June 2
1857 Birth: Sir Edward William Elgar (1st Baronet): Composer: Master of the King's Musick:
Among Elgar's comparatively minor—but most famous—works are the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, to the first of which the following words were set:
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,
[2-3-4]
God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.
The words are clearly imperialist and jingoist in flavor; yet many people would prefer both words and music to the uninspiring duplicate of the Prussian national anthem that was inflicted on the United Kingdom.
[There is an urban myth to the effect that Elgar would have turned in his grave, had he known to what use his music was put. The truth is, however, that a singer suggested to him that words could be put to part of the first Pomp and Circumstance March, and Elgar attended to it, for part of the music for the coronation of Edward VII. Subsequently, Elgar agreed to its publication as a separate song. —Ed.]
1865 American Civil War ends:
In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signs the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith's surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history. [For further details, Click here]
1905 The Hitler family—as usual——passes the summer months in Spital with Klara's relatives, including Aunt Theresa and Uncle Anton Schmidt, Klara's mother, Johanna Poelzl, and a large collection of cousins. This summer, the usually active boy comes down with a respiratory ailment that curtails his activities. Dr. Karl Keiss travels to Spital from nearby Weitra to examine him, and renders a diagnosis of consumption. By playing on Klara's sympathies, Adolf will utilize this timely illness in his soon-to-be-successful campaign to burn his pencils and books.
It has been noted that Alois Hitler, Adolf's father, had the very same "lung ailment," yet lived to the age of 66. Dr. Keiss, for one, was convinced that Adolf's "disease" was serious: "Adolf will never be healthy after this sickness," he told Adolf's Aunt Theresia. John Toland will write:
Detractors later charged that Hitler had lied about his ill-health in Mein Kampf, but Paula testified that her brother did suffer a hemorrhage; a boyhood friend remembered that "he was plagued by coughs and nasty catarrhs, especially on damp, foggy days,' and a neighbor testified that he was "in poor health and had to leave his studies because of a lung problem—as a result of which he was spitting blood." [For further details, Click here.]
1910 Aviation: Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce, became the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane. [For further information, click here.]
1915 World War I: Various:
Galicia: Austro-German forces attack Russians at Przemysl:
On June 2, 1915, Austro-Hungarian and German troops continue their attacks on the Russian soldiers holding Przemysl (now in Poland), the citadel guarding the northeastern-most point of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. [For further details, Click here]
List Regiment:
Fromelles Watercolor, 1915, by Hitler
Gefreiter Adolf Hitler's 16 Reserve Infantry Regiment continue to occupy a position, at Fromelles (pictured above in a painting by Hitler), which is on a level field with water channels, willow trees and willow stalks. In the distance towards the enemy lines lies an insignificant wood with barbed wire entanglements. Under the direction of their defense-minded commander, Lieutenant General Gustav Scanzoni von Lichtenfels, the regiment works ceaselessly day and night to further fortify their position at Fromelles while fighting off repeated assaults by the enemy. [For further details, Click here.]
1916 World War I: Various:
Death: Sir Roger Casement: Hanged for treason:
As World War I opened, Casement identified British aggression as its cause, an extension of the violent imperial hegemony he chronicled in The Crime Against Europe:
"The British Empire was not founded in peace; how, then can it be kept by peace, or ensured by peace-treaties? It was born of pillage and blood-shed, and has been maintained by both; and it cannot now be secured by a common language any more than a common Bible. The lands called the British Empire belong to many races, and it is only by the sword and not by the Book of Peace or any pact of peace that those races can be kept from the ownership of their own countries."
While any Irish Republican would have agreed with that sentiment, the resulting moral and tactical calculus for the Irish cause to ally with the German was not universally embraced, and was certainly anathema to the British.
Casement spent the first two years of the Great War in Germany itself, and arranged a shipment of guns that would have supported the Easter Rising, but thought the aid too little and too late. He had a German U-boat drop him at Ireland, trying to get word to the Republican leadership to postpone the revolt. Instead, he was picked up three days before the doomed rising and hanged after a sensational trial.
[For further details, Click here]
Casement's Defence argued that the Treason Act of 1351 was unpunctuated and that his guilt was therefore not clear-cut. The words of that Act, which was originally written in Norman French, said that, "If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere . . . . " he was guilty of treason. His Defence suggested that, since Casement had carefully done all his plotting elsewhere, and not in the realm, he was technically innocent.
The judges went down to the Public Record Office to look at the original statute. They found under a microscope a faint virgule (early version of the comma). It was this comma, inserted by a 14th century scribe (whose only qualification for the job was perhaps neat handwriting) that Casement was sensationally 'hanged on', 565 years later.
Perhaps, the moral of the story is: do not neglect punctuation."
[The truth is that Casement was not 'hanged on a comma' as his supporters contended. He was hanged because his defense was untenable.—Ed. For further details, Click here.]List Regiment: Gefreiter Adolf Hitler endures trench warfare in Flanders (Artois) with 3 Company, 16 Reserve Infantry Regiment. [For further details, Click here.]
1917 World War I: List Regiment: Gefreiter Adolf Hitler's 16th RIR redeploy east of Douai for a period of rest which will extend until June 24. [For further details, Click here.]
1918 World War I: List Regiment: Gefreiter Adolf Hitler's 16th RIR loses the village of La Port, which they had captured just the previous day, to a French counter-attack. [For further details, Click here.]
1924 USA: The Indian Citizenship Act:
President Coolidge (center)
By the act of June 2, 1924 (43 Stat. 253, ante, 420), Congress conferred citizenship upon all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States. The text of the act follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided, That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.
Indians who are otherwise eligible to vote may not be denied that right because of their race. Their right in this respect is protected by the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which says:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. [Source: Click here. 1924? Impressive.—Ed.]
1933 Holocaust: Chaim Arlosoroff and Selig Brodestsky meet with British colonial minister Philip Cunliffe-Lister regarding aid to German Jews.
1936 Poland: One hundred nineteen Nazis are indicted in Warsaw for conspiring to overthrow the government.
1938 Italy: Fascist leader Roberto Farinacci, a vocal anti-Semite, is appointed minister of State.
1939 Various:
Holocaust: The SS St. Louis is ordered to leave Havana harbor:
On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba. On the voyage were 938 passengers, [only] one of whom was not a refugee. Almost all were Jews fleeing from the Third Reich. Most were German citizens, some were from Eastern Europe, and a few were officially "stateless."
The majority of the Jewish passengers had applied for U.S. visas, and had planned to stay in Cuba only until they could enter the United States. But by the time the St. Louis sailed, there were signs that political conditions in Cuba might keep the passengers from landing there. The U.S. State Department in Washington, the U.S. consulate in Havana, some Jewish organizations, and refugee agencies were all aware of the situation . . . .
The voyage of the St. Louis attracted a great deal of media attention. Even before the ship sailed from Hamburg, right-wing Cuban newspapers deplored its impending arrival and demanded that the Cuban government cease admitting Jewish refugees. Indeed, the passengers became victims of bitter infighting within the Cuban government. The Director-General of the Cuban immigration office, Manuel Benitez Gonzalez, had come under a great deal of public scrutiny for the illegal sale of landing certificates. He routinely sold such documents for $150 or more and, according to U.S. estimates, had amassed a personal fortune of $500,000 to $1,000,000. Though he was a protégé of Cuban army chief of staff (and future president) Fulgencio Batista, Benitez's self-enrichment through corruption had fueled sufficient resentment in the Cuban government to bring about his resignation . . . .
Hostility toward immigrants fueled both antisemitism and xenophobia. Both agents of Nazi Germany, and [of] indigenous right-wing movements hyped the immigrant issue in their publications and demonstrations, claiming that incoming Jews were Communists . . . .
Reports about the impending voyage fueled a large antisemitic demonstration in Havana on May 8, five days before the St. Louis sailed from Hamburg. The rally, the largest antisemitic demonstration in Cuban history, had been sponsored by Grau San Martin, a former Cuban president. Grau spokesman Primitivo Rodriguez urged Cubans to "fight the Jews until the last one is driven out." The demonstration drew 40,000 spectators. Thousands more listened on the radio.
When the St. Louis arrived in Havana harbor on May 27, the Cuban government admitted 28 passengers: 22 of them were Jewish and had valid U.S. visas. The remaining six—four Spanish citizens and two Cuban nationals—had valid entry documents. One further passenger, after attempting to commit suicide, was evacuated to a hospital in Havana. The remaining 908 passengers (one passenger had died of natural causes en route) including one non-refugee, a Hungarian Jewish businessman, had been awaiting entry visas, and carried only Cuban transit visas issued by Gonzales. 743 had been waiting to receive U.S. visas. The Cuban government refused to admit them or to allow them to disembark from the ship.
After Cuba denied entry to the passengers on the St. Louis, the press throughout Europe and the Americas, including the United States, brought the story to millions of readers throughout the world. Though U.S. newspapers generally portrayed the plight of the passengers with great sympathy, only a few journalists and editors suggested that the refugees be admitted into the United States.
On May 28, the day after the St. Louis docked in Havana, Lawrence Berenson, an attorney representing the U.S.-based Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), arrived in Cuba to negotiate on behalf of the St. Louis passengers. A former president of the Cuban-American Chamber of Commerce, Berenson had had extensive business experience in Cuba. He met with President Bru, but failed to persuade him to admit the passengers into Cuba. On June 2, Bru ordered the ship out of Cuban waters. Nevertheless, the negotiations continued, as the St. Louis sailed slowly toward Miami. Bru offered to admit the passengers if the JDC posted a $453,500 bond ($500 per passenger). Berenson made a counteroffer, but Bru rejected the proposal and broke off negotiations.
Sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, some passengers on the St. Louis cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never responded. The State Department and the White House had decided not to take extraordinary measures to permit the refugees to enter the United States. A State Department telegram sent to a passenger stated that the passengers must "await their turns on the waiting list and qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States." U.S. diplomats in Havana intervened once more with the Cuban government to admit the passengers on a "humanitarian" basis, but without success.
Quotas established in the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924 strictly limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted to the United States each year. In 1939, the annual combined German-Austrian immigration quota was 27,370 and was quickly filled. In fact, there was a waiting list of at least several years. U.S. officials could only have granted visas to the St. Louis passengers by denying them to the thousands of German Jews placed further up on the waiting list. Public opinion in the United States, although ostensibly sympathetic to the plight of refugees and critical of Hitler's policies, continued to favor immigration restrictions. The Great Depression had left millions of people in the United States unemployed and fearful of competition for the scarce few jobs available. It also fueled antisemitism, xenophobia, nativism, and isolationism. A Fortune Magazine poll at the time indicated that 83 percent of Americans opposed relaxing restrictions on immigration. President Roosevelt could have issued an executive order to admit the St. Louis refugees, but this general hostility to immigrants, the gains of isolationist Republicans in the Congressional elections of 1938, and Roosevelt's consideration of running for an unprecedented third term as president were among the political considerations that militated against taking this extraordinary step in an unpopular cause.
Roosevelt was not alone in his reluctance to challenge the mood of the nation on the immigration issue. Three months before the St. Louis sailed, Congressional leaders in both U.S. houses allowed to die in committee a bill sponsored by Senator Robert Wagner (D-N.Y.) and Representative Edith Rogers (R-Mass.). This bill would have admitted 20,000 Jewish children from Germany above the existing quota . . . .
Following the U.S. government's refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the St. Louis sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939. The passengers did not return to Germany, however. Jewish organizations (particularly the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with four European governments to secure entry visas for the passengers: Great Britain took 288 passengers; the Netherlands admitted 181 passengers, Belgium took in 214 passengers; and 224 passengers found at least temporary refuge in France. Of the 288 passengers admitted by Great Britain, all survived World War II save one, who was killed during an air raid in 1940. Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 (14%) managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. 532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278 survived the Holocaust. 254 died: 84 who had been in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France. [Source: Click here]
Resistance: Dietrich Bonhoeffer leaves Germany for New York:
By 1939 . . . the international ecumenical community was closely watching developments in Nazi Germany. At the same time, the first meetings among the German resistance were taking place. Among them was Hans von Dohnanyi, a lawyer married to Bonhoeffer's sister. Dohnanyi, a passionate enemy of Nazism, moved in 1939 from the Justice Department to the Armed Forces High Command office of Military Intelligence. This office, led by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and Major-General Hans Oster, soon became a center of the conspiracy.
In early 1939, Dohnanyi approached Bonhoeffer about possible resistance against the regime. It was a time of personal uncertainty for Bonhoeffer, who was seriously considering leaving Germany. From Dohnanyi, he knew that war was imminent. He also knew that he could never fight in Hitler's army. Troubled, he wrote to friends in the ecumenical movement, who soon responded with a formal offer of a position at Union Seminary in New York. Bonhoeffer left for New York in June 1939.
Believing that Bonhoeffer wished to leave Germany permanently, Henry Smith Leiper asked him to lead the Federal Council's office to help refugees in the U.S. By the time he arrived in the U.S., however, Bonhoeffer had decided that his place was in Germany. His misgivings were confirmed by a letter he received from Freudenberg, who told him that the Federal Council position should be given to a permanent emigrant.
Bonhoeffer wrote Reinhold Niebuhr: I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America . . . I shall have no right to take part in the restoration of Christian life in Germany after the war unless I share the trials of this time with my people.
His return to Germany in July 1939 marked a new stage in his life: active resistance. Virtually the only man in a position to do so, Bonhoeffer became the crucial link between international ecumenical efforts and the German conspiracy against Nazism. [For further details, Click here]
1940 World War II: Joseph Goebbels speaks on the invasion of France:
In Germany people say that the Fuehrer is always right. Abroad, one says he is always lucky. That is only partly true. The Fuehrer has earned his luck. He makes it easy for fate to help him. He acts according to the principle that in politics one must always be ready to take advantage of an opportunity. There is nothing more contemptible than a statesman who fails to rise to an opportunity. The Fuehrer's enemies practically fall into his hands. That is proof that they are chosen by fate to collapse. A tired and exhausted world declines not only because of its weaknesses, but above all because of its mistakes, its illusions, its faulty sense of reality and its missed opportunities. It confirms the truth of the proverb: "God makes blind those whom he wishes to punish." The entire history of National Socialism and its enemies is further proof. [For further details, Click here]
1941 World War II: Various:
Axis: Hitler and Mussolini at the Brenner Pass:
Hitler met Mussolini just before the attack on Russia. It was a strange meeting in which nothing was said about Russia. Ian Kershaw states that this meeting was maybe in some way used in the cover-up of the operation Barbarossa (the invasion of Russia).
[See: How Did the Pact of Steel Effect Germany and Italy?]USA: Edward R. Stettinius Jr. becomes director of priorities of the Office of Production Management. Nine months later Stettinius will be named administrator of the gigantic Lend-Lease Program.
Church & Reich: Vichy:
Petain's Vichy government introduces a series of "Jewish statutes." Leon Berard, Vichy ambassador at the Holy See, reports to Petain that the Vatican does not consider such laws in conflict with Catholic teaching, and merely counsels that no provisions on marriage be added to the statutes. (THP)
Holocaust: France: A law is passed authorizing the "administrative internment" of all Jews in France, whether French-born or foreign-born.
Barbarossa: Early in June, Hermann Goering sends word to Britain that Hitler plans to invade Russia within weeks. (THP)
[See: Why Didn't Adolf Hitler Fire Hermann Goering?]War in the Pacific:
The American aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown move into their battle positions for the Battle of Midway.
1943 World War II: Various: Church and Reich:
Pope Pius XII tells the College of Cardinals that he has given special attention to the plight of those who are still being harassed because of their nationality and descent, and who, without personal guilt, are subjected to measures that spell destruction. Much has been done for the unfortunates, the Pope declares, that cannot yet be described. Every public statement has had to be carefully weighed "in the interest of those suffering so that their situation would not inadvertently be made still more difficult and unbearable." Unfortunately, he adds, the Church's pleas for compassion and the observance of the elementary norms of humanity have encountered doors "which no key was able to open." (THP) The Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive is officially launched as Operation Pointblank. 1944 World War II: Various: Operation Frantic: Allied 'shuttle bombing' of Germany begins:
American bombers of the Fifteenth Air Force launch Operation Frantic, a series of bombing raids over Central Europe, alighting from airbases in southern Italy, but landing at airbases in Poltava, in the Soviet Union, in what is called "shuttle bombing."
The Fifteenth U.S. Air Force was created solely to cripple Germany's war economy. Operating out of Italy, and commanded by General Carl Spaatz, a World War I fighter pilot, the Fifteenth was recruited by a desperate Joseph Stalin to help the Red Army in its campaign in Romania. In exchange for the Fifteenth's assistance, Stalin allowed the American bombers to land at airbases within the Soviet Union as they carried out Operation Frantic, a plan to devastate German industrial regions in occupied Silesia, Hungary, and Romania. Given that such bombing patterns would have made return flights to Foggia and other parts of southern Italy, the Fifteenth's launching points, impossible because of refueling problems, the "shuttle" to Poltava was the solution that made Frantic a reality.
Before it was shortened to Frantic, the operation was dubbed Operation Frantic Joe-a commentary on Joe Stalin's original urgent appeal for help. It was changed to avoid offending the Soviet premier.
The date for D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, was fixed for June 5. Originally June 4, it was acknowledged by Allied strategists that bad weather would make keeping to any one day problematic. German General Karl von Rundstedt, intercepting an Allied radio signal relating the June 4 date, was convinced that four consecutive days of good weather was necessary for the successful prosecution of the invasion. There was no such pattern of good weather in sight. The general became convinced that D-Day would not come off within the first week of June at all. 1945 Church & Reich: Allocution of Pope Pius XII to the Sacred College:
The struggle against the Church did, in fact, become ever more bitter; there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and Church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens, and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely organized propaganda, of the Church, the clergy, the faithful, the Church's institutions, teachings, and history; the closing, dissolution, confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses. In the meantime the Holy See itself multiplied its representations and protests to governing authorities in Germany, reminding them, in clear and energetic language, of their duty to respect and fulfill the obligations of the natural law itself that were confirmed by the Concordat. 1946 Birth of the Italian Republic:
In a national referendum, voters in Italy vote to become a republic rather than return to a monarchy. Consequently the Italian monarchy of King Victor Emmanuel and his son, King Humbert, is abolished in favor of a republic; now a national day.
1948 Doctors' Trial:
The seven doctors sentenced to death at the "Doctors' Trial" Karl Gebhardt, Karl Brandt, Rudolf Brandt, Joachim Mrugowsky, Wolfram Sievers, Viktor Brack, and Waldemar Hoven) are all hanged at Landsberg prison in Bavaria. The sentences of the remaining defendants are reduced during the appeal process. Note: After Sievers conviction, Friedrich Hielscher receives permission to accompany Sievers to the gallows as his spiritual advisor, and it is with him that the condemned man says prayers to a mysterious cult, which is never mentioned throughout his trial. Afterwards, Hielscher returns to obscurity. (THP) [For further details, Click here.]
1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II:
Queen Elizabeth II is formally crowned monarch of the United Kingdom in a lavish ceremony steeped in traditions that date back a millennium. A thousand dignitaries and guests attended the coronation at London's Westminster Abbey, and hundreds of millions listened on radio and for the first time watched the proceedings on live television. After the ceremony, millions of rain-drenched spectators cheered the 27-year-old queen and her husband, the 30-year-old duke of Edinburgh, as they passed along a five-mile procession route in a gilded horse-drawn carriage.
Elizabeth, born in 1926, was the first-born daughter of Prince George, the second son of King George V. Her grandfather died in 1936, and her uncle was proclaimed King Edward VIII. Later that year, however, Edward abdicated over the controversy surrounding his decision to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee, and Elizabeth's father was proclaimed King George VI in his place.
During the Battle of Britain, Princess Elizabeth and her only sibling, Princess Margaret, lived away from London in the safety of the countryside, but their parents endeared themselves to their subjects by remaining in bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace throughout the German air offensive. Later in the war, Elizabeth trained as a second lieutenant in the women's services and drove and repaired military trucks.
In 1947, she married her distant cousin, Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark who renounced his titles in order to marry Elizabeth. He was made Duke of Edinburgh on the eve of the wedding. The celebrations surrounding the wedding of the popular princess lifted the spirits of the people of Britain, who were enduring economic difficulties in the aftermath of World War II.
[For further details, Click here. Britain's economic difficulties were partly the result of the inept economic policy of the Labour Government, and partly as the result of the abandonment of Britain by its former ally, in favor of their former common enemies.—Ed.]
1954 McCarthy Charges Communists are in the CIA:
Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that communists have infiltrated the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the atomic weapons industry. Although McCarthy's accusations created a momentary controversy, they were quickly dismissed as mere sensationalism from a man whose career was rapidly slipping away. [For further details, Click here] 1960 Maria von Braun—the wife of German rocket scientist Werner von Braun—(the designer of Hitler's V-1 and V-2 "vengeance" weapons, who is now hard at work on America's space program), gives birth to the couple's third child, a son, Peter Constantine. (Piszkiewicz) 
In these critical years, joining the alert vigilance of a pastor to the long suffering patience of a father, our great predecessor, Pius XI, fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with intrepid courage. But when, after he had tried all means of persuasion in vain, he saw himself clearly faced with deliberate violations of a solemn pact, with a religious persecution masked or open but always rigorously organized, he proclaimed to the world on Passion Sunday 1937 in his Encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge, that National Socialism really was: the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity. From the prisons, concentration camps, and fortresses are now pouring out, together with the political prisoners, also the crowds of those, whether clergy or laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity to Christ and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless fulfillment of their duties as priests.
In the forefront, for the number and harshness of the treatment meted out to them, are the Polish priests. From 1940 to 1945, 2,800 Polish ecclesiastics and religious were imprisoned in that camp; among them was the Auxiliary Bishop of Wloclawek, who died there of typhus. In April last there were left only 816, all the others being dead except for two or three transferred to another camp. In the summer of 1942, 480 German-speaking ministers of religion were known to be gathered there; of these, 45 were Protestants, all the others Catholic priests. In spite of the continuous inflow of new internees, especially from dioceses of Bavaria, Rhenania and Westphalia, their number, as a result of the high rate of mortality, at the beginning of this year did not surpass 350. Nor should we pass over in silence those belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium, France (among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg, Slovenia, Italy. Many of those priests and laymen endured indescribable sufferings for their faith and for their vocation. In one case the hatred of the impious against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with thorns of our Redeemer.
1967 Green Beret doctor convicted in court-martial:
Capt. Howard Levy, 30, a dermatologist from Brooklyn, is convicted by a general court-martial in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, of willfully disobeying orders and making disloyal statements about U.S. policy in Vietnam. Levy had refused to provide elementary instruction in skin disease to Green Beret medics on the grounds that the Green Berets would use medicine as “another tool of political persuasion” in Vietnam.
Levy, invoked the so-called “Nuremberg defense,” justifying his refusal on the grounds that the Green Berets would use the training for criminal purposes. Levy’s civilian attorney also argued that training the Green Berets compelled him to violate canons of medical ethics. The Green Berets were soldiers first and aid-men second; therefore, their provision of medical treatment to civilians in order to make friends was illegitimate, for it could be taken away as easily as given. The court was not persuaded and the ten-officer jury found him guilty on all charges, sentencing him to three years at hard labor and dismissal from the service. Levy was released in August 1969 after serving 26 months and immediately became active in the “GI coffeehouse protests” in Army towns around the country. [History.com.]
1971 Albert Speer gives an extensive, in-depth interview for Playboy magazine, in which, among other things, he says, "If I didn't see it [the Holocaust], then it was because I didn't want to see it."
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