Tag: Operation Valkyrie

Posted on

Camp King

Just to the north-west of Frankfurt, Germany is an area known as Oberursel, Taunus. (It is located in the Taunus Mountains and a short distance to the east is the small town of Falkenstein, Königstein im Taunus where I lived in the 1960s⏤just thought you’d like to know.) During World War II, this was the site of a transit camp for downed Allied airmen where they were interrogated before being sent to a permanent POW camp. Twenty-years before my family moved to the area, the Oberursel camp had become an American army interrogation center and intelligence post. Between 1945 and 1953, Camp King (named after Col. Charles B. King) served primarily as a location for interrogations of captured war belligerents and the post-war process known as “denazification.” Some of the camp’s “guests” were Karl Brandt (the physician responsible for Aktion T4, Hitler’s euthanasia program), Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, Gen. Alfred Jodl, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and Mildred Sisk Gillars (a.k.a. “Axis Sally”)⏤click here to read Hitler’s Directives, here for Extermination Camp Doctors, and here for Hitler’s Enablers.

Downed Allied airmen at Dulag Luft in Oberursel (later, Camp King). Photo by anonymous (c. pre-1944).
Downed Allied airmen at Dulag Luft in Oberursel (later, Camp King). Photo by anonymous (c. pre-1944).
Downed Allied airmen leaving Dulag Luft (later, Camp King) for their permanent POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).
Downed Allied airmen leaving Dulag Luft (later, Camp King) for their permanent POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).

However, today’s discussion will pick up around July 1946 when a former German general, Reinhard Gehlen, arrived at the intelligence post. It is a story of how the United States spared certain war criminals because of their expertise in areas perceived to be a threat from the Soviet Union. These men (whom the Soviets and the Allies were competing to obtain their services) included scientists, engineers, doctors, and within the context of our story, the intelligence and counter-intelligence world (i.e., spies). Read More Camp King

Posted on

“British Fascists and a Mitford”

England, France, and the United States were certainly no strangers to Hitler and his Nazi party philosophies during the 1930s. In fact, England and America were home to large fascist organizations while France hosted several influential right-wing fascist groups which would directly influence the Vichy government and its collaboration with Germany.

America saw the founding of the pro-Nazi “Friends of New Germany” (FoNG) in 1933 after Hitler gave his permission for the organization’s formation. The FoNG closely followed the Nazi party’s tactics including propaganda, harassment of Jews, and infiltration of other German American groups. Congress investigated the FoNG and determined it represented a direct subsidiary of the Nazi party. By late 1935, FoNG ceased to exist but was quickly replaced by the German American Bund with Fritz Julius Kuhn as its Bundesführer. The Bund mimicked the real Nazi party with respect to its organizational structure. Training camps were set up around the country and rallies were held with members displaying the Hitler salute. The Bund’s primary attacks were centered on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jewish organizations, and Communists.

Nearly 1,000 uniformed men of the New Jersey division of the German American Bund march in Camp Nordland. Photo by anonymous (18 July 1937). The Atlantic.
Nearly 1,000 uniformed men of the New Jersey division of the German American Bund march in Camp Nordland. Photo by anonymous (18 July 1937). The Atlantic.

After Bund leaders traveled to Berlin, giving the impression that Hitler was supporting the Bund, Congress passed the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act requiring foreign agents to register with the United States State Department ⏤ an act which remains in place today. After this, Germany purposely tried to distance itself from the Bund. A rally at Madison Square Garden on 29 February 1939 resulted in violence between protesters and Bund storm troopers after the president was referred to as “Frank D. Rosenfeld” and the New Deal was referred to as the “Jew Deal.” Predictably, the Bund was dissolved in 1941. Sadly, it was followed in 1959 by the American Nazi Party, founded by George Lincoln Rockwell, and is known today as the World Union of National Socialists. Read More “British Fascists and a Mitford”