Visor hats from Third Reich generals, Nazi officer hip daggers, Luftwaffe paratrooper jumper smocks and a 1938 “Wedding Edition” of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kamphare all up for bid at an upcoming sale from Beachwood Auctions.
The auction includes dozens of Nazi regime items alongside World War II-era weapons, uniforms and memorabilia including Russian pistols, Roman soldier statues and antique Baltic knives.
A portrait of Adolf Hitler on the phone is one item up for auction. Credit: Beachwood Auctions
Items such as those should not be sold for personal collections, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland told Scene.
“Any attempt to glorify Nazis or minimize, deny, or equivocate the Holocaust is abhorrent and fuels the anti-Jewish hatred that persists in our society today,” Jeffrey Wild, board chair of the JFC, said in an email.
“Artifacts associated with the Nazi regime belong in museums,” he added, “where they can be used to educate against hate.”
The origin of the items is unclear. Beachwood Auctions didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The company was founded in 2019 by Mayfield Heights resident Mikheil Kavtaradze, state records show. Though based in Solon, the company bears the name of the eastside suburb with one of the highest populations of Jewish residents in Ohio. It previously hosted an online auction including Nazi memorabilia in 2023, according to archived pages.
Several public sales including Nazi items have led to public outcry in the recent years.
In 2014, an auction in Paris hawking 40 items from Hitler’s home in Bavaria was shut down after receiving criticism from the French Culture Minister Aurelie Filipetti. A similar situation played out in 2021, when an Israeli court quashed an sale in Jerusalem finding it was selling off ink kits once used to tattoo prisoners at Auschwitz.
Earlier this year, an auction of 600 items, including letters from captives in death camps, was cancelled after outcry from Holocaust awareness groups.
“We urge those responsible at the Felzmann auction house to show some basic decency and cancel the auction,” Christoph Heuber, the vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, told the Associated Press at the time.
Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that in the wake of the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov and charges against leaders of the so-called Terrorgram Collective, dozens of extremist groups have moved to the app SimpleX Chat in recent weeks over fears that Telegram’s privacy policies expose them to being arrested. The Terrorgram Collective is a neo-Nazi propaganda network that calls for acolytes to target government officials, attack power stations, and murder people of color.
While ISD stopped short of naming SimpleX in its report, the researchers point out that the app promotes itself as “having a different burner email or phone for each contact, and no hassle to manage them.” This is exactly how SimpleX refers to itself on its website.
Last month, one accelerationist group linked to the now defunct neo-Nazi terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, with more than 13,000 subscribers on Telegram, began migrating to SimpleX. Administrators of the channel advised subscribers that “while it’s not as smooth as Telegram, it appears to be miles ahead with regard to privacy and security.”
The group now has 1,000 members on SimpleX and, according to ISD, is “part of a wider network built by neo-Nazi accelerationists that consists of nearly 30 channels and group chats,” which includes other well-known accelerationist groups like the Base. Accelerationists seek to speed up the downfall of Western society by triggering a race war in order to rebuild civilization based on their own white Christian values.
The network of groups on SimpleX are also sharing extremist content, including al-Qaeda training manuals, Hamas rocket development guides, neo-Nazi accelerationist handbooks, and militant anarchist literature. And in their newly secure channels on SimpleX, the members of the groups have immediately made direct calls for violence.
“During a 24-hour period on September 25, analysts observed three instances of users calling for the assassination of Vice President Kamala Harris, and one instance calling for the assassination of former President Donald Trump,” the ISD researchers wrote. “Similarly, numerous users called for a race war that would hasten the fall of society, allow them to take the US by force, and institute their desired system of white supremacy.”
SimpleX Chat is an app that was founded by UK-based developer Evgeny Poberezkin. It was initially launched in 2021, and a blog post in August announced that it had passed 100,000 downloads on Google’s Play store. The same blog post announced that Dorsey had led a $1.3 million investment round, having previously praised the app on other social media platforms. Dorsey did not reply to a request for comment.
For years, neo-Nazi groups have flourished on Telegram, many of them under the assumption that Telegram was a fully encrypted platform that provided a greater level of security than it really did. Telegram was used by these groups for building out their networks, sharing propaganda, and planning attacks. However, two of the leaders of the Terrorgram Collective were arrested and charged last month, which was a key factor in triggering the migration to SimpleX, the ISD analysts wrote. The group used Telegram to encourage acts of terrorism in the US and overseas.
During Tuesday’s presidential debate, former President Donald Trump made a claim that quickly went viral on social media — and prompted an immediate fact check.
During a rant about border control, Trump repeated a conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that has gained traction in some right-wing circles.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in,” he said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
ABC News anchor and moderator David Muir interjected, saying there are no credible reports of pets being harmed or abused by immigrants in Springfield. But that has not stopped Trump or his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), from spreading this and other inflammatory conspiracy theories about Haitian migrants in the Ohio city. In a lengthy Tuesday post to X, formerly known as Twitter, Vance implied that they were also spreading communicable diseases like tuberculosis and HIV.
Though the extreme nature of these claims might feel new, they have a long and ugly history. Social media users and commentators quickly likened the comments to the dehumanizing rhetoric Nazi Germany deployed against Jewish people leading up to and during World War II.
Katie Sibley, a history professor at St. Joseph’s University, believes the comparisons are valid. As she notes, antisemites including Adolf Hitler have long leaned on blood libel myths that date back to the Middle Ages, which accuse Jewish people of kidnapping Christian babies for ritualistic sacrifice. Sometimes, these pernicious stories incorporate cannibalism, with the blood of the children allegedly used to make matzah.
“It’s really striking,” Sibley said of the similarities in language. “Here we have people who were accused of eating pets, somebody else’s treasured, small, beloved creature. It sort of echoes that.”
Language’s link to violence
As scholars have emphasized, dehumanizing language often precedes violence. In the lead-up to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Hutu people frequently referred to the Tutsi population as “cockroaches” on a popular radio station. In the mid-1930s, Nazi propaganda depicted Jewish people as worms and “poisonous” serpents. Damaging lies like the blood libel myth were also plastered on the cover of Der Stürmer, the virulently antisemitic German newspaper, and even continued to spread after the concentration camps were liberated. Mobs killed 42 Jews and injured another 40 in a pogrom in the Polish city of Kielce in 1946 after an 8-year-old boy went missing for two days.
Threats of violence are now starting to emerge in Springfield. Its City Hall was evacuated Thursday over an emailed bomb threat that read, in part, “We have Haitians eating our animals.” The author of the email also claimed to have placed explosives at two DMVs and two elementary schools.
According to the Haitian Times, many immigrant families in Springfield have kept their children home from school out of fear for their safety.
Loss of legal rights
Apart from violence, damaging conspiracy theories are also linked to the suppression of rights throughout history. In 1877, the San Francisco health officer blamed an outbreak of smallpox on “unscrupulous, lying and treacherous Chinamen, who have disregarded our sanitary laws.” Politicians refused to provide Chinese immigrants proper health care, sending them to the filthy “pesthouse” on hospital grounds.
This scapegoating and discrimination continued into the 20th century. In 1900, after a Chinese immigrant was diagnosed with the first case of bubonic plague in the United States, the city destroyed local businesses in Chinatown and ransacked homes, burning possessions to “fumigate” the area. The xenophobia toward Chinese immigrants extended far beyond San Francisco, leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers from entering the country for a decade.
“This really had an impact,” Sibley said. “People were very much mistreated. Their communities were cut off, and they were barged in upon by the police.
“There is that bridge from rhetoric to actual laws.”
As Sibley notes, racist rhetoric also preceded the internment of about 117,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Politicians including Chase Clark, the governor of Idaho, compared them to “rats.”
Trump’s comments in context
This is not the first time critics have accused Trump of weaponizing language, or echoing Nazi rhetoric. But his and Vance’s comments — along with campaign ads linking immigrants to crime — have alarmed marginalized communities and the historians who have studied these cycles again and again.
“We think in this country, we’re not going to have those kind of laws anymore,” Sibley said. “You know, we got rid of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and we got rid of internment, of course, after World War II. But remember that when Trump first came into office, he talked about a Muslim registry.
“I think what’s changed is that the rhetoric has been accepted increasingly, sadly, in the public space.”
Flagstaff Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers made headlines last week for celebrating the victory of far-right parties in Germany by posting lyrics from the country’s national anthem that were banned because they are a rallying cry for the Nazis, but the lawmaker has long befriended and amplified racists and antisemites. Last week on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Rogers posted the phrase “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” after far-right German parties won multiple elections in the country…
IT is the first far-right party to win German state elections since the Nazis – and the success of Alternative for Germany is down to younger supporters.
Paramedic Severin Kohler says that it is now trendy among Generation Z TikTokers to back the organisation known as AfD, which is led in the state of Thuringia by a man who has been labelled a “fascist”.
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AfD fans Severin Kohler and Carolin LichtenheldCredit: Paul Edwards
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AfD MP Torben Braga — who, curiously for a German anti-immigration party, was born in Brazil and is of Brazilian and Welsh ancestryCredit: Paul Edwards
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Professor Reinhard Schramm, who lost 20 close family to the Nazi extermination camps, has had death threats and bullets sent to him in the postCredit: Paul Edwards
Severin, 28, a leader of the party’s youth wing Junge Alternative, told me: “It’s a matter of a rebellion against their parents. Being from the right is punk now.”
Almost 40 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old voters backed the AfD in Thuringia, central Germany, last week. In neighbouring Saxony, 31 per cent did the same.
Yet the local branches of the party in the two states have been classified as “right-wing extremist” by the nation’s domestic intelligence agency.
On the Instagram page of Carolin Lichtenheld, who leads Thuringia’s Junge Alternative, the 21-year-old trainee pharmacist is shown brndishing a megaphone at a rally, with the caption: “Ready to fight for the preservation of our homeland and for our future. We are the youth who are ready to resist a woke society.”
The image is hashtagged with the word “reconquista” — a reference to the recapture by Christian kings of Spain and Portugal from the Muslim Moors.
Felix Steiner, from German far-right monitoring group Mobile Consulting, agrees that young voters are attracted to the AfD.
The activist told The Sun: “Almost no other party is so active on social media platforms, especially TikTok. The message is, ‘Young people, come to us. We are the next movement’.”
Youth campaigner Severin wears a T-shirt bearing the name Bjorn Hocke — the AfD’s leader in Thuringia who has twice been convicted this year of using Nazi slogans.
Former history teacher Hocke harnessed the power of TikTok to target the youth vote during the election.
Incredible story of Nazi hunter and holocaust refugee
In one post he leads a cavalcade of motorcyclists riding models made by Simson — a brand associated with national pride by the far right — in the old Communist East Germany.
Yet critics say that behind Hocke’s glossy social media campaigning is a man who is a political “danger”.
In 2019 a court in Thuringia ruled it was not libellous to call Hocke a “fascist” as the opinion had a “verifiable, factual basis”.
Thin-lipped and greying, Hocke once described Berlin’sHolocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and demanded a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s culture of remembrance.
The father-of-four once spoke of the Germans “longing for a historical figure” who would “heal the wounds of the people”.
Ulrike Grosse-Rothig, leader of Thuringia’s left-wing Die Linke party, told The Sun: “Hocke is a die-hard fascist. He’s a danger for German society, its voters and to democracy.”
Former AfD Thuringia MP Oskar Helmerich has called Hocke “a dangerous man”.
Little wonder Thuringia’s small Jewish community has been fearful.
Professor Reinhard Schramm, who lost 20 close family to the Nazi extermination camps, has had death threats and bullets sent to him in the post from unknown sources.
Speaking at a synagogue in Thuringia’s largest city Erfurt, the 80-year-old Holocaust survivor told me: “The Jewish community is insecure and some are afraid. They are quite allergically against the AfD. This is not a normal party.”
Of Hocke’s demand for a “180- degree turn” in Germany’s culture of remembrance, the grandfather-of-three says: “So does this mean that I am not supposed to speak about my grandmother who was gassed to death in a German gas chamber?”
‘Some are afraid’
Severin insists the AfD is “against political violence”, adding: “We don’t have anything in common with people sending bullets to synagogues.”
The AfD won Thuringia — a largely rural state in central Germany — with just under 33 per cent of the vote.
It’s the latest European convulsion of the far right which has seen rampaging thugs attempt to torch migrant hotels in Britain and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally topping parliamentary elections in France.
In Germany — as elsewhere — the touchstone issue has been immigration.
Days before the Thuringia vote, a Syrian asylum seeker went on a knife rampage, killing three in the west German city of Solingen.
It emerged that the man — linked to Islamic State — had previously had his claim for asylum turned down but he had not been deported because the authorities could not find him.
Germany’s lame duck premier Olaf Scholz promised to speed up deportations and other mainstream parties followed suit with tough talk on immigration, including the conservative Christian Democratic Union.
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Andreas Buhl, a Thuringian MP for Merkel’s CDU, concedes that the former Chancellor’s open border policy was wrongCredit: Paul Edwards
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A CDU poster calling to stop illegal migrationCredit: Paul Edwards
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An anti-multicultural bannerCredit: Paul Edwards
Yesterday, it was reported that Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser has told the EU that controls will be brought in on all the country’s land borders, to deal with the “continuing burden” of migration and “Islamist terrorism”.
Britain, where populists Reform won four million votes at the General Election, will be watching whether moves towards the AfD’s turf will win back voters.
As well as a hardline stance on immigration, the AfD is also against what it says are over-zealous green policies, and it wants to halt weapons supplies to Ukraine.
At the Thuringian parliament in Erfurt, I met key Hocke lieutenant Torben Braga — who, curiously for a German anti-immigration party, was born in Brazil and is of Brazilian and Welsh ancestry.
The 33-year-old Thuringia MP says: “Bjorn Hocke doesn’t have a single fascist vein in his body.”
‘Political firewall’
Of his boss’s infamous “shame” reference to the Berlin Holocaust memorial, Braga says he meant it was “a shameful part of our history”.
Braga believes the security services are monitoring him and suggests “provocateurs” from those agencies were behind the “two or three cases” of people doing the Hitler salute at a recent rally in Erfurt.
Picturesque Erfurt is, at first glance, perhaps an unlikely setting for a far-right upsurge. Half-timbered town houses crowd flower-bedecked medieval squares where tourists enjoy beers on its many restaurant terraces.
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A far-right mob gather at a demonstration in Solingen last monthCredit: EPA
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Far-right AfD supporters wave German flags, including one adorned with an Iron CrossCredit: Getty
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The AfD party’s slick TikTok videosCredit: tiktok/@afd
This summer the England squad had their Euro 2024 training base a short drive away and Three Lions star Jude Bellingham was spotted having coffee in the city of 215,000.
Yet Thuringia has seen too much history in the 20th century.
After the Americans liberated Thuringia, it fell under Soviet control.
From 1949 to 1990 it was part of the Communist state of East Germany.
Post-German reunification, Thuringia and other eastern states struggled economically, with many youngsters heading to western Germany.
Immigration became a key political battleground after conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to a million refugees in 2015 and 2016.
Last year around 334,000 people claimed asylum in Germany — more than France and Spain combined. In the UK the figure was just under 85,000 people.
The AfD — formed in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party — has seen its fortunes rise as it hammered home its anti-immigration stance.
No other party is so active on social media platforms, especially TikTok.The AfD post pictures of demonstrations. The message is: ‘Young people come to us. We are the next movement’
It called for a ban on burqas, minarets, and call to prayer using the slogan, “Islam is not a part of Germany” in 2016.
In Thuringia, Hocke led a radical AfD faction called The Wing, deemed beyond the pale even by many in his own party.
Andreas Buhl, a Thuringian MP for Merkel’s CDU, concedes that the former Chancellor’s open border policy was wrong.
He told me: “In hindsight, it should have been clearer that you can also push people back at the border who have already entered another European country.”
He pledged, as other mainstream parties have, not to work with the AfD, creating a political firewall likely to block it from taking power.
It raises the spectre that those who voted for it may come to believe that democracy is failing them.
But anti-far-right activist Felix Steiner says only around half of AfD supporters are wedded to their hardline doctrines, with the rest supporting them as a protest vote.
He added: “The AfD result could be halved if voters were satisfied with other parties’ policies.”
The fight for the political soul of Germany’s Generation Z goes on.
It’s a battle of ideas that may be won or lost on the feeds of TikTok and Instagram.
HE was courted by the doyennes of Germany’s high society but Adolf Hitler’s own dark obsession and warped sexual fantasies revolved around much younger women.
The Fuhrer, hailed as a rockstar politician by wealthy women who sought to refine him, bedded a series of teens including his own 16-year-old niece – who met a tragic death as consequence.
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Hitler, seen with wife Eva Braun, was known for his sexual relationships with much younger womenCredit: Alamy
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Historians believe Hitler’s depraved love life was sparked by his complex relationship with his mother KlaraCredit: Alamy
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Eva’s devotion to the monster would cost her her lifeCredit: Alamy
Behind closed doors, he also indulged extreme sexual fantasies – getting one naked lover to put on his own boots and savagely kick him.
His deadly affairs also led to at least one other mysterious death and the attempted suicide of a 17-year-old, who was 20 years his junior.
Now, a new Sky History documentary, Hitler’s Handmaidens, details the Fuhrer’s secret sex life and relationships with the women he wanted to keep hidden.
Author and historian Jane Thynne says: “What is interesting about many of the women that had relationships with Hitler is that they either attempted or, or committed suicide, and he patently had a very, very potent traumatising and almost desolating effect on women to cause them to try and kill themselves.”
Experts believe that Hitler’s bizarre relationships with women began with the very first one in his life – his mother.
When Hitler was born in Austria in April 1889, he was his mother Klara’s fourth child – but the only one to live – and she was determined that little Adolf would not only survive but thrive.
While he was doted on and spoiled by his devoted mother, he was brutalised by his alcoholic father. Historians have been left wondering if Klara loved her son too much, and this is what warped his future relationships with women.
Psychologist Anna Motz says: “Hitler’s relationship with women appears to have been extremely complicated. So we know from the records that he had this enmeshed, over-involved relationship with a loving, protective mother.
“And he was brutalised by a man who appears to have been sadistic and violent. So, on the one hand, he’s seeking this maternal comfort. On the other hand, he doesn’t seem able to relate to women who are his equals.”
But Klara’s never-questioning love for her son gave him one thing – huge self-belief. He had an unswerving faith in his opinions and thought of himself as devastatingly handsome and intelligent.
World’s biggest gun ‘Gustav’ was built by the Nazis to destroy France – it weighed 1350 tonnes & friends 12ft long bullets
Disturbing fantasies
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Stefanie Rabatsch was Hitler’s first teenage crush – reports say he was sexually obsessed with her
Hitler was convinced he was meant for greater things, and his steadfast ambition would eventually cast a shadow over Europe.
But his first teenage crush didn’t go how he planned. An awkward Hitler became enthralled with 19-year-old Stefanie Isak, a tall, blonde and wealthy music student a couple of years older than him.
Historian Phil Carradice explains: “He worshipped her. She was the ideal Germanic woman, the Aryan woman. And for two years, two years, Adolf Hitler followed her, stalked her, for want of a better word, but never spoke to her.”
Disturbingly, he told his friend he wanted to kidnap her and marry her, followed by fantasies that they would kill themselves by jumping off a bridge together.
Thankfully, he never carried out his twisted plan, and shortly afterwards, his mother died, leaving him devastated.
Every day for the rest of his life, he carried a picture of her in his pocket. But the young Adolf was rejected by the Austrian army and found himself homeless and destitute.
So, he joined the Germans fighting against the Western allies.
One story claims that in the summer of 1917, Hitler was on leave from the war and met a 16-year-old French girl in the countryside. They had a brief sexual encounter, which resulted in the birth of his illegitimate child.
Later analysis showed that the men who could be father and son shared the same unusual handwriting, but experts say the patronage is impossible to prove.
Cruellest Nazi women
Herta Oberheuser
When American soldiers liberated the Ravensbruck concentration camp for women, they saw evidence of unimaginable atrocities.
But one person in particular haunted the survivors. They told of a “beast masquerading as a human”— female doctor Herta Oberheuser.
Historian Wendy Lower explains: “She’s been assigned to experiments to test the effects of wounds on the human body. If they can see how a wound that’s inflicted by shrapnel is going to affect an ordinary German soldier and all the ways that could be treated.
“She’s putting sawdust in there, putting glass shards, putting various chemicals and rubbing that in.
Pauline Kneissler
In late 1939 Hitler turned his attention to euthanasia in the pursuit of racial purity. His sinister secret T4 programme was an opportunity for him to murder anybody who they thought of as disabled.
Pauline Kneissler was one of the nurses hand-picked to make Grafeneck Castle, near Stuttgart, an efficient killing site.
She would travel to different institutions with a list of names and then bus them back to the castle and murder them – with Lower estimating she killed as many as 70 a day.
Irma Grese
There was one woman whose crimes were so brutal and sadistic that the Nuremberg judges had no choice but to order her execution – Irma Grese.
Known as the Hyena of Auschwitz, she had a reputation for stomping on prisoners or setting her attack dogs on them.
She was the lover and accomplice of the camp’s ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele, helping him with the selections where prisoners were chosen for monstrous medical experiments or sent to the gas chambers.
As well as her affair with Mengele, Grese was also believed to have had flings with male guards, and it was alleged she even raped female prisoners.
Hermine Braunsteiner
Despite Irma Grese’s death penalty, most of the female concentration camp guards escaped justice, and many went on to live long and happy lives.
One of these was Hermine Braunsteiner, the woman known as the “Stomping Mare” – a camp guard at Majdanek who liked to stomp on prisoners and was known for her particular sadistic tendencies.
She married an American in her native Austria after the war and moved to the US. However, she was later discovered living in New York and was extradited.
Whether or not he did father that child, it is a fact that throughout his adult life, Hitler sought out maternal figures, perhaps to replace his own mother.
To these older, rich women – many of whom shared his extremist political and anti-Semitic views – Hitler appeared charming and destined for greater things despite being rough around the edges.
Most of these women were married, which also suited Hitler because his vow to be only married to Germany gained him adoration from the millions of young German women who were sending their sons off to war.
To them, he was the rockstar politician who expects have likened to the Elvis figure of his day.
Women like socialites Helene Bechstein from the piano-making dynasty, real-life princess Elsa Bruckmann, and Winifred Wagner, daughter of composer Richard, took Hitler under their wing and taught him how to kiss a lady’s hand and eat lobster in public.
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Hitler struck up friendships with women from aristocratic families, such as Winifred WagnerCredit: Alamy
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He had the adoration of millions of young women in Nazi GermanyCredit: Time Life Pictures – Getty Images
Historian Phil Carradice explains: “Hitler was a rough and tumble country boy. But suddenly, these women took him over and said, we will show you how to carry on, how to live, how to be successful in society.
“Because if you want to make it big, that’s where you need to put your effort. That’s where the money lies. And you need to, uh, to get people on your side. We will teach you how to eat and drink in public.”
Hitler knew he needed these aristocratic families on his side to be taken seriously politically.
And while he would lay his head on these ladies’ bosoms and let them stroke him, their relationships remained purely platonic. His sexual tastes lay with women much younger.
Twisted sexual demands
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Hitler began a relationship with 16-year-old Mitzi, who tried to kill herself when he ended their relationshipCredit: Getty
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Their relationship would set the tone for his future encounters with young womenCredit: Getty
In 1926, Hitler gave a speech in Bavaria, where he met a 16-year-old blonde girl called Mitzi. He was 37. This age gap would become a theme for his future lovers.
Mitzi was just 17 years old when she began a sexual relationship with Hitler, which he abruptly called off to devote his life to his politics. A distraught Mitzi tried to kill herself.
Author and historian Jane Thynne says: “What is interesting about many of the women that had relationships with Hitler is that they either attempted or, or committed suicide, and he patently had a very, very potent traumatising and almost desolating effect on women to cause them to try and kill themselves.”
While Mitzi survived, some of Hitler’s other young secret lovers would not.
Hitler became infatuated with his 16-year-old niece, Geli Raubal. She wanted the bright lights of Munich, so when it was suggested she could live with him in the city, she quickly agreed.
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Hitler became enthralled with his niece Geli Raubal, who went to live with himCredit: Getty
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Their relationship had a deadly consequence for GeliCredit: Alamy
But her move provided the perfect cover for Hitler’s sinister intentions.
Their relationship became intimate, and Hitler became more controlling, jealous of the attention the teenager got from other men. It got to the point where she could barely do anything without his say-so.
But in September 1931 Geli was found dead in Hitler’s apartment – with a bullet in her chest and his gun by her side.
Phil Carradice says: “During the nights, Geli locked herself into her room. She took Hitler’s Mauser pistol with her, and she shot herself and killed herself. Possibly. The body was found the next day by the housekeeper.
“But I have doubts about that one. If you’re going to kill yourself with a gun you normally would aim there, into the, into the head. That’s guaranteed. Geli shot herself in the heart.”
Police quickly ruled her death as suicide, and Geli was quickly buried, while a distraught Hitler considered giving up politics altogether.
Sinister death
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A year later, Hitler moved on with movie star Renate MullerCredit: Alamy
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Renate spoke about Hitler’s bizarre sexual claims and also met an untimely endCredit: Alamy
But a year later, he met another young lover – 26-year-old movie star Renate Muller.
Again, Hitler’s sexual depravity was to be her downfall. She claimed that one night, when they were both naked, he asked her to put her boots on and kick him, which she did.
But Renate did not keep this salacious information to herself, and that brought her to the attention of the Gestapo.
She was put under surveillance, and when she took a Jewish lover, she was blacklisted, and her career was over.
The young woman developed a morphine addiction and was sent to a sanitorium in Berlin for treatment in late October 1937.
A team of SS officers were seen entering the building, and a few minutes later, she was dead. The cause of death was ruled as suicide, but rumours of foul play persisted.
“Ultimately Renate had a terrible end in that she was being treated as, in a clinic for quotes depression and fell out of a window,” says Jane Thynne.
“But falling out of a window was a way that very many enemies of the regime met their end. It wasn’t an unusual way actually to be murdered in the Third Reich.”
Despite these suspicious deaths, women still idolised Hitler. At his rallies, women would be seen in tears, idolising him and wanting to get near him.
Fuhrer’s wife
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Although Eva first resisted a determined Hitler’s advances, she soon fell for himCredit: Alamy
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Eva Braun was more than two decades younger than Hitler and desperately wanted to become the Fuhre’s wifeCredit: Getty Images – Getty
But there was one woman who fell so completely under his spell that, in the end, she gave her life to join him in death – Eva Braun.
Hitler was entranced by the young photography studio assistant, but at first, she spurned his advances, which only spurned him.
But she soon fell for him – despite him being more than two decades older – and longed for their affair to be made public.
When Hitler ignored her or didn’t call, she fell into depression and even tried to take her own life on two occasions.
But this forced Hitler’s hand. Robert Kaplan explains: “Hitler’s relationship with Eva has been much speculated on.
“But there were two suicide attempts, and in a sense, he was then trapped because after Geli, if he had a partner who killed themselves again, his public image would be shot.”
Eva had always wanted to be the wife of the Fuhrer. And as the war in Europe is in its last throes, they marry in his bunker – just 36 hours before they took their own lives.
Jane Thynne says: “They got married on the last day. So it was a kind of death wish, but in a way, her entire relationship with Hitler had been a death wish, but it was the culmination of that.
“I think what Hitler did in marrying Eva, right at the end, is a way of not seeing her as a person yet again. It’s not a way of saying how can I answer your needs, her needs really would be to get in, to escape by any means possible. It’s a way of saying, ‘You have served me loyally and here is your reward.’
Hitler’s Handmaidens is on Sky HISTORY every Tuesday at 9pm
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Eva joined Hitler’s cause and stayed with the dictator for the rest of his lifeCredit: Getty
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The pair took their own lives 36 hours after they tied the knotCredit: Alamy
IN the drawing room of a country house near Portsmouth a petite French lady is dwarfed by a 14ft-high map.
Madame Arlette Gondree, 84, is studying a top-secret chart that was used during World War Two to plan Britain’s D-Day landings on France’s Normandy beaches.
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Arlette Gondree’s family owned the first building in France to be liberated as part of the D-Day operationsCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
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Her family had helped the Resistance, as well as Brit spies – it was like something out of ‘Allo ‘Allo but without all the laughsCredit: BBC
She points to a spot near the Normandy town of Ouistreham.
The tiny village of Benouville is so small it is not even named on the map at Southwick House — nerve centre of the invasion to drive the Nazis out of France 80 years ago.
But it is where Arlette’s family ran a cafe and helped the French Resistance and British spies, like something from BBC sitcom ’Allo ’Allo but without all the laughs.
The cafe, still in the family today, was also the first place liberated by British troops sent to defend a nearby canal crossing, to be forever known as Pegasus Bridge.
Mum-of-three Arlette married a Brit and splits her time between the UK and running the family’s Cafe Gondree in France with son Giles, 60, and granddaughter Alisse, 24.
And in early June, she will be there to welcome a party of British veterans, all around 100 years old, to thank them on this 80th anniversary for having saved her country.
Best champagne
In particular, she hopes commemorations this summer to mark the anniversary will finally convince the French that Britain, and not just America, liberated their country.
She says: “For some reason, French people still think the Americans won the war. Maybe it is the way they teach children at school.
Relive best of Arthur Bostrom playing Officer (Captain) Crabtree as Censors go after Allo ‘Allo for French gags
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The café is still in the Gondree family, and Arlette still spends some of her time running itCredit: FTR Features
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Arlette wants to remind France that Brits helped liberate her country too, as she thinks America’s role in the war is over-emphasised by young peopleCredit: Getty
“But more than 22,000 young British men lost their lives and many more were wounded in 1944 freeing my country from the Nazis. We must never forget them.”
She is delighted King Charles will lead commemorations on June 6 at the new British Normandy Memorial overlooking Gold beach.
On the map at Southwick House, the famous Gold, Sword and Juno beaches, where British troops came ashore at 7.24am on June 6, 1944, are all plainly marked.
These beaches where thousands of British troops were killed as they clambered ashore were each given fish-inspired code names by the Allied high command.
Juno was originally Jellyfish but British Prime Minister Winston Churchill changed the name “because no man should die on a beach named Jelly”.
D-Day is always commemorated on June 6 but for Madame Gondree the invasion began at 11.16pm the night before.
That was the moment her parents’ cafe was liberated by British paratroopers.
Within an hour of the first British troops arriving in gliders that landed in fields around Benouville, Arlette’s beaming cafe-owner dad Georges was serving them champagne.
When the Nazis invaded France four years earlier in 1940 he had hidden his best bottles under his vegetable patch.
While firefights were going on around the cafe during the first skirmishes of D-Day, Georges dug up his bottles of bubbly and popped the corks in honour of the hero Brits.
The occupation was very difficult. We were short of food, we were short of clothes and they had hardly any supplies which they could sell but we were tied together as a family
Arlette Gondree
Arlette is delighted that, at long last, there is now a dedicated British Normandy Memorial, overlooking Gold Beach just outside the village of Ver-sur-Mer.
Some veterans say the memorial, only completed during the recent Covid crisis, is “too little, too late”.
But Arlette says: “It is never too late”. Time has takent its toll, though, and it is believed that only around 40 British World War Two veterans will be fit and well enough to travel to Normandy this summer.
Although she was just four years old on D-Day, Arlette can remember every detail of the day she, her sister Georgette, ten, her father and her mother, Therese, were saved.
It was thanks for the family’s work for the Allies during the war, when vital information from Café Gondree found its way to Southwick House where it was used by British admiral Bertram Ramsey to plan the world’s biggest ever invasion from the sea.
Arlette says: “For my parents, the occupation was very difficult. We were short of food, we were short of clothes and they had hardly any supplies which they could sell but we were tied together as a family.
The dangerous fact is that my parents were passing on information through my father who spoke English well — but the Germans never knew.
“My mother, who was from Alsace and spoke Alsatian, was serving in the cafe most of the time.
“She could hear what the Germans were saying because we couldn’t stop them coming to drink.
“Little did they know that Mummy knew what they were doing in the village, what they were doing on the bridges and what they were likely to do.
“Daddy would also welcome a couple of British spies in the house, while the cafe front door was open to both the local inhabitants and the occupants.
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Arlette’s dad Georges was ready to serve up champagne to Brit forces right after they liberated the cafeCredit: PA
“But he was also meeting with Monsieur Melan who was the chief engineer responsible for all the bridges along the canal, and Madame Viand who was in charge of the maternity hospital — they were the Resistance people.”
On the eve of D-Day, Georges was tipped off by British spies not to move out of the cafe.
So he and Therese took their two daughters down to the cellar below the bar where the children bedded down in two empty cider barrels filled with straw.
Arlette remembers: “It wasn’t long after that when we were shaken by a tremendous crashing noise, which was horrific.
“Then we heard noises around the cafe so Daddy left us for a short time and went upstairs to see what he could see.
“The shutters of our dining room were being forced open and the window panes were being broken above our heads. We thought the Germans were coming in to get us.
“Daddy brought down two figures we had not seen before, covered in black with nets.
“One of them grabbed me, took me in his arms, and I was very frightened.
“But Mummy started kissing them and they gave me something I hadn’t had for a long time — chocolate and biscuits.
“Because we were under German time, it was the last hour of the 5th of June.
I will go on serving champagne to the men who saved our country, until the last one is left
Arlette Gondree
“That’s why we celebrate with my beloved veterans, whether they be older or youngsters of today, at that very special time of 23.16, with some champagne.
“Within the hour, my father had unearthed bottles from the garden and brought them out to the British soldiers, who were digging their trenches, to say thank you to them.
“By then there were casualties, so Daddy opened the front door and the cafe was transformed into a First Aid post. The wounded were lying everywhere.
“The dining room became the operating theatre and Mummy, who was a trained nurse, helped the doctor in charge.
“It was an horrific sight, very frightening, because I wanted to be with Mummy in the dining room. The noise, the cries and the smell . . . ”
“The veterans have always regarded Cafe Gondree as a shrine and a home to them.
“I will go on serving champagne to the men who saved our country, until the last one is left.”
The legendary comedian Roseanne Barr confirmed that she is “all in” for Donald Trump heading into 2024 while speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest event in Phoenix, Arizona over the weekend.
Barr Is ‘All In’ On Trump
“‘I’m just all in [with Trump] because I know if I ain’t all in, they’re going to put my a** in a gulag… And I don’t wanna go to a re-education camp and have to give all my money to a bunch of losers that never know how [to] get a job,” Barr, 71, told the crowd, according to Daily Mail.
“If we don’t stop these horrible communists, Stalinists, with a huge helping of Nazi-fascist thrown in,” she continued. “Plus one caliphate to replace every Christian democracy on Earth now! Occupy! Do you know that?”
“We don’t care which party is wrong, we know they’re both nothing but crap!” Barr added. “They’re both on the take! They’re both stealing us blind! We just want the truth about everything we fought and died and suffered to protect!”
Barr later took to social media to explain that she had improvised most of this speech.
“I cannot believe I accidentally deleted my speech when making my last edit just before walking out,” she wrote. “I had to wing it last night, it was so scary. But I’m glad you guys liked it!”
Barr has long been one of the only celebrities in the entertainment world who has unapologetically supported Trump publicly. While talking to Donald Trump Jr. on his “Triggered” podcast back in October, she gushed over the former president while also revealing why she thinks liberals are so against him.
“What I love about your dad is he is one funny guy!” Barr said of the former president. “He is so hilarious, and I think that is part of why they hate him. They hate humor. They don’t have any sense of humor about themselves — right there that is what a fascist is.”
“Someone in power who has no ability to laugh at themselves, has no self-reflection; they look in the mirror and there is nothing there,” she continued. “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you don’t have a soul. Your dad laughs at himself and everyone else and he makes everyone laugh. He has the heart of the comedian, which is why we all love him because he’s so funny!”
Earlier this year, the former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake called for Barr to be Trump’s running mate.
“I know that if President Trump needs a female Vice President, I’m starting to think right now as I’m sitting here: Trump—Barr,” Lake said while interviewing the former “Roseanne” star back in September, according to Newsweek.
“Well, you know, wherever I could be useful fellow and sister citizens,” Barr replied with a laugh. “I have the time and I think I’m smart and I’m definitely committed to the survival of this representational government of, by and for the people and I think that we can’t let it disappear from the Earth because it won’t ever come back.”
What do you think about Barr’s latest comments about Trump? Let us know in the comments section.
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The Zone of Interest, written and directed by Jonathan Glazer and based on the book by Martin Amis, has a deceptively simple plot. Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) lives with his family in an upscale home with a lush, sprawling yard. Rudolf finds out he’s being transferred to another location; his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) is angry at the thought of leaving their idyllic life behind. They amuse themselves by boating on the nearby river and inviting guests over for tea. Hedwig is proud of her Edenic garden, with grapevines and roses growing against one high concrete wall.
On the other side of that wall is Auschwitz itself.
The death camp is, arguably, the most important character in the film, and it roars at the edges of the characters’ perception. Sickening sounds float into the Hösses’ yard: gunshots, screams, and the constant rumble of the crematorium, whose voracious flames light up the night. The Höss family’s bucolic life is punctuated by the whistles of trains arriving at the camp.
Yet, thanks in part to Johnnie Burn’s ingenious sound design, the Höss family seems strangely immune to the horrors happening over the wall. They seem so blasé, in fact, that only the most ghastly atrocities seem to ruffle them, and it’s in those brief instances that we get the most intriguing character studies. The family and their home are seemingly at the center of the film, but the real story is what’s happening just beyond the camera lens. Friedel and Hüller do a remarkable job of conveying the hollowness at the center of the Hösses: two people who have signed away their souls for a pretty garden.
Yet, even in conditions as claustrophobically vile as these—and even in a story whose ending we already know—the film still manages to let in a tiny ray of hope. Yes, we’re confronted with the bottomless evil of a nice Nazi family, but we also see glimpses of people trying to help the Jews and other Auschwitz prisoners. The Hösses have let themselves become monsters, but around the edges of their story, we see people who have kept hold of their humanity.
The film’s visuals and story structure are stunning. The innovative camera work, for which Glazer and cinematographer Łukasz Żal installed hidden cameras in the house, creates the feeling that Höss and his family are subjects of study, or even surveillance. Some night scenes are shot with a thermal imaging camera, creating a dreamlike quality. At one point, the film jumps forward in what could be interpreted as one character’s sudden vision of the future. At another, as the film grapples with the incomprehensible nature of its subject matter, the screen simply burns into a bracing field of red. In portraying a crime too colossal for words, The Zone of Interest finds its own language to express what feels unspeakable.
The Zone of Interest is a breathtaking achievement, but there’s one thing that scares me: A solid Holocaust education is absolutely necessary to understand it. I’ve met Holocaust survivors and said Kaddish at the sites of mass graves. I immediately recognize the significance of a train whistle or a smoke stack. All around me, though, I see rising ignorance and denial of not just the Holocaust, but any genocide. When a work of art depends on a baseline of historical literacy, what happens when that work’s audience drifts further and further from that baseline? What happens when audience members literally don’t know what genocide looks like?
Most of us like to think that we would never support atrocities like the Holocaust. That genocide is the realm of monsters and villains, not decent people like us. However, The Zone of Interest gives lie to that idea. Genocide flourishes under the touch of people as ordinary as you or me, and although the real Rudolf Höss was eventually tried and executed for his crimes, many more Nazis—average citizens who were fine with exterminating people they didn’t like—walked free. As Auschwitz survivor Joseph Wulf, whose song “Sunbeams” is included in the film, put it shortly before his death in 1974: “You can document everything to death for the Germans …. Yet the mass murderers walk around free, live in their little houses, and grow flowers.”
The Zone of Interest comes out in theaters on December 15.
THE daughter of a Nazi death camp survivor has told her father’s incredible story for the first time — after being shocked by anti-Jewish hate triggered by the Hamas attacks.
Mum-of-three Maja Klausner, 49, had kept silent on the heart-stopping story of her late father Wladyslaw Rath, an Auschwitz inmate who was on the real-life Schindler’s list.
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The international Jewish community has been shocked by anti-Jewish hate triggered by the Hamas attacksCredit: Alamy
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Mum-of-three Maja Klausner is the daughter of a Nazi death camp survivorCredit: Doug Seeburg
But she contacted The Sun after being moved by our front page showing the faces of 32 child hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
And yesterday she told how her peace campaigner dad would have been horrified by the rise of anti-Semitic hate set to be paraded again this Remembrance weekend.
Housewife Maja, 49, said: “My father could not bring himself to describe what happened to him in Auschwitz until two years before his death.
“It was too painful.
“But when the film Schindler’s List was released, he began telling us he had been a part of that story and was one of the lucky ones who lived.
“I had never intended to reveal what he told me but feel I have to say something as we remember the Second World War, because I fear the wheel of history has come full circle again.
“There is so much hate — on both sides — but I would appeal to everyone planning to protest, please remember the lessons of the past.”
Wladyslaw Rath was the 15-year-old son of a successful Jewish factory owner in Krakow, Poland, when the Nazi invasion decimated his well-to-do family’s life in 1939.
‘Huge, ferocious dogs’
The youngster, his older sister Dora, then 19, their father Max and mother Amalia lost everything and were marched from their townhouse to Krakow’s ghetto at gunpoint.
Amalia was gassed in a Nazi extermination camp and Max collapsed and died on a forced “death march” days before the end of the war.
But Wladyslaw and Dora survived the horrors of Plaszow, Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps thanks to Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler.
The German industrialist saved 1,200 Jews by creating fake jobs for them in his Krakow armaments factory to keep them out of death camps.
Wladyslaw and Dora were numbers 231 and 200 respectively on the record of employees immortalised as Schindler’s List in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Oscar-winner.
Before his death aged 71 in 1996, Wladyslaw told Maja he was saved by Schindler — played by Liam Neeson in the film — and how he thanked him after the conflict.
But he also haltingly recounted his near-death ordeal at the hands of sadistic Plaszow camp commandant Amon Göth, chillingly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in the film.
Maja told The Sun: “My father was saved by Oskar Schindler but first had to survive Göth in Auschwitz.
“In the movie Göth was seen delighting in shooting dead prisoners for fun with a sniper rifle, and my father endured this torment.
“One day he was carrying a ladder through the camp with a man who was taller than he was when Göth appeared and began shooting.
“A bullet went through my father’s hair and grazed his scalp but hit the taller man, killing him instantly.
“My father was traumatised but had seen so much death in the camp by then that he just picked up the ladder and carried on walking.
“While many lost the will to live and were shot, gassed, starved or worked to death, he somehow managed to stay strong and carry on.”
Maja told how her father also recalled the horror of watching Jew-hating Göth’s huge, ferocious hunting dogs savage camp inmates to death.
She told The Sun: “Göth had two enormous dogs which he had trained to kill.
“They were vicious cross breeds as big as a Great Dane.
“He would set his dogs into crowds of starving, exhausted prisoners and laugh as they tore people to pieces.
“My father was in the crowd several times when this happened and somehow avoided being the victim.
“And Göth later gave him the job no one wanted — feeding the dogs.”
Maja told how her determined father, by then in his late teens, turned the feared chore to his advantage.
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Wladyslaw Rath was held in auschwitz but survived the warCredit: Doug Seeburg
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Wladyslaw survived by pretending to be an experienced factory machinists to enable him to be added to Schindler’s listCredit: Doug Seeburg
She continued: “He had a way with animals which enabled him to control them.
“He began stealing the dogs’ food to enable himself and other inmates to survive.
“Everyone was terrified of them, so he would hide the food he stole as he walked with them and trained them to snarl at any camp guard who approached him.
“That food kept them alive when many more starved.
“He also managed to save Dora’s life by hiding her from the guards when she fell ill with typhoid.
“Any prisoner unwell in Auschwitz was routinely gassed or shot immediately because they were of no further use to the Nazis.
“This was the very peak of anti-Semitism of the kind we are seeing rising again now, the mass murder of millions of people just because they were Jewish.
“It must never be allowed to happen again.”
Wladyslaw and Dora survived by pretending to be experienced factory machinists to enable them to be added to Schindler’s list of fake forced labourers.
Schindler, who died aged 66 in 1974, had his workers deliberately make dud shells to hamper Adolf Hitler’s war machine before Krakow and nearby Auschwitz were liberated in 1945.
Maja said: “At the end of the war Oskar Schindler’s workers feared he would be mistaken for a Nazi and shot.
“So my aunt Dora and others escorted him to surrender to the Allied soldiers to save his life.
“Years later my father met him especially to say thank you.
“He told me it was an incredibly emotional moment for them both.”
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Wladyslaw only survived the war because he was on Schindler’s listCredit: AFP
After the war, Wladyslaw moved to the Austrian capital, Vienna, where he ran a successful cinema business.
He was invited to the world premier of Schindler’s List in the city in 1993.
‘Risk of attack too high’
He also managed to track down and buy the wartime ID card of his nemesis Göth — which is now on display on the Auschwitz holocaust museum site.
Maja said: “My father was a very positive person and always tried to look forward rather than back.
“He never really talked about what happened in the war until a couple of years before his death.
“He firmly believed that what happened to him and millions of others changed the world for ever, and I’m glad he is not alive to see what is happening today.
“People were marching against Israel and celebrating the Hamas massacres on the streets even before Israelis retaliated.
“I’m not a practising Jew but I have Jewish friends who are afraid to go out.
“Others have removed Jewish names from their doorbells fearing they will be attacked.
“I won’t be going to the Christmas markets in Vienna, which I love every year, because the risk of an attack by extremists is too high.
“And while I am determined to speak out, I don’t want to give you the names of my three children in case they are put at risk.
“This is the climate we are living in again, at a time of year when we are remembering those sacrificed during World War Two.
“It feels as though history is going backwards and that we have learned nothing.”
Maja — whose children are aged eight, ten and 12 — said she had been heartbroken by the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians triggered by the October 7 atrocities.
And she was particularly moved by the plight of innocent youngsters caught in the crossfire, including the 32 Israeli child hostages pictured on a powerful Sun front page last month.
A LONG-LOST Nazi fighter jet that was shot down when a fanatical pilot charged at 1,000 US warplanes has been found 80 years later.
The well-preserved Messerschmitt – the backbone of the Hitler’s renowned Luftwaffe’s fighter force – crashed into a lake in Hungary after a fierce air battle during World War II.
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The plane was encased in mud for over 80 yearsCredit: Newsflash
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It was finally located in 2020 and recovered from its watery grave earlier this monthCredit: Newsflash
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An in-tact propeller of the fighter plane that was downed in 1941Credit: Newsflash
After being submerged in mud for the good part of a century, the fighter plane was finally recovered this month in Veszprem County, western Hungary.
It was shot down on July 2, 1944 when the Americans launched their largest-ever air attack against Hungarian targets.
The Royal Hungarian Air Force was able to send just 18 fighters into battle against an incredible 620 four-engine bombers and 300 fighters of the United States 15th Air Force.
Most of the Hungarian fighters were downed, but only three were killed, including the pilot of the crashed plane, platoon leader Sandor Beregszaszi.
reda more on world war II
His body was recovered from Hungary’s Lake Balaton, but the location of the plane was then lost for decades.
That was until a military historian, Ensign Karoly Mago, underwent the pain-staking research to locate it.
Together with a team of divers, they found the fighter plane lying under almost a metre of mud that appears to have helped preserve it in September, 2020.
However, only a few pieces of the wreckage were able to be brought to the surface.
The researchers were amazed by the quality of the plane’s remains and made the decision to recover the rest.
On October 10, Beregszaszi’s plane was pulled from the lake encased in mud and silt.
Incredible footage of the recovery shows the plane’s twisted propeller and cowl being winched from the water with what appears to be the engine crankshaft – mostly intact.
Other parts, like exhaust pipes and the plane’s battery, are seen being cleaned up by experts from the modern Hungarian Air Force and military historians.
A spokesperson for the Hungarian Ministry Of Defence said that the wreckage “represents an inestimable value not only from the point of view of military history but also from the point of view of industrial history”.
Five expert units worked to bring the aircraft and a large number of its weapons to the surface.
Research leader Mago said: “This find is special because, apart from the one that has now been found after nearly 80 years, there is no other surviving Hungarian Messerschmitt fighter aircraft known in the world.”
Speaking of the recovery, he said: “Cleaning is the first and most important part of the procedure so that everything is in the right condition by the end of the excavation.
“We also continued to clean the riverbed.
“It turned out that much more sediment had been deposited on the wreckage than we expected.
“Our primary task now is to clean up the area around the wreck and, of course, the wreck itself.
“We need to be able to measure exactly how big the piece of wreckage is.”
The Messerschmitt Bf 109 was attached to the Hungarian Air Force, which fought alongside the German Luftwaffe during World War II.
The 18 pilots were praised for their incredible bravery on what was for several of them a suicide mission as they tackled the much larger American force.
Hungary’s wartime pilots flew alongside the Nazi Luftwaffe after the country declared itself an Axis power in 1941.
The country first joined Hitler in his war with the Soviet Union in June 1941 by December had declared war against the US.
The Messerschmitt 109 was key to the success of the Luftwaffe and was famous for its speed and manoeuvrability but it was eventually beaten in the air by the British Spitfire.
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A team of divers were needed to first locate the plane at the end of 2020Credit: Newsflash
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It was left untouched deep in the mud for 80 yearsCredit: Newsflash
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Plenty of the wreckage is in incredible conditionCredit: Newsflash
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Words can still be seen etched into the plane’s foliageCredit: Newsflash
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A Hungarian soldier holds up a mashed up part of the fighterCredit: Newsflash
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The team has to recover the plane from under 1m of mudCredit: Newsflash
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The grave of Sandor Beregssaszy who was killed in his Messerschmitt as he battled 1,000 US warplanesCredit: Newsflash
In an interview this week, the actor said not only would his iconic character Indiana Jones — famed for smacking down fascists ― be happy with the real-life hitting of Nazis, he’d actually be first in line.
Jones, who for years has inspired a Nazi-punching meme, would “push ’em out of the way to get in the first punch,” Ford told Yahoo’s Kevin Polowy while promoting “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth and final film in the franchise.
“As well he should,” he continued.
“That was a black-and-white world and its evil presented itself to the world,” Ford said. “I mean, it’s incalculable that this vision of evil not be confronted.”
All last month we were putting out holiday gift guides—and now it’s time for some graphic novel gift ideas! This one took me the longest because I take gift-giving (all times of the year) very seriously and love, love graphic novels. Therefore, it is hard to narrow all these suggestions down. Graphic novel memoirs are literally my favorite genre of stories, and if you mix in a little fantasy or horror, I’m sold.
Below are graphic novels that were released in the last year or so and would make great gifts for friends, co-workers, and loved ones. These are mostly for general audiences and adults, but they range in maturity level, so these are organized from the safest for work to the least safe for work.
(Kokila)
As a 2021 National Book Award Finalist in the Young People’s Literature category, this isn’t exactly a hidden find. However, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make a great gift, especially for those interested in folk tales and American history. This story follows a young girl and her family working at a logging camp in 1880s Nevada as tensions are getting worse for the immigrant community following the Chinese Exclusion Act. One way the main character, Mei, and others process these transitions is by telling stories—like her take on newly forming folk heroes.
(Graphic Universe)
The premise of this story is relatively straightforward: a recent high school grad finds herself in a high-profile fashion magazine internship the summer before she starts college. While it hits the expected beats suggested on the cover regarding body image, social media, and advertising, it doesn’t feel as preachy as it could be. Instead, the story leads with empathy and honesty. It’s also a much needed update on how media-induced body dysmorphia has changed in the last 10 years. This is a great gift for those who shudder when they look at their screen time.
Inspired by the author’s childhood, The Magic Fish features three overlapping stories that center on identity, family, and magic. In between reading fairy tales together, Tien is struggling to tell his mother that he likes boys, and his mother is grappling with feeling disconnected from her homeland in Vietnam. Between the coloring and creative storytelling, The Magic Fish is easily one of my favorite books I read this year. It’s one of those books I will obnoxiously put in people’s faces because it’s that good. The book is often found in middle-grade parts of stores and libraries, but is great for all ages.
(Random House Worlds)
This is for that person who loves mythology and love stories. Or, better yet, one of the hundreds of thousands of Rachel Smythe fans enthralled by her retelling of Hades and Persephone. In this version, the young goddess is training on Mount Olympus to be a sacred virgin. However, plans go awry and promises are at risk of being severed once she meets the King of the Underworld. If you’re feeling extra giving, volume two was released earlier this year.
(Harry N. Abrams / Marvel)
I could just tell you to look at the cover, and there’s all the reasoning you need because it’s mesmerizing. This is an all-in-one Fantastic Four story in which parasites invade the Baxter building. With traces of Negative Energy, the group decides to travel to the Negative Zone, putting their lives and the universe at risk to find who—or what—sent these creatures. Although the story is a licensed sequel (produced outside of Marvel), it feels like it’s totally part of the 616 Fantastic Four. While the story is not too intimidating to newcomers, the psychedelic art and paneling are a little experimental.
(Chronicle Books)
Speaking of this year’s faves and books where the creators were interviewed at TMS, Wash Day Diaries is a must-consider book. The story follows four best friends during a wash day as each one is dealing with issues of family, love, and mental health. I don’t think it’s for everyone, but certainly perfect for those that like slice of life narratives, stories about friends, and self-love. This book will make you smile and might make you cry.
(Iron Circus Comics)
This entry into the Smut Peddler catalog features 13 stories of erotic historical fiction spanning thousands of years. Many at TMS have been fans of different Smut Peddler novels and anthologies (like this book) for years. After reading Patience and Ester, I joined the chorus, too! While you can get this on Bookshop, it’s also available on the publisher’s website as a DRM-free PDF (meaning you actually own it) for a discrete and eco-friendly reading experience.
(Image Comics)
This is a very violent story, so it’s going below the fun erotica. While Simon Says is making the list because it’s a genuinely thrilling story of a Nazi Hunter right after the end of WW2, I’m also adding it because I’m selfish (I know, the opposite of the holidays). This graphic novel was released in 2019, and there’s been no part two—even though it had a wild cliffhanger! If more people read it, they will also want to ask the publisher to invite the artist back to continue the series. Or, at the very least, bring us some closure and tie up loose ends. This is a great gift for those into detective stories and history, especially entering the Cold War era.
Honorable Mentions
(featured image: Penguin Random House, Harry N. Abrams / Marvel, and Iron Circus Comics)
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