Category Archives: World War II

April 11, 2024 · 8:20 pm

The Goals of the Axis Powers during World War Two

Kumar Kirinde & his Studious Aides in the RAFOA

Dear RAFOA member,

I am sure as a military officer, you are knowledgeable or have been exposed to the subject of WWII under military studies, especially if a staff college graduate. But our country being a British colony during the war and then a member of the Commonwealth after independence generally knows about this war from the perspective of the victorious Allies. Therefore if time permits I feel that it will be interesting to take a look at this war from the Axis perspective i.e. from the perspective of the people who started the war.

Accordingly attached is the first part of a brief on the German attack on Poland in September 1939, the beginning of Hiltler’s quest to make his country great and then convert it into an empire.

 

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April 10, 2024 · 12:21 am

Noor Inayat Khan: An Indian Princess & British WW II Spy

Vikas Vaid

On Sep 13, 1944, a princess from India lay dead at Dachau concentration camp. She had been tortured by the Nazis and then shot in the head. Her name was Noor Inayat Khan.

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February 12, 2024 · 12:13 pm

‘Made’ in Australia: The Journal SOUTH ASIA

SEE … https://southasianstudies.org.au/journal/

   

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies ranks as the leading academic journal in South Asian studies. It provides a forum for scholarly research, comment and discussion on the history, society, economy, culture and international relations of the South Asian region, drawing on a range of disciplines from the humanities and social sciences. South Asia publishes cutting edge, innovative, conceptually interesting, original case studies and new research, which shape and lead debates in the field.

SOUTH ASIA-Journal

 Professor Kama Maclean: a key figure in the history of the journal

 

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November 27, 2023 · 1:54 am

Virginia Hall: Spy & Resistance Fighter Extraordinary in France during World War Two

Quintus Andradi as Compiler, whose preferred title is “Stories from the National Archives, UK:  The Incredible True Story of Virginia Hall”.… with highlights added by The Editor, Thyppahi

Virginia Hall was born in 1906 into a well-to-do Baltimore family. Her ambition in life was to work abroad for the American diplomatic service, but this ambition was shattered when she accidentally injured herself in the foot while bird-shooting, and her leg was amputated.

 

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November 12, 2023 · 3:12 pm

The Cenotaph in Colombo: A British Imperial War Memorial

Suren Ratwatte, whose chosen title is “A Fitting Memorial” ... in tracing the history of Colombo’s War Cenotaph built a hundred years ago ... presented on 28th May 2023  … while the highlighting is the work of The Editor, Thuppahi

 In 1923 Ceylon was a different place to the Sri Lanka of today. The land was ruled by the Empire’s masters, ensconced in their ‘Britishers Only’ Colombo Club near Galle Face Green. The Ceylonese had, however, formed their own rival Orient Club located near the racecourse.

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February 2, 2023 · 2:50 pm

The Fate of the Roma Gypsies in Europe: From Nazi Holocaust to Continuous Marginalization

Celia Donert, in History Today, February 2022, where the title reads “The Roma Holocaust”

Europe’s Roma were the victims of Nazi genocide during the Second World War, but their persecution did not end in 1945

 

Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police, conducting an interview with a Romani woman, 1936

“In 1944, I was deported to the concentration camp in Terezín, where I was imprisoned until May 1945. After returning from the concentration camp I did my military service, and then moved with my family to the village of B., as part of the drive to resettle the borderlands … My family and I lived decently from what I earned as a forestry worker; I didn’t live like a Gypsy, and I always had a fixed residence. I have never had a criminal record. Despite this, I’ve been put on the new register of Gypsies in 1947, and I was issued with a Gypsy registration card. I am requesting that my name be removed from the Gypsy register, and that my registration card be cancelled. “

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December 15, 2022 · 5:18 pm

Adolf Hitler’s Logic

Courtesy of Richard Koenigsberg in New York

HITLER: “If I don’t mind sending the pick of the German people into the hell of war without regret over the spilling of precious German blood, then I naturally also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin.” …..

Adolf Hitler raises a defiant, clenched fist during a speech.

circa 1933: German Dictator, Adolf Hitler addressing a rally in Germany. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 7, 2022 · 7:58 pm

Holocaust Tales in Thuppahi

 April 14, 1945 – Pile of ashes and bones found by U.S. soldiers at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

 

April 12, 1945 – Dwight D. Eisenhower views the charred bodies of prisoners at Ohrdruf concentration camp.

 Cameron Stewart: “The Maisel Twins: Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust reach Their 100th Birthday,” 7 August 2022, https://thuppahis.com/2022/08/07/the-maisel-twins-polish-jews-who-survived-the-holocaust-reach-their-100th-birthday/ Continue reading →

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February 20, 2022 · 12:59 pm

Tales from A Japanese Civilian interned in Australia during World War Two

Miles Kemp

Bank worker Miyakatsu Koike was minding his own business, working quietly in the Surabaya Java branch of the Yokohama Specie Bank, but events on one December day in 1941 turned his life upside down. He had no connections with the military. But his homeland had staged a daring, amoral and unprovoked attack on the US pacific fleet in Hawaii, dragging both countries immediately into World War II. Mr Koike, then 36, was arrested by Dutch colonial authorities immediately and in January the next year became one of South Australia’s most reluctant residents. In harsh conditions, he spent more than four years at the Loveday internment camp located near Barmera.

 Loveday POW camp

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October 22, 2021 · 12:01 am

The Religious Threads and Corporate Institutions behind Our World Wars?

Brian Victoria, presenting an article that has appeared in Countercurrents on 19 October 2021 with this title “Something Worse than Slavery?”

With the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, together with the emergence of Critical Race Theory, the spotlight has once again been shone on the heinous institution that was slavery and its aftermath, racial discrimination. Could anything be worse than a system in which a human being becomes the property of another, to do with as the slave owner sees fit?

For good reason, the ownership of one human being by another is now universally prohibited, at least legally, for the inhumane abomination it has always been. Yet, in rejecting slavery it is easy to overlook one aspect that may be identified, for lack of a better word, as its sole positive feature. Namely, it was not in the slave owner’s interest to kill their slaves outright, for only living slaves made it possible for the owner to profit from their labor.

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