Tag: Never Forget

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Nazi Plundering

Monsieur Rémi Babinet purchased the beautiful building at 85-87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin in the former working-class neighborhood of Paris’s 10thdistrict. M. Babinet’s intent was to restore the abandoned late 19th-century building and move his advertising business there. Shortly afterwards, a historian approached him in the spring of 2009 with the news that M. Babinet’s building was used as a Nazi forced labor camp.

Exterior of former Lévitan store. Note the blue inscription above the upper floor windows. Photo by Reinhardhauke (2011). PD-GNU Free Documentation License. Wikimedia Commons.
Exterior of former Lévitan store. Note the blue inscription above the upper floor windows. Photo by Reinhardhauke (2011). PD-GNU Free Documentation License. Wikimedia Commons.

Babinet learned that his building had been confiscated by the Nazis and by 1943, it had become a giant distribution center and retail store for Nazi officers to shop in. The inventory was involuntarily supplied by Parisians who happened to be Jewish. The forced labor were Jews who had been arrested and detained at Drancy. Rather than being deported immediately to Auschwitz, they were transferred to Nazi department stores in Paris to work as clerks, laborers, and skilled craftsmen.

Stolen furniture displayed at Lévitan. Photo by anonymous (c. 1945). German Federal Archives, Koblenz. Photo ID number B 323-311 No. 75.
Stolen furniture displayed at Lévitan. Photo by anonymous (c. 1945). German Federal Archives, Koblenz. Photo ID number B 323-311 No. 75.

Did You Know?

Did you know that the Mousquetaires de la garde or, Musketeers of the Guard were the personal bodyguards of King Louis XIII? Alexander Dumas wrote the classic, The Three Musketeers, based loosely on the king’s guards (I suppose today, we would classify his book as “historical fiction”). This branch of the French military has essentially existed over many centuries albeit with different names but similar purposes. Today, its contemporary successor is The Republican Guard. This unit provides guards of honor for the State as well as security around Paris. Back in Napoléon’s day, his personal bodyguards were known as the Garde Impériale or, Imperial Guard (if I recall properly, didn’t President Richard Nixon try to do this in the early 1970s?).

The Imperial Guard was an elite group under the direct control of Napoléon. He carefully chose its members whom he expected to not only protect him but provide an elite fighting force during his battles. The “Old Guard,” as he called a select group of soldiers within the Imperial Guard, were the most seasoned soldiers in the French army, above-average height, and hardened veterans of battle campaigns. Only once did the Old Guard retreat without orders: the battle of Waterloo in 1814. After Napoléon was sent off to his final exile, the Old Guard disbanded. With the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the Imperial Guard would morph into a different existence and name. Here are some interesting facts about the Old Guard:

*This unit was with Napoléon from start (1799) to finish (1814).

*Soldiers were required to be a minimum of six feet tall. Napoléon was 5’5” and while standing next to his bodyguards, he developed a reputation for being short when in fact, he wasn’t (at least compared to the average male height of 5’2”).

*The soldiers were the best dressed in the French military.

* They were the best paid and enjoyed superior grades to other soldiers of equal rank.

*Imperial Guard soldiers were given R*E*S*P*E*C*T by all other military personnel. Even lowly privates were addressed as “Monsieur” by officers.

*They were allowed to complain.

* They lived in relative luxury and ate the best food (nothing but the best for the emperor’s boys).

*Napoléon called each of them by their first name.

*Some of surviving members of the Old Guard donned their former uniforms to attend the ceremony at the Hôtel des Invalides when Napoléon’s remains were returned to Paris in 1840.

Paris Department Stores

For those of you who “shop ‘til you drop,” you are likely familiar with the four major Paris department stores. Le Bon Marché (24, rue de Sèvres; 7e) was built in 1838. The Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville (36, rue de la Verrerie; 4e) opened its doors in 1852. Printemps Haussmann (64, boulevard Haussmann; 9e) began operations in 1865 while Galeries Lafayette (40, boulevard Haussmann; 9e) started in 1894. Right from the beginning, these department stores catered to the upper-class citizens of Paris. A lesser known store (with little-known history) was started to address the needs of the “working class” citizens or laborers as they were known. Read More Nazi Plundering

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“Hang ‘Em or Hire ‘Em”

One of the byproducts of doing research for my next two books, Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters? A Walking Tour of Nazi Occupied Paris, is learning how many war criminals (Nazi as well as collaborators) were either never brought to justice or received relatively light sentences compared to the enormity of their crimes. Underground rat lines (click here to read Odessa:  Myth or Truth) provided notorious Nazis with escape routes to South America. Protection was offered to some by Catholic Church officials. Many escaped during the chaos at the end of the war and returned to Germany to live out their remaining lives under either their given or assumed names. Politicians and government officials pardoned many of them after their convictions. However, it was only after 1998 that we became fully aware of the American, British, and Soviet recruitment of former Nazi scientists, engineers, and doctors during the immediate aftermath of the war. The American efforts were known as Operation Paperclip while the Soviet counterpart was Operation Osoaviakhim. 

Dr. Wernher von Braun (left) and Dr. Kurt Debus (right), director of Kennedy Space Center, attend the Saturn 500F rollout. Photo by NASA (26 May 1966). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Dr. Wernher von Braun (left) and Dr. Kurt Debus (right), director of Kennedy Space Center, attend the Saturn 500F rollout. Photo by NASA (26 May 1966). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.

Did you Know?

Did you know the U.S. Government began declassifying World War II documents in the 1960s? However, it wasn’t until 1998 when President Clinton signed into law the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act that historians began to fully understand the involvement of the Allies in protecting certain Nazis who were clearly either directly or indirectly responsible for war crimes including crimes against humanity.  The purpose of the act and its “Interagency Working Group” (IWG) was to fully disclose the remaining millions of pages of classified documents pertaining to war crimes committed by the Nazis and the Japanese. One of the results was the complete declassification of OSS documents (the OSS was the wartime American intelligence agency that morphed into the CIA after the war). The IWG also disclosed the involvement of the former Allied governments (United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union) in a post-war competition to see which country could recruit the most valuable Nazi scientists, engineers, technicians, and doctors. In all, the United States recruited more than 1,600 former Nazis while the Soviet Union forcibly recruited more than 2,200.

Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

After the first Nuremberg trial was finished (click here to read Court Room 600), some of the most ruthless and complicit Nazis captured by the Allies were tried in twelve Nuremberg follow-up trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Convicted defendants received prison sentences or were sentenced to death. However, in many cases, death verdicts were eventually reduced to life imprisonment and finally, to shorter and finite prison terms. Some were even given full pardons. By the mid-1950s, with the exception of the original Nuremberg prisoners in Spandau Prison, all imprisoned Nazis had been released including ten SS officers convicted and sentenced to death for their participation in the Einsatzgruppen (mobile SS death squads). Two men recruited by Operation Paperclip, Kurt Blome and Otto Ambros, went to trial. Included in the Doctors’ Trial (Case 1) was Dr. Blome, responsible for all Nazi biological warfare research while Ambros was a defendant in the I.G. Farben Trial (Case 6). We will meet both of these men later.

A guide shows jars containing human organs removed from prisoners in Buchenwald to Jack Levine, an American soldier. Photo by anonymous (27 May 1945). National Archives and Records Administration/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
A guide shows jars containing human organs removed from prisoners in Buchenwald to Jack Levine, an American soldier. Photo by anonymous (27 May 1945). National Archives and Records Administration/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.

From the end of the war to around 1959, there were several categories of ex-Nazis who hid from justice with the assistance of the United States government. They included the scientists and engineers who worked on the development of V-2 rockets in Peenemünde and later, Nordhausen-Mittlewerk-Dora as well as the doctors who developed biological germ warfare. Read More “Hang ‘Em or Hire ‘Em”