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Drawing on archival research, memoirs and interviews with several Ritchie Boys (there were 1,985 in all), he focuses on a half dozen. At the time though, the military wouldn't take volunteers who weren't born in the U.S. All students of World War II need to learn about the the Ritchie Boys. Jon Wertheim: So physical combat training as well as intelligence? I thought, "I'm never going to do that," but I was shown how to do it. Andrew Hollinger It was an impact on war crimes. The untold story of the Ritchie Boys - Macleans.ca Jon Wertheim: SS men, you're saying, have a tattoo under their left arm with their blood type? David Frey: They were in fact. The Ritchie Boys | The Story Ritchie Max Lerner: It gave me a great deal of satisfaction. About 200 Ritchie Boys are estimated to be alive today. Investment banker David Rockefeller and civil rights activistWilliam Sloane Coffin were among the Ritchie Boys, who were assigned to every Army and Marines unitand to the Office of Strategic Services and the Counter Intelligence Corps. Captain Harvey J. Cook served as the Intelligence Officer for the Second Ranger Battalion and was among those who scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc at Omaha Beach on D-Day. The group also included large numbers of first- or second-generation Americans who still spoke German or other languages at home, Frey says. stories from a Nazi interrogator, now a Mill Personal, of course, but also this country - I was really treated well. It was hard for us not to notice that beyond the stories runs a deep sense of pride. very important because you save life if you know where the mine "where is the machine gun nest?" Guy Stern arrived in the U.S. alone at age 15, settling with an uncle in St. Louis. Their subjects ranged from low-level German soldiers to high-ranking Nazi officers including Hans Goebbels, brother of Hitler's chief propogandist, Joseph Goebbels. 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. 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. The Ritchie Boys, some of whom landed on the beaches at Normandy, helped to interpret documents and gather intelligence, and conducted enemy warfare. 202.437.1221 The Ritchie Boys Guy Stern: We were walking along and you saw these emaciated, horribly looking, close to death people. 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. I asked them to leave it off. 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.. I never calculated that there is such a thing as terror, fear. Broadcast associate, Elizabeth Germino. Jon Wertheim: That's how you looked at it. And that's what the key to the success was. ", Jon Wertheim: Did you ever confront a Nazi who said "this was morally reprehensible? Guy Stern returned to Normandy in 2016 to pay his respects to the more than 9,300 men buried in the American cemetery there, on the bluff overlooking the hallowed beach. After the war, the Ritchie Boys continued their work. 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. How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win World War II For America. Guy Stern: Yes, that carried weight and the belief in the printed matter was very great. Your average commander in the field might not. Ritchie Boy Wannabe Dan Gross and several invited guests joined the Ritchie Boys for the photo. 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. 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. A few years ago, says the Menlo Park, Calif., author of Sons and Soldiers, I was reading an obit in the paper about a local man, a ninetysomething Jewish guy who had left Germany on the Kindertransporthis parents didnt survivemade it to America and become a Ritchie Boy. A what? 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. The U.S. Army leased the post for $5 a year and established The Military Intelligence Training Center. It was here that over 19,000 Ritchie Boys, many of them German-Jewish immigrants from Europe 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. Jon Wertheim: What you describe, it almost sounds like these were precursors to CIA agents. Guy Stern: And some we didn't break but 80% were so darned scared of the Russians and what they would do. 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. Ritchie Boys also collected evidence which led to the prosecution of many high ranking Nazis including Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe; Rudolph Hess, deputy furher to Adolf Hitler; and Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Wehrmacht, Germany's armed forces. David Frey: You had a whole load of immigrants who really wanted to get back into the fight. Following the war, some of the Ritchie Boys were interrogators during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. 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.. Victor Brombert: The shared experience, exactly. David Frey: All in service of winning the war. 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 they were impressed with that. Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. 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. 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. 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. You sort of swing it around the neck from behind and then pull. Jon Wertheim: And you're saying that some of that originated at Camp Ritchie? 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. 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. Jon Wertheim: Do you remember saying goodbye to your family? Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. All Rights Reserved. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. As was philanthropist David Rockefeller and media baron and billionaire John Kluge. Director, Communications We were all on the same wavelength. Ritchie Boys were a military intelligence unit made up of mostly German, Austrian and Czech refugees and immigrants, many of whom were Jewish. Ritchie Boys Image by Sons and Soldiers. Jon Wertheim: That's what you were told. 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. David Frey: It was a very broad range And they did it all generally in eight weeks. 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. They spoke the same German as the Wehrmacht soldiers they were up against, they shared experiences, education and culture with them, explains Henderson. The story of Camp Ritchie and the men (and women) who came there is a story that needs to be broadcast more widely. (U.S. Army Signal Corps). Max Lerner: You know how to tell an SS man? 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. Max Lerner: Wear civilian clothes, pass messages, kill. He was shot right away and killed. There were Ritchie Boys who were in POW camps embedded and gathering information in the United States. Making such a distinction in this case is very difficult. He still works six days a week. Untold story of the Ritchie Boys - edmondlifeandleisure.com 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. Some Ritchie Boys were recruited to go on secret missions during the war. Ritchie Boys Now is it because they were afraid that the Nazis might come back, that it's not over? What's most extraordinary about this group: many of them were German-born Jews who fled their homeland, came to America, and then joined the U.S. Army. The intent of this web page, in addition to providing demographics and statistics not available elsewhere, will be to highlight individual secret heroes whose contributions were also singularly significant. Of the nearly 20,000 Ritchie Boys who served in WWII, around 140 were killed in action, including at the costly Aren't we all sort of, tired of it?". Many had fled Nazi Germany but returned as American soldiers, deploying their knowledge of German language and culture to great advantage. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. Ritchie Boys were heroes who used their innate skills to gather information from all sources Ritchie Boy Dr. Now 98, Fairbrook is the former dean of the Culinary Institute of America. Guy Stern: We were on a PT boat taking off from Southampton. Because Eisenhower had signed it and the Germans had an incredibly nave approach to everything that was signed and sealed. You know a lot about them already. It was Sunday, May 13, 1945, Henderson marvels. Book Summary: The title of this book is Ritchie Boy Secrets and it was written by Eddy, Beverley Driver. Jon Wertheim: And you think because it had that signature, somehow that certified it. Guy Stern recalls arriving at Buchenwald Concentration Camp three days after its liberation, alongside a fellow American sergeant. When the war was over, their German accents and unusual The knowledge that his adopted country would not let him fight their common enemy was bitterly frustrating. You want to give them that feeling that you know who they are, they know who you are. Fred is a former longtime Associated Press journalist, where he worked as a reporter and editor. Sometimes, not even information about their fate: it was the 1990s before Werner Angress could confirm his father perished in Auschwitz. 70 ratings17 reviews. Jon Wertheim: Give us a sense of the kinds of courses they took. Jon Wertheim: 60% of the actionable intelligence? Jon Wertheim: This is going behind enemy lines. The case of Hans Habe 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. Among them were the Ritchie Boys, some 15,200 men who attended the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Md. Most of the guys in basic training were Southerners who hated the Jewish boys from New York and busted our chops most of the time, George Sakheim, who had fled to the United States by way of Palestine, told POLITICO Magazine. But Hildesheim was now in ruins. All SS members were subject to automatic arrest. II prisoner-of-war camps in 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. 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. Guy Stern: I think it was the continuous flow of reliable information that really helped expedite the end of the war. They took their name from the place they trained - Camp Ritchie, Maryland a secret American military intelligence center during the war. David Frey: They made a massive contribution to essentially every battle that the Americans fought - the entire sets of battles on the Western Front. David Frey: Because it involves military intelligence, much of it was actually kept secret until the - the 1990's. Ritchie Boys Honored for WWII Service, Valor | AUSA David Frey: Absolutely. I don't think we're heroes. Other Ritchie Boys were able to express their motivation and accomplishments in memoirs with titles such as I Must Be a Part of This War and A Few Who Made a Difference. Never. Approximately 14%, or 2,200, of them David Frey teaches history to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. According to the kind of unit, according to the kind of person we were interrogating. According to the Holocaust Museum, two Jewish Guy Stern: My fellow students it was an all-male school withdrew from you. I don't know. Besides their language ability, these soldiers were familiar with the culture and thinking of enemy soldiers, which would aid them in their efforts. For decades, they didn't discuss their work. You on one side and we on this side. 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. Individual Ritchie Boys were cited for their contributions by being awarded over 60 Silver Star Medals for bravery. In addition to the Holocaust Museums award, the U.S. Senate passed a resolutionin 2021 honoring the bravery and dedication of the Ritchie Boys, and recognizing the importance of their contributions to the success of the Allied Forces during World War II.. Early on in the war, the Army realized it needed German- and Italian-speaking U.S. soldiers for a variety of duties, including psychological warfare, interrogation, espionage and intercepting enemy communications. Jon Wertheim: You work 6 days a week, you swim every morning, you lecture, any signs of slowing down? 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. Jon Wertheim: That's the kind of thing you would know. They fought with the American military in the lands they had recently escaped, helping to turn the course of the war. 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. There were recruiting posters all over town, Jon Wertheim: And those are your those are your comrades. Their job: to provide battlefield intelligence. David Frey: This is where the having an intelligence officer from Camp Ritchie was of critical importance. "It was a terrible situation. Jon Wertheim: Did you worry what might happen if you were captured? What what did that entail? (See 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. 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. I tell you when we landed on Omaha beach, there were-- the whole heights had been occupied by the German artillery and I looked up on those heights and there were our American soldiers in full occupation on the day D plus 3 and I said to myself, "that can't be done." Ritchie Boy One can also point to a Ritchie Boy who was given the opportunity to shape the critically important program of psychological warfare by training nearly all the 850 members of the Mobile Radio Broadcasting Companies. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Jon Wertheim: I understand there are some Ritchie Boys [that] became fairly prominent figures. -This story was originally published on defense.gov. The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security. It has been edited for USO.org. They were asked, in some cases, to memorize battle books, which told soldiers about the enemys organization, structure, capacity, leadership and experience. Eight Week Classes - Dates & Graduation Numbers. 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. Many landed on the beaches of Normandy soon after D-Day. Guy Stern: I went to my father one day and I said, "classes are becoming a torture chamber". The Ritchie Boys landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and helped liberate Paris. 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Harmony Jones, a military child, shares how being raised in a military family helped shape her future for success. Guy Stern: This one was our most effective leaflet and why was 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. Jon Wertheim: Was it your knowledge of the language or your knowledge of the psychology and the German culture? David Frey: Some became ambassadors. The Ritchie Boys key asset was language skills, and the militarys hunger was for battlefield POW interrogators. Many of them about 14% were Jewish refugees like Kantor. Victor Brombert: I remember being up on a cliff the first night over Omaha beach. 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. 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. Walter Midener, an attendee, was awarded the Silver Star. The Ritchie Boys and Questions of Death and Spies ", Dr. The U.S. Army had evidently decided that Martin Selling was a useful asset after all.