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World War II

Aug 2005Chance that a German says Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is the same “in principle” as how Nazis treated Jews : 1 in 2
Source:

Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Institut für interdisziplinäre Konflikt und Gewaltforschung (Bielefeld, Germany)

Aug 2005Percentage of Germans who say, about the Nazi era, that “one should not always poke around in old wounds” : 60
Source:

TNS Emnid (Bielefeld, Germany)

Nov 2001Chance that a U.S. soldier in World War II volunteered: 1 in 3
Source:

Selective Service System (Washington)

Dec 2000Months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that the United States enacted a complete embargo on trade with Japan: 5
Source:

Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit, Simon &Schuster Inc. (N.Y.C.)

Sep 2000Number of years of planning and construction devoted to France's Maginot Line fortifications in World War II: 15
Source:

Martin S. Alexander, “In Defence of the Maginot Line: Security Policy, Domestic Politics and the Economic Depression in France,” French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power, Routledge (N.Y.C.)

Sep 2000Number of days it took the German army to maneuver around France's Maginot Line fortifications in World War II and invade France: 3
Source:

Martin S. Alexander, “In Defence of the Maginot Line: Security Policy, Domestic Politics and the Economic Depression in France,” French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power, Routledge (N.Y.C.)

Aug 1999Number of days it took the German army to conquer Yugoslavia in World War II's “Operation Punishment”: 11
Source:

Prof. Mark Parillo, Kansas State University (Manhatten, Kans.)

Aug 1999Days after President Roosevelt's death in April 1945 that Vice President Truman was told the atomic bomb existed: 13
Source:

“Truman,” The American Experience, WGBH (Boston)

Oct 1998Number of slave laborers that Volkswagen admits to having used in one of its factories during World War II: 17,000
Source:

Volkswagen (Wolfsburg, Germany)

Oct 1998Pounds of gold jewelry and dental fillings amassed during wartime by a single SS officer: 1,640
Source:

Deutsche Bank (Frankfurt)

March 17, 2008Horst Rippert, an 88-year-old former German fighter pilot, told the biographer of Antoine de Saint-Exupery that one of the 28 planes that Rippert gunned down during World War II was piloted by The Little Prince author. “If I had known,” Rippert said, “I wouldn't have fired.”
Source:

The Scotsman

August 7, 2007The public disclosure of Adolf Hitler's private record collection indicated that the Fuehrer enjoyed listening to Jewish musicians play Tchaikovsky.
Source:

Guardian

March 1, 2007A woman in Naples found a live World War II-era hand grenade in a bag of potatoes.
Source:

BBC

December 11, 2006 Iran held a conference to examine whether the Holocaust happened.
Source:

AP via CBS

December 6, 2006In New York City, the World War II aircraft carrier U.S.S. Intrepid was finally pulled out of the mud.
Source:

Washington Post

November 20, 2006Residents of Oberlin, Ohio, were upset by the presence of gingerbread Nazis.
Source:

ABC News

November 8, 2006The principal of a high school in North Carolina apologized after an excerpt of a speech by Joseph Goebbels was played over the PA system during a soccer game.
Source:

CNN

October 12, 2006Adam Pearlman, the “American Al Qaeda,” was charged with treason, making him the first U.S. citizen so indicted since World War II.
Source:

CBS News

September 18, 2006Neo-Nazis won seats in the regional parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany.
Source:

Australia Herald-Sun

August 23, 2006The Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said banks that handle money for Iran and North Korea were the same as those that accepted Nazi assets.
Source:

Associated Press via Yahoo News

August 14, 2006It was pointed out that the United States has been fighting in Iraq for as long as it fought Germany during World War II.
Source:

The Chicago Tribune

February 24, 2006The mayor of London was suspended for four weeks with full pay for saying to a Jewish journalist: "You are just like a concentration-camp guard."
Source:

BBC News

February 19, 2006Riots over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad continued around the world. In Nigeria 16 people were killed in rioting and 11 churches were burned; in Libya at least 10 people were killed; and in Pakistan at least 5 people were killed. In Volgograd, Russia, officials closed the city newspaper after it published a cartoon that showed Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, and Buddha watching TV together. Fifteen thousand people protested the cartoons in London. “We have to speak up,” said a Muslim demonstrator, “to prevent something like the Holocaust from happening.”
Source 1:

CNN.com

Source 2:

The New York Times

February 17, 2006The Supreme Court of Italy, considering the case of a man who forced his 14-year-old stepdaughter to perform oral sex, ruled that molesting girls who have already had sexual experience is not as bad as molesting virgins. “The real problem,” commented Mussolini's granddaughter, “is that there are no women in the supreme court.”
Source:

CNN.com

February 7, 2006The Arab European League website published cartoons mocking the Holocaust. One showed Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank; Hitler says: “put this in your diary, Anne.”
Source:

UPI

December 14, 2005 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was a myth.
Source:

BBC News

June 22, 2005 Italy sentenced ten former Nazi SS officers to life in prison in absentia.
Source:

BBC News

May 24, 2005 Japan announced it would close down its fund for WWII-era sex slaves.
Source:

BBC News

May 14, 2005 Wal-Mart apologized for running an advertisement that equated current Arizona zoning ordinances with the Nazi regime. Using a photo of a 1933 book burning in Berlin, the ad read: “Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?”
Source:

Washington Post

May 10, 2005A Holocaust memorial opened in Berlin. Some people were upset that it only commemorated the deaths of Jews.
Source:

Reuters

May 8, 2005It was the 60th anniversary of VE Day. The German ambassador to London called on Britain to change its attitude towards Germany. “They continue to see us as Nazis,” he said, “as if they have to refight the battles every evening.”
Source:

The Independent

April 27, 2005The Austrian housewares chain Baumax renamed their tool shed from “Mauthausen,” which was the name of a Nazi concentration camp, to “Linde,” which means “linden tree.”
Source:

New York Times

April 22, 2005 Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi publicly apologized for the “tremendous damage and suffering” caused by Japan's actions prior to and during World War II.
Source:

BBC News

August 26, 2003 Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, compared the Iraqi guerrillas to the Nazi Werewolves who resisted the Allies after World War II; Rice pleaded for patience and suggested that building democracy in Iraq might take a very, very long time. "Our own history should remind us that the union of democratic principle and practice is always a work in progress. When the Founding Fathers said, 'We the People,' they did not mean me. My ancestors were considered three-fifths of a person."
Source:

New York Times

July 2, 2003President Johannes Rau of Germany had the word "Luftwaffe" removed from his two government airplanes to avoid upsetting people in countries conquered by Germany during World War II.
Source:

Reuters

February 11, 2003 Howard Coble, a Republican congressman from North Carolina who chairs a House subcommittee on domestic security, declared that the interning of Japanese Americans during World War II “was appropriate at the time.” He also said that he thought President Roosevelt took the action “for their own protection.” Federal officials announced that the Army Corps of Engineers had removed 10,000 tons of soil contaminated with arsenic from a Washington, D.C., neighborhood about four miles from the White House. More than 425 munitions were removed from the area, which was used to test chemical weapons during World War I, and rounds containing arsine gas were taken from the Korean ambassador's residence.
April 24, 2001A Thai senator claimed to have found evidence of a cache of gold hidden by Japanese soldiers during World War II; troops were called in to look for the loot.
April 10, 2001 Japan approved a new history textbook that, according to critics in China and elsewhere, fails adequately to criticize Japanese conduct in World War II.
April 3, 2001 Holocaust survivors filed suit against the United States because it did not bomb Auschwitz during World War II.
January 23, 2001 California was forced to impose blackouts for the first time since World War II; George W. Bush said that he was opposed to price caps on wholesale power and suggested that California simply relax its environmental regulations and allow power companies to go full tilt. He recently gave the following analysis: “The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.” Much of California's electricity is produced by plants in Texas.
October 10, 2000Thousands of Chinese who worked as slaves for Japan in World War II filed suit in California against Japanese companies that might have profited from their servitude; Japanese military occupiers enslaved over ten million Chinese on the mainland and some 50,000 in Japan.
October 10, 2000DNA tests identified the Hungarian WWII prisoner of war who spent 53 years in a Russian mental hospital.

AUGUST 2008

THE WRECKING CREW
How a Gang of Right-Wing Con Men Destroyed Washington and Made a Killing
By Thomas Frank

THE MANDARINS
American Foreign Policy, Brought to You by China
By Ken Silverstein

JACK
A story by Marilynne Robinson

Also: WILLIAM H. GASS on Henry James