11 Comments

Good stuff. Here's hoping for success in recovering the audio.

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Feb 13, 2021Liked by Lauren Wolfe

I vaguely remember you speaking of this at the time. Fascinating. Hoping to hear a follow up podcast.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Lauren Wolfe

This is amazing. I live in New Hampshire. I now want to learn more about where in NH the POWs were held. This is an aspect to the story, which I am reading as Trump's lawyers defend his actions in inciting the overthrow of a free and democratic election (and democracy more broadly), that I never knew of before.

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Lauren Wolfe

This was the first I heard of this. Thank you!

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Feb 12, 2021Liked by Lauren Wolfe

I never knew all this, wow

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Aug 15, 2022Liked by Lauren Wolfe

I grew up in Maine and had no idea there were prisoner camps in Houlton until reading this. I do remember visiting family friends (up in the county) and going to the fields with their kids one morning to pick potatoes.

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Feb 14, 2021Liked by Lauren Wolfe

I just came across this radio/podcast piece by Kilian Pfeffer (Twitter: @hsbkp).

Karl Heinz Pfeffer was friend with Australian diplomat William Macmahon Ball[1], the first foreigner allowed to visit Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

"Honest repentance? My Nazi Grandfather and His Repentance

Kilian Pfeffer's grandfather was a staunch National Socialist. After 1945 he was one of the few who did not hide his past. When he was appointed professor of sociology at the University of Münster in the 1960s, he had a full student assembly called. He discussed with the students why he was a National Socialist - and now isn't one anymore. So it was told in the family.

Kilian Pfeffer wanted to know: What kind of guy was my grandfather, who died in 1971? The grandson did research in archives and spoke to people who saw his grandfather. The more he found out, the more complex the picture became."

https://www.swr.de/swr2/wissen/ehrliche-reue-mein-nazi-grossvater-und-seine-umkehr-100.html

The podcast is in German and unfotunately there is no transcript, but maybe it's still of interest.

As of my grandfather, he was a kid. I think he told me that his parents and people in the neighborhood just avoided to talk about what's going on, almost as if they don't want to know. My grandfather was supposed to go to the Hitlerjugend meetings but he hated it and he always ran away and hid in the woods.

During his life, my grandfather was an anti-authoritarian. Opposing the nazis as a young boy and later opposing the SED regime. It's a wonder he wasn't thrown into jail by the Stasi (He was on a list during the first months of protests in the GDR, 1989)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Macmahon_Ball

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While not impossible, it doesn't seem SS folks were generally Luftwaffe pilots, maybe he was one and then another, but I'd look into this... he might have been an old-timer putting you on or not remembering the details correctly, though could be telling the truth. There were no SS Luftwaffe units as far as I could tell doing some searches, but if there were any you come across please let me know. What an interesting topic and I hope you do make that podcast!!

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The man was real he was a patient of mine for years. The stories he told me were horrific. Dr Gillis Maine

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