how many ritchie boys were there

It was not only that short term impact on the battlefield. In trying to assess the contribution of a single participant to an endeavor as gigantic as World War II, the question is often asked How much difference can one man make? Considering how remarkable Ritchie Boys were as individuals, does it make sense to try to find just one or perhaps two Ritchie Boys whose individual contributions stand out in terms of the difference it made? 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. All SS members were subject to automatic arrest. Paul Fairbrook: They sent us back to Camp Ritchie and they created something that I call the equivalent of the Library of Congress. You're in Belgium? Of the nearly 20,000 Ritchie Boys who served in WWII, around 140 were killed in action, including at the costly As Nazi persecution of Jews intensified in the late 1930s, desperate families often found they could get only a single child out of Germany via the efforts of Jewish relief agencies. David Frey: There are a whole variety of prominent Ritchie Boys. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. I think that's quantifiable. July 20, 2017, Martin Selling questions German prisoners near the front in France, 1944. Jon Wertheim: That's what you were told. Eager to fight the Nazis, he, too joined the Army. One of these was. Since Stern spoke German he was tasked with the interrogation of prisoners of war and defectors. Why were you the one that made it to the United States? He responded with just the information I needed. To do so, they learned photo analysis, terrain analysis, aerial reconnaissance, enemy army analysis, interrogation, signals intelligence and much more.. Some of them requested new dog tags with very good reason. 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. Immigrants like Guy Stern. St. Joseph Communications uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Captain Harvey J. Cook served as the Intelligence Officer for the Second Ranger Battalion and was among those who scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc at Omaha Beach on D-Day. But there were the odd grace notes among the wreckage of a continent. 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. These are people who made massive contributions. David Frey: There were Ritchie Boys that were in the first wave on the first day at D-Day. Little did he know he was whining to a Jewish refugee from Nazi-controlled Austria - a refugee who was now a Ritchie Boy, one of the most valuable interrogation units in the Allied forces. All had experienced harrowing escapes from Europe and dangerous but productive returns. Jon Wertheim: Why did you want to enlist initially? Bill. Jon Wertheim: As a former German who understood the psychology and the mentality. Step back in time and remember the lead up to VE Day, or "Victory in Europe Day," when soldiers and civilians alike across the world celebrated the end of the years-long World War II in Europe. To Allied investigators it became a sort of Nazi hunter's bible. 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. Andrew Hollinger who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. The soldiers were sent for training to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, beginning June 19, 1942, where they trained at the Military Intelligence Training Center thus their nickname, the Ritchie Boys. Guy Stern: Yes, doing my job interrogating. The Ritchie Boys connected with prisoners on subjects as varied as food and soccer rivalries but they weren't above using deception on difficult targets. 5 likes. After the war, Guy Stern, Victor Brombert, Paul Fairbrook and Max Lerner came home, married, and went to Ivy League schools on the G.I. Jon Wertheim: I understand you you had sparring partners. Training was designed to be as realistic as possible. Paul Fairbrook: Look I'm a German Jew. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. David Frey is a professor of history and director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. 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.. We were all on the same wavelength. A few years ago, says the Menlo Park, Calif., author of Sons and Soldiers, I was reading an obit in the paper about a local man, a ninetysomething Jewish guy who had left Germany on the Kindertransporthis parents didnt survivemade it to America and become a Ritchie Boy. A what? And that has been the driving force in my life. This is the good conduct medal which I'm not really entitled to (laugh) and this here is the European theatre of operations medal with five battles in which I participated. Among the unusual sights at Ritchie: a team of U.S. soldiers dressed in German uniforms. Early on in the war, the Army realized it needed German- and Italian-speaking U.S. soldiers for a variety of duties, including psychological warfare, interrogation, espionage and intercepting enemy communications. And that's what the key to the success was. 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. Every day, Americas service members selflessly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free. "I would have been killed if I hadn't gone along. He was born in Berlin to a Russian Jewish family. USO Tour Veteran. Ritchie Boys also collected evidence which led to the prosecution of many high ranking Nazis including Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe; Rudolph Hess, deputy furher to Adolf Hitler; and Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Wehrmacht, Germany's armed forces. WebTheir Unique History and Demographics. The group also included large numbers of first- or second-generation Americans who still spoke German or other languages at home, Frey says. Victor Brombert: By complicity I mean, "Oh we are together in this war. Aren't we all sort of, tired of it?". The Ritchie Boys discovered that the Nazis were terrified of ending up in Russian captivity and they used that to great effect. Their subjects ranged from low-level German soldiers to high-ranking Nazi officers including Hans Goebbels, brother of Hitler's chief propogandist, Joseph Goebbels. After the war, Frey says, a survey of battalion commanders concluded that intelligence gathered by graduates of Camp Ritchie was responsible for at least 60 percent of actionable intelligence for the Western Front Theater.. I tell you when we landed on Omaha beach, there were-- the whole heights had been occupied by the German artillery and I looked up on those heights and there were our American soldiers in full occupation on the day D plus 3 and I said to myself, "that can't be done." I know all about you. One can readily point to the case of Ritchie Boy William R. Perl who outwitted Adolf Eichmann and saved an estimated 40,000 lives. What did work Is complicity. Fortunately, a book written by historian Beverley Eddy tells the story of Camp Ritchie and the Ritchie Boys in great detail and with professional skill. Guy Stern: No because I knew that the contact with Germans might not be very nice. Individual Ritchie Boys were cited for their contributions by being awarded over 60 Silver Star Medals for bravery. There were at least 30 languages spoken at Camp Ritchie, but the preference obviously was for German speakers because most of the enemy forces would be German, Frey says. That was the biggest weakness that the army recognized that it had, which was battlefield intelligence and the interrogation needed to talk to sometimes civilians, most of the time prisoners of war, in order to glean information from them. Paul Fairbrook: Oh that is a very good question. Of late, the Ritchie Boys have been the subject of growing media attention including, in May, on the television news program 60 Minutes. Max Lerner: Wear civilian clothes, pass messages, kill. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. They were all forced to do it. For decades, they didn't discuss their work. 4.39. Paul Fairbrook: I was proud to be in the American Army and we were able to do what we had to do. 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. Hundreds of Ritchie Boys were attached to divisions that liberated concentration camps and interviewed former prisoners to document the atrocities that took place. Jon Wertheim: And those are your those are your comrades. 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. 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. Many of them were Jewish refugees from Europe, who fled their homeland, came to America and joined the U.S. Army. "It was a terrible situation. Wounded people. Paul Fairbrook helped write this compact manual, known as the red book, which outlined in great detail the makeup of virtually every Nazi unit, information every Ritchie Boy committed to memory. Victor Brombert: My parents were pacifists so the idea of my going to war was for them calamitous, however they realized that it was a necessary war, especially for us. Many of these soldiers landed at Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and others followed to perform their specialized tasks, which provided advanced intelligence to allied forces regarding German war plans and tactics. You want to give them that feeling that you know who they are, they know who you are. And when their identity was discovered, they were summarily executed by the Germans that had captured them. And they were motivated like few other American soldiers. Guy Stern: They were killed either in Warsaw or in Auschwitz. David Frey: Part of what the Ritchie Boys did was to convince German units to surrender without fighting. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 Victor Brombert, now 98 years old, is a former professor of romance languages and literature at Yale and then Princeton. This is Guy Stern 80 years ago. 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. It's 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, Stern said. Guy Stern: This one was our most effective leaflet and why was that? Max Lerner: He spent several days in my jail. They did counterintelligence training. Knowing how to shape that appeal was pretty critical to the success of the mobile broadcast units. Guy Stern: I had a war to fight and I did it. Max Lerner recalls that in one respect at least, identifying most SS members was easy. From that point on, Ritchie Boys were involved in every major battle in Europe, using their language skills to gather intelligence, interpret enemy documents, and engage in psychological warfare encouraging German soldiers to surrender by dropping leaflets, through radio broadcasts, and in trucks equipped with loudspeakers. Then shaping the cold war era, they really played a significant role. Frey noted similarities between the Jewish refugeeswho were considered enemy aliens until mid-1942 because they had come from countries the United States was at war withand Japanese Americans who had been interned. Sixty-plus percent of the actionable intelligence gathered on the battlefield was gathered by Ritchie Boys. I was the only one to get out. And I gave myself the name Commissar Krukov. Jon Wertheim: What were you trained to do? Some of the prisoners were actual German POWs brought to Camp Ritchie so the Ritchie Boys could practice their interrogation techniques. 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. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. David Frey: Much of it originated at Camp Ritchie because it had never it hadn't been done before. The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security. Spy. Eight Week Classes - Dates & Graduation Numbers. How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win World War II For America. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Since the story of the Ritchie Boys remained relatively unknown for a half-century or more, it was often left to their children and grandchildren to bring their accomplishments to light. The largest set of graduates were 2,000 German-born Jews. Photo credit DoD/Holocaust Memorial Center, Why Marlene Dietrich Was One of the Most Patriotic Women in World War II, In World War I, African American 'Hellfighters from Harlem,' Fought Prejudice to Fight for Their Country, VE Day Marked End of Long Road for World War II Troops, Programs for Service Members and Their Families. Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. Some of them were trained as spies and some of them went on to careers as spies. Their mission: to use their knowledge of the German language and culture to return to Europe and fight Naziism. Giving out some cigarettes also helps a lot. Most chose the eldest son, to carry on the family name. After their training, the Ritchie Boys were dispersed in different Army units. A nonpartisan, federal educational institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is Americas national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust dedicated to ensuring the permanence of Holocaust memory, understanding, and relevance. After the war, a number served as translators and interrogatorsespecially during the Nuremberg Trials. As members of the Ritchie Boys, German and Austrian refugees offered language skills and knowledge that proved vital to American military intelligence. They were asked, in some cases, to memorize battle books, which told soldiers about the enemys organization, structure, capacity, leadership and experience. 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. The U.S. Army leased the post for $5 a year and established The Military Intelligence Training Center. There were 1,985 German born Ritchie Boys. 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. 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. Many Ritchie Boys took the precaution of anglicizing their names and altering their dog tags by replacing the H for Hebrewa guide to their burial service should the worst happenwith P for Protestant. He still works six days a week. You know where the strong points are, and you know you what to avoid and what to attack. Max Lerner recalls being put in charge of one prominent captured German prisoner at a jail in Weisbaden, Germany: that was Julius Streicher the founder and editor of the Nazi paper "Der Stuermer" and one of the country's leading antisemites. They then typed up their daily reports in the field to be passed up the chain of command. The boys were members of a military intelligence unit; strongly discouraged from talking about their war, they didnt hold their first reunion until 60 years after it ended. By the spring of 1945, Allied forces neared Berlin and Hitler took his life in his underground bunker. David Frey: I think we look at this group and we see true heroes. K. Lang-Slattery, Katie Lang-Slattery. Jon Wertheim: And you were able to confront the people that had caused this this trauma. They crossed into Germany with the Allied armies and witnessed the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. Guy Stern: My fellow students it was an all-male school withdrew from you. The award will be presented this spring. On a cold November morning in 1938, Herman watches in horror as his WebThe army recruited not just those fluent in German, French, Italian, and Polish (approximately a fifth were Jewish refugees from Europe), but also Arabic, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish, and other languages as well as some 200 Native Americans and 200 WACs. "I had no choice." Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. The soldiers were sent for training to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, beginning June 19, 1942, where they trained at the Military Intelligence Training Center thus their nickname, the Ritchie Boys.. 98-year-old Victor Brombert says they relied on their Camp Ritchie training to get people to open up. But Hitler was determined to continue the war. I have some that were shot. Originally a resort, Camp Ritchie was a curiously idyllic setting to prepare for the harshness and brutality of war. 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. Engraved on the award are the words from Wiesels Nobel Prize acceptance speech, One person of integrity can make a difference., About the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Ritchie Boys of And it was not until a few years ago that the son of Italian-Jewish Ritchie Boy Alessandro Sabbadini told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. Many of the German and Austrian Jewish refugees reported to Camp Ritchie while still designated as "enemy aliens." Guy Stern became a professor and taught for almost 50 years. 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. David Frey: If we take Camp Ritchie in microcosm, it was almost the ideal of an American melting pot. This particular edition is in a Hardcover format. A significant number of people, even those with some knowledge of Camp Ritchie, appear to visualize a graduate of the Armys Military Intelligence Training Center as follows: A physically-challenged man of the Jewish faith, who was born in Germany or Austria, joined the U. S. Army, and after being trained at Camp Ritchie served in the European Theater in World War II as an interrogator in relative safety behind the lines.

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