how many ritchie boys were there

That was the mantra. Essentially they were intellectuals. Guy Stern: God no. 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 Ritchie Boys were one of World War IIs greatest secret weapons for US Army intelligence, said incoming Museum Chairman Stuart E. Eizenstat. Given their foreign accents, they were in particular danger of being mistaken for the enemy by their own troops, who instituted passwords at checkpoints. You playacted. Hundreds of Ritchie Boys were attached to divisions that liberated concentration camps and interviewed former prisoners to document the atrocities that took place. It is a story of a remarkable synergy between a diverse group of well trained and motivated individuals. 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. Max Lerner: They have a tattoo of their blood group under their left arms. The Ritchie Boys earned a reputation for delivering important tactical information fast, making a major contribution to every battle on the Western Front. 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: None of my family survived. Some never went back to Europe, but one retired to Berlin in 1988 and spent his final years visiting German schools to talk about his childhood under Hitler. And I made sure he knew that it was a Jew who controlled him. There were roughly 9000 of these Jews in America and they specialized in the interrogation of German prisoners. This books publish date is Sep 01, 2021. 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. WebOne can readily point to the case of Ritchie Boy William R. Perl who outwitted Adolf Eichmann and saved an estimated 40,000 lives. -This story was originally published on defense.gov. WebMany of them, like Brombert, were Jewish. Jon Wertheim: That's the kind of thing you would know. Paul Fairbrook helped write this compact manual, known as the red book, which outlined in great detail the makeup of virtually every Nazi unit, information every Ritchie Boy committed to memory. Their subjects ranged from low-level German soldiers to high-ranking Nazi officers including Hans Goebbels, brother of Hitler's chief propogandist, Joseph Goebbels. Jon Wertheim: This is going behind enemy lines. So to get that kind of information, particularly from those you capture on the battlefield, you need people who are trained to get that information. There were Ritchie Boys who were in virtually every battle that you can think of and some actually suffered the worst fate. Divided into 6-man teams the Ritchie Boys were attached to different Army units. They were all forced to do it. Their mission: to use their knowledge of the German language and culture to return to Europe and fight Naziism. According to the Holocaust Museum, two Jewish David Frey: All in service of winning the war. Longtime Yale and Princeton professor Victor Brombert helped enact the official Allied policy of removing Nazi influence from german public life known as denazification. Those were the heroes. The Ritchie Boys discovered that the Nazis were terrified of ending up in Russian captivity and they used that to great effect. Some of them were very involved with the collection of information that became the basis of the trials at Nuremberg and subsequent war crimes trials, Frey said. Guy Stern: I had a war to fight and I did it. And I needed to get my own back. Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy. 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. 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. A nonpartisan, federal educational institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is Americas national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust dedicated to ensuring the permanence of Holocaust memory, understanding, and relevance. In civilian life, he became a noted sculpture and fine arts teacher and rose to the presidency for the Center for Creative Studies at Detroit's College of Art and Design. Jon Wertheim: How effective were they at gathering intelligence? David Frey: The work they do in the field, being able to glean information simply by from the uniform that a captured POW is wearing or the type of weapon that they have or the unit that they've just captured. You want to convince them that you're trustworthy. David Frey: I think they did. Guy Stern, a Bronze Star Medal recipient who attended, said: Ritchie Boy Dr. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Courtesy of the Holocaust Memorial Center, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Spotlight/WWII/. The soldiers were sent for training to 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. Others were actually really important in American science. His Jewish family left Germany in 1933 when he was 10. Your average commander in the field might not. The boys were members of a military intelligence unit; strongly discouraged from talking about their war, they didnt hold their first reunion until 60 years after it ended. Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. Victor Brombert: One had to playact with some of the people were acting as prisoners and some of them were real prisoners. Did it give you any satisfaction? Paul Fairbrook: Oh that is a very good question. Victor Brombert: Yes, well with a stick. 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. 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. Some Ritchie Boys were recruited to go on secret missions during the war. Guy Stern: Yes, that carried weight and the belief in the printed matter was very great. 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. But ask him about his most formative experience - and he doesn't hesitate. I wanted, desperately, to do something. They crossed into Germany with the Allied armies and witnessed the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. Then shaping the cold war era, they really played a significant role. And if you get up early enough, you might catch him working out at his local park in the suburbs of Detroit. They all rose to the top of their fields, as did a number of other Ritchie Boys. Guy Stern: This one was our most effective leaflet and why was that? 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. Apart from the fighting, there were other threats confronting the Ritchie Boys. It was wonderful to be part of them. 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. I have some that were shot. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. Web"The Ritchie Boys" is the untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned to Europe as soldiers in US-uniforms. Approximately 20,000 menmany of whom were immigrants and refugees from more than 70 countries, including 2,800 German and Austrian refugees who fled Max Lerner: They were all justifying themselves. Then came the surprise transfer to secretive Camp Ritchie in backwoods Maryland, where his first sight was a platoon of soldiers marching byin full-dress Wehrmacht uniforms. Jon Wertheim: All in service of winning the war? David Frey: The purpose of the facility was to train interrogators. Jon Wertheim: Did the Ritchie Boys redefine what it means to be a soldier and contribute to a military? And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy.This is Guy Stern 80 years ago. Jon Wertheim: So physical combat training as well as intelligence? Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. This was our kind of war. Training was designed to be as realistic as possible. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. The Ritchie Boys consisted of approximately 15,200 servicemen who were trained for U.S. Army Intelligence during WWII. I don't think we're heroes. Not just any Nazi party member. In the age of mechanized warfare, you need to know what these large armies look like, what their capabilities are, how theyre arrayed, Frey says. Fortunately, a book written by historian Beverley Eddy tells the story of Camp Ritchie and the Ritchie Boys in great detail and with professional skill. The Ritchie Boys exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. I'm denouncing this and I was forced to do it. Follow him at @ffrommer. Guy Stern: I was called to the company office and told you're shipping out. 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. 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. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! One can also point to a Ritchie Boy Jon Wertheim: Did you enjoy hunting Nazis? I can't recommend this book enough! 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. Of late, the Ritchie Boys have been the subject of growing media attention including, in May, on the television news program 60 Minutes. David Frey teaches history to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), The Ritchie Boys train at Camp Ritchie, Maryland during World War II. 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. A PHOTO FROM A RITCHIE BOY REUNION HELD IN WASHINGTON DC. 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. It was also in Europe that some of them, like Guy Stern, learned what had happened to the families they left behind. David Frey: Techniques where you want to get people to talk to you. And that's why civilians could be useful and soldiers could be useful, "where is the minefield?" They were heroes not necessarily or predominantly based on bravery but on their intelligence and deserving of the name Secret Heroes. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Many of the Jewish refugees lost family members, and at the end of the war, they searched for them. When they landed on the beaches of Normandy, Wehrmacht troops were waiting for them well armed and well prepared. 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. 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. Fortunately, a book written by historian Beverley Eddy tells the story of Camp Ritchie and the Ritchie Boys in great detail and with professional skill. I was the only one to get out. Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Esc 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. They never met for reunions, they did not join veteran associations. Following the war, some of the Ritchie Boys were interrogators during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. Sometimes entire German towns were forced to pay respects to the dead. 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. They also drafted and dropped leaflets from airplanes behind enemy lines. But the opportunity to help fight and win the war was a wonderful way. Guy Stern: I went to my father one day and I said, "classes are becoming a torture chamber". But Hildesheim was now in ruins. Many of them were Jewish refugees from Europe, who fled their homeland, came to America and joined the U.S. Army. Max Lerner recalls that in one respect at least, identifying most SS members was easy. You sort of swing it around the neck from behind and then pull. Director, Communications One of these was Staff Sergeant Stephen (Moose) Mosbacher who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. Of the approximately 19,000 Ritchie Boys who served during the war, about 200 are still living, ranging 95 107 years old. And that has been the driving force in my life. The Ritchie Boys, as they were known, trained in espionage and frontline interrogation. Tonight, we'll introduce you to members of a secret American intelligence unit who fought in World War II. And that's what the key to the success was. Dan Gross and several invited guests joined the Ritchie Boys for the photo. Or is it just a habit or habit of obedience or dignity? 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. The untold story of the Ritchie Boys - Macleans.ca After Hitler's defeat, many of them took on a challenging new assignment using their language and interrogation skills to find and arrest top Nazi war criminals. Following the war, some of the Ritchie Boys were used as interrogators during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. 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. Not all the boys were immigrantsfuture banker David Rockefeller and writer J.D. Although Ritchie Boy. "Enjoy" is perhaps not the right word. It was wonderful to see these people again. and I said "may I know where I'm going?" 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 Most chose the eldest son, to carry on the family name. Spy. Max Lerner: He spent several days in my jail. The danger from the German side, of course, was far higher. Jon Wertheim: And you think because it had that signature, somehow that certified it.

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