Paul Fairbrook: Oh that is a very good question. You on one side and we on this side. Every day, Americas service members selflessly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free. We worked harder than anyone could have driven us. Jon Wertheim: Do you consider yourself a hero? Jon Wertheim: What is it like when you get together and reflect on this experience going on 80 years ago? One can also point to a Ritchie Boy You want to convince them that you're trustworthy. In 2011, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, hosted an exhibit of the Ritchie Boys exploits. Eventually, Knowing how to shape that appeal was pretty critical to the success of the mobile broadcast units. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Mothers Day.. He added that the military chose intelligent people because they had to process a tremendous amount of information." Guy Stern speaks at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Centers Ritchie Boys exhibit and reunion at Farmington Hills, Mich., July 24, 2011. Jon Wertheim: So physical combat training as well as intelligence? The untold story of the Ritchie Boys - Macleans.ca David Frey: Some became ambassadors. Through the power of Holocaust history, the Museum challenges leaders and individuals worldwide to think critically about their role in society and to confront antisemitism and other forms of hate, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Sixty-plus percent of the actionable intelligence gathered on the battlefield was gathered by Ritchie Boys. Jon Wertheim: Why did you want to enlist initially? But it gave me great deal of satisfaction. I don't know. Both refugees like Fairbrook and Stern, as well as a number of American-born recruits with requisite language skills - were drafted into the Army and sent to Camp Ritchie. I'm denouncing this and I was forced to do it. Germany surrendered on May 8th of that year. The largest set of graduates were 2,000 German-born Jews. David Frey: They were incredibly effective. Its not just a story about Jewish emigres, Frey says, its also a story of what I would call marginal soldiers and their defense of this country.. Mr. You playacted. But ask him about his most formative experience - and he doesn't hesitate. Jon Wertheim: You didn't want to be identified as Jewish going back to Western Europe. Jon Wertheim: As a former German who understood the psychology and the mentality. Jon Wertheim: That's what you called yourself? The Ritchie Boys landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and helped liberate Paris. An African-American Ritchie Boy William Warfield If you have ever heard a recording of William Warfield singing Ol Man River, from the musical Showboat by Jerome Kern, you will not have forgotten his deep, rich, bass-baritone voice. Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy, based on the true experiences of a refugee from Nazi Germany, combines a coming of age story with an immigrant tale and a World War II adventure. And they were impressed with that. Max Lerner recalls being put in charge of one prominent captured German prisoner at a jail in Weisbaden, Germany: that was Julius Streicher the founder and editor of the Nazi paper "Der Stuermer" and one of the country's leading antisemites. The Jewish Refugees Who Fled Nazi GermanyThen Returned to We worked harder than anyone could have driven us. "By highlighting those individuals who, in the midst of evil, stood for the best, rather than the worst of human nature, the Holocaust Memorial Center seeks to contribute to maintaining an open and free society," he added. The Ritchie Boys practiced street fighting in life-size replicas of German villages and questioned mock civilians in full scale German homes. And we were strafed and I said to myself, uh, "now, it's the end' because I could you could feel the machine gun bullets. Copyright 2023 Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. Max Lerner: Or they had an effort to erase it. As members of the Ritchie Boys, German and Austrian refugees offered language skills and knowledge that proved vital to American military intelligence. Because they served in so many different capacities. "I would have been killed if I hadn't gone along. Hundreds of Ritchie Boys were attached to divisions that liberated concentration camps and interviewed former prisoners to document the atrocities that took place. Jon Wertheim: Did you ever worry your accent might get you killed? A childhood friend described to Stern how his parents, younger brother and sister had been forced from their home and deported. G. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is an intense action movie, full of gunfire and explosions that make you feel caught in the midst of danger. ", Dr. And that's why civilians could be useful and soldiers could be useful, "where is the minefield?" Untold story of the Ritchie Boys - edmondlifeandleisure.com Victor Brombert: Our interrogations - it had to do with tactical immediate concerns. David Frey: Many of those who trained at Camp Ritchie actually did go on to the OSS the precursor to the CIA, That meant that the people who learned their craft at Camp Ritchie played a significant role in setting up what eventually became the CIA. The Ritchie Boys, as they were known, trained in espionage and frontline interrogation. David Frey teaches history to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. David Frey: Right. (See Walter Midener, an attendee, was awarded the Silver Star. Essentially they were intellectuals. Jon Wertheim: What were you trained to do? Ritchie Boy One of the ways they identified subjects wanted for interrogation was by consulting a book - the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects which listed enemy nationals suspected of committing tens of thousands of war crimes in Europe everyone from low ranking members of the armed forces to top Nazi officials. The Ritchie Boys and Questions of Death and Spies Step back in time and remember the lead up to VE Day, or "Victory in Europe Day," when soldiers and civilians alike across the world celebrated the end of the years-long World War II in Europe. Ritchie Boys were heroes who used their innate skills to gather information from all sources K. Lang-Slattery, Katie Lang-Slattery. Salinger, author of the classic book The Catcher in the Rye.. But within a few months the government realized these so-called enemy aliens could be a valuable resource in the war. Not just any Nazi party member. Following the war, some of the Ritchie Boys were interrogators during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. He is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, and has also written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico Magazine, and CNN.com. When Hitler came to power, the Bromberts fled to France, and then to the U.S. Given their foreign accents, they were in particular danger of being mistaken for the enemy by their own troops, who instituted passwords at checkpoints. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 That was the biggest weakness that the army recognized that it had, which was battlefield intelligence and the interrogation needed to talk to sometimes civilians, most of the time prisoners of war, in order to glean information from them. told the story of his fathers motivation and bravery in the book Unavoidable Hope. Camp Ritchie served the Maryland National Guard until 1942. Other Ritchie Boys were able to express their motivation and accomplishments in memoirs with titles such as I Must Be a Part of This War and A Few Who Made a Difference. Nina Wolff Feld told her fathers story in Someday You Will Understand: My Fathers Private World War 2. So little was known about the Ritchie Boys until the excellent documentary film The Ritchie Boys came upon the scene in 2004. I wanted, desperately, to do something. Little did he know he was whining to a Jewish refugee from Nazi-controlled Austria - a refugee who was now a Ritchie Boy, one of the most valuable interrogation units in the Allied forces. Others were actually really important in American science. David Frey: The work they do in the field, being able to glean information simply by from the uniform that a captured POW is wearing or the type of weapon that they have or the unit that they've just captured. Martha Cesaro, a military spouse, shares what inspired her to start giving back to the military community through the USO. Produced by Katherine Davis. They became known as the Ritchie Boys. Their enormous contributions to defeating Nazismone Army study concluded they were responsible for obtaining nearly 60 percent of the actionable intelligence gathered in Europe during the warand their postwar justice efforts remain little known to Americans even today. who was awarded a Silver Star medal posthumously for gallantry beyond the call of duty. The Ritchie Boys were one of World War IIs greatest secret weapons for US Army intelligence, said incoming Museum Chairman Stuart E. Eizenstat. This particular edition is in a Hardcover format. Dead people. So little was known about the Ritchie Boys until the excellent documentary film The Ritchie Boys came upon the scene in 2004. Jon Wertheim: What you describe, it almost sounds like these were precursors to CIA agents. And I had no choice." Naturally, I turned to Dan Gross, the unofficial archivist for the Ritchie Boys. By the spring of 1945, Allied forces neared Berlin and Hitler took his life in his underground bunker. Enter. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. 70 ratings17 reviews. The soldiers were sent for training to David Frey: You had a whole load of immigrants who really wanted to get back into the fight. Although Ritchie Boy. David Frey: They were in fact. Jon Wertheim: As a way to honor your family that perished. Jon Wertheim: What do you remember from that? Holocaust refugee turned American Soldier never forgot He project detailed every aspect of the German army's operations during the war, including how they were structured, how they mobilized and how they used intelligence. At one point, Max Lerner disguised himself as a German officer and snuck behind enemy lines - leading a team of American soldiers into a German depot at night and destroying the equipment. The Ritchie Boys: The Jewish U.S. Soldiers Who Helped Fortunately, some of the Ritchie Boys are still around to tell their tales, and that includes the life force that is Guy Stern, age 99. Ritchie Boys And we all were scared. Guy Stern: Defeating the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS and all the fancy troops they had was a satisfaction both as a team member and as a personal satisfaction. So to get that kind of information, particularly from those you capture on the battlefield, you need people who are trained to get that information. It has been edited for USO.org. Guy Stern: I had a war to fight and I did it. Some of them were very involved with the collection of information that became the basis of the trials at Nuremberg and subsequent war crimes trials, Frey said. Ritchie Boy Dr. And that's what the key to the success was. And that's what-- that's what it did for me. Salinger was a Ritchie Boy. And there's nothing that forges unity better than having a common enemy.This is Guy Stern 80 years ago. The unit got its name from where they did their training, Camp Ritchie, Maryl Cast & Crew Read More Christian Bauer Director Max Lerner was assigned to interivew German civilians to help gauge the degree to which they had served the Nazi cause and determine which ones should be punished. They took their name from the place they trained - Camp Ritchie, Maryland a secret American military intelligence center during the war. Ritchie Boys - YouTube Jon Wertheim: You work 6 days a week, you swim every morning, you lecture, any signs of slowing down? About 200 Ritchie Boys are estimated to be alive today. In trucks equipped with loudspeakers, Ritchie Boys went to the front lines under heavy fire, and tried, in German, to persuade their Nazi counterparts to surrender. David Frey: A lot of what was learned and the methods used are important to keep secret. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Guy Stern: And some we didn't break but 80% were so darned scared of the Russians and what they would do. WebMany of them, like Brombert, were Jewish. We had to-- we got a lot of German prisoners who were willing to help us catalog all those documents. Long-overdue Recognition Comes to the Ritchie Boys. A nonpartisan, federal educational institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is Americas national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust dedicated to ensuring the permanence of Holocaust memory, understanding, and relevance. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), The Ritchie Boys train at Camp Ritchie, Maryland during World War II. Guy Stern: We always find another anecdote to tell. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Courtesy of the Holocaust Memorial Center, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Spotlight/WWII/. It was wonderful to see these people again. With World War II, Camp Ritchie had a new, fascinating and mysterious mission. Guy Stern: Yes, doing my job interrogating. There were Ritchie Boys who were in POW camps embedded and gathering information in the United States. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland it was away from prying eyes and prying spies but close enough to decision makers at the Pentagon. Many had fled Nazi Germany but returned as American soldiers, deploying their knowledge of German language and culture to great advantage. Ritchie Boys were a military intelligence unit made up of mostly German, Austrian and Czech refugees and immigrants, many of whom were Jewish. Surviving soldiers were among the attendees. I have some that were shot. Some of them were trained as spies and some of them went on to careers as spies. And like so many war films it The Ritchie Boys - Introduction Why do so few Americans know about this? G. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is an intense action movie, full of gunfire and explosions that make you feel caught in the midst of danger. Victor Brombert: One had to playact with some of the people were acting as prisoners and some of them were real prisoners. They spoke the same German as the Wehrmacht soldiers they were up against, they shared experiences, education and culture with them, explains Henderson. Then came the surprise transfer to secretive Camp Ritchie in backwoods Maryland, where his first sight was a platoon of soldiers marching byin full-dress Wehrmacht uniforms. Many had fled Nazi Germany but returned as American soldiers, deploying their knowledge of German language and culture to great advantage. Many of the Ritchie Boys went on to have successful civilian careers, including J.D. David Frey: Well the most important part of the training was that they learned to do interrogation, and in particular of prisoners of war. It was also in Europe that some of them, like Guy Stern, learned what had happened to the families they left behind. 'Ritchie Boys' Aided Army's Efforts to Defeat Germany Many of the 15,200 selected were Jewish soldiers who fled Nazi-controlled Germany, which was systematically killing Jews. Jewish soldiers were in great danger if captured, and two were captured and executed due to being identified by their captors as German-born Jews. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The largest set of graduates were 2,000 German-born Jews. According to the kind of unit, according to the kind of person we were interrogating. A significant number of people, even those with some knowledge of Camp Ritchie, appear to visualize a graduate of the Armys Military Intelligence Training Center as follows: A physically-challenged man of the Jewish faith, who was born in Germany or Austria, joined the U. S. Army, and after being trained at Camp Ritchie served in the European Theater in World War II as an interrogator in relative safety behind the lines. After following in his familys footsteps and serving in the military, Air Force veteran Lyle Apo turned to USO Hawaii for the opportunity to volunteer and help current service members. In the Ardennes region of Belgium, the Germans mounted a massive counteroffensive, which became known as the Battle of the Bulge. How do you appeal to people in their own language? Many of the Ritchie Boys went on to have successful civilian careers, including J.D. This is the good conduct medal which I'm not really entitled to (laugh) and this here is the European theatre of operations medal with five battles in which I participated. David Frey: Absolutely. Photo credit DoD/Holocaust Memorial Center, | Paul Fairbrook: You can learn to shoot a rifle in six months but you can't learn fluent German in six months. But certainly what did not work was violence or threat of violence. How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win World War II For America. Jon Wertheim: What do you suspect might have happened? And only in the early 2000's did we begin to see reunions of the Ritchie Boys. Harmony Jones, a military child, shares how being raised in a military family helped shape her future for success. There were two who were actually captured at the Battle of the Bulge. When they landed on the beaches of Normandy, Wehrmacht troops were waiting for them well armed and well prepared. I don't think we're heroes. 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Many of these soldiers landed at Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and others followed to perform their specialized tasks, which provided advanced intelligence to allied forces regarding German war plans and tactics. How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win Jon Wertheim: So it sounds like this gave the officers in the field a guide to the German Army so they could then interrogate the German POW's more efficiently. Guy Stern: This one was our most effective leaflet and why was that? Guy Stern: Thank you for asking. Since the story of the Ritchie Boys remained relatively unknown for a half-century or more, it was often left to their children and grandchildren to bring their accomplishments to light. By the summer of 1944, German troops in Normandy were outnumbered and overpowered. In trying to assess the contribution of a single participant to an endeavor as gigantic as World War II, the question is often asked How much difference can one man make? Considering how remarkable Ritchie Boys were as individuals, does it make sense to try to find just one or perhaps two Ritchie Boys whose individual contributions stand out in terms of the difference it made? Striecher was later tried and convicted at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, where concentration camp survivors who bore witness to the mass murder faced down their Nazi tormentors. Still, if they were captured, they knew what the Nazis would do to them. These are people who made massive contributions. . WASHINGTON The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will confer its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on the Ritchie Boys, a little-known special World War II US military intelligence unit that included many Jewish refugees from Nazism and was instrumental to the Allied victory. And it was not until a few years ago that the son of Italian-Jewish Ritchie Boy. Jon Wertheim: Did you worry what might happen if you were captured? In civilian life, he became a noted sculpture and fine arts teacher and rose to the presidency for the Center for Creative Studies at Detroit's College of Art and Design. Wehrmacht Captain Curt Bruns, convicted by a military tribunal of ordering the murder of those two Ritchie Boys, was executed by a firing squad in June, 1945. After the war, Frey says, a survey of battalion commanders concluded that intelligence gathered by graduates of Camp Ritchie was responsible for at least 60 percent of actionable intelligence for the Western Front Theater.. I mean this is you're taking your life in your hands here. A significant number of people, even those with some knowledge of Camp Ritchie, appear to visualize a graduate of the Armys Military Intelligence Training Center as follows: A physically-challenged man of the Jewish faith, who was born in Germany or Austria, joined the U. S. Army, and after being trained at Camp Ritchie served in the European Theater in World War II as an interrogator in relative safety behind the lines. One can also point to a Ritchie Boy who was given the opportunity to shape the critically important program of psychological warfare by training nearly all the 850 members of the Mobile Radio Broadcasting Companies. He is among the last surviving Ritchie Boys - a group of young men many of them German Jews who played an outsized role in helping the Allies win World War II. All the while, they tracked down evidence and interrogated Nazi criminals, later tried at Nuremberg. Victor Brombert: What happened to one of the Ritchie Boys - at night on the way to the latrine, he was asked for a password and he gave the name - the word for the password - but with a German accent. This group became known as The Ritchie Boys, who were the basis of a documentary film of the same name. One can readily point to the case of Ritchie Boy, who outwitted Adolf Eichmann and saved an estimated 40,000 lives. Approximately 20,000 menmany of whom were immigrants and refugees from more than 70 countries, including 2,800 German and Austrian refugees who fled Nazi persecution and had arrived in the United States as enemy alienswere trained there. Guy Stern: God no. We strive for accuracy and fairness. The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security. Ritchie History Museum Links. The U.S. Army had evidently decided that Martin Selling was a useful asset after all. You really know an awful lot of the subtleties when you're having a conversation with another German and we were able to find out things in their answers that enabled us to ask more questions. It was here that over 19,000 Ritchie Boys, many of them German-Jewish immigrants from Europe Engraved on the award are the words from Wiesels Nobel Prize acceptance speech, One person of integrity can make a difference., About the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Another bit of indispensable Ritchie Boy handiwork: the order of battle of the German army. Many Ritchie Boys took the precaution of anglicizing their names and altering their dog tags by replacing the H for Hebrewa guide to their burial service should the worst happenwith P for Protestant. History professor David Frey runs the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. You're in Belgium? Paul Fairbrook helped write this compact manual, known as the red book, which outlined in great detail the makeup of virtually every Nazi unit, information every Ritchie Boy committed to memory. 202.437.1221 Ritchie Boys They took their name from the place they trained - Camp Ritchie, Maryland a secret American military intelligence center during the war. In trying to assess the contribution of a single participant to an endeavor as gigantic as World War II, the question is often asked How much difference can one man make? Considering how remarkable Ritchie Boys were as individuals, does it make sense to try to find just one or perhaps two Ritchie Boys whose individual contributions stand out in terms of the difference it made? Tonight, we'll introduce you to members of a secret American intelligence unit who fought in World War II. David S. Frey,a history professor and director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide at the United States Military Academy,said that in the late 1930s, Gen. George Marshall, then the Army Chief of staff, realized that if the United States was going to war, it needed battlefield intelligence capabilitywhich its military lacked. Now in their late 90s, these humble warriors still keep in touch, swapping stories about a chapter in American history now finally being told. Ritchie Boys Many of them were Jewish refugees from Europe, who fled their homeland, came to America and joined the U.S. Army. David Frey: The purpose of the facility was to train interrogators. He was born in Berlin to a Russian Jewish family. It is a story of a remarkable synergy between a diverse group of well trained and motivated individuals. It was Sunday, May 13, 1945, Henderson marvels. In civilian life, he became a noted sculpture and fine arts teacher and rose to the presidency for the Center for Creative Studies at Detroits College of Art and Design. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. After the war, Guy Stern, Victor Brombert, Paul Fairbrook and Max Lerner came home, married, and went to Ivy League schools on the G.I. What could be more appropriate than to honor them with an award bearing the name of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.. They were heroes not necessarily or predominantly based on bravery but on their intelligence and deserving of the name Secret Heroes. Jon Wertheim: How did you find out you were going to go to Camp Ritchie? Paul Fairbrook: When the soldiers said "I'm not going to talk" they could say "wait a minute. Apart from the fighting, there were other threats confronting the Ritchie Boys. All were convicted for their crimes and many were executed. WebThe Ritchie Boys were the US special military intelligence officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland. Facing significant intelligence deficiencies, in April 1942, the US Army activated a plan to convert Fort Ritchie, a Maryland National Guard Camp, into an intelligence training center. 97-year-old Max Lerner, an Austrian Jew fluent in German and French, served as a special agent with the counterintelligence corps, passing information to French underground resistance groups. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. In 1944, the Ritchie Boys headed to Europe to fight in a war that was, for them, intensely personal. And that has been the driving force in my life. Ritchie Boys Image by Sons and Soldiers.

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