What did work Is complicity. We were briefed that the Germans were not going to welcome us greatly. Never. The evidence was before us. But joy turned to horror as Allied soldiers and the world learned the full scale of the Nazi mass extermination. Guy Stern: I had my whole uniform with medals, Russian medals. In civilian life, he became a noted sculpture and fine arts teacher and rose to the presidency for the Center for Creative Studies at Detroit's College of Art and Design. Singer. 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. Victor Brombert: I remember being up on a cliff the first night over Omaha beach. It took dedicationthe course at Camp Ritchie required polishing the English needed to communicate with their own side, combat training and intensive study of the German armyas well as courage and the thick skins they had already developed. Sometimes, not even information about their fate: it was the 1990s before Werner Angress could confirm his father perished in Auschwitz. 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.. 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. Jon Wertheim: That's the kind of thing you would know. There were 1,985 German born Ritchie Boys. It was his service in the military during World War II. In 2011, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, hosted an exhibit of the Ritchie Boys exploits. stories from a Nazi interrogator, now a Mill David Frey: The purpose of the facility was to train interrogators. When U.S. soldiers fought Germany during World War II, there was one group that was particularly motivatedabout 2,000 mostly German and Austrian Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis and then returned to Europe to take on their tormentors as members of American military intelligence. Guy Stern: They were killed either in Warsaw or in Auschwitz. By providing your mobile phone number, you opt in to receive calls and texts from USO. Still, if they were captured, they knew what the Nazis would do to them. 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. A contribution made by a single individual, especially if one or more lives are saved, is generally recognized as truly heroic. It was wonderful to see these people again. Isn't it a miserable thing? Many landed on the beaches of Normandy soon after D-Day. It was wonderful to be part of them. Victor Brombert: By complicity I mean, "Oh we are together in this war. I was the only one to get out. 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. Mr. Ritchie Boys were a military intelligence unit made up of mostly German, Austrian and Czech refugees and immigrants, many of whom were Jewish. By the spring of 1945, Allied forces neared Berlin and Hitler took his life in his underground bunker. Before the Tuskegee Airmen, there were the Hellfighters from Harlem, a group of African American National Guard Soldiers of New York's 15th Infantry Regiment who fought for the right to serve in combat during World War I. It is a story of a remarkable synergy between a diverse group of well trained and motivated individuals. They took their name from the place they trained - Camp Ritchie, Maryland a secret American military intelligence center during the war. So many of them were Jewish. The Ritchie Boys key asset was language skills, and the militarys hunger was for battlefield POW interrogators. We were delighted to get a chance to do something for the United States. 202.437.1221 Jon Wertheim: That's what you were told. Camp Ritchie, Maryland - Development of the Intelligence Training Eventually, But within a few months the government realized these so-called enemy aliens could be a valuable resource in the war. Guy Stern: My fellow students it was an all-male school withdrew from you. I wanted, desperately, to do something. One can also point to a Ritchie Boy But there were the odd grace notes among the wreckage of a continent. An official website of the United States Government. Many of the Ritchie Boys went on to have successful civilian careers, including J.D. It is a story of a remarkable synergy between a diverse group of well trained and motivated individuals. Victor Brombert: We were supposed to arrest important Nazi officials. Guy Stern: Yes, doing my job interrogating. Jon Wertheim: This was one of the leaflets that was dropped out--. When the war was over, their German accents and unusual This was our kind of war. 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. 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. The Ritchie Boys trained for war against these fake Germans with fake German tanks made out of wood. 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. Victor Brombert: One had to playact with some of the people were acting as prisoners and some of them were real prisoners. David Frey: Part of what the Ritchie Boys did was to convince German units to surrender without fighting. In any major military conflict, there will likely be both individual heroes and groups of heroes. They significantly helped the war effort and saved lives.. Guy Stern, a Bronze Star Medal recipient who attended, said: "It was an emotional reunion, definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. David Frey: Many of those who trained at Camp Ritchie actually did go on to the OSS the precursor to the CIA, That meant that the people who learned their craft at Camp Ritchie played a significant role in setting up what eventually became the CIA. Because they served in so many different capacities. Two Ritchie Boys were identified as German-language interrogators working for the Americans after they were captured in a Nazi counterattack; revealed to be Jewish, the men were summarily executed. And they were motivated like few other American soldiers. Ritchie Boys of Web4.73K subscribers The Ritchie Boys of World War Two were more than 15,000 servicemen who fled Nazi Germany and Austria, becoming instrumental in the allied war effort with This particular edition is in a Hardcover format. 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. I have some that were shot. WebThe Ritchie Boys were the US special military intelligence officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland. Salinger were among the camp gradsbut 2,000 German-language refugees, almost all Jewish, were the prize pupils. As the world observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day, some may remember the so-called "Ritchie Boys," who greatly aided allied forces in their fight against Germany and other Axis nations in World War II. Why do so few Americans know about this? Contact. Max Lerner: There were no Nazis. You want to convince them that you're trustworthy. By the spring of 1944, the Ritchie Boys were ready to return to Western Europe this time as naturalized Americans in American uniforms. You sort of swing it around the neck from behind and then pull. Look, I got a book here and it tells me that you were here and you went there and your boss was this." Guy Stern: Out of a plane. Guy Stern: This one was our most effective leaflet and why was that? TTY: 202.488.0406, Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust, The Presidents Commission on the Holocaust, United States Holocaust Memorial Council (Board of Trustees), Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. 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? History professor David Frey runs the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. By the summer of 1944, German troops in Normandy were outnumbered and overpowered. 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. Max Lerner was assigned to interivew German civilians to help gauge the degree to which they had served the Nazi cause and determine which ones should be punished. Max Lerner: It was my war. Ritchie Boys 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. Or is it just a habit or habit of obedience or dignity? The untold story of the Ritchie Boys - Macleans.ca Hed endured a lot already, including three brutal months in Dachau concentration camp after Kristallnacht in 1938, before finding haven in America. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help. They never met for reunions, they did not join veteran associations. There were Ritchie Boys who were in POW camps embedded and gathering information in the United States. David Frey: Right. Jon Wertheim: Do you consider yourself a hero? Long-overdue Recognition Comes to the Ritchie Boys. Angress followed up leads that took him to an Amsterdam address just five days after VE Day. . So was Archibald Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. Nina Wolff Feld told her fathers story in Someday You Will Understand: My Fathers Private World War 2. For decades, they didn't discuss their work. Victor Brombert: Yes, I realized that I was afraid. David Frey: Absolutely. 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. 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. Many of the German and Austrian Jewish refugees reported to Camp Ritchie while still designated as "enemy aliens." Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. Washington, DC 20024-2126 Because they would know this information. Not just any Nazi party member. Jon Wertheim: You let him know you were Jewish? 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. And I said "Well, huh, in slang, there ain't nothing special about you, but if you were saved, you got to show that you were worthy of it. Bruce Hendersons account of the Ritchie Boys, as the camps graduates came to be known, is full of arresting moments like Sellings arrival, almost all of them virtually unknown. Giving out some cigarettes also helps a lot. Jon Wertheim: What do you remember feeling that day? Dozens of Ritchie Boys worked at the Nuremberg Trials as prosecutors, interrogators and translators. Web34K views 1 year ago. We believe it will also recognize the value of a group as large as 20,000. It has been edited for USO.org. (U.S. Army Signal Corps). told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. Guy Stern: Yes, even last night. Guy Stern: The Bronze Star was given to me right at the end of hostilities. Germany surrendered on May 8th of that year. Although Ritchie Boy. They all became American success stories, businessmen or academics. David Frey: This is where the having an intelligence officer from Camp Ritchie was of critical importance. Some never went back to Europe, but one retired to Berlin in 1988 and spent his final years visiting German schools to talk about his childhood under Hitler. Jon Wertheim: Did the Ritchie Boys redefine what it means to be a soldier and contribute to a military? Not all the boys were immigrantsfuture banker David Rockefeller and writer J.D. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. The Ritchie Boys were members of a secret American intelligence group whose mastery of the German language and culture proved critical to the Allies' victory over Hitler. All the while, they tracked down evidence and interrogated Nazi criminals, later tried at Nuremberg. 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. Some of these books, Frey says, were nearly 500 pages long by the end of the war. David Frey: There were Ritchie Boys that were in the first wave on the first day at D-Day. Ritchie Boys Gross wrote to me saying, My Ritchie Boy Fort Ritchie, as it later became known, closed in 1998. The Ritchie Boys exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. 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. 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. David Frey: Techniques where you want to get people to talk to you. Their mission: to use their knowledge of the German language and culture to return to Europe and fight Naziism. 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. There were two who were actually captured at the Battle of the Bulge. 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. He responded with just the information I needed. David Frey: All in service of winning the war. Tonight, we'll introduce you to members of a secret American intelligence unit who fought in World War II. There were Ritchie Boys who were in virtually every battle that you can think of and some actually suffered the worst fate. We now know that this perception needs to be broadened. Knowing how to shape that appeal was pretty critical to the success of the mobile broadcast units. David Frey: Well the most important part of the training was that they learned to do interrogation, and in particular of prisoners of war. But Hitler was determined to continue the war. David Frey: They were incredibly effective. Paul Fairbrook: Look I'm a German Jew. I mean this is you're taking your life in your hands here. Jon Wertheim: What you describe, it almost sounds like these were precursors to CIA agents. Now is it because they were afraid that the Nazis might come back, that it's not over? Jon Wertheim: Why were the Ritchie Boys so successful? Main telephone: 202.488.0400 And that has been the driving force in my life. Salinger was a Ritchie Boy. The soldiers were sent for training to K. Lang-Slattery, Katie Lang-Slattery. A website by Dan Gross and Ritchie History Museum. He is still haunted by what he experienced that day. Individual Ritchie Boys were cited for their contributions by being awarded over 60 Silver Star Medals for bravery. The group also included large numbers of first- or second-generation Americans who still spoke German or other languages at home, Frey says. According to the Holocaust Museum, two Jewish soldiers were taken captive and executed after being identified as German-born Jews, and there were about 200 Ritchie Boys alive as of May 2022. We hope you find the data, stories, and images here of interest. The 10 digit ISBN is 0811769968 and the 13 digit ISBN is 9780811769969. African-American Ritchie Boy William Warfield Paul Fairbrook: You can learn to shoot a rifle in six months but you can't learn fluent German in six months. I thought, "I'm never going to do that," but I was shown how to do it. USO Tour Veteran. Jon Wertheim: All in service of winning the war? Many of the Jewish refugees lost family members, and at the end of the war, they searched for them. They spoke the same German as the Wehrmacht soldiers they were up against, they shared experiences, education and culture with them, explains Henderson. Originally a resort, Camp Ritchie was a curiously idyllic setting to prepare for the harshness and brutality of war. Most chose the eldest son, to carry on the family name. The Ritchie Boys train at Camp Ritchie, Md., sometime during World War II. The knowledge that his adopted country would not let him fight their common enemy was bitterly frustrating. At the time though, the military wouldn't take volunteers who weren't born in the U.S. We were crusaders.. 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. They were heroes not necessarily or predominantly based on bravery but on their intelligence and deserving of the name Secret Heroes. In 1943, he was drafted into the Army and in 1944 landed in Normandy after D-day as a "Ritchie Boy." They chose their eldest son. And we all were scared. The appearance of DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. It was here that over 19,000 Ritchie Boys, many of them German-Jewish immigrants from Europe 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 I asked them to leave it off. The unit got its name from where they did their training, Camp Ritchie, Maryl Cast & Crew Read More Christian Bauer Director Web"The Ritchie Boys" is the untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned to Europe as soldiers in US-uniforms. / CBS News. 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. 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 Max Lerner: Wear civilian clothes, pass messages, kill. Ritchie Boys were heroes who used their innate skills to gather information from all sources The Ritchie Boys | The Story (See The Ritchie Boys, some of whom landed on the beaches at Normandy, helped to interpret documents and gather intelligence, and conducted enemy warfare. We now know that this perception needs to be broadened. David Frey: They were incredibly effective. David Frey: If we take Camp Ritchie in microcosm, it was almost the ideal of an American melting pot. We worked harder than anyone could have driven us. Guy Stern: Well I think not (laugh) but I don't run as fast, I don't swim as fast but I feel happy with my tasks. did not have the opportunity to serve overseas, he was able to make a significant contribution as an interrogator at Fort Hunt and as the principal facilitator in the integration of German Paperclip scientists and engineers such as Wernher von Braun into our society. 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. That information is of critical importance because it tells you where certain units are, and if you know where certain units are, you know where the weak spots are. The case of, stands out in my mind as the essence of the reason why the Ritchie Boys were able to use their intelligence (and motivation) to make an enormous difference. 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. Beginning in September 1944, the United States military trained Japanese Americans at Camp Ritchie, and their language skills were also used in the war effort, this time against Japan. They fought with the American military in the lands they had recently escaped, helping to turn the course of the war. Making such a distinction in this case is very difficult. Victor Brombert was with the first American armored division to land on Omaha Beach. Victor Brombert: Yes of course. David Frey: The work they do in the field, being able to glean information simply by from the uniform that a captured POW is wearing or the type of weapon that they have or the unit that they've just captured. WebThe surviving Ritchie Boys are in their eighties now. Nina Wolff Feld told her fathers story in Someday You Will Understand: My Fathers Private World War 2. Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. They took their name from the place they trained - Camp Ritchie, Maryland a secret American military intelligence center during the war. 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. 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. How German-Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis gathered military intelligence in Europe for the U.S. By Brian Bethune Ritchie History Museum Links. When Hitler came to power, the Bromberts fled to France, and then to the U.S. By highlighting those individuals who, in the midst of evil, stood for the best, rather than the worst of human nature, the Holocaust Memorial Center seeks to contribute to maintaining an open and free society, he added. All were convicted for their crimes and many were executed. They certainly saved lives. And I made sure he knew that it was a Jew who controlled him. 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). 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). Recruits were chosen based on their knowledge of European Language and culture, as well as their high IQs. Jon Wertheim: That's how you looked at it. Nearly 2,000 German-born Jews were trained at Camp Ritchie to interrogate captured German soldiers. Jon Wertheim: This dog tag says Hebrew. A few days later, Stern returned to the place of his birth, hoping to reunite with his family. Jon Wertheim: Did you enjoy hunting Nazis? Jon Wertheim: What do you suspect might have happened? 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..
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