how many ritchie boys were there

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. The largest set of graduates were 2,000 German-born Jews. Some faced antisemitism from their fellow soldiers. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. He was born in Berlin to a Russian Jewish family. David Frey: Well the most important part of the training was that they learned to do interrogation, and in particular of prisoners of war. One of the ways they identified subjects wanted for interrogation was by consulting a book - the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects which listed enemy nationals suspected of committing tens of thousands of war crimes in Europe everyone from low ranking members of the armed forces to top Nazi officials. David Frey: Absolutely. The Ritchie Boys key asset was language skills, and the militarys hunger was for battlefield POW interrogators. David Frey: There were Ritchie Boys that were in the first wave on the first day at D-Day. The so-called Ritchie Boys were among roughly 15,000 graduates of training programs at Camp Ritchie, a former National Guard Camp in Maryland named for the late Maryland Governor, Albert C. Ritchie. Now in their late 90s, these humble warriors still keep in touch, swapping stories about a chapter in American history now finally being told. 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. And to take those heights against heavy firing, going up those steep cliffs, and of course, it had been done. 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.. 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. 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. According to the kind of unit, according to the kind of person we were interrogating. And that's what the key to the success was. After the war, the Ritchie Boys continued their work. Guy Stern: We were walking along and you saw these emaciated, horribly looking, close to death people. Hed endured a lot already, including three brutal months in Dachau concentration camp after Kristallnacht in 1938, before finding haven in America. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. And only in the early 2000's did we begin to see reunions of the Ritchie Boys. Victor Brombert: One had to playact with some of the people were acting as prisoners and some of them were real prisoners. You're in Belgium? who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. USO Tour Veteran. Following the war, some of the Ritchie Boys were used as interrogators during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. Please enter valid email address to continue. 70 ratings17 reviews. Paul Fairbrook: Look I'm a German Jew. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. We are honored to recognize the unique role they played serving the United States and advancing our victory over Germany., Outgoing Museum Chairman Howard M. Lorber added, We selected the Ritchie Boys because of their remarkable actions and heroism in helping to end the war and the Holocaust. 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. Mothers Day.. History professor David Frey runs the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. All the while, they tracked down evidence and interrogated Nazi criminals, later tried at Nuremberg. He was shot right away and killed. We believe it will also recognize the value of a group as large as 20,000. Untold story of the Ritchie Boys - edmondlifeandleisure.com One of these was Staff Sergeant Stephen (Moose) Mosbacher who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. Striecher was later tried and convicted at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, where concentration camp survivors who bore witness to the mass murder faced down their Nazi tormentors. I asked them to leave it off. Director, Communications We see those who are the greatest of the greatest generation. Ritchie Boys And so I fell back behind because I didn't want to be seen crying to a hardened soldier and then he looked around to look where I was, how I was delayed, and he, this good fellow from middle of Ohio was bawling just as I was. Guy Stern: I had my whole uniform with medals, Russian medals. very important because you save life if you know where the mine "where is the machine gun nest?" Ritchie History Museum Links. The intelligence they gathered was coveted by higher commanda postwar Pentagon report ascribed more than half of the credible battlefield intelligence gathered in Europe to the 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. Guy Stern: And some we didn't break but 80% were so darned scared of the Russians and what they would do. It was here that over 19,000 Ritchie Boys, many of them German-Jewish immigrants from Europe David Frey is a professor of history and director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. And there's nothing that I wanted more is to get some revenge on Hitler who killed my uncles, and my aunts and my cousins and there was no question in my mind, and neither of all the men in Camp Ritchie. After the war, a number served as translators and interrogatorsespecially during the Nuremberg Trials. According to the Holocaust Museum, two Jewish Jon Wertheim: So in May of 1945, Germany surrenders, and you're assigned to the denazification process. I mean this is you're taking your life in your hands here. Fortunately, some of the Ritchie Boys are still around to tell their tales, and that includes the life force that is Guy Stern, age 99. Victor Brombert: Yes, well with a stick. Not just any Nazi party member. Max Lerner: They were all justifying themselves. | David Frey: This is where the having an intelligence officer from Camp Ritchie was of critical importance. . Jon Wertheim: You didn't want to be identified as Jewish going back to Western Europe. Most chose the eldest son, to carry on the family name. Facing significant intelligence deficiencies, in April 1942, the US Army activated a plan to convert Fort Ritchie, a Maryland National Guard Camp, into an intelligence training center. Marlene Dietrich was many things, but to soldiers in World War II, she was a morale-boosting entertainer willing to go right to the front lines to support our nations military. This was our kind of war. In 2011, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, hosted an exhibit of the Ritchie Boys exploits. Jon Wertheim: Because you were Jewish you were ostracized? 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. But joy turned to horror as Allied soldiers and the world learned the full scale of the Nazi mass extermination. Guy Stern: Handkerchiefs, I couldn't know at that point that I would never see my siblings or my parents again nor my grandmother and so forth and so on. How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win "I would have been killed if I hadn't gone along. 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. Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. Just two weeks shy of turning 100, Guy Stern drips with vitality. Some of these books, Frey says, were nearly 500 pages long by the end of the war. He is among the last surviving Ritchie Boys - a group of young men many of them German Jews who played an outsized role in helping the Allies win World War II. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Wehrmacht Captain Curt Bruns, convicted by a military tribunal of ordering the murder of those two Ritchie Boys, was executed by a firing squad in June, 1945. Background. They were asked, in some cases, to memorize battle books, which told soldiers about the enemys organization, structure, capacity, leadership and experience. Elie Wiesel, the Museums founding chairman, was the first recipient of the award, which was subsequently named in his honor. Jon Wertheim: This is going behind enemy lines. Another was, , a member of the Mormon faith, who was awarded the prestigious Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions in the Battle of the Philippines. Some of them requested new dog tags with very good reason. He is among the last surviving Ritchie Boys - a group of young men many of them German Jews who played an outsized role in helping the Allies win World War II. 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). I think that's quantifiable. Washington, DC 20024-2126 Guy Stern speaks at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Centers Ritchie Boys exhibit and reunion at Farmington Hills, Michigan in 2011. Max Lerner: They have a tattoo of their blood group under their left arms. Victor Brombert: We were supposed to arrest important Nazi officials. Fort Ritchie, as it later became known, closed in 1998. Although members of the Ritchie Boys were awarded more than 65 Silver Stars, their group was not very well known during the war. They never met for reunions, they did not join veteran associations. Jon Wertheim: You work 6 days a week, you swim every morning, you lecture, any signs of slowing down? Some of the prisoners were actual German POWs brought to Camp Ritchie so the Ritchie Boys could practice their interrogation techniques. Guy Stern recalls arriving at Buchenwald Concentration Camp three days after its liberation, alongside a fellow American sergeant. Paul Fairbrook: Oh that is a very good question. So was Archibald Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. Salinger, author of the classic book The Catcher in the Rye.. It was an impact on war crimes. Choose which Defense.gov products you want delivered to your inbox. After the German army's surrender, Guy Stern and the other Ritchie Boys took on a new assignment: hunting down top Nazi officers responsible for the atrocities that killed so many, including many of their loved ones. 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. 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. Others were actually really important in American science. stories from a Nazi interrogator, now a Mill That was potentially lethal in Europe under fluid battlefield conditions, especially during the Battle of the Bulge, when the Wehrmacht infiltrated American lines with soldiers dressed in U.S. uniforms. Now is it because they were afraid that the Nazis might come back, that it's not over? (See Jon Wertheim: And you think because it had that signature, somehow that certified it. Both refugees like Fairbrook and Stern, as well as a number of American-born recruits with requisite language skills - were drafted into the Army and sent to Camp Ritchie. -This story was originally published on defense.gov. Salinger were among the camp gradsbut 2,000 German-language refugees, almost all Jewish, were the prize pupils. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. The very aspect of these SOBs now being at my command (laugh) gave me also some personal satisfaction. He is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, and has also written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico Magazine, and CNN.com. After Pearl Harbor brought America into the war, many of those sons were eager to return to Europe and find their families. Jon Wertheim: So there's a real element of - costumes and deception and accents. David Frey: Some became ambassadors. Many of the German and Austrian Jewish refugees reported to Camp Ritchie while still designated as "enemy aliens." He is still haunted by what he experienced that day. Another unusual sight: towering over recruits, Frank Leavitt, a World War I veteran and pro wrestling star at the time, was among the instructors. The danger from the German side, of course, was far higher. Wayne State University Professor Ehrhard Dabringhaus, another attendee, was ordered shortly after the war to become the American control officer to Klaus Barbie, the notorious war criminal. David Frey: A lot of what was learned and the methods used are important to keep secret. David Frey: But they also did terrain analysis, they also did photo analysis, and aerial reconnaissance analysis. Ritchie Boy Additional valuable information on the Ritchie Boys may be found in a forum-type Facebook page, , ably managed with considerable devotion by Bernie Lubran, son of Ritchie Boy, , and by Josh Freeling, whose great uncle was Ritchie Boy. Guy Stern: Thank you for asking. We were crusaders.". 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. And they were impressed with that. Immigrant Soldier, The Story of 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. An official website of the United States Government. A website by Dan Gross and Ritchie History Museum. The unit got its name from where they did their training, Camp Ritchie, Maryl Cast & Crew Read More Christian Bauer Director This group became known as The Ritchie Boys, who were the basis of a documentary film of the same name. What Henderson found when he looked into their history was that about 100 were still alive, half of them willing and able to talknot everyone has reliable 70-year-old memoriesabout an extraordinary corner of the Second World War. 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 became a professor and taught for almost 50 years. "How to kill a sentry from behind." When Hitler came to power, the Bromberts fled to France, and then to the U.S. They certainly saved lives. After the war, Guy Stern and the other Ritchie Boys were celebrated for their achievements. We were crusaders.. Embedded in every Army unit, they interrogated tens of thousands of captured Nazi soldiers as well as civilians extracting key strategic information on enemy strength, troop movements, and defensive positions. Ritchie Boys of The Ritchie Boys Jon Wertheim: This was really a broad range of intelligence activities. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help. HistoryNet 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 Besides their language ability, these soldiers were familiar with the culture and thinking of enemy soldiers, which would aid them in their efforts. January 2, 2022 / 6:52 PM 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. For as casually as we often toss around the word "hero", sometimes no lesser term applies. It was not only that short term impact on the battlefield. David Frey: All in service of winning the war. David Frey: If we take Camp Ritchie in microcosm, it was almost the ideal of an American melting pot. Some of them were trained as spies and some of them went on to careers as spies. We were briefed that the Germans were not going to welcome us greatly. They did counterintelligence training. "Enjoy" is perhaps not the right word. In the Ardennes region of Belgium, the Germans mounted a massive counteroffensive, which became known as the Battle of the Bulge. As was philanthropist David Rockefeller and media baron and billionaire John Kluge. Guy Stern: Yes, doing my job interrogating. 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. 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. WASHINGTON The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will confer its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on the Ritchie Boys, a little-known special World War II US military intelligence unit that included many Jewish refugees from Nazism and was instrumental to the Allied victory. 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. Although Ritchie Boy. Actress. Established by Hitler and led by Heinrich Himmler, the SS was responsible for security and intelligence collection in Germany. They significantly helped the war effort and saved lives. Mr. When Hitler took power in 1933, Stern says the climate grew increasingly hostile. My father was 49 years old and-- and my mother was 48 and they left everything they had built up behind. Immigrants like Guy Stern. Jon Wertheim: So physical combat training as well as intelligence? On the front lines from Normandy onwards, the Ritchie Boys fought in every major battle in Europe, collecting tactical intelligence, interrogating prisoners and civilians, all in service of winning the war. Salinger was a Ritchie Boy. Guy Stern: Yes, even last night. And I needed to get my own back. Isn't it a miserable thing? Message & data rates may apply. Jon Wertheim: This dog tag says Hebrew. I don't know. Ritchie Boys were a military intelligence unit made up of mostly German, Austrian and Czech refugees and immigrants, many of whom were Jewish. 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. Nina Wolff Feld told her fathers story in Someday You Will Understand: My Fathers Private World War 2. And they were motivated like few other American soldiers. 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? After their training, the Ritchie Boys were dispersed in different Army units. 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.

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