World War II

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Pearl Harbor Events Short on Survivors

Few remain to mark 67th anniversary of attack

(Newser) - Death and illness have trimmed the ranks of Pearl Harbor survivors appearing at ceremonies today, the Boston Globe reports. Only one survivor was expected at a ceremony in Boston, and organizers nationwide said many groups have seen their last commemoration. Of the 60,000 military members stationed at Pearl Harbor...

Stalin Planned to Destroy Moscow Ahead of Nazis

Bombs, booby traps set in 1,200 buildings

(Newser) - Stalin would have all but destroyed Moscow if the Nazis had taken the city, the Telegraph reports. Secret 1941 documents now on display detail the rigging of 1,200 buildings with explosives so that the Germans—only 19 miles from the city at the time—would conquer little more than...

Bailout Harks Back to FDR, With More Risk

'Unimaginable' spending will mean WWII-sized deficit

(Newser) - Washington's latest $1 trillion injection into the economy echoes Depression-era and WWII revival plans, but with a dangerous twist, writes Jim Puzzanghera in the Los Angeles Times. Even if the bailouts succeed, the government's mountain of debt will likely bury the next generation in high interest rates and inflation. And...

Cruise in an Eye Patch May Prove Hard Sell in Valkyrie

Shifting release date shows studio's concerns with film

(Newser) - A fear that audiences won't take to Tom Cruise in an eye-patch has kept Valkyrie, about a failed plot by German officers to assassinate Hitler, in United Artists' vaults. Advertising Age reports that studio execs postponed the film’s release multiple times over worries it wouldn’t stand up in...

Fight Over Holocaust Victims' Assets Rocks Israel

Mission to trace assets of murdered Jews facing resistance from Israeli government, businesses

(Newser) - The quest to return assets of Holocaust victims to their heirs, instigated by the Israeli parliament, is now focusing on Israel itself, the Wall Street Journal reports, and it's meeting as much resistance at home as it did in Europe. Many European Jews invested in what was then Palestine during...

Kristallnacht Remnants Found Near Berlin

Journalist uncovers wreckage dumped after Nazi assault on Jews in Nov. 1938

(Newser) - Weeks before Jews mark the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, wreckage from the Nazi pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria has been uncovered. Acting on a tip from a local, an Israeli journalist bills as a “historic discovery” a dump site the size of four football fields near Berlin....

'Ashley Wilkes' Was a Spy
 'Ashley Wilkes' Was a Spy 
Oct 6, 2008 11:31 AM CDT

'Ashley Wilkes' Was a Spy

Howard's plane shot down after delivering message to Franco

(Newser) - Best remembered as one of Scarlett O'Hara’s love interests in Gone with the Wind, actor Leslie Howard was also a British secret agent who died returning from a clandestine war mission on behalf of Winston Churchill, the Guardian reports. The Luftwaffe shot down Howard's plane in 1943 after the...

Nothing Divine in Lee's Miracle
 Nothing Divine in Lee's Miracle 
movie review
Sep 26, 2008 1:41 PM CDT

Nothing Divine in Lee's Miracle

War epic tries to do too much, runs too long

(Newser) - Miracle at St. Anna strives to be inspiring and powerful and epic, but Spike Lee's latest isn’t any of those things, critics say. “Mostly it's just unfocused, sprawling and badly in need of editing,” writes Claudia Puig of USA Today. Full of odd tonal shifts, stereotyped characters,...

Spike Refights WWII (and Other Directors)

(Newser) - Spike Lee hopes to set the record straight about the African American presence in WWII—but he also hopes to tell a good story. His new film, Miracle at St. Anna, tells the fictional tale of Buffalo Soldiers trapped in a Tuscan town, in his own inimitable style. "I...

Hurt German Extras Sue Cruise's Studio

Actors launch $11 million suit after falling out of truck during Berlin filming of Valkyrie

(Newser) - German extras from the upcoming Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie are suing the actor’s film studio for $11 million after they fell out of a moving truck during shooting. The accident, which happened a year ago in Berlin, landed all 11 in the hospital. “The studio knew the trucks...

Ownership Dispute Swirls Around NY Picassos

Heirs of German-Jewish banker say Nazis forced sale of paintings, now worth millions

(Newser) - The heirs of a German-Jewish banker are demanding that New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim relinquish possession of two works by Picasso, Der Spiegel reports. The heirs say the two paintings, Boy Leading a Horse and Le Moulin de la Galette, unjustly fell into the hands of...

Julia Child Dished Up Secrets in WWII

Chef one of several famous Americans revealed as spies

(Newser) - Legendary chef Julia Child, Hollywood star Sterling Hayden, White Sox catcher Moe Berg and historian Arthur Schlesinger were all spies for the US, according to newly declassified documents. Untold stories and clandestine heroics of World War II will come to light today as authorities release 750,000 pages of files...

WWII Bomb Found in Budapest; Thousands Flee

Thousands of unexploded bombs still buried in city

(Newser) - Some 16,000 people were evacuated yesterday in Budapest after construction workers unearthed a huge unexploded bomb from World War II. The 2-ton explosive, being disarmed today by experts, is one of the largest found in the city since 1945. Thousands of unexploded bombs are believed to be buried in...

Nazi Hunters Track 'Dr. Death' to Patagonia

Sadistic concentration camp physician is most wanted surviving Nazi

(Newser) - Investigators hunting Nazi war criminals believe they have discovered where their most-wanted war fugitive has been hiding, reports the BBC. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent experts to southern Chile to track down Aribert Heim, dubbed "Dr. Death" for his barbaric experiments on Jews in the Mauthausen concentration camp...

Spike to Clint: 'We're Not on a Plantation'

But he takes 'Obama high road,' wishing Dirty Harry 'peace and love'

(Newser) - Clint Eastwood told him to “shut his face,” but Spike Lee is talking back in full force: “The man is not my father, and we’re not on a plantation,” he said. Lee further chided the star director for ignoring blacks in his WWII films, calling...

On 64th Anniversary, a D-Day Vet Looks Back

He recalls old battles with pride

(Newser) - It’s not the horrors of Normandy that haunt Clifton Raynor these days; it’s the horrors of growing old. “Every day is a trying day for me,” the 86-year-old says. Raynor is part of a dying breed who saw D-Day firsthand, and today, on the 64th anniversary...

Degrees at Last for WWII Internment-Camp Detainees

Oregon State to honor Japanese Americans taken from campus in 1941

(Newser) - Oregon State University will honor 42 Japanese-American students who were forced to leave school for a government internment camp in 1941, the Daily Barometer reports. OSU will give 22 honorary degrees to the surviving individuals and family members representing others at its commencement ceremony June 15.

Auschwitz Gaffe Trips Obama
 Auschwitz Gaffe Trips Obama 
May 28, 2008 7:00 AM CDT

Auschwitz Gaffe Trips Obama

Candidate mixes up his camps when talking about great-uncle

(Newser) - Barack Obama has admitted he got his concentration camps mixed up when speaking to a Memorial Day audience, Reuters reports. The candidate spoke of how his great-uncle helped liberate Auschwitz when, as Republicans were quick to point out, that couldn't have happened unless his relative was in the Soviet Red...

Busy Military Cemeteries Keep Customers Satisfied

1,800 vets a day are dying

(Newser) - With veterans of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam dying at a record clip, US National Cemeteries are performing more than 100 burials a day—and often use assembly-line tactics to meet demand, AP reports. Despite the use of heavy machinery and the volume—1,800 veterans die...

Greek Claims 'Last' Van Gogh
 Greek Claims 'Last' Van Gogh 
May 19, 2008 6:35 PM CDT

Greek Claims 'Last' Van Gogh

Work said to be 'liberated' from Nazis billed as third portrait of Dr. Gachet

(Newser) - A painting under examination in Greece is being billed as the last work of Vincent van Gogh, the Guardian reports. Seized by the Nazis from French Jews, then "liberated" by Greek resistance fighters in 1944, the work appears to be a third portrait of van Gogh’s physician, Dr....

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