New Hitler Photos Bring Big Bucks at Auction

Unseen Adolf Hitler photos sell for £30,000 at auction

A collection of previously unseen photographs of Adolf Hitler has sold at auction in Northamptonshire for £30,000.

From BBC

The group of hundreds of photographs went under the hammer on Tuesday night as part of a 300-lot militaria sale at JP Humbert Auctioneers in Towcester.

Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann took the images during the Nazi party's rise to power.

Hoffmann's work was used for postage stamps, postcards and posters.

Nazi party's rise

A large archive was seized by the United States government during the Allied occupation of Germany, and was held by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The auctioned images, some of which had been digitally developed by the auction house, featured Hitler at the Nuremberg Rally in 1934, meeting Benito Mussolini and at an SS training camp.

They are thought to have been given by Hoffman to an elderly man in Germany.

Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert said: "I was astonished by the interest we had in the photographs, even from Germany.

"They provided a never-seen-before insight into the rise of the Nazi party, and some personal views of Hitler himself.

"Rather than pictures taken from the crowd at these rallies, they really were up close to him."

Hoffmann, who worked as a photographer in Munich from 1908, joined the Nazi party in 1920.

He was arrested by the Americans in May 1945 and after the war was tried and sentenced to four years for Nazi profiteering.

WWII Jeep Still Serves the US Army Today

As the Fort Irwin and National Training Center G-3 chief of operations, Lt. Col. Stephen Thrasher is always on the move, but in his spare time he keeps a piece of American history rolling down the road in his World War II jeep, a 1942 Ford GPW.

"It's essential because the material culture elicits the story," Thrasher said. "It will get vets to tell their story if they see it. It gives you an opportunity to get kids interested in that, so you can tell them a little bit about it if you talk about the war and what went on."

The jeep provides the opportunity to compare and contrast how things were during World War II with how they are now during the war on terror, he said.

"During World War II there were scrap drives and everyone had to grow a Victory Garden, and there was food rationing, shoe rationing and all that kind of thing," he said. "People either don't know or don't stop to think how it is now and how it was then when you're talking total mobilization of the country compared to the Army and the Marine Corps being mobilized."

Over the course of the past 15 years, Thrasher's jeep has made appearances in the Savannah, Ga., St. Patrick's Day and Veterans Day parades, as well as other public showings.

Thrasher has taken part in public events near Fort Hood, Texas, where he purchased the jeep, as well as Fort Sill, Okla., and Fort Stewart, Ga., with a tour in Korea in between.

The decision to purchase the jeep took about six months after Thrasher attended an air show in Waco, Texas, and met a gentleman who was displaying two vintage military vehicles, and about three cots worth of vintage World War II TA-50.

"There was no clue in my mind that private individuals could own vintage WWII vehicles," Thrasher recalled.

When his friend showed him two jeeps he had available for sale, Thrasher said he lucked into purchasing the Ford instead of the more popular Willys.

"I really just kind of bumbled into it," he said. "I bought mine because it's early enough that it's got the Ford script on the back and it has the original data plates on it with the (Vehicle Identification Number) and the date of delivery."

When the United States entered World War II, three companies - Bantam, Ford and Willys - vied for the jeep contract with Bantam producing a vehicle closest to the required specifications in 45 days.

However, due to Bantam's inability to meet the production requirements, Ford and Willys ended up making the jeeps, which were a combination of the best of all three submissions. During World War II Ford made 281,448 jeeps, Willys made 362,841 jeeps and Bantam made 2,675.

The distinctions between the Ford and Willys World War II jeeps are insignificant as about 90 to 95 percent of the parts are interchangeable, Thrasher said.

At the time he purchased the jeep, Thrasher admitted his mechanical knowledge was limited to changing oil and not much more, but his friend provided him a workshop and guided him through the restoration process.

When he purchased the jeep, it was missing its radiator, gas tank and carburetor and had to be totally stripped down to the frame and rebuilt.

"It took 2 ½ years to get it back on the road," he said. "I had to contract out most of the reconstruction because I was getting close to PCSing from Fort Hood."

After returning from his tour in Korea, Thrasher added a personal touch to his jeep as the bumper now carries the identification of his unit in Korea, which served proudly during World War II as part of the 2nd Infantry Division.

When asked about his future plans for vehicle restoration, Thrasher admitted he's been bitten by the restoration bug.

"I'm in the midst of restoring a 1941 Dodge pick-up, which I'm right back in the same boat of paying someone to put it back together," he said.

US Army press release

Richard Winters 1918-2011

Even as Parkinson's disease began taking its toll on Dick Winters, who led his "Band of Brothers" through some of World War II's fiercest European battles, the unassuming hero refused, as always, to let his men down.

Friends accompanied him to public events, subtly clearing a path through the adoring crowds for the living legend, whose Easy Company's achievements were documented by a book and HBO miniseries. His gait had grown unsteady, and he did not want to be seen stumbling.

Winters "didn't want the members of Easy Company to know," William Jackson said Monday of his longtime friend, who died last week at age 92. "Right up to the end, he was the company commander."

An intensely private and humble man, Winters had asked that news of his death be withheld until after his funeral, Jackson said. Winters lived in Hershey, Pa., but died in an assisted-living center in neighboring Palmyra.

The men Winters led through harrowing circumstances and under fire from the German army never let the toll of time dull their own admiration for their commander.

"When he said 'Let's go,' he was right in the front," William Guarnere, 88, and dubbed "Wild Bill" by his comrades, said Sunday night from his south Philadelphia home. "He was never in the back. A leader personified."

Another member of the unit living in Philadelphia, Edward Heffron, 87, called Winters "one hell of a guy, one of the greatest soldiers I was ever under."

"He was a wonderful officer, a wonderful leader," said Heffron, who had the nickname "Babe" in the company. "He had what you needed: Guts and brains. He took care of his men, that's very important."

Winters was born Jan. 21, 1918, and studied economics at Franklin & Marshall College before enlisting, according to a biography on Penn State's website.

Winters became the leader of Company E, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, on D-Day after the death of the company commander during the invasion of Normandy.

During that invasion, Winters led 13 of his men in destroying an enemy battery and obtained a detailed map of German defenses along Utah Beach. In September 1944, he led 20 men in a successful attack on a German force of 200 soldiers. Occupying the Bastogne area of Belgium at the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he and his men held their place until the Third Army broke through enemy lines, and Winters shortly afterward was promoted to major.

"His leadership example both on and off the battlefield will continue to inspire 'Screaming Eagle' soldiers for years to come," said Lt. Col. Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division, currently deployed to Afghanistan. "His principles for success on the battlefield are timeless, as they are as critical today in Afghanistan as they were on 'Fortress Europe' during World War II."

After returning home, Winters married his wife, Ethel, in May 1948, and trained infantry and Army Ranger units at Fort Dix in New Jersey during the Korean War. He started a company selling livestock feed to farmers, and he and his family eventually settled in a farmhouse in Hershey, where he later retired.

Historian Stephen Ambrose interviewed Winters for the 1992 book "Band of Brothers," upon which the HBO miniseries that began airing in September 2001 was based.

The miniseries followed Easy Company from its training in Georgia all the way to the war's end in May 1945. Its producers included actor Tom Hanks and Steve Spielberg. Damian Lewis portrayed Winters.

"Dick Winters was at the Vanguard of representing 'The Greatest Generation' in bringing honor to all his Band of Brothers when he collaborated with Tom Hanks, Stephen Ambrose and me in the mounting of our tribute series," Spielberg said in a statement. "He would not have wanted this credit. He would have simply asked all of us to never forget how his generation served this nation and the world in WWII."

Winters himself published a memoir in 2006 titled "Beyond Band of Brothers."

In 2009, an exhibit devoted to Winters was dedicated at the Hershey-Derry Township Historical Society. Winters was also the subject of a campaign to raise money to erect a monument in his honor near the beaches of Normandy.

Winters talked about his view of leadership for an August 2004 article in American History Magazine.

"If you can," he wrote, "find that peace within yourself, that peace and quiet and confidence that you can pass on to others, so that they know that you are honest and you are fair and will help them, no matter what, when the chips are down."

When people asked whether he was a hero, he echoed the words of his World War II buddy Mike Ranney: "No, but I served in a company of heroes."

"He was a good man, a very good man," Guarnere said. "I would follow him to hell and back. So would the men from E Company."

Arrangements for a public memorial service are pending.

From LA Times

Who wants a WWII B-25?

WWII B-25 ‘Skunkie’ looking for a home

Skunkie, the World War II B-25 Mitchell bomber raised from Lake Greenwood in the 1980s and stored in Columbia since 1992, is looking for a home.

The Richland County Airport Commission has turned back a request by the newly formed S.C. Historic Aviation Foundation to house the plane in the historic, but crumbling, Curtiss-Wright hangar at Owens Field — where it had been stored until a few months ago — citing insurance liability. The foundation, which purchased the plane from the Celebrate Freedom Foundation for $15,000 last month, says it may have to take the plane — which is now tethered outside of the hangar — out of Richland County if the commission doesn’t reconsider its position.

“I went into this meeting thinking that the airport commission would be thrilled to death with what we were doing for this historic aircraft,” said SCHAF president C. Cantzon Foster. “We just needed a little help.”

But the hangar, built in 1929, is arguably in a more precarious condition than the plane. It has holes in the roof and missing windows, and a decade of efforts to raise an estimated $3 million for its restoration have gone nowhere.

“The commission was concerned about the structural integrity of the hangar and traffic in it by non-county employees,” said Chris Eversmann, director of Columbia’s Hamilton-Owens Airport, where the hangar is located. “Work is needed to see if it is safe and sound.”

The hangar, built by the Curtiss-Wright Co. at the advent of the Great Depression and dedicated as Columbia Municipal Airport in 1930, has seen aviation grow from biplanes navigated by lighthouse-like beacons to global positioning satellites.

The Curtiss-Wright Co. was formed when businesses owned by the Wright Brothers, inventors of the airplane, and motorcycle enthusiast Glenn Curtiss merged. The company built hangars as maintenance facilities at airports nationwide. Only a handful still exist.

Wilbur Wright died in 1912, and it’s unknown whether Orville Wright ever visited the hangar. But famed aviator Amelia Earhart’s signature is still listed in the Columbia airport’s log book: 11:30 a.m. Nov. 16, 1931. She logged her aircraft as a Beech-Nut Autogiro flying from Greenville to Charleston.

President Franklin Roosevelt also flew into the airport in the late 1930s.

Efforts to renovate the hangar, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, began in the late 1990s, but they stalled significantly on Sept. 11, 2001, with the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. They have yet to be revived.

The B-25 was housed in the crumbling hangar for several years when it was owned by the Celebrate Freedom Foundation. But earlier this year the organization moved it outside because of the hangar’s deteriorating condition. Since then, the B-25 has been tethered to the tarmac outside the hangar, exposed to the elements.

The airport commission offered to continue to rent the tie-down space to the foundation for $40 per month, but Foster said the bomber needs to be stored indoors.

Exposing it “to the elements is the worst thing that could happen to this historic aircraft,” he said. “We just need a place to store it for 12 months while we develop a restoration plan.”

Eagle Aviation offered to store the plane in one of its maintenance hangars at Hamilton-Owens, but because of its size the bomber would have to be dismantled. “And we want the public to have access to it and use for fundraising events,” Foster said.

Foster added that the foundation would ask the commission to reconsider its decision at its Jan. 15 meeting, and may also appeal to Richland County Council.

However, the airport commission is an advisory board to the council, and it might be a hard sell to get the council to overrule the commission’s decision, said council member Greg Pearce, who is council’s liaison to the commission.

“You could put a tarp over the top of (the plane) and get as much protection as the Curtiss-Wright Hangar (offers); it’s pretty beat up,” he said. “I don’t know what their arguments would be to overrule the airport commission.”

Should they not be allowed use of the hangar, “We might have to take the plane out of Richland County,” Foster said. “That would be very unfortunate for Richland County.”

The B-25 was brought to Columbia from Greenwood and restored to its present state in 1992. Although it is not directly related to the Doolittle Raid, the names of Doolittle’s crew were painted below the cockpit. It became the centerpiece of the Doolittle Raiders’ 50th anniversary, held in Columbia in 1992, and subsequent reunions.

The Raiders volunteered for what many considered a suicide mission in 1942 at Columbia Air Base, which was the largest B-25 training base in the nation during World War II.

The plane cost $30,000 to restore initially, and the funds were raised by Don McElveen of Columbia, founding partner of the CMK Engineering firm, and John Rainey of Camden, an attorney and political activist, as a way to honor the Raiders. McElveen and Rainey deeded the plane to the city of Columbia after a plan to display it at the State Museum didn’t work out.

In 2007, the city gave the plane to the Celebrate Freedom Foundation, which had organized the Doolittle reunions and held annual festivals honoring the military. Those festivals included vintage aircraft. Since then, Celebrate Freedom’s focus has changed from World War II to the Vietnam War, and it offered the B-25 for sale.

Of the 1,660 “C” model B-25s that were built, only seven still exist, including Skunkie, and none fly. Most of those planes came to South Carolina and Columbia Air Base.

SCHAF has estimated the cost of getting the plane flying at $1 million. Once flying, the plane could be used as an ambassador for South Carolina at air shows and events across the country, officials said.

To help raise the money for stabilization, restoration, and perhaps eventually flight, the foundation is offering memberships ranging from $100 (flight engineer) to $5,000 (Raider).

For more information, contact SCHAF at Foster’s law office, (803) 400-1921.

From "The State"