"My grandfather, Lucian K Truscott Jr., was military governor of Bavaria . . ."
Whoa, that got my attention. I'm probably the only person reading your article, Lucian, who didn't get shocked by the subject matter, but these few words stopped me dead in my tracks.
You, my good friend, have some amazing heritage. Before I subscribed here, after finding out about you from TC (TCinLA is his Substack handle), I did a quick Wiki review and saw that your grandfather lead the US 3rd Army, but I was thinking Italy, not Bavaria. I had no idea your grandfather was the military governor of Bavaria after WWII.
Wow. I came to the right place. What a family you have.
Here and on Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) and on Greg Olear, I have been writing about the similarities, and differences, between Trump and Hitler.
My heritage is German on both sides. Both my parents were born in Great Depression-era Germany and lived through probably the entirety of Hitler's political career, and certainly through the entirety of the National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the NSDAP, otherwise abbreviated as the Nazi Party. "Nazi" = the first 2 syllables of "National" as pronounced in German, the Socialists for example were called "Sozis" for short.
My father was born in Munich and his childhood home, which was not sold until the 21st Century, is in a suburb of Munich. Our family lived in Germany in the 70s, and we visited that family home every major holiday. Munich, Bavaria, is where Hitler came to power. So my dad and his family had a front-row seat. It's the location of Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch, also called the Munich Putsch, Hitler's failed coup d'état. During my teens, I visited Dachau, the first concentration camp, which is also nearby and which was where Hitler sent his opponents. The more famous Jewish concentration camps came later, the ones that everyone has heard of. This first prison was primarily for people that Hitler wanted to silence, no matter their ethnicity and heritage.
As a first-born child of immigrant parents whose entire childhoods took place in that society, I have done my due diligence and studied the period and the history. It is my heritage. Not pretty, but it's mine and my family's, so I own it. I'm not a history expert, otherwise I might have known about Lucian's grandfather, but I do speak German, I do know the main points of the history, and I have parents and grandparents who lived in it and through it. I have family mementos from that period.
The biggest event in my father's childhood was probably when the U.S. Army entered their small town outside Munich. And now, if I am not mistaken, I know who was leading the U.S. force which set up a small supply company base at my family home in Neu-Esting. I can tell you stories about that U.S. Army supply company.
Like I said on HCR, Trump's family is also from what was then Bavaria. Both of Trump's grandparents were born, and met, in Kallstadt Germany before emigrating to New York City.
On the Displaced Persons card, we are looking at a 2-year-old.
In German, "Name" = first name and the term "Nachname" is normally used as surname. In this case, the person's last name is just printed at the top. Fruchter.
Moses Fruchter was 2 years old, 80 cm. tall (2 feet 7 inches), and weighed 13 kilograms (28 pounds).
He (I presume it's a boy, there's no gender designation on the form) was born May 2, 1944. In Europe, incl. English-speaking nations like the U.K., dates are: "2nd day of May, 1944."
The signature says "Meir Silberreich." I presume that's a relative or guardian signing for the boy. If the boy lost his parents or was separated from them, that person might even have been a complete stranger.
"Herzog Hess Lichtenau" is the issuing station, the issuing location. I searched it. A Wiki entry appeared in German. Sprengstoff-fabrik Hessisch Lichtenau. Translation: Spreng-stoff-fabrik, literal translation "Spring-stuff-factory," means explosives factory. They probably manufactured bombs and other explosives for WWII Germany. Hessisch = Hessian, in the German state of Hessen.
Our family lived in Hessen in the 1970s, in the main city of Frankfurt. Lichtenau is the town in Hessen where the explosives / munitions factory was located, 20 klicks (kilometers)m SE of Kassel. It's 120 miles by car from where we lived in Frankfurt.
So "Herzog Hess. Lichtenau" is the Herzog Munitions Factory in Lichtenau, Hessen, Germany. It was clearly a forced labor camp, like many of the factories in Nazi Germany. Factory owners, CEOs, were legally allowed to acquire slave labor to work in the factories. Jews could be purchased, or acquired, for forced labor, in this case to manufacture bombs and munitions for the war effort.
The card is dated 25. 12. 1946, December 25, Christmas Day.
Wow. That sent a chill down my spine. So since Moses was born May 2 '44, he was about 2-and-a-half at the time the card was filled out.
Yes, I thought you might appreciate that information. You have my email address, you know how to reach me if you have any additional questions or comments.
I took a tour of a Concentration Camp with my spouse, who is Jewish and could barely sleep that night. Never did I suspect that Nazis would end up in DC, the Capitol Building and Charlottesville where they screamed-- " Jews Will Not Replace Us". Nazis running around the USA? Last July they were in Gettysburg Cemetery carrying AR15s awaiting a shootout with Antifa. One guy had a huge swaztica Iron Cross tattooed on his shaved head. Anyway, I taught my wife how to shoot. After all, we have Nazi running around the USA!
No, he didn't talk about it. But his library was full of Holocaust stuff, like "Dachau Diary," a book he had published when he was in Bavaria that came from a diary of a Jew who perished and hid his diary, which he wrote on toilet paper rolls. Grandpa's troops discovered it after he took over Bavaria, and he had it printed. The Third Army also made huge album of photographs for him that included photos of Dachau, lots of them, ditches full of bodies, all the stuff you've probably seen in books. The album made for him by the 5th Army, which he commanded in Italy and Eastern France, had a photo taken by a 5th Army photographer of Mussolini and his mistress hung by their heels on a lamp post, where they were beaten so badly they were unrecognizable by Italian patriots who had been in the Resistance in the war. I grew up with all this history, and grandpa never uttered a word about any of it. That war broke him like he was a matchstick. The only thing my father ever heard him say about the war was the night before dad left for the Korean war, he asked grandpa what he could expect in a war. Grandpa broke down and cried for the first and only time dad ever saw him cry, and all he could say was, "The bodies, the bodies, all those bodies of dead boys." And he said it over and over again, weeping as he leaned himself over the top rail of a fence on his farm.
Wow! Lucian you have a great family history. Sadly, our children are not getting the educational history they need since Civics is not being taught in High School as it was when I was young. I worry a lot about how an uninformed youth will affect the future.
Now the real historians are making an appearance. I don't know any of this. It's a miracle I even knew, when reading Lucian's Wiki page before subscribing, that the US 3rd was in Italy. Hi TC, thanks for letting me in on who you are. No wiki page, but you published a blurb about yourself that I found, the piece about "o-pane." I had to look up Ernst Udet, no idea who that was. No idea there was a bomber group in Corsica. Surprisingly I do know where Corsica is, love geography. Very interesting. Gives me a much better idea about you.
In college in southern California I took a scholarship (free tuition) aviation course and got a Private Pilot's license. The woman who taught the program was a ferry pilot, wow was she knowledgeable and experienced, but I was a baby and didn't have the years under my belt to pump her like I would have later in life. Years later I became an A&P and had a very brief career at Logan Airport, enough that I can have an informed conversation about anything aviation-related. So when Julia's uncle began a conversation at my in-laws house in Denver (yes now I know you're from there) and mentioned PB-Ys, I could carry that conversation.
I grew up in post-war Germany. Now WW2 is becoming ancient history for most people alive today in Europe and America. Americans are so allergic to the mention of Hitler or the word Nazi, those are taboo words or at least they were for most of my life. I'm still surprised when I don't get ignored or tuned out or shunned.
Hey I can't even talk to one of my sisters, and she grew up there between age 5 and age 13. My aunts and uncles who grew up there will talk. And yes, military is military everywhere Waffen SS is something else altogether, as you well know. In your case, you are a known historian, so people who converse with you have already made the decision to go there. I'm not a known historian or anything, just a schmoe. But I have been getting good reception here and on HCR, no complaints.
My dad joined the U.S. Army and got stationed in Germany, so he's a veteran too, technically Korean War. Too young to have been a part of anything in Germany except Hitler Youth, he was born in 1933.
My father was also in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany during the Korean War. He was a mechanic working on aircraft. He returned home in 1953. It just struck me when you wrote about your father being there too. My mother’s family were all German and she only spoke German until she entered school here in the U.S. Must’ve been hard for her, but she never talked much about her childhood.
Your posts here, and on HCR are always interesting and I enjoy reading them..
Her married name was Iris Critchell, her husband was Howard Critchell. Don't know her birth name. I still think about her. Last time I saw her was well before the internet, so I haven't even internet-serched her name. She was already an old woman in the 70s when I was in college, must've been in her 60s. I don't think she ever left the lower 48 while she was a WASP, and she never used that term, she only said "ferry pilot." I know squat about her history or experience, I just know that at some point in her career she probably flew nearly every single American military aircraft in existence, and plenty of civilian aircraft as well. Of course in college I knew zip about anything. Now a conversation would be fruitful. If she had been my mother or a relative, I would be like Lucian or you, I would know a ton about WWII from the Allied side. She limited herself mostly to teaching us about our C-172 training craft at Brackett Field and the Taylorcraft she borrowed so we could learn spin recovery. Only dipped into her experience occasionally.
"My grandfather, Lucian K Truscott Jr., was military governor of Bavaria . . ."
Whoa, that got my attention. I'm probably the only person reading your article, Lucian, who didn't get shocked by the subject matter, but these few words stopped me dead in my tracks.
You, my good friend, have some amazing heritage. Before I subscribed here, after finding out about you from TC (TCinLA is his Substack handle), I did a quick Wiki review and saw that your grandfather lead the US 3rd Army, but I was thinking Italy, not Bavaria. I had no idea your grandfather was the military governor of Bavaria after WWII.
Wow. I came to the right place. What a family you have.
Here and on Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) and on Greg Olear, I have been writing about the similarities, and differences, between Trump and Hitler.
My heritage is German on both sides. Both my parents were born in Great Depression-era Germany and lived through probably the entirety of Hitler's political career, and certainly through the entirety of the National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the NSDAP, otherwise abbreviated as the Nazi Party. "Nazi" = the first 2 syllables of "National" as pronounced in German, the Socialists for example were called "Sozis" for short.
My father was born in Munich and his childhood home, which was not sold until the 21st Century, is in a suburb of Munich. Our family lived in Germany in the 70s, and we visited that family home every major holiday. Munich, Bavaria, is where Hitler came to power. So my dad and his family had a front-row seat. It's the location of Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch, also called the Munich Putsch, Hitler's failed coup d'état. During my teens, I visited Dachau, the first concentration camp, which is also nearby and which was where Hitler sent his opponents. The more famous Jewish concentration camps came later, the ones that everyone has heard of. This first prison was primarily for people that Hitler wanted to silence, no matter their ethnicity and heritage.
As a first-born child of immigrant parents whose entire childhoods took place in that society, I have done my due diligence and studied the period and the history. It is my heritage. Not pretty, but it's mine and my family's, so I own it. I'm not a history expert, otherwise I might have known about Lucian's grandfather, but I do speak German, I do know the main points of the history, and I have parents and grandparents who lived in it and through it. I have family mementos from that period.
The biggest event in my father's childhood was probably when the U.S. Army entered their small town outside Munich. And now, if I am not mistaken, I know who was leading the U.S. force which set up a small supply company base at my family home in Neu-Esting. I can tell you stories about that U.S. Army supply company.
Like I said on HCR, Trump's family is also from what was then Bavaria. Both of Trump's grandparents were born, and met, in Kallstadt Germany before emigrating to New York City.
Thank you Lucian. You sure got my attention.
On the Displaced Persons card, we are looking at a 2-year-old.
In German, "Name" = first name and the term "Nachname" is normally used as surname. In this case, the person's last name is just printed at the top. Fruchter.
Moses Fruchter was 2 years old, 80 cm. tall (2 feet 7 inches), and weighed 13 kilograms (28 pounds).
He (I presume it's a boy, there's no gender designation on the form) was born May 2, 1944. In Europe, incl. English-speaking nations like the U.K., dates are: "2nd day of May, 1944."
The signature says "Meir Silberreich." I presume that's a relative or guardian signing for the boy. If the boy lost his parents or was separated from them, that person might even have been a complete stranger.
"Herzog Hess Lichtenau" is the issuing station, the issuing location. I searched it. A Wiki entry appeared in German. Sprengstoff-fabrik Hessisch Lichtenau. Translation: Spreng-stoff-fabrik, literal translation "Spring-stuff-factory," means explosives factory. They probably manufactured bombs and other explosives for WWII Germany. Hessisch = Hessian, in the German state of Hessen.
Our family lived in Hessen in the 1970s, in the main city of Frankfurt. Lichtenau is the town in Hessen where the explosives / munitions factory was located, 20 klicks (kilometers)m SE of Kassel. It's 120 miles by car from where we lived in Frankfurt.
So "Herzog Hess. Lichtenau" is the Herzog Munitions Factory in Lichtenau, Hessen, Germany. It was clearly a forced labor camp, like many of the factories in Nazi Germany. Factory owners, CEOs, were legally allowed to acquire slave labor to work in the factories. Jews could be purchased, or acquired, for forced labor, in this case to manufacture bombs and munitions for the war effort.
The card is dated 25. 12. 1946, December 25, Christmas Day.
Wow. That sent a chill down my spine. So since Moses was born May 2 '44, he was about 2-and-a-half at the time the card was filled out.
Thanks Roland. This adds a lot of telling detail to my story.
Never heard of the UNRRA until I googled it just now.
Yes, I thought you might appreciate that information. You have my email address, you know how to reach me if you have any additional questions or comments.
I took a tour of a Concentration Camp with my spouse, who is Jewish and could barely sleep that night. Never did I suspect that Nazis would end up in DC, the Capitol Building and Charlottesville where they screamed-- " Jews Will Not Replace Us". Nazis running around the USA? Last July they were in Gettysburg Cemetery carrying AR15s awaiting a shootout with Antifa. One guy had a huge swaztica Iron Cross tattooed on his shaved head. Anyway, I taught my wife how to shoot. After all, we have Nazi running around the USA!
Great thread here
Bravo! We must never forget the truth of what the Nazis did!
Your grandpa, like my parents, was anti-fa. Thank you for the story.
This brought tears to my eyes. Thank you
Love Gen. Truscott's choice of venue. And printer. Did he talk about this at all?
No, he didn't talk about it. But his library was full of Holocaust stuff, like "Dachau Diary," a book he had published when he was in Bavaria that came from a diary of a Jew who perished and hid his diary, which he wrote on toilet paper rolls. Grandpa's troops discovered it after he took over Bavaria, and he had it printed. The Third Army also made huge album of photographs for him that included photos of Dachau, lots of them, ditches full of bodies, all the stuff you've probably seen in books. The album made for him by the 5th Army, which he commanded in Italy and Eastern France, had a photo taken by a 5th Army photographer of Mussolini and his mistress hung by their heels on a lamp post, where they were beaten so badly they were unrecognizable by Italian patriots who had been in the Resistance in the war. I grew up with all this history, and grandpa never uttered a word about any of it. That war broke him like he was a matchstick. The only thing my father ever heard him say about the war was the night before dad left for the Korean war, he asked grandpa what he could expect in a war. Grandpa broke down and cried for the first and only time dad ever saw him cry, and all he could say was, "The bodies, the bodies, all those bodies of dead boys." And he said it over and over again, weeping as he leaned himself over the top rail of a fence on his farm.
Wow! Lucian you have a great family history. Sadly, our children are not getting the educational history they need since Civics is not being taught in High School as it was when I was young. I worry a lot about how an uninformed youth will affect the future.
Yes, never forget...
Your piece was very moving, but the thread...thank you all so very much.
Now the real historians are making an appearance. I don't know any of this. It's a miracle I even knew, when reading Lucian's Wiki page before subscribing, that the US 3rd was in Italy. Hi TC, thanks for letting me in on who you are. No wiki page, but you published a blurb about yourself that I found, the piece about "o-pane." I had to look up Ernst Udet, no idea who that was. No idea there was a bomber group in Corsica. Surprisingly I do know where Corsica is, love geography. Very interesting. Gives me a much better idea about you.
In college in southern California I took a scholarship (free tuition) aviation course and got a Private Pilot's license. The woman who taught the program was a ferry pilot, wow was she knowledgeable and experienced, but I was a baby and didn't have the years under my belt to pump her like I would have later in life. Years later I became an A&P and had a very brief career at Logan Airport, enough that I can have an informed conversation about anything aviation-related. So when Julia's uncle began a conversation at my in-laws house in Denver (yes now I know you're from there) and mentioned PB-Ys, I could carry that conversation.
I grew up in post-war Germany. Now WW2 is becoming ancient history for most people alive today in Europe and America. Americans are so allergic to the mention of Hitler or the word Nazi, those are taboo words or at least they were for most of my life. I'm still surprised when I don't get ignored or tuned out or shunned.
And if you think those words are taboo here, Ha! Try bringing up the subject with Germans. Fuggedaboutit.
Hey I can't even talk to one of my sisters, and she grew up there between age 5 and age 13. My aunts and uncles who grew up there will talk. And yes, military is military everywhere Waffen SS is something else altogether, as you well know. In your case, you are a known historian, so people who converse with you have already made the decision to go there. I'm not a known historian or anything, just a schmoe. But I have been getting good reception here and on HCR, no complaints.
My dad joined the U.S. Army and got stationed in Germany, so he's a veteran too, technically Korean War. Too young to have been a part of anything in Germany except Hitler Youth, he was born in 1933.
My father was also in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany during the Korean War. He was a mechanic working on aircraft. He returned home in 1953. It just struck me when you wrote about your father being there too. My mother’s family were all German and she only spoke German until she entered school here in the U.S. Must’ve been hard for her, but she never talked much about her childhood.
Your posts here, and on HCR are always interesting and I enjoy reading them..
Her married name was Iris Critchell, her husband was Howard Critchell. Don't know her birth name. I still think about her. Last time I saw her was well before the internet, so I haven't even internet-serched her name. She was already an old woman in the 70s when I was in college, must've been in her 60s. I don't think she ever left the lower 48 while she was a WASP, and she never used that term, she only said "ferry pilot." I know squat about her history or experience, I just know that at some point in her career she probably flew nearly every single American military aircraft in existence, and plenty of civilian aircraft as well. Of course in college I knew zip about anything. Now a conversation would be fruitful. If she had been my mother or a relative, I would be like Lucian or you, I would know a ton about WWII from the Allied side. She limited herself mostly to teaching us about our C-172 training craft at Brackett Field and the Taylorcraft she borrowed so we could learn spin recovery. Only dipped into her experience occasionally.
I always felt the Italian campaign was a topographic mistake undertaken to get Churchill off of his invasion through Greece plan.