Professor Walter's History Lessons

September 26th 2010, WWI finally reached it's end

WWI ended abruptly for the soldiers in the field. Many Germans, including Adolph Hitler, felt that they had been sold out when the Treaty of Versailles had been signed. They believed this for many reasons, one was the fact that German soil had not been attacked, another was the crippling terms of the surrender. Among those terms was Germany's acceptance of blame for the war and reparations of 226 billion Reichsmarks to France and Belgium.  The sum was so large that, even when it was reduced to 132 billion, it exceeded the ability of the nation to pay. When the Great Depression hit a financially crippled Germany would find itself looking to new options for leadership which included the 3rd Reich. Once in power Hitler stopped payments.

After WWII, as Germany rebuilt itself the debt still loomed.  On September 26th, 2010 the last payment was due and WWI was officially, financially complete.

-Professor Walter

How chocolate changed the world

In 1945 Percy Spencer was building magnatrons for radar sets at Raytheon. One fateful day he left a chocolate bar in his pocket while testing the magnetron and was surprised to discover the bar had melted. Further testing found that the microwaves had melted the bar. Next came popcorn kernels, which popped. And then an egg, which exploded in the face of the tester.  It was clear they had stumbled upon a new cooking method, and on October 8, 1945 Raytheon applied for a patent.

In 1947 the first commercial microwave was built, known as the Radarange, and the cooking world would never be the same. Unfortunately, the high voltage needed to run the device, and the impractical water cooling system  made them unrealistic for home use.

By the 1950s the technology had improved and the Tappan Stove Company licensed the technology so that they could sell a home microwave oven. The Tappan oven was designed as an in-wall oven with a 220 volt fixed power source. Introduced at the price of $1,250, they did not sell well and the first home microwave was declared a failure. It was more than a decade before it was given another try.

In 1967, Amana, which had been acquired by Raytheon in 1965, would change the world with the first practical residential microwave oven. The Radarange sold for a mere $495 and promised flameless electronic cooking in the home. By 1970, 40,000 units a year were sold. That number ballooned to one million by 1975, actually out-selling standard gas ranges, driven by higher efficiency models and a falling price point. In terms of percentages, 1% of all homes in America had a microwave in 1970. By 1976 the number was about 60%, or approximately 52 million US residences. Today those numbers are closer to 90%, and a home is not complete without one.

All because Percy Spencer left a chocolate bar in his pocket.

-Professor Walter

Lend-Lease SPAM

On March 11, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act, allowing the United States to "lend" arms, food, raw materials, and other items, to be repaid later.  The bill allowed Roosevelt to bypass laws preventing the extension of credit to countries that still had an outstanding debt from WWI, among other barriers.  This step was one short of entering the war and the result was immeasurable.

 “Never again let us hear the taunt that money is the ruling power in the hearts and thoughts of the American democracy. The Lease-Lend Bill must be regarded without question as the most unsordid act in the whole of recorded history." - Winston Churchill, 1941

The first shipments contained an unfamiliar sight to the English and the Soviets: canned processed meat, a good portion of which was SPAM.  By the time the war was over, the Soviet Union alone would receive 485,000 tonnes of canned meat.  SPAM acquired a dubious reputation during the war, the result of the brand name "SPAM" being applied to all of the canned meat products, even those containing ingredients such as ears and snouts.  SPAM is not made with those, but the distinction was not always recognized.  Despite that reputation, SPAM's importance would not be overlooked.

“A war-time delicacy.” - Margaret Thatcher, referring to SPAM

“This is London. Although the Christmas table will not be lavish, there will be SPAM luncheon meat for everyone.” - Edward R. Murrow, 1942

“Without Spam, we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army.” - Nikita Khruschev

“During World War II, of course, I ate my share of Spam along with millions of other soldiers. I’ll even confess to a few unkind remarks about it—uttered during the strain of battle, you understand. But as former Commander-in-Chief, I believe I can still officially forgive you your only sin: sending us so much of it.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

SPAM would continue to serve the United States, and the world, throughout the war and long after, remaining the premier canned meat to this day.  Rest assured, however, that it is ready at a moment's notice to answer a call to arms.

-Professor Walter

The Sound of Irony

The Edelweiss is a high altitude mountainous flower that grows in Europe.  The flower was previously used in traditional folk medicine, but since the 1880s has been a protected plant in many countries.  Its name comes from the German edel, meaning "noble," and weiss, meaning white, translated to "noble whiteness" or "noble purity."  Its alluring appearance and mountain ties have made it a part of our cultural heritage.

The Austrian-Hungarian Army used the Edelweiss as the symbol for their alpine troops, it was used in WW II by the Wehrmacht Gebirgsjäger, and it is on the Austrian Euro 2 cent coin.  Its influence is far reaching and can be seen on many popular commercial items, including Austrian beer.

In 1934 the flower performed one of its most dubious duties.  Adolph Hitler was set to arrive at Anhalter Station and a delegation from various women's organizations in Berlin planned to greet him with flowers.  However, after contacting his propaganda minister's secretary, they were informed that Hitler had no favorite flower, nor any particular interest in flowers.  In a spur of the moment decision, the Edelweiss was selected for him, due to its rarity and connection to the Bavarian mountains where Hitler spent time in his youth.  From that point on it became the official flower of the Fuhrer.  Conversely, and interestingly, it was also the badge of the anti-Nazi youth group, The Edelweiss Pirates, during the Third Reich.

Perhaps its best known role is from The Sound of Music, the last musical on which Rogers and Hammerstein collaborated.  The song "Edelweiss" was written specifically to take advantage of the skills of Theodore Bikel, who played Captain George Ludwig von Trapp in the stage production.  Despite the flower's connections to Hitler, the song was meant to illustrate von Trapp's support of his homeland in opposition to Nazi rule.  The song's popularity exceeded that of the musical itself, spawning many misconceptions -- including one that President Ronald Reagan fell prey to.  When the emissary of Austria visited the United States, Edelweiss was played because it was believed to be the national anthem and a traditional folk song.

-Professor Walter

The Mitford Sisters - Stalking Hitler

Diana and Unity Mitford were born in 1910 and 1914, two of six girls in an English family.  Both women would become well known for their fascist beliefs, in stark contrast to their other sisters.  In 1933, the two traveled to Germany as part of a delegation from the British Union of Fascists, where they would witness the first Nuremberg rally after the Nazis came to power. 

After hearing Adolf Hitler speak, Unity was quoted as saying, "...I knew there was no one I would rather meet."  She would learn as much as she could about him and follow his movements, hoping for a chance to meet him.  She discovered places where he ate and made a point of dining there at the same time.  Ten months into her campaign, Hitler invited her to his table and they spoke for an hour.  In a letter to her father, she wrote of the meeting, "It was the most wonderful and beautiful [day] of my life.  I am so happy that I wouldn’t mind a bit, dying.  I’d suppose I am the luckiest girl in the world.  For me he is the greatest man of all time".

Unity became a common sight among Hitler's inner circle, and often attended breakfasts with him.  In 1935, after being introduced to Diana, Hitler entertained them as quests at a rally.  Soon Diana, too, would become a part of the close-knit group, so much so that, after leaving her first husband, her second marriage took place in Joseph Goebbels's drawing room with Hitler present.  In August 1939, over lunch, Hitler told Diana and Unity that war was inevitable and advised them that they should leave for England as soon as possible.

Diana left, but, despite her family's pleas to come home, Unity stayed, trying to persuade Hitler to keep peace with England.  In 1940, due to Diana's fascist ties, she and her husband were arrested as a public danger.  As a result of public outcry and Diana's husband's poor health, they were released from prison in 1943 and put under house arrest.  They would not be granted passports again until 1947.  Meanwhile, Unity continued in her attempts to pursuade Hitler to avoid war.  She would tell Diana that she would "...kill herself because she couldn’t bear to live and see these two countries tearing each other to pieces, both of which she loved."

On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany.  Distraught, Unity used a pearl-handled pistol, a gift from Hitler, to shoot herself in the head.  She survived, however, and, despite the ongoing war, Hitler came to visit her in a Munich hospital.  He arranged for a special train to take her to Switzerland, which had remained neutral.  Unity's mother and sister, Deborah, brought her home to England.

Deborah would later recount the event: "We were not prepared for what we found - the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost two stone, was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull.  The bullet was still in her head, inoperable the doctor said.  She could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke.  Not only was her appearance shocking, she was a stranger, someone we did not know.  We brought her back to England in an ambulance coach attached to a train.  Every jolt was agony to her."

Unity died in 1948, after developing an infection in the wound, and Diana died in 2001.  Their sister, Deborah, is still alive.  She is occasionally questioned about various conspiracy theories, including claims that Unity's suicide attempt was faked, and of a "Hitler Baby" that Unity was rumored to have given birth to after returning to England.

-Professor Walter

The USS Aylwin -- 50% Crew, Four Ensigns & Ready for Battle

On December 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy," Japan launched an attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands of the United States.  The damage was extensive and many lives were lost, but it was not as bad as it could have been.  After the assault ships were re-floated and repaired, facilities were brought back online and the offices of the Navy and Marines saw record recruitment levels as the US geared up for the war.  In the blaze of battle that day, one ship escaped with only minor damage.

The USS Aylwin (DD-355) was moored with her squadron, only a small boiler operating to provide power for auxiliary services.  About half of her crew was on leave that Sunday morning when, at 7:55 a.m., the sound of airplane engines caught everyone's attention. Three minutes later the skeleton crew of the Aylwin returned fire.  Five minutes later the "black gang" lit the main two boilers, bringing them fully online in 15 minutes.  At 8:29 a.m. the commander of the fleet ordered all able ships to get underway.  At 8:50 a.m. a Japanese bomb went off 75 yards from the Aylwin's bow.  Eight minutes later the Aylwin, leaving her stern wire and anchor chain behind, left for the open sea.

The 50% skeleton crew performed admirably in taking the vessel out to sea.  The only officers on board were four ensigns.  The senior most was Ensign Stanley B. Caplan, who had only served at sea for eight months.  They guided the ship out while maintaining continuous fire.  As they left Pearl Harbor the men topside were able to see a small motor launch 1,000 yards off the entrance buoys. In that launch they saw their captain, Lt. Commander Robert H. Rodgers, and other officers of the Aylwin in a small WWI destroyer following them.  Orders were to make way for the open sea so they could not slow down.  The officers were left behind on the their small vessel.  In the battle one of the screws was damaged.  For 36 hours the ship patrolled and worked chasing down a potential submarine before heading back to dock for repairs on December 12.  Lt. Commander Rodgers spoke highly of his men who continued without him:

The conduct of the personnel was magnificent.... Every man more than did his job and was eager to fight."

Then went on to speak of Ensign Caplan:

"The conduct (of this man) ... in superbly taking command for 36 hours during war operations of the severest type is a most amazing and outstanding achievement."

Their actions and quick thinking saved the ship and the Aylwin continued to serve throughout the war in the Pacific theater.  As the war ended, the need for the large naval fleet diminished and the Aylwin sailed through the Panama Canal to the New York Naval Yard.  On October 16, 1945, the vessel was struck from the Navy list and the following year was sold and cut up for scrap by 1948.

-Professor Walter

Takeo Yoshikawa - One of the most successful and hated spies in history

Born on March 7, 1914 Takeo Yoshikawa graduated at the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima at the top of his class in 1933. His naval career was derailed in 1936 when he was discharged due to a stomach ailment.  After briefly considering suicide, he decided to learn as much as possible about the United States Navy and studied everything he could on it.  His early efforts revealed secrets which, when passed on to the Germans, allowed for the sinking of troop transports that were en-route from the United States to England as part of the Lend-Lease Act.

In 1940 he passed the Foreign Ministry English examinations and became a junior diplomat. Then Yoshikawa was sent to Hawaii under the cover of a vice-consul named Tadashi Morimura (森村 正 Morimura Tadashi), arriving on March 27, 1941.  He rented an apartment and walked the streets taking scrupulous notes of Naval Placements and passing them back to the Japanese Consulate.  He took rides on the local tugs and listened to gossip, he took short plane rides and even went into the harbor, breathing through a reed, to learn more of the naval placements.

A request was sent to him from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto requesting specific data on the location he each naval vessel on a grid breaking the land into five key areas. Yoshikawa transmitted twice-weekly reports as requested which helped facilitate the Japanese attach on Perl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Sadly, the message Yamamoto had sent was intercepted but US officials, but there were delays in decoding it and once it was readable it was dismissed as having little consequence.

Yoshikawa did not receive credit for his efforts during the war, and continued to work in Japanese Naval Intelligence for the duration.  After the Japanese defeat he went into hiding as a Buddhist monk fearing American retribution. He returned to his wife and two children only after American Occupation ended in 1952.  In 1955 the former spy opened a candy business.

In 1960 he told his story, for the first time, to an American audience and became a scapegoat for the war.  He was hated by Americans for his role in the war, and hated by Japanese as causing them to enter a war they were destined to lose. His candy business failed as a result and he remained unemployed for the rest of his life, as no one would hire him. His wife supported him as an insurance salesman.  He has been quotes as saying,  "My wife alone shows me great respect,", "Every day she bows to me. She knows I am a man of history." Yoshikawa passed away in 1993 in a nursing home without any note of his contribution to history.

-Professor Walter

Yes, we have no shoes or underwear for you!

In late autumn 1942, Swedish analysts were decoding German communications.  One message they decoded was from Herman Goering, the Deputy Reichsfueher to the German ambassador in Stockholm, demanding that the Swedes give vast amounts of wool socks and underwear to support the Nazi conquest of the Soviet Union.  Sweden, which had been struggling to remain neutral during the conflict, did not wish to support the Nazi efforts.  The message was relayed to Swedish Foreign Minister Christian Gunther, who conveniently dropped out of sight for the weekend.  When the German ambassador attempted to schedule an appointment to visit Gunther, he was told that Gunther was on a weekend hunting trip and unreachable.  This was in keeping with Gunther's easy-going lifestyle and roused no suspicion.   

Surprisingly, that Saturday, the Swedish government imposed rationing which limited the sale of winter clothing.  When the German ambassador was finally able to meet with Gunther he was told that the Swedes could not spare socks or underwear, and were, in fact, rationing what little they had.  The result of this deception was that the German soldiers marching toward Moscow were crippled in the cold winter.

-Professor Walter

A supposedly scrambled phone call becomes a treasure trove of secrets and Sicilian profanity

During WWII Sweden remained a neutral country, however they were concerned for their safety because of their precarious geographic location.  To protect themselves they monitored German and Italian communications.  Their monitoring of phone calls was successful until the day when they intercepted a call between the Italian military attaché in Stockholm and his counterpart assigned to Oslo.  The voice recording was unintelligible and the Swedes panicked assuming the there was a new type of telephone scrambler device that they could not defeat.  

A wax recording of the call was passed to language experts in hopes they could decode it.  Their success was limited and the few words they could make out did not reveal the true meaning of the message.  At the University of Uppsala linguists finally had a breakthrough after hours of work.  The voice of the attaché in Oslo was not encrypted, he was just speaking in a Sicilian dialect.  It was even harder to understand him because he was screaming obscenities every other word.  To make matters more confusing the attaché in Stockholm had a slight speech impediment.  

But their efforts prevailed and the message turned out to be a discussion in which the Stockholm attaché tried to explain the new code system to the Oslo attaché.  The Oslo man was incensed that the "idiots" in Rome would give them such a convoluted means of securing information.  Over and over the calmer attaché explained how to use the system and even gave examples of code words.

The treasure trove of information in the supposedly scrambled phone call allowed Sweden to intercept and decode the Italian's diplomatic traffic to and from Rome.

-Professor Walter

Hitler - The lone-nut theory

Hitler has only got one ball, 
Goering has two, but very small; 
Himmler is very sim'lar, 
And Goebbels has no balls at all.

Speculation is rife regarding the number of testicles that Adolph Hitler may or may not have had.  Many sources of the time stated that he had only one, but it was common for soldiers to insult the sexual capabilities of their opponents.  But could it be true?  That question is surprisingly hard to answer.

During WWI, at the October 1916 Battle of The Somme, Hitler was wounded and by some accounts the wound was to his groin.  Yet no doctor ever recorded a mention of a missing testicle.  The mystery becomes even more confusing after his death.  The Soviets were the first to reach Berlin and Hitler.  Until 1950, when they released a film called "The Fall of Berlin" (which depicted Hitler and Eva Braun committing suicide), the Soviets had claimed that  the couple had escaped to Spain or Argentina.  On May 1, 1945, German radio announced that Hitler had been killed fighting with his troops.  To sort out the mystery the British assigned H. R. Trevor-Roper, a well known historian, to the investigation.  He concluded that Hitler killed himself in his bunker on April 30th and that his body was burned nearby.

In the 1960s the Soviets released a supposedly secret autopsy report which referenced the testicle issue: "left testicle could not be found either in the scrotum or on the spermatic cord inside the inguinal canal, or in the small pelvis. . . ."  Adding to the confusion, in a statement by a woman who claimed to have had a relationship with Hitler, it was said that he was properly endowed.   Additionally the autopsy made no mention of any external wound despite the belief of many Germans that Hitler shot himself as he bit a cyanide capsule.  A 1972 review of the autopsy conclud that the x-rays matched Hitler's dental records, supporting the belief that the report was genuine.  However, one of Hitler's WWI commanders noted that he only saw one testicle during a VD exam.  

Unfortunately, Hitler's body is gone.  Officially, after he killed himself, he was burned and then taken by Soviet authorities.  An autopsy was performed then the body was buried in East Germany in an unmarked grave, until 1970 when it was exhumed and cremated.  The ashes were scattered with the intent of preventing a Hitler "shrine," but the actual result has been serious questions regarding the validity of the documentation and the story of his death as a whole.  In 2000 a Russian news broadcast stated that Soviet officials had ignored evidence and that the body may not have been that of Hitler.  Many still believe that Hitler escaped.  The 2009 discovery of what is supposed to be a portion of Hitler's skull only brings more questions.  

The truth is that Hitler was not willing to allow anyone to see that region, leading many to speculate that there was something amiss.  But the evidence is severely lacking.  This leaves us without a clear answer on the lone-nut theory.  It may have been truth, or simply propaganda.

-Professor Walter00