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There have been many events, both big and small, that have shaped U.S. history.Among them, a Facebook post claims, is a secret U.S. program that recruitedNazis.

A modified version of thepopular meme of Homer Simpson vanishing into a hedge depictsSimpson bearinga swastika on one shoulder and an arm extended in a Nazi salute. "World War II: ends," reads the text above, which goes on to suggest former "Nazi scientists" subsequently shifted overto NASA, as illustratedbySimpson reemerging in a T-shirt emblazoned with the agency's distinctive logo and a red baseball cap with the America flag.

The sentiment within the comments seemedlargely accepting of the claim.

"What was the alternative for them?" asked one. "Since herr fuhrer (sic) liked to shoot people..."

"Art imitates life," wrote another sharing a GIF featuring images from the Marvel movie franchise of an evil Naziscientist character and a newspaper clippingwith the headline "Germany scientists recruited by U.S.".

USA TODAY awaits comment from the Facebook user who postedthe meme in the public group Official Flat Earth & Glove Discussion.

In 1945, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, a subcommittee established by the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was tasked with retrieving German scientists, doctors and engineers who were identified as intellectually vital to the Third Reich.

Journalist Annie Jacobsen statesin a 2014 interview that this was prompted by the Allies'concerns overHitler's potential weapons arsenal.

"Fall of 1944, right after the Normandy landings, scattered among the Allies'troops are these little units of scientific intelligence officers and they're working to find out Hitler's biological weapons, his chemical weapons and his atomic weapons," said Jacobsen, author of "Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program to Bring Nazi Scientists to America."

These intelligence officers eventually discovered while the atomic weapons program wasnot as advancedas initially feared, Hitler's biochemical weapons were. The hunt "for this scientific treasure and ultimately for the scientists themselves" thus ignited Operation Overcast, renamed Paperclip for the paperclips attached to the files of the most "troublesome cases," Jacobsen writes in her book.

The U.S. was not alone in this endeavor. Britain, France and especially the Soviet Union sought to enlist these German scientific experts, as well. A U.S.-Soviettechnological rivalry marked by the Space Race and Cold Warwould also serve as amotivation, and justification, for Operation Paperclip's existence.

By the fall of 1945, German scientists starting arrivingon U.S. soil. Not all the men recruited were Nazis orSS officers but the most prominent and valued among them were, having worked either directly with Hitler orleading members of the Nazi Party, such asHeinrich Himmler and Herman Gring.

Wernher von Braun, a rocket engineer, was instrumental in developing the first U.S. ballistic missile, the Redstone, and later the Saturn V rocket while serving as director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. As a Nazi ideologue and member of the SS, hetraveled to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he "handpicked slaves to work for him as laborers," said Jacobsen in a 2014interview with NPR.

Hubertus Strughold, a physiologist and medical researcher, headed the German Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, known for its torturous medical experiments on inmates from the Dachau concentration camp. Strughold claimed ignorance of any such activity until after the war, yethe appeared among a list of 95 doctors at an October 1942 conference discussing their findings. In the U.S., he was chief scientist of the aerospace medical division at Brooks Air Force and has since been credited as the father of space medicine.

Walter Schreiber, a former Nazi general, also oversaw inhumane medical experiments involving bioweapons that resulted in countless of deaths. Following the war, he was captured by the Soviets but defected to the U.S. He worked for various government entities before finally settling in Texas atthe Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, Jacobsen writes.

While Schreiber would later serve as a witness during the Nuremberg trials, he, von Braun, Strughold and the rest of their fellow Nazis brought to the U.S. would never be held accountable for their own atrocities. Operation Paperclip remained secretthroughout much of the Cold War.

We rate this claimTRUE because it is supported by our research. Operation Paperclip was a secret initiative launched by the U.S. government to recruit German engineers, doctors, physicists,chemists and other scientific experts for U.S. technological advancement, especially in anticipation of the Cold War. Many recruited German scientists did work for NASA and various other government entities. They were not held responsible for their war crimes.

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

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Fact check: Nazi scientists brought to U.S. in Operation ...

When the Nazi death camp Chelmno began operations 80 years ago this month, a new phase of the Holocaust was launched in a small Polish village along the Vistula River.

At Chelmno, home to 35 families, the German SS pioneered methods of mass murder later deployed at death camps including Auschwitz-Birkenau. Known as Kulmhof in German, the killing site was also home to experiments in corpse disposal on an industrial scale.

In the Reichsgau or Nazi-made administrative subdivision of Warthegau, which surrounded Chelmno and included industrial Lodz, the Germans played elaborate shell games to deceive victims and bystanders. Tactics included issuing contradictory messages and forcing victims to send postcards with fake destinations.

The SS covered up where the Jews were going to, said historian Nicholas Terry, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Exeter. The theme of deception and secrecy allows us to see what it meant for the perpetrators, the bystanders, and the victims.

The first Jews gassed at Chelmno were deported from provincial ghettos during early December 1941. For many months into 1942, most Jews in the Warthegau regions 57 ghettos believed deportees were headed for labor and resettlement.

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Among Nazi death camps, Chelmno was the first to deploy gas. Inside custom-rigged mobile killing vans, vehicle exhaust was funneled into a sealed compartment where up to 50 victims were packed. At least 172,000 Jews were murdered at Chelmno during two periods of the camps operation, as well as 5,000 Roma and Sinti people.

Memorials at former Forest Camp at Chelmno, where victims were buried and later cremated, 2017 (Elan Kawesch/The Times of Israel)

To confuse the outside world as well as Jews imprisoned in the regions ghettos, some transports were sent back and forth between for example Germany, Lodz, and places east of Lodz, camouflaging Chelmno as the true destination.

These reports of Jews being resettled were widely believed outside Europe, Terry said. And at the end of the war, there was a hope against hope that more Jews had survived.

The German strategy of toying with the outside world inevitably led to degrees of self-deception among victims and bystanders, said Terry. For example, only after the Germans demanded the Lodz ghetto Jewish council hand over thousands of children for deportation did most Jews realize resettlement meant death.

War crimes investigators examine a burned-out mover van near Chelmno, of the type used by the SS to murder people (public domain)

The uncertainty has not been emphasized as much, in terms of the bystander responses, said Terry, adding that Chelmno has been overshadowed in general.

It is one of the best-documented killing sites, said Terry, pointing to German documents, among others, on materials used to make field ovens that cremated corpses. There are also a multiplicity of eyewitness accounts of gassings at Chelmno, said Terry, including one given by a Jewish prisoner who escaped the death camp in 1942 and fled to Warsaw.

At Chelmno, Jews were taken to a dilapidated schloss, or castle, and greeted in the courtyard by the so-called squire of the manor.

For the first time in the Holocaust, people were told they must take disinfection showers before the journeys next stage. After being forced through a narrow corridor in the basement, victims were packed into what appeared to be a small room.

Jews en route to Chelmno death camp from Kolo, where they transferred to a narrow-gauge rail and wagon cars (public domain)

Before people had time to react, the wagon was sealed and the engine started. After a 20-minute drive through town to the Forest Camp, the asphyxiated victims were unloaded and buried by Jewish prisoners. Every few weeks, the team of prisoners was executed to ensure secrecy.

The role played by Chelmno in the Holocaust was pivotal, researcher Chris Webb told The Times of Israel. For example, the camps first commander Herbert Lange was an absolute pioneer in the development of gas vans.

An amateur historian, Webb has researched Chelmno and the threeAktion Reinhard (Operation Reinhard) death camps Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka for more than 40 years. His books include The Chelmno Death Camp, co-authored with the late Artur Hojan.

The only difference between Chelmno and the Aktion Reinhard camps is that Chelmno used vans instead of static gas chambers, said Webb.

German soldiers help deport Jews from Zychlin ghetto to Chelmno death camp (public domain)

After the three Reinhard camps surpassed Chelmnos capacity for murder in the summer of 1942, SS officers reinvented the village-based killing center with a new task: Germany might not win the war, so evidence of the Final Solution specifically corpses had to be exhumed and destroyed at death camps and hundreds of mass graves throughout Eastern Europe.

At Chelmno, Paul Blobel of the SS carried out gruesome experiments involving flamethrowers and incendiary bombs. Eventually, he settled on using railroad tracks stacked with layers of corpses and firewood. Methodically, Blobel created improvised crematoria that were more sophisticated than crematoria at the Reinhard camps, said Terry.

Chelmno is arguably the most obscure death camp, but there are more physical traces of the Holocaust at the village than exist at most killing sites, according to experts.

Schloss manor house converted into part of the death camp at Chelmno, as seen in 1939, two years before the SS began using mobile killing vans on-site (public domain)

Theres more to see at Chelmno than at Treblinka, said Webb, referring to the Aktion Reinhard camp where 900,000 Jews were murdered. At Treblinka, no structures associated with the genocide stand today. Decades ago, 17,000 quarry stones were placed atop the mass graves to evoke communities destroyed there.

By way of contrast to Treblinka, Chelmno remains largely as it looked during the war, including the church where victims were held overnight during summer 1944 transports from Lodz. The manor house was blown up by the Nazis in 1943, before the camps second phase of operation, but the basements foundations and a staircase have been excavated.

From the perspective of Terry, Chelmno is a spatially diffused site with a staggeringly multi-staged killing process, he said. Its almost a misnomer to call it a camp. Its an extermination site.

Despite Chelmnos confusing layout, it was easy for villagers to piece together what took place there, said Terry. In the spring of 1942, townspeople witnessed victims falling out of an overturned gas van. For months, stench and smoke wafted in from the Forest Camp cremation pyres, while the camps German guards were billeted with families in town.

War crimes investigation photo of Jewish victims belongings left at the Kolo synagogue, where Jews were imprisoned overnight before transport to the Chelmno death camp (public domain)

Chelmnos SS officers worked toward the Fuhrer Nazi-speak for administrators to anticipate and execute Hitlers orders beforehand. When it came to solving the Jewish question, Chelmnos leaders improvised the transition from open-air massacres in the east to what became death camps with fixed gas chambers, a more centralized and discreet model.

At Chelmno we saw there was a degree of decentralization and improvisation in the genocide of European Jews, said Terry. Regional authorities could improvise or experiment.

The rest is here:

80 years ago this month, Nazis invented industrial murder at quiet Chelmno - The Times of Israel

There was something unusual about the five men who walked into the Jewish-owned Lansburgh Bros. department store in Washington, DC, one December day in 1946. Four wore long leather coats and Tyrolese hats, and spoke German to the fifth man, saying they wanted to buy Christmas gifts for their families sweets for their children and unterwasche, or undergarments, for their wives.

They started a mild altercation after becoming frustrated with their inability to communicate with the staff, and in a climate where World War II was still on everyones minds, the local military police were called in to arrest them. Ultimately, the five were brought back to where they had come from a clandestine prison camp in northern Virginia known only by its address: PO Box 1142.

What no one knew least of all the many Jews who frequented Lansburgh Bros. was that the quartet in German dress were actually high-ranking Nazis who had been apprehended by the United States during the war, including Hitlers chief rocket scientist, Wernher von Braun.

The military brass at PO Box 1142 believed that if its Nazi prisoners received lenient treatment, they would divulge top-secret scientific information that would benefit the US in the Cold War against its new enemy, the USSR. The prisoners request to go Christmas shopping in the capitals largest department store went all the way to the Pentagon.

Not only was the request accepted, but the quartet got $1,000 in spending money and an escort a guard named Arno Mayer. In the strangest part of the story, Mayer and many of the guards playing good cop at the camp were young Jewish refugees who had fled an increasingly antisemitic Europe.

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The guards little-known narrative is spotlighted in a new animated Netflix short film, Camp Confidential: Americas Secret Nazis, directed by the Israeli husband-and-wife duo Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy. The 35-minute film premiered on September 24.

A still from the new Netflix animated documentary Camp Confidential: Americas Secret Nazis. (Courtesy of Netflix)

At first the story sounded so bizarre and unreal we could barely believe it that [there was] a secret Nazi camp near Washington, DC, run by Jewish refugees, Sivan and Loushy wrote in an email. It took us some time to understand this is not a fictional story, but actually happened.

They reflected, This story involved so much absurdity, pain and double standards on behalf of the US we felt this story must be told, and brought to a wide public this hidden part of history couldnt stay buried, known only to history buffs. We believed it should be known to all and of course Netflix was the best stage we could dream of.

Due to the scarcity of archival footage from the top-secret camp, the film uses animation to tell the story. This includes an animated version of a young Mayer and his efforts to keep prisoners happy. In one scene, the ex-Nazis enjoy an indoor Christmas celebration while a bitter Mayer stands outside, refusing their offer to come in for a drink.

In a joint Zoom interview with The Times of Israel, the directors recalled their initial doubts about the accuracy of the story.

Mor Loushy, co-director of the new Netflix animated documentary Camp Confidential: Americas Secret Nazis. (Courtesy of Netflix)

OK, it was probably like an urban legend, a myth, Sivan remembered thinking.

Loushy said that she could understand if it happened after the war, but to realize it [had already begun] in 1942 was shocking to us.

Daniel Sivan, co-director of the new Netflix animated documentary Camp Confidential: Americas Secret Nazis. (Courtesy of Netflix)

The directors credited producers Jono and Benjamin Bergmann with bringing the decades-old story to their attention and then confirming it by locating an archive of oral history interviews with some of the former guards.

The Bergmanns had originally learned about the story from a German journalist and colleague. In addition to the oral history archive, they also sought to find surviving guards to interview in real life. Because so much time had passed, they could only locate one Mayer.

Just days before Sivan and Loushy were to fly from Los Angeles to New York en route to interview him, they learned there was another survivor a fellow Jewish refugee, Peter Weiss. Finding him took some sleuthing.

As the youngest in the group, we had a hunch that Peter Weiss might still be around as well, the producers said in a statement. We ended up finding him believe it or not by going through all Peter [Weisses] in the New York phone book until we found one that was over 90 years old and originally from Vienna.

As it turned out, Mayer and Weiss knew each other.

Their shared experiences refugees from Europe and a secret to be kept from everyone in their lives created a very close bond at [the camp], the Bergmanns said. They stayed in touch and visited each other for many years after that.

It seems like Arno and Peter are the only survivors, Sivan said, noting that since the films release, he and Loushy have gotten a lot of messages from family members saying their dad was also part of [the camp] We discovered more and more stories of course, about people who already passed away.

It was Jewish refugees proficiency in German that got the army interested in them as interrogators. In the film, Weiss recalls proving his knowledge by quoting Goethe. Many were originally recruited for their language skills as part of the much larger group of Ritchie Boys European emigres who trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland in such aspects as extracting intelligence from German prisoners of war.

At PO Box 1142, one guard tricked a German prisoner into thinking he was about to be gassed, which prompted him to divulge information. Intelligence obtained from the camp reportedly included the location of von Brauns subterranean V2 rocket factory at Peenemunde, which subsequently became the target of Allied bombings.

As the war neared its end, the geopolitics became complicated. Von Braun and 300 of his colleagues at Peenemunde were captured by the US and secretly brought stateside in contravention of official American policy first to an island in Boston Harbor, then to PO Box 1142.

We had very little information about rocketry, Mayer says in the film. Rocket scientists were essential to our war effort [in the Cold War].

A still from the new Netflix animated documentary Camp Confidential: Americas Secret Nazis. (Courtesy of Netflix)

The camp brass created a new position for Mayer morale officer and asked him to make life enjoyable for the prisoners, hoping this would get them to cooperate. He gave the prisoners newspapers to read, whiskey to sip and numerous games to play, including swimming, tennis, ping-pong and chess. He taught them horseshoes and discovered they loved volleyball.

[The guards] were all shocked, Loushy said. They didnt understand. They were so ready to go and fight in Europe, be really active saving their families. Yet they found themselves in the camp playing ping-pong with Nazis.

The Jewish soldiers knew about the evils the Nazis had committed, including against their families. The filmmakers stated that many of the soldiers had arrived in the US as enemy aliens and their US citizenship depended upon their military service.

Almost all [of us] were refugees from the Nazis, Weiss says in the film. We would have preferred to treat them as the war criminals they were. In the army, you can only follow orders. I tried to suppress my rage. He states that he was not fully aware of the enormity of what had happened under the Nazi regime, but notes, My grandfather, uncle, aunt, cousin, other relatives all died in the Holocaust, like so many others.

A still from the new Netflix animated documentary Camp Confidential: Americas Secret Nazis. (Courtesy of Netflix)

Newsreel footage is shown proclaiming the first actual pictures of atrocities in Nazi murder camps, including an appalled Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower surveying liberated Buchenwald, where tattooed slave laborers had worked on V2 rockets.

Mayer is quoted saying that the V2 rockets killed countless numbers of people in London and that building them required Jews arrested by the Gestapo. [Von Braun] knew what was going on. He knew there was an Auschwitz.

The film incorporates footage of von Brauns unlikely career resuscitation in the US decades later, as a well-respected NASA administrator. Clips show him overseeing the Apollo project to put the first man on the moon and getting cheered by crowds.

According to the film, the prisoners at PO Box 1142 were never charged with war crimes, and many went on to careers at NASA and the CIA. The camp was eventually bulldozed, and its former guards generally stayed silent about their duties there.

A sizable number of the guards went on to noteworthy achievements in later life. Weiss pursued a career in human rights law, including at the UN, where he helped regulate against torture. Mayer joined the faculty at Princeton and wrote several controversial books, one on the Holocaust and another on Zionism.

Weisss commitment to human rights and regrets over his work at the camp is reflected in his final comment in the film about the question of whether you can do bad things to achieve good ends. I would say if you do that, the end that you achieve is not worthwhile.

Excerpt from:

How European Jewish refugees wined and dined Nazi prisoners for US Army intelligence - The Times of Israel

In this era of civil unrest and partisan politics, its harder than ever for cops particularly black cops to do their jobs. In this excerpt from the new book Beaten Black and Blue: Being a Black Cop in an America Under Siege, Ray Hamilton, 42,reveals his experiences working as a mixed-race cop in San Ramon, Calif., east of Oakland, as well as his early days serving in Washington DCs tough Sixth District.

A big part of my story is that Im black and white, and that puts me right in the middle of all the race and policing issues.

And, yes, Ive dealt with different aspects of racism. On a routine traffic stop, people might say, Oh, you just stopped me because Im black.

Really? Because Im mixed race, and sometimes, you cant tell what I am.

On the East Coast, they thought I was Puerto Rican, and here in California, they dont know what I am. Theres no box to put me in, which I think is true for a lot of people. So when that happens, I call people out on that. I ask them, Could it be that I stopped you because your tail light was out, or your tags expired a year ago, or you ran a red light? It couldnt be anything like that?

That usually turns things around.

I never saw myself as looking tough or like a thug; I had curly hair and an olive skin tone. But when I was a teenager, I got stopped by the gang unit in Dallas a true felony stop with guns drawn and everything.

Put your hands on the steering wheel!

Whoa, I thought. What in the world is happening?

Youre in a gang!

No, I wasnt, and I never was. However, my cousin was in a gang, and he used to get caught up in all kinds of criminal stuff. He ended up getting shot five times, and died.

All of that really turned me away from being in a gang or doing anything criminal.

Instead, I ended up in the military. I was in the Air Force working for the Department of Defense on Bolling Air Force Base. At the time, I was working as a sports and recreation assistant, creating extracurricular events for the Air Force community.

I believe how you do your job is more of a calling than what your job actually is. And for some reason, after the military I decided I was going to apply to the DC Metro Police Department. They werent hiring at the time, and several people advised me not to join that dirty police department. I applied anyway, and I waited. I waited for two years. Most people apply to multiple departments to increase their odds of being hired. Me? I only applied to one. I believed I was supposed to work there. Eventually, after their hiring freeze was lifted, I became one of 35 people hired out of 10,000 candidates.

Thats how I started my career with the police 10 years ago.

When a person of color calls me a racist, I feel bad for them. Its like theyre conditioned to believe people treat them a certain way because theyre black.

When a person of color calls me another person of color a racist, I feel bad for them. Its like theyre conditioned to believe people treat them a certain way because theyre black. I want to say to them, Wait a minute. You dont want me pulling you over because you have your hair in cornrows, you have tattoos, youre smoking a blunt, but you dont want me to assume youre a gangster, right? You dont want me to assume that, but thats one of the first things that comes to mind. But thats not reasonable for me to do that. Thats me judging you, and you dont want me doing that. Why judge me?

During the recent riots, I was accused of being an overseer, someone who watched over slaves. Another time, someone accused me of being like the Nazis marching the Jews off to the concentration camp trains, as if I were marching people off to be killed. I was surprised by that. It really does get that dirty sometimes.

When I have on riot duty gear or the uniform in general I remember Im not here representing myself; Im here to try to keep some kind of peace. When Im wearing either one, I dont represent myself or my own ideas and thoughts. Im there to protect whatever brothers and sisters are around me.

Were not there to control people. They should feel free to protest all they want. I may even agree with them, but I dont agree with all the methods. And I cant let a few opportunists cause this thing to become a mob and be unlawful.

I think its important to hold that attitude.

Recently, a couple of guys on the line took a knee. No, no, brother! You cant take a knee when youre on the line, whether you agree with them or not. You cant take a knee because that puts everyone else at risk now. Its very awkward. Its not the time, and then it looks like were not standing together.

When Im in the uniform, Im there for a greater purpose. That purpose is to keep some kind of peace and maintain some kind of order, and to do that, you have to show some kind of solidarity.

That said, I also want to build a rapport with the community I serve. When I was in DC, especially in the project area, I was dealing with a different mindset. And I knew you had to meet them where they were and build that relationship. The beat I had was a very rough four blocks where there were murders, drug deals, you name it. I had a partner, a white dude from Arizona. Hed never been around that many black people, and this was an all-black neighborhood. When we walked that beat, my partner kind of walked behind me. You could visibly tell he was scared. I had to explain to him, Dang, man, theyre gonna pull your card if you walk behind me. Dont do that. If they see youre scared, theyll respond in a bad way. You gotta walk beside me, not behind me.

Since Im in the middle black (and white) and blue I find myself walking the line.

I know some officers have bad attitudes about the communities they serve. Yes, its often a racial divide. Some of the white cops had a different outlook. They even made patches: Were not stuck here with you; youre stuck here with us. And sadly, yes, I have heard some of the guys refer to black people as savages. Im thinking, My gosh, how are you going to deliver or render any kind of justice or service to this community if you refer to them as savages?

So, Im trying to win over the white officers and the black community.

Sadly, I do understand why some people hate us.

On one occasion, a black officer stopped a guy who was a known criminal. Everybody knew he dealt drugs, and he had drugs on him. But the officer demeaned him, I guess trying to teach him a lesson in front of the other people in the area. He made him kneel down on the concrete (that hurts), and he had him down there for more than five minutes. The crowd felt like the cop was showing off and abusing his authority. So, they started name-calling called us the slang term for cops, twelve, called us FEDS, called us all kinds of names. I believe when you name someone like that then theyre no longer a person. Like calling someone a savage or shouting out, F twelve either side of the argument theyre no longer a person.

Not too long after that, we caught a guy on a very minor misdemeanor charge, riding a dirt bike in the city. These rough riders would ride dirt bikes and ATVs in the city, and the cops would chase them. I caught this one guy, and we were just going to write him up, get his fingerprints, and process him out, but this guy had a $10,000 wad of bills on him. He claimed it was from his family business. But I know that most businesses usually dont transport cash in their waistbands. I needed to hold the money until he could bring down receipts to prove it was earned through that business. He started yelling at me that he wanted to see it put in the evidence bag. I was surprised. Did he think I was going to steal it? Apparently yes, because other cops in my district had been fired for misconduct. No wonder he didnt trust us!

I can sometimes understand the lack of trust from the community, but when you dont feel you have the support of your leaders, thats when it gets really hard. When I was on the riot team in DC, we werent able to wear our full riot gear because it looked too aggressive. Here in California, its more of the same. During one of the riots, I was hit with a bottle, and we had to shoot a rubber round back at that person. Then, we had to use tear gas to disperse the crowd. Three days later, they took away our tear gas. I was recently deployed to Sacramento, and we were told that if protesters break the windows at City Hall, we should let them.

Even in Oakland, we had to let them loot a Target, a 7-Eleven store, and a car dealership.

I know all the violence and looting are coordinated, because I saw someone watching us and monitoring our movement. Then, he called it to his fellow rioters. Not being able to do anything or take any action when laws are being broken and officers are being hurt? Thats demotivating. You end up getting what we call 4 percent. Some officers go out on duty, but they wont be proactive, and they give less than 100 percent because its a reaction to feeling powerless and not being supported. Theres also a threat of being sued by someone, even if the officers are just defending themselves. Its very disheartening.

While I grew up feeling like I never had to be anyone but who I was, these days, I feel like I am always being forced to pick a side. I try to identify with the people I work with, and I also try to identify with the community Im policing. I dont want them to feel like I said, that Im just here as an overseer. Im not here to fine you and arrest you, but I have a job to do. It can be hard to feel so stuck in the middle.

Reprinted with permission from Beaten Black and Blue: Being a Black Cop in an America Under Siege by Brandon Tatum, published by Bombardier Books (2021).

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Mixed-race cop on policing in 2021: Ive been called racist and a Nazi - New York Post

Spearheaded by its forceful commander-in-chief, Hermann Gring, the Luftwaffes rise to notoriety under the Nazis appeared to corroborate their claim that Gring had built the air force als einzelner Mann (as a lone man). But in reality, the Luftwaffe had been created long before pilots such as Steinhoff took to the skies, initially as a secret Schwarze Luftwaffe (Shadow Luftwaffe) by the preceding Weimar Republic. As Heinrich Brning, chancellor of Germany between 1930 and 1932, later claimed, Hitler didnt start the Luftwaffe we did.

A likely staged shot of a German two-seater Rumpler engaging in combat with British aircraft during the First World War. (Photo by Roger Viollet via Getty Images)

To separate historical fact from myth, then, it is necessary to examine how the opportunistic Nazi regime made the air force its own both to the eventual detriment of the world and, ultimately, to itself.

Germany first began to recognise the potential of aerial warfare during the 19th century. After Prussian forces witnessed Frances use of observational and evacuation balloons during the Franco-Prussian War (187071), the newly unified German empire formed its own stationary observational balloon units. Before long, balloons were being adapted so that they could scout across long distances, transport vital equipment and drop bombs on enemy territory.

By the 1910s, military aircraft had been incorporated into the Deutsches Heer (Imperial German Army), and in 1914, Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches (the Imperial German Army Air Service) entered the First World War. Later reshaped into the Deutsche Luftstreitkrfte (German Air Force) in October 1916, it provided the army with both aerial reconnaissance and ground and air support.

Despite the strain and dangers of the dogfights, pilots often came away with more favourable memories of warfare than troops stuck in the trenches, and the image of the valiant German airman became embedded in the national psyche. Indeed, in his interwar biography of the Bavarian fighter ace Max Ritter von Mller, Hans Haller enthusiastically wrote of how there was again man and courage; there was hunting and the landing of blows. It was this chivalric aura that would soon give rise to other hallowed fighter aces such as Manfred von Richthofen (the famous Red Baron), as well as the likes of Oswald Boelcke, Max Immelmann and Werner Voss.

Manfred von Richthofen (right) talks with fellow flying officers. Before his death in combat in 1918, the Red Baron had chalked up at least 80 aerial victories. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Nevertheless, with the influx of American airpower towards the end of the First World War, the odds simply became insurmountable for the Luftstreitkrfte. After Germanys defeat in November 1918, the subsequent Treaty of Versailles banned the nation from possessing any military or naval air forces, evoking, in the words of one author, a cry of rage through German aviation circles.

Included among such circles was Hermann Gring the unlikely last commander of Richthofens Flying Circus fighter wing who declared in his diary that he wanted to restore German aviation to the world.

Cloaked with all the swagger and star power of a fighter ace, he piqued the attention of an Austrian corporal with similar aspirations of restoring Germanys prewar greatness: Adolf Hitler. The two Nazis were eventually inserted into Germanys government in 1933. In January, Hitler was made chancellor, and the next month, Gring was appointed Reich commissioner of aviation.

Yet according to the former Luftwaffe anti-aircraft assistant Georg Cordts, it was only in March 1933 that Gring truly came to realise the extent of the treasures that had fallen into his lap.

Hitler, Hermann Gring and other Nazi officials pay their respects at a First World War memorial event, 1933. (Photo by Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Secretly established the previous summer by the former Reich minister of defence, Kurt von Schleicher, Germanys so-called Shadow Luftwaffe was intended to boast 630 officers and 4,000 other ranks by the end of 1936. This, in turn, built upon foundations that had been laid a decade earlier, when a covert military flight school was set up in the Russian city of Lipetsk. The convenient arrangement not only allowed the Soviets to obtain vital German expertise in fighter tactics and aeronautical development, but also enabled the Germans to circumvent Versailles restrictions on military flight in Germany.

Between 1926 and 1933, around 120 German fighter pilots and 450 flying personnel attended the institution, where they used high explosives, engaged in live-fire practice and undertook mock dive bombing and fighter-bomber operations. Progress in boosting the number of potential pilots who could serve in the Luftwaffe had also been made by the Reich Transport Ministry, whose earlier recruitment efforts had seen the number of student commercial and civil pilots being trained double between December 1924 and March 1926.

Keen to capitalise on the gains made by their predecessors, the Nazi regime urgently accelerated the Luftwaffes rearmament, pledging around 10.5 billion Reichsmarks for the purpose in 1934. And, with the passing of the Wehrgesetz (Defence Law) on 21 May 1935, the Luftwaffe was officially established as a branch of the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) alongside the Heer (army) and Kriegsmarine (navy) all in direct contravention of the terms that had been set out at Versailles.

The Nazi Luftwaffe prided itself on its high operational standards, with only 5 per cent of applicants passing the rigorous entrance exam required to reach the interview stage for non-commissioned officer and officer ranks. Although the Jagdflieger (fighter pilots) and Kampfflieger (bomber crews) are two of the most well- known branches of the Luftwaffe today, by July 1944 there were 70 different career pathways within the air force, with the Nazis quick to praise the flyers who dont fly at every opportunity.

Those serving as aircraft engineers, mechanics, electricians, metal workers, carpenters and painters were all seen as being of particular value, as in the words of the propagandists a fast, reliable and smoothly functioning ground service is the prerequisite for the operational readiness and fighting power of the weapon in the air.

In terms of military strategy, the Nazis initially believed the Luftwaffe should be a Risiko or risk Luftwaffe, using its fearsome persona as a deterrent to fulfil Nazi ambitions of quickly seizing territory without provoking war. Although some airpower theorists favoured the installation of a heavy strategic bombing element within the air force, the Luftwaffes successful intervention during the Spanish Civil War (193639) from pulling off logistical triumphs for Francos Nationalists, to flushing out Republican strongholds had been a temporary distraction from adopting a heavyweight approach.But these early achievements shrouded many of the Luftwaffes shortcomings. By 1939, a shortage of manpower hovered over German aircraft production, and the Luftwaffe lacked a sophisticated ground-to- air communications system and integrated radar network. With Gring boasting that no enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr! (referring to the heavily industrialised region of western Germany), fervent Nazi rhetoric was also instilling a complacency within the Luftwaffe that would leave the Reich woefully underprotected.

When news broke that Germany had advanced into Poland on 1 September 1939, an airfield construction manager near Hamburg noted that both the youngest officers of the airborne units and old medal-decorated First World War officers sat around me with serious faces. As Hitlers bloodlust swelled, and as Grings eagerness to unleash the Fhrers Hammer increased, the Luftwaffe quickly found itself embroiled in conflicts across the globe.The Luftwaffe was intrinsic to the early success of the tactical phenomenon of blitzkrieg (lightning war), which was wielded to great effect in 1939 across Poland, before hitting Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries and France the following spring. Combining swift manoeuvres from highly mobilised armoured divisions with disorientating Luftwaffe air support, blitzkrieg was essential for the quick war Hitler desired and required. By June 1940, as the Allied forces retreated from Dunkirk, the Luftwaffe stood in awe at its accomplishments. I am proud today that I was able to take part in the greatest battle the world has ever seen, wrote a breathless Luftwaffe anti-aircraft gunner.

Hermann Gring with Adolf Hitler in 1944. Their blunders helped hasten the Luftwaffes disintegration, argues Victoria Taylor.(Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Filled with confidence, the Nazi leadership turned its attentions across the Channel to Britain, but Winston Churchill had no intention of accepting Hitlers request to sue for peace. Dismayed at his refusal to surrender, the fhrer ordered the Wehrmacht to prepare for an amphibious invasion of Britain code-named Operation Sea Lion on 16 July. The Luftwaffes fighter pilots and bomber crews sought to soften up the country for invasion with a relentless aerial campaign.

Although the Luftwaffe ran the RAF ragged during the resultant Battle of Britain attacking Allied shipping, British ports, airfields, radar installations and aircraft factories it did not achieve the level of air superiority necessary to make Operation Sea Lion viable. Nor was Britains defeat secured by the Luftwaffes switch to bombing its cities during the Blitz from early September 1940 until May 1941.

Disappointed, Hitler diverted his attention towards the Luftwaffes other deployments. In particular, the air force was becoming more committed to the North African campaign fighting over Libya, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. The Luftwaffe also enjoyed a stunning yet demanding performance over the Balkans from April 1941, after its fellow Axis power, Italy, had invaded Greece the previous October.

Hitlers chief priority, though, was to capture more Lebensraum or living space by invading the Soviet Union. The Luftwaffe was partially redirected from the Blitz over Britain to the eastern front for Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. However, the ensuing invasion proved a step too far, and the Wehrmacht became locked in a bloody struggle with the Soviets that drained German resources even further over-stretching the heavily deployed Luftwaffe.

Matters were made even worse for the Nazis when the Allied strategic bombing offensive started to cause chaos back at home in Germany. In January 1943, Churchill and US president Franklin D Roosevelt had promised Soviet leader Josef Stalin they would ramp up their existing bombing campaigns to further split their foe into an exhausting war on two fronts.

Although the Luftwaffe still managed to inflict heavy losses upon the Allies on occasion, the ruthless British-American firestorm that rained down on Hamburg in July 1943, and the controversial raids on Dresden between 1315 February 1945, left German airmen feeling especially deflated. The three consecutive attacks in 12 hours left every aid organisation smashed and resulted in destruction unlike anything else, said one member of the Luftwaffe after visiting Dresden on 18 February 1945. [The city] is no more.

Local residents in Dresden queue for a streetcar in 1945, surrounded by the rubble from Allied bombing raids. (Image by Getty Images)

But in truth, morale had been cracking since 1944. Temperamental and experimental aircraft such as the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, the Heinkel He 162 Volksjger and the Arado Ar 234 were hastily constructed to little effect. Frustrated by Germanys decline, Hubert Retz, a Luftwaffe radio operator, declared in a letter to his fiance in May 1944 that it will soon be time for this circus to come to an end, otherwise there will be no city in the whole of Germany that has not been destroyed.

Overall, the Luftwaffes disintegration was hastened owing to a catalogue of blunders by both its operational leadership and political guardians. Its overcommitment at the hands of the rapacious Nazis strained the air force until fuel shortages, a slump in aircraft production, insufficient pilot training and inadequate logistical support all crippled the Luftwaffe from within.

Such was the desperation in the Third Reich that, towards the end of the war, the Nazi regime even suggested the formation of a dedicated Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) squadron to the utter horror of the Luftwaffe. Before this madcap scheme could be executed, however, the Nazis capitulated on 7 May 1945, and German aviation was set right back where it had been in 1918: defeated, disarmed, and effectively deceased.

A scathing Luftwaffe report from January 1945 perhaps captured the true reasons for the air forces undoing when it claimed that the Nazi regime had attached too little value to education and wanted too much to do with morality and the representation of dogmas [than] to be achieving the goal of a higher performance.

The Luftwaffe had been crushed under the leadership that had once helped it to fly and the price for its wartime glory would be peacetime infamy.

From jet fighters to dive bombers, these aircraft helped heighten the Luftwaffes fearsome reputation in the skies

Fitted with a liquid-cooled 1,020hp Daimler-Benz DB 601A engine, theBf 109s guts were stuffed with all the modernised apparatus of the best fighter aircraft in the mid-1930s: a retractable undercarriage, trailing edge flaps, and an enclosed cockpit. It packed a concentrated punch of ammunition, armed with various combinations of 7.9mm MG 17 machine guns and 20mm MG FF auto- cannons, though MG 151 autocannons were later experimented with.

The Bf 109E took the fight to the RAFs Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. Unlike its British counterparts, whose Rolls Royce Merlin engines float chambers were prone to flooding with fuel under negative G, the Bf 109s fuel-injected engine reduced its chances of stalling and kept it in the fight for longer.

The arrival of the Focke Wulf Fw 190 in 1941 caused huge concern for the RAFs Fighter Command, who were puzzled by the sudden appearance of this stubby-nosed aircraft. Fitted with a 1,700hp BMW 801-D2 radial engine, later variants of the Fw 190 could fly up to 440mph at 37,000ft, with a ceiling height of 39,370ft.

Although it initially struggled with a few teething problems, the Fw 190 was designed with simplicity in mind: its parts were easy to manufacture and replace. It was often considered to be sturdier, more forgiving to less experi- enced pilots, and a better all-rounder than the Bf 109.

The worlds first operational jet fighter had its full potential curtailed by numerous delays in its development. The Luftwaffe and Adolf Hitler were notably divided over its role, with the fhrer envisioning it as a Jabo (fighter-bomb- er) instead of a fighter interceptor.

Powered by a pair of BMW-003 turbojets, each with 5.40kN thrust, from November 1941, its developers attempted to replace these with the temperamental 8.24kN Junkers Jumo- 004 engines. Botched landings were common due to the planes long nose, which could obscure the pilots visibility on the ground.

Nevertheless, its advanced aerodynamics enabled it to reach an eye-water- ing top speed of 540mph. The Me 262s ultimate success lay in catalysing the rise of the jet engine.

The two-crew Sturzkampfflugzeug (Stuka) dive bomber entered service with the Luftwaffe in 1937, poweredby a 1,400hp Jumo 211J-1 inverted-V piston engine from 1940. With a top speed of 230mph, which climbed to over 300mph in a dive, this gull-winged harbinger of death enjoyed great precision bombing success in the Spanish Civil War and during the first year of the Second World War.But its vulnerability to attack due to its light armament rendered it increasingly obsolete. It is best known for its ear-piercing shriek while in a dive pro- duced by the wind whistling through the Jerichos Trumpet siren fixed under its wings which was designed to inflict psychological terror on the enemy.

The mainstay of Germanys bomber offensive in the Second World War, the Heinkel He 111 medium bomber was powered by 1,200hp Junkers Jumo 211D 12-cylinder, inverted-V, liquid-cooled engines. This five-crew bomber had a top speed of 270mph and a maximum range of 1,280 miles. It was involved in some of the deadliest bombing raids in history from Guernica and Warsaw, to Rotterdam and Coventry.

Its age was already beginning to show at the start of the Second World War, however: it was slow, lumbering, and unable to develop significantly beyond its 1934 specifications. Never- theless, it remained sturdy and dependable faithfully serving its Luftwaffe masters across all major German fronts until the end of the Second World War.

Victoria Taylor is an aviation historian based at Hull and Sheffield Hallam universities. Her PhD research examines National Socialism in the Luftwaffe

This article first appeared in BBC History Magazines Collectors Edition, Great Battles of World War Two: War in the Air

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The Luftwaffe: The Making & Breaking Of The Nazi Air Force - BBC History Magazine

Enlarge / The Curta mechanical calculator.

Getty Images

Its no bigger than a drinking glass, and it fits easily in the palm of the hand. It resembles a pepper grinderor perhaps a hand grenade.

The diminutive Curta is a striking machine, a mechanical calculator that combines the complexity of a steamship engine and the precision craftsmanship of a fine pocket watch. It first appeared in 1948, and for the next two decadesuntil it was displaced by the electronic calculatorit was the best portable calculating machine on the planet. And its story is all the more compelling in light of the extraordinary circumstances in which it was invented.

The idea of the Curta came to its Austrian-born inventor in the darkness of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Today, we take number-crunching for granted. Our smartphones have calculator apps, and most of us have a pocket calculator somewhere in our home or office. But it wasnt always so easy. For centuries, anything more than simple addition was painfully time-consuming. The first slide rules appeared in the 17th century, not long after John Napiers invention of the logarithm, but they could only handle a couple of positions beyond the decimal place. There were also various kinds of mechanical adding machines, but most were crudely built and unsuited to scientific work. By the late 19th century, more reliable desktop calculators began to appear, but they were heavy and expensive.

The shortcomings of these machines were very much on the mind of the young Curt Herzstark, whose family was in the business of making and selling calculating machines and other office equipment. Born in 1902 in Vienna, Herzstark was running the family business by the 1930s. He traveled extensively across Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, selling mechanical calculators to banks and factories. Advertisement

Thanks to an extensive interview conducted for the Charles Babbage Institute many years later, we have Herzstarks own recollections of those busy years. He recalled that as sophisticated as his companys machines were, something was missing in the world market. He remembered meeting with architects, foremen, and customs officers who needed calculating machines that were not only accurate and reliable but also portable.

People said again and again, Yes, that is nice, but isn't there anything smaller? Herzstark recalled. Slide rules were not good enough; his customers wanted precise figures, not approximations. Simply taking existing designs and making all of the various parts smaller wouldnt do the trick; the keys and knobs would be too small to use. A radical redesign was needed.

What does this kind of machine really have to look like so that someone could use it? It cannot be a cube or a ruler; it has to be a cylinder so that it can be held in one hand, Herzstark mused. And if one can hold it in one hand, then if it is miniaturized, you could adjust it with the other hand... I started to design the ideal machine from the outside first, before I designed the insides.

Herzstark began to experiment with sliders that wrapped around a cylinder so that numbers could be entered by moving a thumb or finger. He also reasoned that there only needed to be a single calculating mechanism, so long as each input digit could access it. At the heart of the device would be a single, rotating step-drum; the drum would have two sets of teeth, one for addition and one for subtraction. A central hand crank would turn the drum, and shifting the drums position by a few millimeters was enough to switch between the adding and subtracting functions. Multiplication and division were slightly more complicated, but they still required just a few flicks of the sliders and a few turns of the crank.

By 1937, Herzstark had the essentials of the design worked out; after that, it was just a matter of machining the parts and building a prototype.

And then Hitler came to power. Advertisement

On March 12, 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany (during the event known as the Anschluss). Herzstark, the son of a Jewish father and Catholic mother, feared the worst, though for the next few years, the factory was allowed to continue to operate, so long as it produced machines and tools for the German army. But the situation quickly deteriorated. Two colleagues were arrested for listening to British radio stations, and when Herzstark was offered to testify on their behalf, he, too, was arrested.

I was accused of supporting Jews, aggravation, and having an erotic relationship with an Aryan woman... it was all fabricated, Herzstark said. He was sent to the Pankratz prison in Prague and later transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp in central Germany.

Conditions were horrific. When they hung someone, Herzstark recalled, we had to watch until he finally died. Terrible. They hung people so they died slowly, a wretched death. Herzstark was put to work in an adjacent factory that built components for Germanys V2 rockets. Eventually, a senior German engineer took him aside.

For the first time, Herzstark began to imagine that he might survive thewar.

For the first time, Herzstark began to imagine that he might survive the war. And then and there I started to draw the Curta the way I had imagined it, he said.

Buchenwald was liberated by US troops on April 11, 1945. A few days later, Herzstark walked to the city of Weimar, some four miles away, with the plans for his calculating machine in his pocket. He found a factory that was still functioning, and before long, he had a prototype of the machine.

Soon, however, the Soviet army arrived. Herzstark retreated back to Vienna, carrying only a box containing the disassembled parts of the device. With European industry struggling in the post-war years, Herzstark was happy to find that the government of tiny Liechtenstein was interested in his machine. A company called Contina AG Mauren was set up, with Herzstark serving as technical director. The first batch of Curtas went on sale in 1948. A slightly larger model that could display more digits, the Type II Curta, appeared in 1954.

The Curta was popular with accountants, engineers, and surveyors. Rally car navigators liked it because it could be used by touch; an experienced user hardly even needed to look at the device. Peter Boyce, a retired astronomer who worked for many years at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, used a Curta when he was a graduate student at the University of Michigan in the 1960s. He remembers it as a wonderful, precision machine, one that was especially useful outside the office. It was good to take to the telescope, where I used it instead of pencil and paper if I needed to calculate something at 2:00 am.

Originally posted here:

The hand-cranked calculator invented by a Nazi concentration camp prisoner - Ars Technica

Developer Rebellion Entertainment has revealed Sniper Elite 5, the next chapter in its World War 2 marksmanship series. Once again starring sniper Karl Fairburne--who's now sporting a trendy tactical turtleneck--Sniper Elite 5 moves the action from the Italian front to behind enemy lines in France circa 1944. Fairburne has been tasked with investigating and destroying Operation Kraken, a secret Nazi project that threatens to end the war before the Allies can even invade Europe.

In typical Sniper Elite style, this means that you can expect a lot of Nazi heads and various other vital organs to be gruesomely shredded, with the game regularly slowing down to provide a kill-cam view inside of every unlucky soldier that walks into Fairburne's line of sight.

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Now Playing: Sniper Elite 5 Reveal Trailer

According to Rebellion, some of the new features of Sniper Elite 5 include real-world locations from France in 1944, a new traversal system that includes ziplines and shimmying along edges, and new multiplayer options. You'll be able to play the game in co-op with a friend, which allows a team to share ammo and items, give orders, and heal each other. On a more adversarial note, you can invade another players campaign as an Axis sniper for a game of cat and mouse.

Competitive multiplayer returns, with Sniper Elite 5 featuring 16-player battles and a Survival mode that sees just how long you and three other players can survive against endless hordes of Nazi troopers. Think Doom Eternal's Horde mode, to get an idea of what to expect.

Sniper Elite 5 will release on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and will also be available through Xbox Game Pass on day one.

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Sniper Elite 5 Takes The War To France, Launching In 2022 - GameSpot

The Omicron variant now represents more than 20% of Covid cases in England, Sajid Javid announced today.

The Health Secretary said the UK Health Security Agency believes the number of daily infections is around 200,000.

It comes as huge queues have formed outside walk-in centres in Greater Manchester today.

READ MORE: Latest Coronavirus infection rates as eight Greater Manchester boroughs see a rise

Meanwhile, a Tory MP has today compared Covid passports to "Nazi Germany".

Marcus Fysh, MP for Yeovil, Somerset, told the BBC he will be voting against vaccine passports on Wednesday.

Last night Boris Johnson said all adults will get Covid boosters by the end of the month.

The one million jabs a day target is designed to tackle the Omicron 'tidal wave' sweeping the UK.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister this morning confirmed the first death from the Omicron variant in the UK.

Mr Johnson said at least one patient has died from the Covid strain sweeping the country.

It comes as the scandal-hit PM will be investigated over claims he broke Covid laws by hosting a Downing Street quiz.

The Sunday Mirror revealed Mr Johnson chaired a virtual quiz with two colleagues by his side.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case has widened a probe into parties last year in Westminster, while London was in lockdown.

Sajid Javid has warned some non-urgent GP appointments and surgical procedures will be delayed until the New Year.

Meanwhile, the Health Secretary refused to rule out schools being closed next month and said 10 people are in hospital with Omicron.

Coronavirus lateral flow tests have run out and the NHS booster jab booking site has crashed.

Work from home guidance is back today, as more Plan B guidance is implemented to curb the spread of Omicron.

Mr Johnson said yesterday that the country should expect a 'tidal wave' of cases, as the UKs Covid alert level was raised from three to four.

As well as work from home guidance, rules on face masks have already been tightened and Covid passes will be required to get into nightclubs and other large venues from Wednesday.

In a short speech, he said: Today we are launching the Omicron Emergency Boost, a national mission unlike anything we have done before in the vaccination programme to Get Boosted Now.

A fortnight ago I said we would offer every eligible adult a booster by the end of January.

Today, in light of this Omicron Emergency, I am bringing that target forward by a whole month.

Everyone eligible aged 18 and over in England will have the chance to get their booster before the New Year.

We have spoken today to the Devolved Administrations, to confirm the UK Government will provide additional support to accelerate vaccinations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Fears have been raised, however, that the booster rollout will place an unprecedented level of pressure on the NHS at the system's most difficult time of year.

Greater Manchester's medics have voiced concerns in the wake of Prime Minster Boris Johnson's address, with one GP telling theManchester Evening News his practice will be forced to 'cancel routine work' and 'all staff leave' until the end of December, adding the rollout will 'break general practice'.

Follow our live blog below for the latest coronavirus updates throughout the day.

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Covid LIVE updates as Omicron now 20% of infections in England and hundreds queue for booster jabs - Manchester Evening News

This past Friday, Herbert Wahler celebrated his 100th birthday. Quite an achievement for a German, who spent a significant part of World War II serving on the Eastern front in Ukraine. Yet upon closer examination of Wahlers service record, its not that surprising, since, for a significant part of the conflict, Wahler was not dodging bullets shot at him by Red Army soldiers, but rather contributing to the efforts of Einsatzgruppe C to mass murder innocent Jews and other enemies of the Reich.

Einsatzgruppe C was one of the four special killing squads, labeled A, B, C, and D, the Nazis sent in June 1941, along with the Wehrmacht troops invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, to begin the mass murder of Jews, even before the formal decree of the Final Solution was officially adopted at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. They spread out over the entire territory, with A responsible for the former Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; B in charge in Belarus; C active in central Ukraine and D in southern Ukraine. In the course of 1941-1943, these units, which numbered approximately 3,000 men, with assistance from members of the Wehrmacht, German police units, and local collaborators, were responsible for the mass murder by shooting of approximately 2 million persons, among them 1.3 million Jews.

Wahler served initially in a Waffen-S.S. unit, which in late July 1941 was assigned to Einsatzgruppen C. The unit went from place to place murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians, most of whom were Jewish, and by the end of October 1941 had killed an estimated 78,000 people, and carried out the largest mass murder in the history of the Holocaust, the September 29-30 massacre of 33,771 Jews in Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Despite the extremely important role played by the Einsatzgruppen in the Holocaust, relatively few of those who carried out the murders were brought to justice. The Americans conducted a trial of 24 of the senior leaders of the units, and two-thirds of the defendants were sentenced to death (14) or life imprisonment (2), but only four men were executed. All the others who were convicted had their sentences reduced. (Four others were tried and executed by other countries.) Only about 100 men were subsequently indicted in West Germany, a few were convicted and given mild sentences, and none were executed.

Given those circumstances, I was expecting that in the wake of the dramatic change a decade ago in German prosecution policy vis--vis Nazi war criminals, which made it possible to convict those who served in death camps and/or camps with gas chambers or gas vans, or camps with a high mortality rate, based on service alone (as opposed to the previous requirement of proving a specific crime against a specific victim), it would now be possible to convict people who served in the Einsatzgruppen. In fact, shortly after the Demjanjuk verdict, I met in 2011 with the directors of the Central Office for the Clarification of Nazi Crimes (the federal German agency which initiates Nazi war crimes investigations) to discuss the issue, and they confirmed that indeed they had adopted that policy.

That did not happen, however, so three years later, in the fall of 2014, I checked the Weisenthal Center archives for all the names of people who served in the Einsatzgruppen, for whom we had a date of birth. We had a total of 1,293 names (out of about 2,950) of those who served in A, B, C, or D, of which we had dates of birth for 1,069. Of those, 80 people, 76 men and four women, were born in 1920 or later. On September 1, 20104, I sent that list, which included Herbert Wahlers name, to the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas and the Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere. It took the German authorities 17 months to check the list, which they informed me included three people alive in Germany, all of whom had served in Einsatzgruppe C.

I received the news with a mixture of joy and trepidation. Joy that at least three were alive, trepidation that they might not live long enough to be prosecuted which is why I sometimes find myself praying for the good health of Nazis who might be prosecuted). In the meantime, my fears turned out to be well-founded and Kurt Gosdek and Wilhelm Karl Friedrich Hoffmeister have already died without being brought to justice. Although Wahler has admitted in media interviews that he was in Kyiv during the massacre, the prosecutor in Kassel closed his case, probably because Wahler claims that he was a medic, leaving unanswered the question of who it was he was assisting, the perpetrators or the victims.

So last Friday, a demonstration was held in front of Wahlers house in Meslungen by members of the Dokumentartheaters Berlin and the AK Angreifbare Traditionspflege, and members of the Liberal Jewish community in nearby Felsberg to demand that justice be served. My message to them, which was read at the demonstration, was simple:

The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the murderers and their accomplices. And old age should not afford protection for merciless killers.

Herbert Wahler may think that What has been, has been, its over, as he told the ARD journalists fromKontraste, but as long as any of the men and women from the Einsatzgruppen, deaths head units, and anyone who served in the concentration camps where so many innocent human beings were murdered are alive, they cannot be allowed to live their lives in peace and tranquility. That is a privilege they denied their victims.

They must be held accountable! Even if they were not officers or did not have high ranks. In death squads and death camps, there is no such thing as a small cog. Its the small cogs, who ensured the implementation of the Final Solution, and they must be held accountable.

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May you live long and be prosecuted | Efraim Zuroff | The Blogs - The Times of Israel