In trying to assess the contribution of a single participant to an endeavor as gigantic as World War II, the question is often asked How much difference can one man make? Considering how remarkable Ritchie Boys were as individuals, does it make sense to try to find just one or perhaps two Ritchie Boys whose individual contributions stand out in terms of the difference it made? Divisions that liberated concentration camps included hundreds of Ritchie Boys, who interviewed survivors. Although Ritchie Boy. It was wonderful to be part of them. But certainly what did not work was violence or threat of violence. Mr. He is among the last surviving Ritchie Boys - a group of young men many of them German Jews who played an outsized role in helping the Allies win World War II. 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/. Jon Wertheim: What you describe, it almost sounds like these were precursors to CIA agents. Approximately 20,000 menmany of whom were immigrants and refugees from more than 70 countries, including 2,800 German and Austrian refugees who fled Jon Wertheim: Why were the Ritchie Boys so successful? David Frey: I think they did. Nina Wolff Feld told her fathers story in Someday You Will Understand: My Fathers Private World War 2. Jon Wertheim: What is it like when you get together and reflect on this experience going on 80 years ago? So little was known about the Ritchie Boys until the excellent documentary film The Ritchie Boys came upon the scene in 2004. The Ritchie Boys key asset was language skills, and the militarys hunger was for battlefield POW interrogators. who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. 'Ritchie Boys' Aided Army's Efforts to Defeat Germany Making such a distinction in this case is very difficult. Guy Stern: I had a war to fight and I did it. 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. Jon Wertheim: What were you trained to do? told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. We hope you find the data, stories, and images here of interest. Victor Brombert: I saw immense debris. The SS controlled the German police forces and concentration camps and directed the so-called "Final Solution" to kill all European Jews. Tonight, we'll introduce you to members of a secret American intelligence unit who fought in World War II. And I gave myself the name Commissar Krukov. Dan Gross and several invited guests joined the Ritchie Boys for the photo. Holocaust refugee turned American Soldier never forgot 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. The Ritchie Boys exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. 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. 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. According to the Holocaust Museum, two Jewish soldiers were taken captive and executed after being identified as German-born Jews, and there were about 200 Ritchie Boys alive as of May 2022. Contact. 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. They never met for reunions, they did not join veteran associations. 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. He still works six days a week. At one point, Max Lerner disguised himself as a German officer and snuck behind enemy lines - leading a team of American soldiers into a German depot at night and destroying the equipment. Immigrant Soldier, The Story of 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 Ritchie Boys Honored for WWII Service, Valor | AUSA He is still haunted by what he experienced that day. Salinger was a Ritchie Boy. Guy Stern: I preferred not having it. Ritchie Jon Wertheim: As a way to honor your family that perished. Although members of the Ritchie Boys were awarded more than 65 Silver Stars, their group was not very well known during the war. Naturally, I turned to Dan Gross, the unofficial archivist for the Ritchie Boys. David Frey: There were Ritchie Boys that were in the first wave on the first day at D-Day. 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. And notably, professor Frey says, more than 250 Ritchie Boys continued to work in the field of intelligence after the war, becoming professional spies. David Frey: If we take Camp Ritchie in microcosm, it was almost the ideal of an American melting pot. A friendly approach - trying to be human. This group became known as The Ritchie Boys, who were the basis of a documentary film of the same name. The Jewish Refugees Who Fled Nazi GermanyThen Returned to Guy Stern: I went to my father one day and I said, "classes are becoming a torture chamber". We now know that this perception needs to be broadened. 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. But after a year, he joined the U.S. Army and became one of the 20,000 Ritchie Boys, a special group of soldiers trained at Camp Ritchie (formerly a Maryland National Guard site) to serve in military intelligence during World War II. African-American Ritchie Boy William Warfield In exchange for their knowledge of German language, culture and topography, which proved critical in extracting information vital to the war effort, the Army offered citizenship. Guy Stern: None of my family survived. 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. They were all forced to do it. 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 And that's what-- that's what it did for me. And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy. Because they would know this information. All the while, they tracked down evidence and interrogated Nazi criminals, later tried at Nuremberg. 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. By Julia M. Klein August 26, 2017. 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: There were long and demanding exercises and close combat training. Those were the heroes. 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. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. Victor Brombert: We were supposed to arrest important Nazi officials. Another was, , 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. The appearance of DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. 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. 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. There were Ritchie Boys who were in virtually every battle that you can think of and some actually suffered the worst fate. And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy.This is Guy Stern 80 years ago. 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? "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. Jon Wertheim: Sixty percent of the actionable intelligence? 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 All SS members were subject to automatic arrest. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 They knew the psychology and the -This story was originally published on defense.gov. Victor Brombert: My parents were pacifists so the idea of my going to war was for them calamitous, however they realized that it was a necessary war, especially for us. 5 likes. After following in his familys footsteps and serving in the military, Air Force veteran Lyle Apo turned to USO Hawaii for the opportunity to volunteer and help current service members. His mother answered the door. 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. HistoryNet Hed endured a lot already, including three brutal months in Dachau concentration camp after Kristallnacht in 1938, before finding haven in America. Jon Wertheim: Give us a sense of the kinds of courses they took. Another bit of indispensable Ritchie Boy handiwork: the order of battle of the German army. Jon Wertheim: So there's a real element of - costumes and deception and accents. If a German POW wouldn't talk, he might face Guy Stern dressed up as a Russian officer. Jon Wertheim: And you think because it had that signature, somehow that certified it. Ritchie Boys of WWII - YouTube Washington, DC 20024-2126 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. Ritchie Boy Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. What what did that entail? Angress followed up leads that took him to an Amsterdam address just five days after VE Day. Some of these books, Frey says, were nearly 500 pages long by the end of the war. 70 ratings17 reviews. I'm denouncing this and I was forced to do it. Aren't we all sort of, tired of it?". Fort Ritchie, as it later became known, closed in 1998. 202.437.1221 Guy Stern: Yes, that carried weight and the belief in the printed matter was very great. So I experienced viscerally, fear. Jon Wertheim: So this is you on the job. The untold story of the Ritchie Boys - Macleans.ca Did your dog tag identify you as Jewish? Following the war, some of the Ritchie Boys were used as interrogators during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. Guy Stern: Yes, even last night. Jon Wertheim: How effective were they at gathering intelligence? "where are your reserve units?" This books publish date is Sep 01, 2021. There were 1,985 German born Ritchie Boys. Background. 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. 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 were one of World War IIs greatest secret weapons for US Army intelligence, said incoming Museum Chairman Stuart E. Eizenstat. 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. 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. By 1937, violence against Jews was escalating. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. It turns out that author J.D. WebMany of them, like Brombert, were Jewish. Salinger, author of the classic book The Catcher in the Rye.. It was hard for us not to notice that beyond the stories runs a deep sense of pride. In 1943, he was drafted into the Army and in 1944 landed in Normandy after D-day as a "Ritchie Boy." 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. And I had no choice." But it gave me great deal of satisfaction. As a Jew, I knew I might not be treated exactly by the Geneva rules. Germany surrendered on May 8th of that year. and he said "no, military secret.". 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. Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. An African-American Ritchie Boy William Warfield If you have ever heard a recording of William Warfield singing Ol Man River, from the musical Showboat by Jerome Kern, you will not have forgotten his deep, rich, bass-baritone voice. By the spring of 1945, Allied forces neared Berlin and Hitler took his life in his underground bunker. After the war, a number served as translators and interrogatorsespecially during the Nuremberg Trials. That information is of critical importance because it tells you where certain units are, and if you know where certain units are, you know where the weak spots are. It was his service in the military during World War II. He is among the last surviving Ritchie Boys - a group of young men many of them German Jews who played an outsized role in helping the Allies win World War II. We were briefed that the Germans were not going to welcome us greatly. Many of the German and Austrian Jewish refugees reported to Camp Ritchie while still designated as "enemy aliens." David Frey: Techniques where you want to get people to talk to you. The soldiers were sent for training to Camp Ritchie, Md., beginning June 19, 1942, where they trained at the Military Intelligence Training Center thus their nickname, the Ritchie Boys. And to take those heights against heavy firing, going up those steep cliffs, and of course, it had been done. But there were the odd grace notes among the wreckage of a continent. Enter. "I would have been killed if I hadn't gone along. Now in their late 90s, these humble warriors still keep in touch, swapping stories about a chapter in American history now finally being told. 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. 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. And we all were scared. Copyright 2023 Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. We had to-- we got a lot of German prisoners who were willing to help us catalog all those documents. Follow him at @ffrommer. And it was not until a few years ago that the son of Italian-Jewish Ritchie Boy Alessandro Sabbadini told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. My father was 49 years old and-- and my mother was 48 and they left everything they had built up behind. 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. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. Guy Stern: We always find another anecdote to tell. And when their identity was discovered, they were summarily executed by the Germans that had captured them. Their mission: to use their knowledge of the German language and culture to return to Europe and fight Naziism. Jon Wertheim: This was one of the leaflets that was dropped out--. Martin Selling, 24, was undergoing training as a U.S. Army medical orderly in February 1943 and chafing under a Pentagon policy that kept hima Jewish refugee from Germany and hence an enemy alienaway from any combat unit. Jon Wertheim: What do you remember from that? Jon Wertheim: You have a smile on your face when you think back. Many were German- and Austrian-born Jews who had fled Adolf Hitlers genocidal Nazi regimemaking them most determined enemies of the Third Reich. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. Among them were the Ritchie Boys, some 15,200 men who attended the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Md. You want to convince them that you're trustworthy. Associate producer, Jennifer Dozor. They chose their eldest son. We were crusaders.". David Frey: Much of it originated at Camp Ritchie because it had never it hadn't been done before. 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. (See According to the kind of unit, according to the kind of person we were interrogating. Drawing on archival research, memoirs and interviews with several Ritchie Boys (there were 1,985 in all), he focuses on a half dozen. The very aspect of these SOBs now being at my command (laugh) gave me also some personal satisfaction. For decades, they didn't discuss their work. David Frey: Some became ambassadors. WebThe Ritchie Boys were a secret unit of the US Army during the Second World War. So little was known about the Ritchie Boys until the excellent documentary film The Ritchie Boys came upon the scene in 2004. Ritchie Boy Wannabe Dan Gross and several invited guests joined the Ritchie Boys for the photo. Did it give you any satisfaction? It was Sunday, May 13, 1945, Henderson marvels. David Frey: All in service of winning the war. 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. WebThe surviving Ritchie Boys are in their eighties now. Jon Wertheim: Did the Ritchie Boys redefine what it means to be a soldier and contribute to a military? The Ritchie Boys consisted of approximately 15,200 servicemen who were trained for U.S. Army Intelligence during WWII. Jon Wertheim: That's what you were told. 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. That is the key to being a good interrogator. David Frey: This is where the having an intelligence officer from Camp Ritchie was of critical importance. On June 6, 1944, D-Day the Allies launched one of the most sweeping military operations in history. With World War II, Camp Ritchie had a new, fascinating and mysterious mission. The Ritchie Boys exhibit is at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. 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. On a cold November morning in 1938, Herman watches in horror as his Sometimes entire German towns were forced to pay respects to the dead. Jon Wertheim: I see a tent in the background of that photo right in front of you. But ask him about his most formative experience - and he doesn't hesitate. The Ritchie Boys practiced street fighting in life-size replicas of German villages and questioned mock civilians in full scale German homes. Some Ritchie Boys were recruited to go on secret missions during the war. At a time when the U.S. military urgently needed foreign language speakers, the Ritchie Boys offered a key resource. But the Sterns could only send one of their own to the U.S. For as casually as we often toss around the word "hero", sometimes no lesser term applies. One of these was. I asked them to leave it off. Jon Wertheim: And you were able to confront the people that had caused this this trauma. 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. This was our kind of war. A childhood friend described to Stern how his parents, younger brother and sister had been forced from their home and deported. So whatever information they're giving you is information that you probably already know. Originally a resort, Camp Ritchie was a curiously idyllic setting to prepare for the harshness and brutality of war. The unit got its name from where they did their training, Camp Ritchie, Maryl Cast & Crew Read More Christian Bauer Director 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. Jon Wertheim: Because you were Jewish you were ostracized? There were recruiting posters all over town, Training was designed to be as realistic as possible. When they landed on the beaches of Normandy, Wehrmacht troops were waiting for them well armed and well prepared. That changed over the years as the Ritchie Boys began to receive more recognition. Jon Wertheim: Did you ever worry your accent might get you killed? Little did he know he was whining to a Jewish refugee from Nazi-controlled Austria - a refugee who was now a Ritchie Boy, one of the most valuable interrogation units in the Allied forces. Nina Wolff Feld told her fathers story in Someday You Will Understand: My Fathers Private World War 2. In 2011, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, hosted an exhibit of the Ritchie Boys exploits. Max Lerner: He spent several days in my jail. Essentially they were intellectuals. 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). This particular edition is in a Hardcover format. Many of the Ritchie Boys went on to have successful civilian careers, including J.D. Just two weeks shy of turning 100, Guy Stern drips with vitality. We hope you find the data, stories, and images here of interest. 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. Although Ritchie Boy Private Henry Kolm did not have the opportunity to serve overseas, he was able to make a significant contribution as an interrogator at Fort Hunt and as the principal facilitator in the integration of German Paperclip scientists and engineers such as Wernher von Braun into our society. Longtime Yale and Princeton professor Victor Brombert helped enact the official Allied policy of removing Nazi influence from german public life known as denazification. David Frey: There are a whole variety of prominent Ritchie Boys. Guy Stern became a professor and taught for almost 50 years. I thought, "I'm never going to do that," but I was shown how to do it. A few days later, Stern returned to the place of his birth, hoping to reunite with his family. Some of them were trained as spies and some of them went on to careers as spies. Jon Wertheim: So there's all sorts of impact years and years and years after the war from this this camp in Maryland? 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.