Paul Fairbrook: Look I'm a German Jew. Long-overdue Recognition Comes to the Ritchie Boys. All SS members were subject to automatic arrest. So many of them were Jewish. On a cold November morning in 1938, Herman watches in horror as his Jon Wertheim: So in May of 1945, Germany surrenders, and you're assigned to the denazification process. David Frey: It was a very broad range And they did it all generally in eight weeks. Jon Wertheim: That's the kind of thing you would know. Max Lerner: It gave me a great deal of satisfaction. It has been edited for USO.org. 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.. Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. Washington, DC 20024-2126 Essentially they were intellectuals. David Frey: All in service of winning the war. Many of the Ritchie Boys went on to have successful civilian careers, including J.D. 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. The 10 digit ISBN is 0811769968 and the 13 digit ISBN is 9780811769969. As was philanthropist David Rockefeller and media baron and billionaire John Kluge. Jon Wertheim: Give us a sense of the kinds of courses they took. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy. Eight Week Classes - Dates & Graduation Numbers. It was Sunday, May 13, 1945, Henderson marvels. By providing your mobile phone number, you opt in to receive calls and texts from USO. Paul Fairbrook: (laugh) You bet your life I'm proud of the Ritchie Boys. Max Lerner: They have a tattoo of their blood group under their left arms. They then typed up their daily reports in the field to be passed up the chain of command. 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. After Pearl Harbor brought America into the war, many of those sons were eager to return to Europe and find their families. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Some Ritchie Boys were recruited to go on secret missions during the war. 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. One of these was Staff Sergeant Stephen (Moose) Mosbacher who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. Longtime Yale and Princeton professor Victor Brombert helped enact the official Allied policy of removing Nazi influence from german public life known as denazification. Guy Stern speaks at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Centers Ritchie Boys exhibit and reunion at Farmington Hills, Michigan in 2011. 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. 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. Early on in World War II, 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. It is a story of a remarkable synergy between a diverse group of well trained and motivated individuals. Another bit of indispensable Ritchie Boy handiwork: the order of battle of the German army. Jon Wertheim: Do you remember saying goodbye to your family? By the spring of 1944, the Ritchie Boys were ready to return to Western Europe this time as naturalized Americans in American uniforms. Associate producer, Jennifer Dozor. 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. Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. Jon Wertheim: I imagine all of a sudden no one wants to admit to being a Nazi. David Frey: This is where the having an intelligence officer from Camp Ritchie was of critical importance. The danger from the German side, of course, was far higher. Walter Midener, an attendee, was awarded the Silver Star. The U.S. Army had evidently decided that Martin Selling was a useful asset after all. After their training, the Ritchie Boys were dispersed in different Army units. David Frey: A lot of what was learned and the methods used are important to keep secret. Guy Stern arrived in the U.S. alone at age 15, settling with an uncle in St. Louis. 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. Dr. Max Lerner: It was my war. It was hard for us not to notice that beyond the stories runs a deep sense of pride. 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. Of the nearly 20,000 Ritchie Boys who served in WWII, around 140 were killed in action, including at the costly told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. And we were strafed and I said to myself, uh, "now, it's the end' because I could you could feel the machine gun bullets. Some of the prisoners were actual German POWs brought to Camp Ritchie so the Ritchie Boys could practice their interrogation techniques. Paul Fairbrook: When the soldiers said "I'm not going to talk" they could say "wait a minute. Germany surrendered on May 8th of that year. And they were impressed with that. They were members of a secret group whose mastery of the German language and culture helped them provide battlefield intelligence that proved pivotal to the Allies' victory. Paul Fairbrook: Oh that is a very good question. 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. Essentially they were intellectuals. Did your dog tag identify you as Jewish? Wounded people. What did work Is complicity. Jon Wertheim: As a former German who understood the psychology and the mentality. They chose their eldest son. He responded with just the information I needed. Why were you the one that made it to the United States? 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. Jon Wertheim: As a way to honor your family that perished. 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. On June 6, 1944, D-Day the Allies launched one of the most sweeping military operations in history. As members of the Ritchie Boys, German and Austrian refugees offered language skills and knowledge that proved vital to American military intelligence. The knowledge that his adopted country would not let him fight their common enemy was bitterly frustrating. Jon Wertheim: And you're saying that some of that originated at Camp Ritchie? Another was Private First Class Leonard C. Brostrom, 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. David Frey: Techniques where you want to get people to talk to you. Jon Wertheim: What was it like for you, leaving Nazi Germany, escaping as a Jew, and the next time you go back to Europe it's to fight those guys? As a Jew, I knew I might not be treated exactly by the Geneva rules. The U.S. War Department used this collection of German documents to study Germany's battles with the Soviets on the Eastern Front, in order to be better prepared for any future conflict with Russia. Jon Wertheim: You let him know you were Jewish? Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. 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. Or is it just a habit or habit of obedience or dignity? Jon Wertheim: And those are your those are your comrades. Guy Stern: Yes, doing my job interrogating. 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. Training was designed to be as realistic as possible. Jon Wertheim: This was really a broad range of intelligence activities. Given their foreign accents, they were in particular danger of being mistaken for the enemy by their own troops, who instituted passwords at checkpoints. 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. Fort Ritchie, as it later became known, closed in 1998. We were crusaders.. January 2, 2022 / 6:52 PM The Ritchie Boys exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. But there were the odd grace notes among the wreckage of a continent. Many of the German and Austrian Jewish refugees reported to Camp Ritchie while still designated as "enemy aliens." We were delighted to get a chance to do something for the United States. 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 Victor Brombert: Yes of course. Ritchie History Museum Links. 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. The very aspect of these SOBs now being at my command (laugh) gave me also some personal satisfaction. His Jewish family left Germany in 1933 when he was 10. David Frey: There are a whole variety of prominent Ritchie Boys. So I experienced viscerally, fear. 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. 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. So was Archibald Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. By the spring of 1945, Allied forces neared Berlin and Hitler took his life in his underground bunker. To do so, they learned photo analysis, terrain analysis, aerial reconnaissance, enemy army analysis, interrogation, signals intelligence and much more.. They all rose to the top of their fields, as did a number of other Ritchie Boys. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Museum to Confer its Highest Honor, The Elie Wiesel Award, Secret Unit Formed 80 Years Ago Was Instrumental in Nazi GermanysDefeat and Included Many Who Had Fled the Regime. He still works six days a week. | But Hildesheim was now in ruins. We had to-- we got a lot of German prisoners who were willing to help us catalog all those documents. 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. You really know an awful lot of the subtleties when you're having a conversation with another German and we were able to find out things in their answers that enabled us to ask more questions. For more information, visit ushmm.org. Immigrants like Guy Stern. They were heroes not necessarily or predominantly based on bravery but on their intelligence and deserving of the name Secret Heroes. 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. A contribution made by a single individual, especially if one or more lives are saved, is generally recognized as truly heroic. Jon Wertheim: What do you remember from that? 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. The Ritchie Boys discovered that the Nazis were terrified of ending up in Russian captivity and they used that to great effect. We worked harder than anyone could have driven us. 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. 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. So whatever information they're giving you is information that you probably already know. Max Lerner: He spent several days in my jail. Max Lerner: There were no Nazis. 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. Im a military history writer and Id never heard of them.. But ask him about his most formative experience - and he doesn't hesitate. Why do so few Americans know about this? 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). Because they would know this information. . It was wonderful to see these people again. The Ritchie Boys consisted of approximately 15,200 servicemen who were trained for U.S. Army Intelligence during WWII. Jon Wertheim: I understand there are some Ritchie Boys [that] became fairly prominent figures. Guy Stern: I think it was the continuous flow of reliable information that really helped expedite the end of the war. Angress followed up leads that took him to an Amsterdam address just five days after VE Day. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. Paul Fairbrook: They sent us back to Camp Ritchie and they created something that I call the equivalent of the Library of Congress. We see those who are the greatest of the greatest generation. And it was not until a few years ago that the son of Italian-Jewish Ritchie Boy. But within a few months the government realized these so-called enemy aliens could be a valuable resource in the war. A website by Dan Gross and Ritchie History Museum. And when their identity was discovered, they were summarily executed by the Germans that had captured them. There were Ritchie Boys who were in virtually every battle that you can think of and some actually suffered the worst fate. 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. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. There were recruiting posters all over town, 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. 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. Jon Wertheim: 60% of the actionable intelligence? and I said "may I know where I'm going?" This was our kind of war. Jon Wertheim: I understand you you had sparring partners. David Frey: If we take Camp Ritchie in microcosm, it was almost the ideal of an American melting pot. Now in their late 90s, these humble warriors still keep in touch, swapping stories about a chapter in American history now finally being told. I can look anybody straight in their eye and say I think I've earned the right to be an American. Salinger, author of the classic book "The Catcher in the Rye.". Gross wrote to me saying, My Since Stern spoke German he was tasked with the interrogation of prisoners of war and defectors. 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 Established in 2011, the Elie Wiesel Award recognizes individuals whose actions embody the Museums vision of a world where people confront hate, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Fred Frommer is a historian and writer, and author of several books, including You Gotta Have Heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Series Champion Nationals. The group also included large numbers of first- or second-generation Americans who still spoke German or other languages at home, Frey says. In New York, Paul Fairbrook, had a similar impulse. Victor Brombert: Yes, I realized that I was afraid. Message & data rates may apply. Still, if they were captured, they knew what the Nazis would do to them. 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. We were all on the same wavelength. Max Lerner: Wear civilian clothes, pass messages, kill. The Ritchie Boys trained for war against these fake Germans with fake German tanks made out of wood. 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: This one was our most effective leaflet and why was that? Just two weeks shy of turning 100, Guy Stern drips with vitality. 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. And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy.This is Guy Stern 80 years ago. Victor Brombert: I remember being up on a cliff the first night over Omaha beach. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. Jewish soldiers were in great danger if captured, and two were captured and executed due to being identified by their captors as German-born Jews. Guy Stern: Yes, even last night. Elie Wiesel, the Museums founding chairman, was the first recipient of the award, which was subsequently named in his honor. They never met for reunions, they did not join veteran associations. "How many machine guns do you have there?" The Ritchie Boys practiced street fighting in life-size replicas of German villages and questioned mock civilians in full scale German homes. After the war, Guy Stern and the other Ritchie Boys were celebrated for their achievements. Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy, based on the true experiences of a refugee from Nazi Germany, combines a coming of age story with an immigrant tale and a World War II adventure. 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. 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. Another unusual sight: towering over recruits, Frank Leavitt, a World War I veteran and pro wrestling star at the time, was among the instructors. I know all about you. Victor Brombert: We were supposed to arrest important Nazi officials. 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. By Julia M. Klein August 26, 2017. Some of these books, Frey says, were nearly 500 pages long by the end of the war. 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. Right. Fred is a former longtime Associated Press journalist, where he worked as a reporter and editor. Dozens of Ritchie Boys worked at the Nuremberg Trials as prosecutors, interrogators and translators. There were Ritchie Boys who were in virtually every battle that you can think of and some actually suffered the worst fate. The unit got its name from where they did their training, Camp Ritchie, Maryl Cast & Crew Read More Christian Bauer Director 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. The award will be presented this spring. David Frey: There were Ritchie Boys that were in the first wave on the first day at D-Day. Please enter valid email address to continue. We strive for accuracy and fairness. For 99-year-old Guy Stern, a German Jew whose entire family was killed by the Nazis, the Allies' victory over Hitler was the culmination of a public crusade and a private one as well. 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. 70 ratings17 reviews. They did counterintelligence training. -This story was originally published on defense.gov. Eventually, This is Guy Stern 80 years ago. Many were foreign-born or had lived abroad for significant amounts of time. Starting in 1942, more than 11,000 soldiers went through the rigorous training at what was the Army's first centralized school for intelligence and psychological warfare. Jon Wertheim: You work 6 days a week, you swim every morning, you lecture, any signs of slowing down? WebThe Ritchie Boys were a secret unit of the US Army during the Second World War. Salinger, author of the classic book The Catcher in the Rye.. Guy Stern: I was a soldier doing my job and that precluded any concern that I was going back to a country I once was very attached to. Many were German- and Austrian-born Jews who had fled Adolf Hitlers genocidal Nazi regimemaking them most determined enemies of the Third Reich. 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. 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.. Guy Stern recalls arriving at Buchenwald Concentration Camp three days after its liberation, alongside a fellow American sergeant. 5 likes. David Frey: They made a massive contribution to essentially every battle that the Americans fought - the entire sets of battles on the Western Front. According to the kind of unit, according to the kind of person we were interrogating. And that's why civilians could be useful and soldiers could be useful, "where is the minefield?"