckleberry Finn? Maybe. I stood where the Boston Massacre happened – the flame that started the fire of revolution. I’ve been to Pearl Harbor, where 2500 Sailors and Marines lost their lives – triggering our entry into the Second World War. I’ve experienced the American Revolution, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the pain our country has endured, because I study history.

It’s beautiful, experiencing the past. Understanding that the 25,000 lives lost during our war for independence isn’t a statistic – that those people were someone’s son, father, brother and they paid the highest cost, their lives, so we could inherit a free nation. I’ll never let people forget about the humanistic side of history, because that’s what makes history incredible.

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I’d love to make videos like this for U.S./Military history topics. Thoughts anyone? lol