Tag: Nuremberg Trials

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Meyer’s Bugle

By 1944, the war wasn’t going well for Hitler and his military. In fact, a year earlier, people began reaching the conclusion that Germany might eventually lose the war. How was it that within less than five years after conquering almost all of Europe that Hitler’s armies, navy, and air force were on a downward spiral toward defeat? There were many reasons including what historians now chalk up to the Führer’s military decisions that were huge strategic mistakes. However, during the early years of World War II, it seemed as though the German juggernaut was invincible and leading the pack was Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe (i.e., the German air force).

Göring was so confident of his pilots and planes and their supremacy in the sky that he vowed Germany would never be bombed. Addressing the Luftwaffe when the German air force was at the peak of its power, the antisemitic and future generalfeldmarschall and Hitler’s second-in-command made this promise to the German people:

“No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr (valley). If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You may call me Meyer.”

⏤ Hermann Göring

      September 1939

As Allied air forces increased their bombing activities over Berlin and the Ruhr Valley in early 1944, air raid sirens in the city were going off on a nightly basis. It didn’t take long for Berliners to begin calling the sirens, “Meyer’s Bugle.”

Did You Know?

Did you know that the last surviving female agent of the British-led Special Operations Executive (SOE) passed away in October 2023? Phyllis “Pippa” Latour, MBE (1921−2023) was born in South Africa to a French father and British mother. She spoke fluent English and French along with Arabic, Swahili, and Kikuyu. After war broke out, Phyllis joined the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and became a balloon operator and mechanic. In 1943 she applied to and was accepted by the SOE’s F Section. Dropped into Normandy, France in early May 1944 as a wireless operator, Phyllis (nom de guerre: Geneviève) was part of the D-Day underground support forces behind enemy lines and she was responsible for gathering and transmitting intelligence on German positions as well as landing sites for equipment air drops. Read More Meyer’s Bugle

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Find Johnny Nicholas!

Just about everyone knows the story of the International Military Tribunal Trial held in Nuremberg, Germany between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946. Commonly known as the Main Nuremberg Trial, twenty-four senior Nazi party officials and military officers were indicted on one or more of the four charges: conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity (click here to read the blog, Hitler’s Enablers-Part One). Twenty-one defendants sat in the dock (Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, Alfred Krupp was too ill to attend, and Robert Ley committed suicide). Twelve men were sentenced to death, three were acquitted, and the remainder were given prison terms ranging from ten years to life imprisonment (click here to read the blog, Court Room 600).

By the time the main trial ended, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France had had enough of Nazi trials and future trials were carried out by the Americans and countries where Nazi atrocities had occurred. The twelve Nuremberg follow-up trials between October 1946 and April 1949 were held in Court Room 600, the same venue as the main trial. Defendants in the twelve trials included doctors, lawyers, industrialists, administrators, and members of the Einsatzgruppen, SS mobile killing units.

Subsequent post-war trials were held to establish accountability of the men and women who actively participated in the crimes and atrocities against their fellow human beings. The defendants were primarily lower-level party officials, officers, and soldiers. Among them were concentration camp guards and commandants, police officers, and collaborationist officials of occupied countries (click here to read the blog, Hitler’s Enablers -Part Two). The trials were conducted either in groups (e.g., Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau, Sobibor, and Treblinka) or as single defendants (e.g., Rudolf Höss, Albert Kesselring, and Anton Dostler). Many of these trials were held in former concentration camps such as Dachau and Auschwitz.

It is here that Johnny’s story begins.

Understandably, there is very little information about Johnny Nicholas. The formative (and only) book devoted solely to Johnny is The Search for Johnny Nicholas by Hugh Wray McCann and David C. Smith. When I refer to “the authors” in this blog, I am speaking of Messrs. McCann and Smith. Mr. McCann first heard the story of Johnny in 1965 from a friend who had covered the 1947 Nordhausen War Crimes Trials. He and his journalist friend, Mr. Smith, decided to embark on a decades long journey to uncover the life story of a man who led a very interesting life before his untimely death at the age of twenty-six. I highly recommend you read this very interesting book but before starting Chapter One, I suggest you first read the Foreword (“How the Search Began”) and the Afterword (“The Search Within the Search”).

Cover of book, “The Search for Johnny Nicholas” by Hugh Wray McCann and David C. Smith.
Cover of book, “The Search for Johnny Nicholas” by Hugh Wray McCann and David C. Smith. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).

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