Ritchie Boys of WWII - YouTube Their job: to provide battlefield intelligence. I can look anybody straight in their eye and say I think I've earned the right to be an American. Jon Wertheim: You let him know you were Jewish? They chose their eldest son. told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. Some of these books, Frey says, were nearly 500 pages long by the end of the war. Bill. One can also point to a Ritchie Boy who was given the opportunity to shape the critically important program of psychological warfare by training nearly all the 850 members of the Mobile Radio Broadcasting Companies. In a different way, the contributions made by a small team or by a large group of individuals may also save lives and deserve to be called heroic. / CBS News. Making such a distinction in this case is very difficult. 202.437.1221 Sensing danger, Stern's father tried to get the family out. Right. After Germany's surrender, the Ritchie Boys took on the difficult task of identifying and tracking down Nazi criminals. The Ritchie Boys exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. After their training, the Ritchie Boys were dispersed in different Army units. David Frey: But they also did terrain analysis, they also did photo analysis, and aerial reconnaissance analysis. Why were you the one that made it to the United States? If a German POW wouldn't talk, he might face Guy Stern dressed up as a Russian officer. And only in the early 2000's did we begin to see reunions of the Ritchie Boys. But Hitler was determined to continue the war. His Jewish family left Germany in 1933 when he was 10. 5 likes. Divided into 6-man teams the Ritchie Boys were attached to different Army units. All the while, they tracked down evidence and interrogated Nazi criminals, later tried at Nuremberg. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! But there were the odd grace notes among the wreckage of a continent. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. Essentially they were intellectuals. At one point, Max Lerner disguised himself as a German officer and snuck behind enemy lines - leading a team of American soldiers into a German depot at night and destroying the equipment. The Ritchie Boys, a group of more than 19,000 refugees trained in Maryland to be U.S. intelligence specialists during World War II, are being honored in a They all became American success stories, businessmen or academics. 98-year-old Paul Fairbrook helped set up the German military documents section at Camp Ritchie a vast catalog of more than 20,000 captured German documents. But ask him about his most formative experience - and he doesn't hesitate. Victor Brombert: What happened to one of the Ritchie Boys - at night on the way to the latrine, he was asked for a password and he gave the name - the word for the password - but with a German accent. and if you don't get it from one prisoner, you might get it from the other. Dr. David Frey is a professor of history and director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Paul Fairbrook: When the soldiers said "I'm not going to talk" they could say "wait a minute. G. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is an intense action movie, full of gunfire and explosions that make you feel caught in the midst of danger. And like so many war films it Mr. Of the nearly 20,000 Ritchie Boys who served in WWII, around 140 were killed in action, including at the costly The Ritchie Boys practiced street fighting in life-size replicas of German villages and questioned mock civilians in full scale German homes. I don't think we're heroes. Its not just a story about Jewish emigres, Frey says, its also a story of what I would call marginal soldiers and their defense of this country.. That was potentially lethal in Europe under fluid battlefield conditions, especially during the Battle of the Bulge, when the Wehrmacht infiltrated American lines with soldiers dressed in U.S. uniforms. Guy Stern: I preferred not having it. Jon Wertheim: So it sounds like this gave the officers in the field a guide to the German Army so they could then interrogate the German POW's more efficiently. 70 ratings17 reviews. We believe it will also recognize the value of a group as large as 20,000. Already available are biographies and memoirs by and about individual Ritchie Boys as well as the book by the NYT best-selling author Bruce Henderson and books about Austrian-born Ritchie Boys by Robert Lackner and Florian Traussnig. The unit consisted mostly of young Germans, some of them of Jews, that had found a new homeland in America after their flight from the Nazis. Jon Wertheim: This dog tag says Hebrew. Andrew Hollinger Victor Brombert was with the first American armored division to land on Omaha Beach. In August 2021, the bipartisan US Senate Resolution 349 officially recognized the bravery of those troops. Victor Brombert: There were long and demanding exercises and close combat training. David Frey: All in service of winning the war. Jon Wertheim: This was really a broad range of intelligence activities. 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Edited by Stephanie Palewski Brumbach and Robert Zimet. And that's what the key to the success was. The Ritchie Boys One can readily point to the case of Ritchie Boy, who outwitted Adolf Eichmann and saved an estimated 40,000 lives. The largest set of graduates were 2,000 German-born Jews. WASHINGTON The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will confer its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on the Ritchie Boys, a little-known special World War II US military intelligence unit that included many Jewish refugees from Nazism and was instrumental to the Allied victory. In trucks equipped with loudspeakers, Ritchie Boys went to the front lines under heavy fire, and tried, in German, to persuade their Nazi counterparts to surrender. His mother answered the door. Longtime Yale and Princeton professor Victor Brombert helped enact the official Allied policy of removing Nazi influence from german public life known as denazification. Jon Wertheim: Sixty percent of the actionable intelligence? In exchange for their knowledge of German language, culture and topography, which proved critical in extracting information vital to the war effort, the Army offered citizenship. He added that the military chose intelligent people because they had to process a tremendous amount of information." Approximately 20,000 menmany of whom were immigrants and refugees from more than 70 countries, including 2,800 German and Austrian refugees who fled Nazi persecution and had arrived in the United States as enemy alienswere trained there. Many had fled Nazi Germany but returned as American soldiers, deploying their knowledge of German language and culture to great advantage. David Frey: Because it involves military intelligence, much of it was actually kept secret until the - the 1990's. I have some that were shot. Additional valuable information on the Ritchie Boys may be found in a forum-type Facebook page, Ritchie Boys of WWII, ably managed with considerable devotion by Bernie Lubran, son of Ritchie Boy Walter Lubran, and by Josh Freeling, whose great uncle was Ritchie Boy Kurt Kugelmann. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. They fought with the American military in the lands they had recently escaped, helping to turn the course of the war. (See You know where the strong points are, and you know you what to avoid and what to attack. Victor Brombert: We improvised according to the situation. ahollinger@ushmm.org. G. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is an intense action movie, full of gunfire and explosions that make you feel caught in the midst of danger. Paul Fairbrook: They sent us back to Camp Ritchie and they created something that I call the equivalent of the Library of Congress. 97-year-old Max Lerner, an Austrian Jew fluent in German and French, served as a special agent with the counterintelligence corps, passing information to French underground resistance groups. One can also point to a Ritchie Boy The evidence was before us. In civilian life, he became a noted sculpture and fine arts teacher and rose to the presidency for the Center for Creative Studies at Detroits College of Art and Design. Spy. Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. Actress. After following in his familys footsteps and serving in the military, Air Force veteran Lyle Apo turned to USO Hawaii for the opportunity to volunteer and help current service members. I was the only one to get out. WebTheir Unique History and Demographics. When the war was over, their German accents and unusual Jon Wertheim: 60% of the actionable intelligence? WebIn the United States at the end of World War II, there were prisoner-of-war camps, including 175 Branch Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of war (mostly German).The camps were located all over the US, but were mostly in the South, due to the higher expense of heating the barracks in colder areas. Dan Gross and several invited guests joined the Ritchie Boys for the photo. Guy Stern: They were killed either in Warsaw or in Auschwitz. We now know that this perception needs to be broadened. The soldiers were sent for training to Camp Ritchie, Md., beginning June 19, 1942, where they trained at the Military Intelligence Training Center thus their nickname, the Ritchie Boys. David Frey: The purpose of the facility was to train interrogators. It was also in Europe that some of them, like Guy Stern, learned what had happened to the families they left behind. Jon Wertheim: How effective were they at gathering intelligence? The U.S. War Department used this collection of German documents to study Germany's battles with the Soviets on the Eastern Front, in order to be better prepared for any future conflict with Russia. And I had no choice." Jon Wertheim: Was it your knowledge of the language or your knowledge of the psychology and the German culture? WebThe surviving Ritchie Boys are in their eighties now. Sons and Soldiers concentrates on six of them, two deadincluding Selling, who passed away at 86 in 2004but who left detailed memoirs, and four still flourishing in their 90s. You had people coming from all over uniting for a particular cause. A mighty onslaught of more than 160,000 men, 13,000 aircraft, and 5,000 vessels. Victor Brombert: I remember being up on a cliff the first night over Omaha beach. Readers may be amazed to learn that the Ritchie Boys included five Marines who died on Iwo Jima, including two who graduated with a specialty of Terrain Intelligence) and were killed in action on the day the Marines stormed Iwo Jima (19 February 1945). But it gave me great deal of satisfaction. In the age of mechanized warfare, you need to know what these large armies look like, what their capabilities are, how theyre arrayed, Frey says. Jon Wertheim: What do you suspect might have happened? Because they would know this information. All had experienced harrowing escapes from Europe and dangerous but productive returns. Martin Selling, 24, was undergoing training as a U.S. Army medical orderly in February 1943 and chafing under a Pentagon policy that kept hima Jewish refugee from Germany and hence an enemy alienaway from any combat unit. Mothers Day.. As part of denazification, photos of Nazi atrocities were posted in German shop windows and Ritchie Boys led the country's citizens on tours of the concentration camps to educate the local population about the evil Hitler had perpetrated. These are people who made massive contributions. The largest set of graduates were 2,000 German-born Jews. Wayne State University Professor Ehrhard Dabringhaus, another attendee, was ordered, shortly after the war, to become the American control officer to Klaus Barbie, the notorious war criminal. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), The Ritchie Boys train at Camp Ritchie, Maryland during World War II. David Frey: Much of it originated at Camp Ritchie because it had never it hadn't been done before. I thought, "I'm never going to do that," but I was shown how to do it. Guy Stern speaks at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Centers Ritchie Boys exhibit and reunion at Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. Max Lerner: He spent several days in my jail. It was wonderful to be part of them. Salinger was a Ritchie Boy. But Hildesheim was now in ruins. Of the approximately 19,000 Ritchie Boys who served during the war, about 200 are still living, ranging 95 107 years old. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. David Frey teaches history to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Ritchie Boys exhibit is at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. Guy Stern: We were on a PT boat taking off from Southampton. Wehrmacht Captain Curt Bruns, convicted by a military tribunal of ordering the murder of those two Ritchie Boys, was executed by a firing squad in June, 1945. Some of them were very involved with the collection of information that became the basis of the trials at Nuremberg and subsequent war crimes trials, Frey said. At a time when the U.S. military urgently needed foreign language speakers, the Ritchie Boys offered a key resource. Sixty-plus percent of the actionable intelligence gathered on the battlefield was gathered by Ritchie Boys. By the spring of 1945, Allied forces neared Berlin and Hitler took his life in his underground bunker. 'Ritchie Boys' Aided Army's Efforts to Defeat Germany Nearly 2,000 German-born Jews were trained at Camp Ritchie to interrogate captured German soldiers. The Ritchie Boys - Introduction Ritchie Aren't we all sort of, tired of it?". How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win World War II For America. This particular edition is in a Hardcover format. Starting in 1942, more than 11,000 soldiers went through the rigorous training at what was the army's first centralized school for intelligence and psychological warfare. Choose which Defense.gov products you want delivered to your inbox. How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win There were Ritchie Boys who were in POW camps embedded and gathering information in the United States. Victor Brombert: I saw immense debris. There were roughly 9000 of these Jews in America and they specialized in the interrogation of German prisoners. "How to kill a sentry from behind." Did it give you any satisfaction? Jon Wertheim: Do you remember saying goodbye to your family? They became known as the Ritchie Boys. Their enormous contributions to defeating Nazismone Army study concluded they were responsible for obtaining nearly 60 percent of the actionable intelligence gathered in Europe during the warand their postwar justice efforts remain little known to Americans even today. A childhood friend described to Stern how his parents, younger brother and sister had been forced from their home and deported. Guy Stern returned to Normandy in 2016 to pay his respects to the more than 9,300 men buried in the American cemetery there, on the bluff overlooking the hallowed beach. David Frey: Techniques where you want to get people to talk to you. There are valid reasons to consider that the Ritchie Boys as a group made a unique and enormous contribution to our military success in World War II. In 1944, the Ritchie Boys headed to Europe to fight in a war that was, for them, intensely personal. Jon Wertheim: And you think because it had that signature, somehow that certified it. Guy Stern: Yes, that carried weight and the belief in the printed matter was very great. And we all were scared. Jon Wertheim: Because you were Jewish you were ostracized? Jon Wertheim: That's how you looked at it. Max Lerner: It was my war. David Frey: It was a very broad range And they did it all generally in eight weeks. The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security. I mean this is you're taking your life in your hands here. Jon Wertheim: This-- This is a remarkable story. Jon Wertheim: That's the kind of thing you would know. This group became known as The Ritchie Boys, who were the basis of a documentary film of the same name. Stern also said that its important for people everywhere to remember those who perished and those who survived the Holocaust and, in a world increasingly faced with sectarian strife and intolerance, to set forth the lessons of the Holocaust as a model for teaching ethical conduct and responsible decision-making. I'm denouncing this and I was forced to do it. Facing significant intelligence deficiencies, in April 1942, the US Army activated a plan to convert Fort Ritchie, a Maryland National Guard Camp, into an intelligence training center. He grew up in a close-knit family in the town of Hildesheim, Germany. Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. Jon Wertheim: What do you think is the greatest contribution of the Ritchie Boys? Victor Brombert: And at great effort we found people, we arrested them, we were proud of doing that. With World War II, Camp Ritchie had a new, fascinating and mysterious mission. When Hitler came to power, the Bromberts fled to France, and then to the U.S. It was here that over 19,000 Ritchie Boys, many of them German-Jewish immigrants from Europe The Ritchie Boys and Questions of Death and Spies One or more of Hendersons Ritchie Boys was present at every major moment of the American war in Europe: landing on Omaha Beach, speeding with Pattons tanks, liberating concentration camps. Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. David Frey: There were Ritchie Boys that were in the first wave on the first day at D-Day. Tonight, we'll introduce you to members of a secret American intelligence unit who fought in World War II. ", Jon Wertheim: "Unprincipled and dishonorable and I'm sorry?". Eager to fight the Nazis, he, too joined the Army. Max Lerner: Or they had an effort to erase it. As a Jew, I knew I might not be treated exactly by the Geneva rules. They significantly helped the war effort and saved lives.. Your average commander in the field might not. All students of World War II need to learn about the the Ritchie Boys. But after a year, he joined the U.S. Army and became one of the 20,000 Ritchie Boys, a special group of soldiers trained at Camp Ritchie (formerly a Maryland National Guard site) to serve in military intelligence during World War II. So I experienced viscerally, fear. The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). On the front lines from Normandy onwards, the Ritchie Boys fought in every major battle in Europe, collecting tactical intelligence, interrogating prisoners and civilians, all in service of winning the war. 4.39. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Stern, by then a college student, raced to enlist. Through the power of Holocaust history, the Museum challenges leaders and individuals worldwide to think critically about their role in society and to confront antisemitism and other forms of hate, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Victor Brombert, now 98 years old, is a former professor of romance languages and literature at Yale and then Princeton. They crossed into Germany with the Allied armies and witnessed the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. David Frey: If we take Camp Ritchie in microcosm, it was almost the ideal of an American melting pot. This was because he could speak fluent German; and indeed many of the interrogators at Nuremberg were German or Austrian Jews who had emigrated to America before WWII and were known as the Ritchie Boys. Jon Wertheim: SS men, you're saying, have a tattoo under their left arm with their blood type? Another bit of indispensable Ritchie Boy handiwork: the order of battle of the German army. An official website of the United States Government. It is a story of a remarkable synergy between a diverse group of well trained and motivated individuals. Most chose the eldest son, to carry on the family name. Guy Stern: And some we didn't break but 80% were so darned scared of the Russians and what they would do. According to the Holocaust Museum, two Jewish The intent of this web page, in addition to providing demographics and statistics not available elsewhere, will be to highlight individual secret heroes whose contributions were also singularly significant. Guy Stern: I had an immediate visceral response to that and that was this is my war for many reasons. Originally a resort, Camp Ritchie was a curiously idyllic setting to prepare for the harshness and brutality of war. By the summer of 1944, German troops in Normandy were outnumbered and overpowered. History professor David Frey runs the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. It was Sunday, May 13, 1945, Henderson marvels. Fortunately, some of the Ritchie Boys are still around to tell their tales, and that includes the life force that is Guy Stern, age 99. Guy Stern recalls arriving at Buchenwald Concentration Camp three days after its liberation, alongside a fellow American sergeant. The very aspect of these SOBs now being at my command (laugh) gave me also some personal satisfaction. Ritchie Boys Honored for WWII Service, Valor | AUSA Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland it was away from prying eyes and prying spies but close enough to decision makers at the Pentagon. Many of the Ritchie Boys went on to have successful civilian careers, including J.D. Guy Stern: Handkerchiefs, I couldn't know at that point that I would never see my siblings or my parents again nor my grandmother and so forth and so on. Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Esc Or is it just a habit or habit of obedience or dignity? They significantly helped the war effort and saved lives. The Jewish Refugees Who Fled Nazi GermanyThen Returned to They were asked, in some cases, to memorize battle books, which told soldiers about the enemys organization, structure, capacity, leadership and experience. After the war, the Ritchie Boys continued their work. Victor Brombert: Yes, well with a stick. They spoke the same German as the Wehrmacht soldiers they were up against, they shared experiences, education and culture with them, explains Henderson. We now know that this perception needs to be broadened. Dead people. It was an impact on war crimes. And that's what-- that's what it did for me. For 99-year-old Guy Stern, a German Jew whose entire family was killed by the Nazis, the Allies' victory over Hitler was the culmination of a public crusade and a private one as well. Isn't it a miserable thing? Immigrants like Guy Stern. On June 6, 1944, D-Day the Allies launched one of the most sweeping military operations in history. Jon Wertheim: What were you trained to do? The group also included large numbers of first- or second-generation Americans who still spoke German or other languages at home, Frey says. Guy Stern: Yes, that's my interrogation tent. Readers may be amazed to learn that the Ritchie Boys included five Marines who died on Iwo Jima, including two who graduated with a specialty of Terrain Intelligence) and were killed in action on the day the Marines stormed Iwo Jima (19 February 1945). Guy Stern arrived in the U.S. alone at age 15, settling with an uncle in St. Louis. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. Eight Week Classes - Dates & Graduation Numbers. We were all on the same wavelength. It was the viewing of that film that converted Dan into a Ritchie Boy Wannabe and launched him on a quest to help publicize this heroic group. Paul Fairbrook: (laugh) You bet your life I'm proud of the Ritchie Boys. Other Ritchie Boys were able to express their motivation and accomplishments in memoirs with titles such as I Must Be a Part of This War and A Few Who Made a Difference. and he said "no, military secret.". "Enjoy" is perhaps not the right word. They also drafted and dropped leaflets from airplanes behind enemy lines. Dabringhaus went on to write a book about the experience called Klaus Barbie: The Shocking Story of How the U.S. Used this Nazi War Criminal as an Intelligence Agent.. It was published by Stackpole Books and has a total of 432 pages in the book. I gave myself all the accouterments of looking like a fierce Russian commissar. Jon Wertheim: All in service of winning the war? Now in their late 90s, these humble warriors still keep in touch, swapping stories about a chapter in American history now finally being told.
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