Sons and Soldiers
Page 38
I interviewed many Ritchie Boys throughout the United States. They include Henry Bretton, Al Eisenkraft, Eric Gattmann, Ed Holton, Gunter Kosse, Maximilian Lerner, Richard Schifter, Charles Stein, and Rolf Valtin. I am grateful to them all for their time and recollections.
Sources
Complete book publication details are supplied in the bibliography. U.S. Army records such as unit histories, action reports, war diaries, field interrogations, Camp Ritchie historical files, and records and transcripts of war crime trials are at the National Archives II (NARA), College Park, Maryland. Military personnel records are at the National Personnel Records Centers, St. Louis, Missouri. Survivor testimonies are from the USC Shoah Foundation. Transcripts of interviews by Christian Bauer from his German documentary The Ritchie Boys were accessed at the Deutsche Kinemathek Film Museum in Berlin. Interviews for the Veterans History Project are available from the Library of Congress.
Prologue: Germany 1938
Martin Selling: Martin Selling survivor testimony (Shoah Foundation, 1996); Martin I. Selling, With Rancor and Compassion: The Memoirs of a Jew Who Thought He Was a German; “Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom” and “Dachau: Establishment of the Dachau Camp,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM); Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps; Paul Berben, Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945.
PART ONE
1: Saving the Children
Günther Stern: Author’s interviews with Guy Stern (2014–16); Guy Stern interviewed by Steven Remy, German-Jewish Émigré Oral History Project (May 14, 2005); Stern, “The Americanization of Günther,” in Deborah Vietor-Englander, ed., The Legacy of Exile: Lives, Letters, Literature; “Jews in Prewar Germany,” U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Dr. Rudolf Zoder, Die Hildesheimer Straßen; Christiane Segers-Glocke, “Baudenkmale in Niedersachsen: Stadt Hildesheim”; William Grange, Historical Dictionary of German Literature to 1945; Arthur D. Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy; Sommers Children’s Bureau, letter to German-Jewish Children’s Aid (Feb. 11, 1937).
Manfred Steinfeld: Author’s interviews with Manfred Steinfeld (2015–16); Manfred Steinfeld, “Reflections of Josbach—Life in the 30s,” in Philip K. Jason and Iris Posner, Don’t Wave Goodbye: The Children’s Flight from Nazi Persecution to American Freedom; Marcie Harrison, A Life Complete: The Journey of Manfred Steinfeld; About Face, a documentary film by Steve Karras; Manfred Steinfeld, “Josbach, Germany,” in Steven Karras, The Enemy I Knew: German Jews in the Allied Military in World War II; Janice Petterchak, A Legacy of Style: The Story of Shelby Williams Industries; Richard Shifter, “Afterword,” in Don’t Wave Goodbye; Maurice R. Davie, Refugees in America.
Stephan Lewy: Author’s interviews with Stephan Lewy (2015–16); Stephan Lewy survivor testimony (Shoah Foundation, 1997); Lillian Belinfante Herzberg, Stephan’s Journey: A Sojourn into Freedom; Stephan Lewy, “From Refugee to GI,” in David Scrase and Wolfgang Mieder, eds., The Holocaust Personal Accounts; Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair; Jonathan Kirsch, The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan; Martin Gilbert, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction.
2: Escaping the Nazis
Martin Selling: Martin I. Selling, With Rancor and Compassion: The Memoirs of a Jew Who Thought He Was a German; Martin Selling survivor testimony (Shoah Foundation, 1996); “Dachau: Establishment of the Dachau Camp,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM); Paul Berben, Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945.
Werner Angress: Werner T. Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress (1980–1986); Werner Angress, “Early Memoirs.”
Stephan Lewy: Author’s interviews with Lewy; Lewy testimony (Shoah Foundation); Herzberg, Stephan’s Journey: A Sojourn into Freedom; Lewy, “From Refugee to GI,” in The Holocaust Personal Accounts; Katy Hazan, Rescuing Jewish Children During the Nazi Occupation: OSE Children’s Homes, 1938–1945; The Children of Chabannes, documentary film by Lisa Gossel; Bernard Warschauer, “The Exodus”; speech by Stephan Lewy at Daniel Webster College, NH (2007); “Testimony of Stephan Lewy,” filmed at Keene State College (2009).
3: A Place to Call Home
Günther “Guy” Stern: Author’s interviews with Stern; Stern, “The Americanization of Günther”; Stern interviewed by Remy, the German-Jewish Émigré Oral History Project; “Scrippage Reporter Interviews Thomas Mann,” Soldan High School newspaper (March 24, 1939); Guy Stern, “The Eminence and the Pupil: Meeting in St. Louis” (2003).
Manfred “Manny” Steinfeld: Author’s interviews with Steinfeld; Harrison, A Life Complete: The Journey of Manfred Steinfeld; Petterchak, A Legacy of Style: The Story of Shelby Williams Industries.
Victor Brombert: Author’s interviews with Victor Brombert (2015–16); Victor Brombert, Trains of Thought: Memories of a Stateless Youth; Victor Brombert, Musings on Mortality; Victor Brombert, “Return to Omaha Beach,” Princeton Alumni Weekly (Jan. 26, 2005); Victor Brombert interviewed by Christian Bauer (2004); Herbert Agar, The Saving Remnant: An Account of Jewish Survival.
PART TWO
4: Camp Ritchie
Martin Selling: Selling, With Rancor and Compassion; Selling testimony (Shoah Foundation); Martin Selling interview, “Veterans History Project” (2003); Thomas D. McDermott, “Aliens of Enemy Nationality,” INS Training Lecture (May 1943); George Bailey, Germans: The Biography of an Obsession; author’s interviews with Thomas Selling and Hilde Selling (2016).
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress; Angress, “Early Memoirs”; Werner Angress interviewed by Christian Bauer (circa 2004); Tom Angress, “Hyde Farmlands Diary”; Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Arsenal of Democracy,” speech (Dec. 29, 1940); McDermott, “Aliens of Enemy Nationality”; Joshua Franklin, “Victim Soldiers: German-Jewish Refugees in the American Armed Forces During World War II”; George J. Le Blanc, History of Military Intelligence Training at Camp Ritchie, Maryland; Becky Dietrich, “Stories of the Summit Plateau and Beyond in the Valley” (1970); Bailey, Germans: The Biography of an Obsession; “Secret Heroes: The Ritchie Boys,” an exhibit of the Holocaust Memorial Center, Farmington Hills, MI; Military Intelligence Division, War Department, Order of Battle of the German Army, February 1944; Max Oppenheimer Jr., “Camp Ritchie and American Military Combat Intelligence.”
5: Going Back
Victor Brombert: Author’s interviews with Brombert; Brombert, Trains of Thought; Angress, Witness to the Storm.
Guy Stern: Author’s interviews with Stern; Guy Stern, memoir in progress, chapter 3; interview with Guy Stern, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (1990); Guy Stern, Oh What a Funny (?) War; Stern interviewed by Remy, German-Jewish Émigré Oral History Project; Guy Stern interviewed by Christian Bauer (circa 2004).
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress.
6: Normandy
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress; Ward Smith, “I Saw Them Jump to Destiny,” BBC News of the World (June 1944); Angress interviewed by Bauer; Werner Angress, “In Normandy, the World Looks Upside Down”; Werner Angress, “Normandy Diary, June 6–27, 1944.”
Victor Brombert: Author’s interviews with Brombert; Brombert, Trains of Thought; Brombert, Musings on Mortality; Brombert, “Return to Omaha Beach”; Brombert interviewed by Bauer; Donald E. Houston, Hell on Wheels: The 2d Armored Division.
Guy Stern: Author’s interviews with Stern; interview with Stern, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Stern, Oh What a Funny (?) War; Stern interviewed by Bauer; Stern, memoir in progress, chapter 3; Virginia Irwin, “Only Prison Camps Are Lighted,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (July 24, 1944).
7: The Breakout
Martin Selling: Selling, With Rancor and Compassion; Selling testimony (Shoah Foundation, 1996); Richard Langworth, Churchill by Himself.
Stephan Lewy: Author’s interviews with Lewy; Lewy testimony (Shoah Foundati
on); Herzberg, Stephan’s Journey: A Sojourn into Freedom; George F. Hoffman, The Super Sixth: History of the 6th Armored Division in World War II.
Victor Brombert: Author’s interviews with Brombert; Brombert, Trains of Thought; Brombert interviewed by Bauer.
8: Holland
Manfred “Manny” Steinfeld: Author’s interviews with Steinfeld; Harrison, A Life Complete: The Journey of Manfred Steinfeld; Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers: The American Airborne in World War II.
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress; Angress interviewed by Bauer; Forrest Dawson, Saga of the All American (82nd Airborne Division); www.ww2-airborne.us/units/508; Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light; James A. Huston, Out of the Blue; David Bennett, A Magnificent Disaster; Martha Gellhorn, “Stand Up and Hook Up!,” in Dawson, Saga of the All American; James Megellas, All the Way to Berlin; James Gavin, On to Berlin; Werner Angress’s letters to Curt Bondy (Sept. 5, Oct. 5 and 10, 1944).
9: The Forests
Victor Brombert: Author’s interviews with Brombert; Brombert, Trains of Thought; Brombert interviewed by Bauer; Paul Boesch, Road to Huertgen: Forest in Hell; Max Oppenheimer Jr., An Innocent Yank at Home Abroad; Thomas G. Bradbeer, “Major General Cota and the Battle of the Huertgen Forest: A Failure of Battle Command,” U.S. Army Combined Arms Center; Edward B. Miller, A Dark and Bloody Ground; Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light; Hugh Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge.
Kurt Jacobs and Murray Zappler: Author’s interviews with Albert Eisenkraft (2015–16); Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge; Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light; Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets; Andy Rooney, My War; Alan W. Jones, “Defense of St. Vith: A History of the 106th,” The CUB, February 1948; Benjamin S. Persons, Relieved of Command; Headquarters 12th Army Group, JAG, “Report of Investigation of Alleged War Crime”; Charles C. Cavender, “The 423 in the Bulge,” The CUB, November 1946; R. Ernest Dupuy, St. Vith: Lion in the Way; Steven B. Wheeler, “Bleialf Is Overrun”; John Toland, Battle: The Story of the Bulge; Charles Cavender, The Memoirs of an Old Soldier; Alan W. Jones Jr., “The Operations of the 423rd Infantry,” Advanced Infantry Officers Course (1949–1950); “Record of Trial by a Military Commission in the Case of United States v. Curt Bruns,” Case No. 6-56 (April 7, 1945).
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress; Angress interviewed by Bauer; Werner Angress, “Belgium: In the Field”; Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light; 82nd Airborne Division: G-2 reports, action reports, interrogation reports (December 1944).
10: Return to Deutschland
Guy Stern: Author’s interviews with Stern; Karl Frucht, “From the American Scene: We Were a PWI Team,” Commentary (Jan. 1 1946); Stern, memoir in progress, chapter 3; interview with Stern, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; First Army G-2 Periodic Report, “From the Bulge to the Rhine,” 12/13 (March 1945); Guy Stern, Marlene Dietrich: My Chance Encounter with a Movie Star; Stern, Oh What a Funny (?) War; Stern interviewed by Remy, German-Jewish Émigré Oral History Project; Stern interviewed by Bauer; Guy Stern, “In the Service of American Intelligence: German-Jewish Exiles in the War Against Hitler”; “Record of Trial by a Military Commission in the Case of United States v. Curt Bruns,” Case No. 6-56; Headquarters 12th Army Group, JAG, “Report of Investigation of Alleged War Crime” (June 18, 1945); Karl Frucht, A Statement of Loss: A Survival Report.
Martin Selling: Selling, With Rancor and Compassion; Selling testimony (Shoah Foundation).
Stephan Lewy: Author’s interviews with Lewy; Lewy testimony (Shoah Foundation); Herzberg, Stephan’s Journey: A Sojourn into Freedom; “Testimony of Stephan Lewy,” Keene State College; George F. Hoffman, The Super Sixth: History of the 6th Armored Division in World War II.
PART THREE
11: The Camps
Stephan Lewy: Author’s interviews with Lewy; Lewy testimony (Shoah Foundation); Herzberg, Stephan’s Journey: A Sojourn into Freedom; “Testimony of Stephan Lewy,” Keene State College; George F. Hoffman, The Super Sixth: History of the 6th Armored Division in World War II; “Buchenwald” and “The 6th Armored Division,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website; Mark Abramson, “Buchenwald: Concentration Camp Stands as a Memorial to Thousands Who Perished There,” Stars and Stripes (March 25, 2010); Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps; Flint Whitlock, The Beasts of Buchenwald; Robert Clary, From the Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes; Joseph F. Moser and Gerald R. Baron, A Fighter Pilot in Buchenwald: The Joe Moser Story.
Guy Stern: Author’s interviews with Stern; interview with Stern, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Stern interviewed by Bauer; Stern interviewed by Remy, German-Jewish Émigré Oral History Project.
Manfred “Manny” Steinfeld: Author’s interviews with Steinfeld; Harrison, A Life Complete: The Journey of Manfred Steinfeld; Gavin, On to Berlin; Steinfeld, “Josbach, Germany”; Manny Steinfeld, oral history, Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois (circa 1989); Manfred Steinfeld, oral history, University of South Florida (2008); David Lewis, Manfred Steinfeld: Victim and Victor.
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress; Angress, letter to Bondy (May 7, 1945), published in Richmond Times-Dispatch (June 4, 1945).
12: Denazification
Kurt Jacobs and Murray Zappler: Headquarters 12th Army Group, JAG, “Report of Investigation of Alleged War Crime”; “Record of Trial by a Military Commission in the Case of United States v. Curt Bruns.”
Stephan Lewy: Author’s interviews with Lewy; Lewy testimony (Shoah Foundation); Herzberg, Stephan’s Journey: A Sojourn into Freedom; Hoffman, The Super Sixth.
Manfred “Manny” Steinfeld: Author’s interviews with Steinfeld; Harrison, A Life Complete: The Journey of Manfred Steinfeld; Steinfeld, “Josbach, Germany”; Steinfeld, oral history, Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois; Lewis, Manfred Steinfeld: Victim and Victor; Margarete Buber-Neuman, Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler; Sarah Helm, Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women; Judith Buber Agassi, “A True Story”; Judge Advocate General’s Office: War Crimes Case Files, Ravensbrueck (Ludwig Ramdohr).
13: Going Home
Martin Selling: Selling, With Rancor and Compassion; Selling testimony (Shoah Foundation); Ignatz Selling, unpublished memoirs.
Guy Stern: Author’s interviews with Stern; “The Bomber’s Baedeker—Target Book for Strategic Bombing in the Economic Warfare Against German Towns,” GeoJournal (Oct. 1994); Stern interviewed by Bauer; Stern interviewed by Remy, German-Jewish Émigré Oral History Project; Chris Webb and Michal Chocholaty, The Treblinka Death Camp; Memorial Book: Victims of the Persecution of Jews 1933– 1945, National Archives of Germany.
Werner Angress: Angress, Witness to the Storm; Percy Angress’s interviews with Werner Angress.
Appendix
THE RITCHIE BOYS
In a postwar study by the U.S. Army, “The Military Intelligence Service in the European Theater of Operations,” the consensus among division intelligence officers was that 58 percent of all combat intelligence gathered by the U.S. Army in the European Theater of Operations was the product of Military Intelligence teams. The majority, 36 percent, came from German-language interrogations conducted by IPW teams.
Historical records indicate there were 1,985 German-born Ritchie Boys who served in World War II. A roster of those soldiers follows.
Aach, Jack
Abraham, Artie
Abraham, Henry J.
Abraham, Herbert A. H.
Abraham, Kurt
Abraham, Leo
Abraham, Peter F.
Abt, Karl W.
Ackerman, Bruno J.
Adler, Arthur
Adler, Bert J.
Adler, Frank L.
Adler, Fred J.
Adler, Fritz Anton
Adler, Hans
Adler, John H.
Adler, Kurt S.
Adler, Martin
Adler, Solomon Otto
Aehlig, Walter M.
Albiez, Fritz
Albrecht, Eric M.
Albrecht, Erich A.
Aldrich, Edward
Alefsen, Erich
Alexander, Ernest M.
Alexander, Herman
Allen, Herbert W.
Altman, Werner F.
Altroggen, Rudolph O.
Amdur, Harry
Amson, Gaston
Andreas, Kurt R.
Anger, Bert Walther
Angress, Werner T.
Ansbacher, Edgar A.
Appel, Max
Araten, Sal
Armer, Rolf Chase
Arnhold, Henry H.
Aron, Ralph
Arons, Ernest L.
Aronson, Francis A.
Ashton, Harry N.
Atcon, Rudolph
Auerbach, Frederick F.
August, Otto
Babin, Gary
Bach, Alfred J.
Bachenheimer, Walter L.
Baer, Ernest
Baer, John Herman
Baer, Kurt Armin
Baer, Leo
Baer, Manfred
Baer, Martin A.
Baer, Max
Baer, Ralph H.
Baermann, Heinz
Baigelman, Maurice G.
Ballin, Henry
Ballin, Lucien A.
Baltuch, Joseph Samuel
Bamberger, Charles E.
Bamberger, Gerald F.
Bamberth, Peter H.
Bardach, Henry G.
Baron, Walter Martin
Bartels, August H.
Bartenstein, Eugene
Barth, Werner H.
Bartman, Robert
Bauer, Albert
Bauer, Arthur