Revenge of the Ritchie Boys: How Escaping German Jews Helped Defeat Adolf Hitler and His Gang of Nazis

By Carl L. Steinhouse

German Jews who could, escaped the extermination frenzy of Hitler against the Jews. They had lost relatives—murdered by the Nazis-- and fled to America. The men were drafted into the U.S. Army. Many of these were ordered to Camp Ritchie and its Military Intelligence Center because of their ability to speak native German. Intensively trained to use their native language abilities, they became known as the “Ritchie Boys.” These Ritchie Boys were trained to interrogate German prisoners of war to obtain current battlefield information and plans to help the Army commanders anticipate the German military moves and defeat them; they translated and interpreted German documents taken off prisoners and dead Germans reflecting current German military thinking. They risked their lives sneaking behind the German lines to capture prisoners and documents. They turned out to be a tremendous asset to Generals like George Patton, commander of the Third Army, and John Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. The Ritchie Boys did not avoid danger, and many lost their lives in the war against--and defeating--the Nazis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665570268

Carl L. Steinhouse

Carl L. Steinhouse formerly a federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice and later in private practice specializing in class actions, white-collar crime, and civil and criminal antitrust trials. He wrote or edited several textbooks for the American Bar Association on conducting antitrust trials and grand juries. During the Korean War, he served in as an intelligence analyst in the Army Counterintelligence Corps. He is a graduate of New York University and Brooklyn Law School. He has authored two legal thrillers, Harassment and Extreme Malice, one Holocaust novel, The Outfielder, Irreverent memoirs, Now What? seven books in his Holocaust Heroes series to rave reviews by scholars, three volumes on the Pacific War against the Japanese, and a book on the Atlantic U-boat war. See WWW.carlsteinhouse.com. Communicate with Mr. Steinhouse at [e-mail].

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REVENGE

of the

RITCHIE BOYS

HOW ESCAPING GERMAN JEWS HELPED DEFEAT

ADOLF HITLER AND HIS GANG OF NAZIS

CARL L. STEINHOUSE

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2022 Carl L. Steinhouse. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  09/13/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7027-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7026-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022916605

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I thank wholeheartedly and lovingly my daughter, Jane Steinhouse, for her very effective proofreading skills that caught many errors I missed in this manuscript.

From this book: After the interrogation was complete and the major taken back to the POW compound, Levi sighed. He knew he should not have put the gun to the SS major’s head. He violated every rule about psychologically mistreating POWs. He could be court martialed if his superiors ever found out. Oh, he got good tactical information from the major on the units in combat with his group. He was tired and out of sorts and let his anger—no rage— at the SS, responsible for deaths of his relatives, get the better of him with this SS major. I will never do that again, but so long as I have this good tactical information, I’ll pass it on up to my superiors.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Author’s Note

Preamble

Chapter 1     Hitler’s War Against The Jews

Chapter 2     Escaping Jews

Chapter 3     Birth Of Military Intelligence At Camp Ritchie

Chapter 4     German Jews Arrive At Camp Ritchie

Chapter 5     Assignment: Europe

Chapter 6     Invasion Of France

Chapter 7     Back In Action In The European Campaign

Chapter 8     Trapped In Bastogne

Chapter 9     The Allied Offense Continues

Chapter 10   The Horror Of The Camps

Chapter 11   The Death Of Hitler And The German Surrender Process

Chapter 12   Occupation Duties And Search For Nazi Leaders And War Crime Criminals

Epilogue

Author’s Postscript

Bibliography

Other Books By Author

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is a true story. I cannot express that strongly enough. But the Ritchie Boy (as they called those who trained at the Military Intelligence Center at Camp Ritchie) characters themselves are composites of several actual Ritchie Boys and so I gave them fictitious names. But what these Boys did is true and far from fiction, as is the description of, and activities at, Camp Ritchie in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland, which existed as described. The camp was, during World War Two, the Military Intelligence Training Center of the U.S. Army. Thousands of interpreters, map readers, OB (Order of Battle) specialists, and interrogators of prisoners of war, trained there. The graduate of Camp Ritchie intelligence training earned the proud title of Ritchie Boy, many of whom had earlier fled the Nazis of Germany and other countries in Europe conquered by Hitler. While my Ritchie Boys have fictitious names and are composites of many such actual Boys, I left their leaders and those of the enemy with their true given names, such as Generals Gavin, Patton, and Eisenhower and Colonel Banfill (commander at Camp Ritchie), and the same for the Nazis leaders like Hitler, Goebbels, and their generals and admirals. I also use the true names of those actors and entertainers who risked their lives to support the Allied war effort in Europe and entertain our troops.

I tell the story of the Ritchie Boys, mostly through dialogue rather than by the statement of dry facts. While, obviously, I was not the proverbial fly on the wall, the dialogue is based on my research, and I am confident I have never strayed too far from the truth, certainly not intentionally.

Their training at Camp Ritchie and their actual activities in combat are, I am sure, accurate.

I call this true story narrative non-fiction. If some choose to call it a novel because I use composite characters and their made-up names, so be it.

PREAMBLE

MARCH 1924, MUNICH, FORTRESS OF

LANDSBERG AM LECH PRISON

A criminal prisoner like no other ever incarcerated in the fortress of Landsberg, Adolf Hitler had characterized himself as the Führer and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In the prison, he had a loyal following made up of a substantial number of prisoners and even some prison guards. The prison authorities were unusually accommodating to prisoner Hitler’s needs and desires.

Every day, before breakfast, Hitler took his solitary walk in the warden’s private garden, the only prisoner allowed to do so.

As he paced up and down the garden path ignoring the beautiful flowers that framed his way, he mulled over the attempted putsch of November 1923. During that disastrous Munich march led by him and his armed followers, someone in the group—he did not know who—had fired a shot, whereupon the police returned fire. Max Ervin von Scheubner-Richter, standing next to him, fell, becoming the first fatality. Gunfire wounded Hermann Göring, marching behind him.

While reading an opinion piece on page one of a Munich newspaper that Hitler had taken with him into the garden, he tugged angrily on his moustache. The columnist had branded him a coward for crawling off the street and running away, abandoning his trapped comrades. He sighed. Unfortunately, it was true; he had panicked, something he admitted only to himself. But he also realized he would have to come out of this mess looking like a strongman, not a weakling, so he concocted a story of valor—that he had dragged a child to safety during the melee, a good reason for him leaving the scene.

Still, the article left him in a sour mood. So, he reached into his inner jacket pocket for more pleasant reading and pulled out a tattered envelope, one of the hundreds of pieces of mail he received each week. He re-read it for the fourth time.

What you stated there is the catechism of a new political creed coming to birth in the midst of a collapsing, secularized world. To you a god has given the tongue with which to express our sufferings. You formulated our agony in words that promise salvation.

Joseph Goebbels, Ph.D. philology.

This man certainly has a way with words, Hitler thought. I must see him when I get out of prison.

He stuffed the letter into the envelope and put it back into his pocket, thus being sure to save the return address. He looked at his watch—breakfast time.

The prison officials permitted Hitler to take his meals with his followers in the large common room. The Führer’s deputy, Rudolph Hess, sat to his immediate right, taking notes of his leader’s utterances. Hitler later used these notes to dictate to Hess the manuscript of Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

Precisely at ten o’clock, Hitler stood up, leaning his hands on the table. The noise of dozens of conversations of the breakfast eaters slowly diminished as his prisoner-followers hushed their comrades until the quiet seemed to create a vacuum. Satisfied, Hitler began speaking.

I would divide mankind into three species, the culture creators, the culture bearers, and the culture destroyers. In the first category are you and me, the Aryans, who have built the foundations of civilization. At the other end of the spectrum is the Jew, a parasite that will eventually kill off the host nation. The Jew has no culture-creating ability whatsoever and his intellect will never act as a constructive force. Hitler’s voice rose to an almost hysterical crescendo, his fist pounding the table, and his spittle flying in all directions. One of our primary goals is to eliminate this Jewish sponger, this malign bacillus that spreads increasingly through its host nation. We must save the world from such vermin!

The room erupted in cheers, causing Hitler to pause. He folded his arms tightly against his chest. If he enjoyed or appreciated this affirmation, his face, maintaining its scowl, did not show it. So, the audience became quiet.

The coercive Jewish hold on our state can be broken only by terror and counter-coercion and, above all, by the elimination of their presence. Only then can we construct the new, ideal state. If, at the beginning of the Great War, the Jewish corrupters had been poisoned gassed, as had happened to hundreds of thousands of our best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions would not have been in vain. The elimination of such scoundrels, such international vermin, would have saved the lives of countless real Germans, so valuable for our future.

The room erupted again, with followers standing, raising their fists in the air and shouting, Kill the Jews.

Hitler waited, glaring straight ahead without acknowledging their support. He lowered his voice to a growl. Followers leaned forward to hear every word.

One is either a hammer or an anvil. The only choice is between me and death, victory or destruction, glory or ignominy. We shall be rich or poor. His voice rose. We shall be conquering heroes or sacrificial lambs. We shall be hot or cold, but those who are lukewarm shall be damned.

Hitler nodded to Hess, who rose. Both left the meeting without another word, to the shouts of "Ja, Mein Führer, Ja."

***

Back in his comfortably furnished prison cell, the Führer flopped onto the sofa while Hess sat at the table, poised with his pad and pencil, ready to go to work. Hitler immediately jumped off the sofa and paced back and forth. "I have learned