''German Labor as Reparation'' (PM Tabloid, 1945)"War and the Working Class, Moscow publication, asserts that German labor must be used to restore the destruction wrought by the German Army in Europe...In an article entitled Labor Reparations, it contends that Using German labor for this purpose will achieve effective military and economic disarmament of Germany." Detroit Spy-Ring Exposed (PM Tabloid, 1943)Here is told the tale of Countess Grace Buchanan-Dineen, a Detroit hostess and amateur Nazi spy. She was posted to Motor City in order to report on all the goings-on there to her pals in Berlin. The FBI turned her shortly after her her arrest and she began spying for them. ''Death Camp for Children'' (PM Tabloid, 1945)As if Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Nordhausen and Bergen-Belsen weren't bad enough - in late April, 1945, advancing Soviet infantry reported that:
"The Red Army had found a concentration camp for children at Konstantinov, beyond Lodz in central Poland...There were 862 children in the camp, all Russian, White Russian and Ukrainian."
The Fifth Column In America (PM Tabloid, 1942)Sabotage, The Secret War Against America (Harper, 1942), is as exciting as a Hitchcock movie. It is also a tragic story, for it is the factual , documented narrative of the years when this country was the happy hunting ground for our enemies, foreign and domestic."
Click here toread about the Canadian Bund.
America's Hemispheric Allies Declare War Before FDR (PM Tabloid, 1941) Misery in Berlin (PM Tabloid, 1943)Here is an eyewitness account of the bleak lives lead by Berliners during the summer of 1943:
"The food situation in Berlin is horrible. At the [Grand Hotel Esplanade] there was no choice on the menu. You either ate what was there or went hungry... There was no bread or butter served at the hotel... The people of Berlin were unfriendly and distant. Although I could not speak their language, I could sense their fear of bombing and disgust with the war. They seemed to be mechanical men, robots, just following daily routine."
In 1941 Hitler ordered the home front to send as much warm clothing as they could spare to the army on the Russian front - you can read about it here Dr. Jung on Germany's Hangover (PM Tabloid, 1945)Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) had much to say as to how the German people could come to terms with all the dreadful acts that were committed in their name during the previous 12 years.
"[The German] will try frantically to rehabilitate himself in the face of the world's accusations and hate - but that is not the right way. The only right way is his unconditional acknowledgement of guilt... German penitence must come from within."
Click here to read Jung's thoughts on Hitler. Jim Crow Officer Corps (PM Tabloid, 1945)The brainiac who wrote the Jim Crow rules for the U.S. Army officer corps forgot to segregate the officer's clubs. Returning Nisei Targeted by Racists (PM Tabloid, 1945)"It is reported by WRA (War Relocation Authority) that between January 2 and April 22, there have been 16 shooting incidents in California. Nobody was hit. It is clearly terroristic activity aimed at frightening Nisei who have the temerity to come home and try to earn a living from their farms again".
Dance at Tule Lake.
Japanese Fleet Crossed the Sea
While Kurusu Talked (PM Tabloid, 1941) Hitler Cries Out for Civilian-Donations (PM Tabloid, 1941)Blaming it all on an "early winter", Hitler ordered the volks on the home front to give their furs, woolens and long underwear to the German Army on the Eastern Front. The Germans are Idiots (PM Tabloid, 1945)A PM reporter was present one day in Germany as a mixed mob of Third Army grunts and tank men had a tête-à-tête concerning their observations of the German people:
"Aren't these Heinies the stupidest people you ever saw?" Equal Pay for Equal War Work (PM Tabloid, 1942)"The War Labor Board has decreed 'equal pay for equal work' for women in war industry... George W. Taylor, WLB vice-chairman, wrote the decision and said that any other condition than that of pay equality was 'not conducive to maximum production'." British Attack Along The Mareth Line (PM Tabloid, 1943)"The British have struck heavily at the Mareth Line in what both sides call the opening blow of the long-awaited big battle of Tunisia."
(The Mareth Line was a system of bunkers built by France in southern Tunisia during the late Thirties. The line was intended to protect Tunisia against an Italian invasion from its colony in Libya.) The Terror of Buchenwald (PM Tabloid, 1945)Here is an eyewitness account of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp as experienced by U.S. Representative Clare Boothe Luce (R, Connecticut, pictured above):
"It was policy, Nazi policy, to work them and starve them and then throw them in the into the furnaces when they could no longer struggle to their feet. Dead men tell no tales. Well, the 51,000 dead of Buchenwald are talking now, and they are telling the people of the Democracies that they will have died in vain, unless we know and believe what excruciating sufferings they endured." Gandhi Urges Revolution (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Mohandas K. Gandhi tonight summoned India's millions to rise in a struggle 'for freedom or death' after the full committee of the All-India Nationalist Congress approved by an overwhelming vote his call for mass passive resistance against British rule." POW Abuse: What Did the Red Cross Know? (PM Tabloid, 1945)U.S. Representative Emanuel Cellar (1888 - 1981) and a number of senators were all in agreement that the International Red Cross had failed in their task to police Nazi P.O.W. camps for prisoner abuse:
"In accordance with the conditions of the Geneva Convention, the Red Cross has the right to visit prisoner-of-war camps... These killings, starvations, and abuses did not happen in one day. They were prolonged operations. Didn't the Red Cross know about them?" Under-Age Workers Step-Up (PM Tabloid, 1942)The National Youth Administration (NYA) was established in 1935 as one of FDR's many alphabet agencies created to alleviate the sting of the Great Depression; it was tasked with providing work and education for young Americans between the ages of 16 through 25. By the time World War II kicked -in, many in Congress felt it was time to do away with the organization, but as this article spells out, NYA members could now be put to work in the defense plants.
Click here to read about the travails of young adults during the Great Depression.
The Two World Wars Compared (PM Tabloid, 1945)Using the most accurate figures available to them at the time, the editors at PM Daily News compared and contrasted the two world wars for their readers in their VJ-Day issue. Springtime Over The Kuban Valley (PM Tabloid, 1943)"The Russians shot down 18 enemy planes over Kuban on Sunday. Moscow estimated German plane losses on all fronts for the week ending Saturday at 381 against 134 Russian planes."
-what the Heck was PM Tabloid? click here and find out...
Congress Approved $5,000,000,000 Build-Up (PM Tabloid, 1940)"To fulfill the [Pentagon's requirements] the President plans to send Congress one more defense message asking for another $5,000,000,000. After that, with machine industries saturated with orders, Congress can sit back and survey the defense picture - provided England doesn't collapse overnight... Acting Secretary of the Navy Compton announced yesterday the award of contracts for three aircraft carriers and two cruisers to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co...." A New Kind of Naval Warfare (PM Tabloid, 1942)"In the seven months since Pearl Harbor the aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship as the true capital ship of modern naval warfare. The carrier's rise to power reached a crushing climax in the battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway - the two most decisive naval engagements of the war thus far. Opposing fleets only struck at each other with bomber and torpedo planes and never fired a shot except in self-defense against aircraft."
Click here to read about FDR as Under-Secretary of the Navy.
Eisenhower's VE-Day Statement (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Though these words are feeble, they come from the bottom of a heart overflowing with pride in your loyal service and admiration as warriors. Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply have astonished the world." Murray Korman (PM Tabloid, 1942)Brilliant photographer Ralph Steiner (1899 – 1986) spent some time examining the photographs of Murray Korman (1902 - 1961) and, to his surprise, came away finding his work to be very interesting:
"Murray Korman is the man whose pictures you see outside the musical shows and in girlie magazines... After four hours of looking I was dizzy. I figured that no man could take such pictures for 17 years and get satiated with lusciousness and bored by the sameness of the girls. I figured that all that kept Korman going was the profit motive. But when I went to his studio on Broadway I found I was all wrong." King Named to Lead Fleet (PM Tabloid, 1941) Reporter Under Fire (PM Tabloid, 1941)CBS war correspondent Betty Wason (1912 - 2001) reported in a very chatty way about how the war was proceeding along the shores of the Southern Mediterranean Sea. Of particular interest was her observation regarding how thoroughly lame the Italian Army appeared to their opposite numbers in the Albanian Army. Rather than eliciting feelings of dread and hatred, the Italian soldiers were pitied for their poor skills - their bodies were plentiful on every battlefield. The Question of Japanese Youth (PM Tabloid, 1945)Far-flung correspondent Max Lerner (1902 - 1992) penned the attached editorial concerning the necessity of reëducation Japanese school children:
"The Japanese youth are the key to Japan's future. There were 12,000,000 of them in the elementary schools before the war, dressed in school uniforms, bowing before the Emperor's portrait every day on entering and leaving... The values taught to him were feudal and fascist values, but the weapons given him were modern weapons. This is the combination that produced the suicide-squadrons of the Kamikaze."
A similar article about German youth can be read here.
Report on Buchenwald (PM Tabloid, 1945)This chronicle on the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald was written by the senior American officers of the Displaced Persons Division, U.S. Group Control Council for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces of the U.S. Department of War. It explains when and why the "camp" was created, who it was intended to incarcerate and how many. FDR and Congress (PM Tabloid, 1943) A Most Memorable Jingle (PM Tabloid, 1940)Coca-Cola may be the real thing, but in 1940 Pepsi had launched the ad that made Madison Avenue sit up and realize the true power of radio advertising. It was the famous radio jingle that we still hear today in every play, movie and TV show wishing to create the perfect Forties atmosphere - you know the one: Pepsi Cola hits the spot, etc., etc., etc. A real toe-tapper. The attached article will clue you-in to it's significance. New Yorkers See the Films (PM Tabloid, 1945)"New Yorkers sat in stunned silence yesterday as they watched the incontrovertible proof of the unbelievable - the U.S. Army Signal Corps motion pictures of Nazi horror camps and charnel houses... People came out of the theaters shaking their heads, or gazing blankly off into space, or cursing them under their breaths. They produced mixed reactions - a mixture of horror, of grief, of anger, of hate."
"We should reduce Germany to dust. The Germans can't be trusted, and we have to watch Argentina and Spain." Enemy Agents Sought Weather Info (PM Tabloid, 1942)Before the era of the World Wide Web, intelligence agencies had to rely on their own flunkies to gather all meteorological information they could find about a particular weather system; this explains why so many Axis spies were found with weather data among their possessions. Do the Germans Know They're Licked? (PM Tabloid, 1945)"The German Army has been defeated, but the German murderers are still murderers, the Junkers are still Junkers and they are still Nazis - and all of them are looking ahead to the next war....Here is what the Germans, whose commanders begged for mercy at the signing of the surrender, did in the 24 hours just before and after the formal deadline for capitulation..." ''Nazis Halted at Stalingrad'' (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Stalingrad continued to hold today. For three days now the Nazis have been stopped on both the northwest and southwest approaches to the key industrial city on the Volga, loss of which would be a grave blow to the Soviet war effort... Today's first Soviet communique indicated that Marshall von Bock continues to pour in more men, more tanks and more planes, trying to overwhelm the Russian defenders by sheer weight." The British Move On Tobruk (PM Tabloid, 1941)"British bombing planes made a lightning assault on the Fascist base at Tobruk yesterday... Italy's high command admitted today that Bardia had fallen and was completely in British hands... Reports from Benghazi, capital of italian Libya, indicated that the British were intensifying their attacks against Giarabub in an effort to strengthen their exposed left flank against counterattacks.
-what the Heck was PM Tabloid? click here and find out...
Bergen-Belsen Survivor Speaks (PM Tabloid, 1945) Nighttime Tank Battle (PM Tabloid, 1942)Canadian war correspondent M.H. Halton reported from the Egyptian desert concerning "one of modern war's most dramatic spectacles - [a] battle of tanks in the dark." RAF Bombs Munich (PM Tabloid, 1942)Throughout the course of the Second World War, the city of Munich was bombed seventy-four times by both the Royal Air Force as well as the U.S. Army Air Corps. The attached article gives an account of the third of these attacks.
"Giant four-motored planes flew in over their targets so low that they could clearly see the Brown House and the Beer Hall where Hitler organized his 1923 putsch... The citizens of Munich will, no doubt, be thinking of their Fuehrer today as they survey the bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble in the streets where Hitler first harangued them about his political ideas." Somewhere In North Africa (PM Tabloid, 1943)With the loss at Kasserine Pass and the victory at El Guettar behind them, the U.S. Army in North Africa traveled ever northward in a caravan of Jeeps and trucks looking for their next engagement with Rommel's Africa Corps. Hitler Prepares to Visit Paris (PM Tabloid, 1940)"The man who once peddled cleaning fluids on the crooked back streets of Vienna, today was preparing to march as conqueror into Paris beneath the arch built to commemorate the triumphs of Napoleon Bonaparte." Nazis Take Paris (PM Tabloid, 1940)"Paris belongs to Adolf Hitler. Abandoned by the French and declared an open city to prevent its destruction, the capital of France was turned over whole to the Nazi invaders early this morning."
Click here to read about the 1944 liberation of Paris.
At The Front North Africa (PM Magazine, 1943)Here is the PM movie review of At The Front North Africa directed by John Ford and produced by Darryl Zanuck for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The reviewer seemed irked that the film only showed the Germans having a difficult time.
Click here to read about the American Army in North Africa...
• Watch At The Front North Africa • Red Flag Over Berlin (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Berlin has fallen to all intents and purposes. Stalin in a May Day order announces that the victory flag of the red Army flies over the main part of the ruined Nazi capital." Germany Woos American Youth (PM Tabloid, 1940)"Hitler's undeclared war against America includes the attempted wholesale corruption of U.S. youth."
"Plans worked out over a period of years called for the selection of key Hitler leaders from U.S. youth in various cities and transporting them to Germany to be drilled in subversion...U.S. Nazis with college educations were sent to Stuttgart for a special eight-month course at the Propaganda Center." All-In for the Eastern Front (PM Tabloid, 1942)"In a message to the German Red Cross, Hitler referred to Russia as 'an enemy whose victory would mean the end of everything'"
"When Hitler says 'the end of everything' he means the end of Nazism." Jim Crow in Trenton (PM Tabloid, 1943In 1943 the NAACP asked the administrators at Trenton's New Lincoln Junior High School to explain why it should be entirely reserved for only Black students when such a practice was in violation of the State Civil rights Act.
The bureaucrats responded that ever since the school was built in the Twenties, that's the way it had always been. Integration soon started. Price Gougers Sent to Jail' (PM Tabloid, 1945)A grocer and his bookkeeper were sentenced to prison for jacking-up chicken prices in violation of Federal law. The Death of General Rose (PM Tabloid, 1945)Having surrendered to the Nazis during the closing weeks of the war, General Maurice Rose of the Third Armored Division, was shot dead by a German tank commander. Europe Enslaved (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Today in Europe there are more slaves than ever existed on any continent at any time. Hitler had to fight for every one of them... They used gangs, particularly in Poland, to round up workers from the streets, to drag them from churches and theaters and even from homes to go to work in Germany."
At the time it was estimated that there were as many as 6,000,000 slaves in Germany; half of them were prisoners of war.
Click here to read about the enslavement of France...
A Busy Year for the FBI (PM Tabloid, 1942)The FBI had been tangling Axis spies throughout the mid-to-late Thirties, but with the December 8, 1941, declaration of war the FBI was emboldened with far greater powers. This explains why Director Hoover exclaimed "that his agency had just completed the busiest year in its history." Increased U-Boat Activity (PM Tabloid, 1943)"Informed London sources said Saturday that the number of U-boats operating against Allied shipping is increasing despite the improved defense record of the last six months." Production Delays (PM Tabloid, 1940)The week the French Army collapsed was the week Hollywood experienced the greatest number of production delays. Studio wags believed it was an indicator as to just how many European refugees were employed on their stages. Studio bosses banned all radio and newspapers from their properties in hopes that each production would maintain their respective schedules. ''Tanks Spearhead Nazi Offensive'' (PM Tabloid, 1942)The largest tank battle in history was fought on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. In April of 1943, 6,000 German and Soviet tanks, supported by some 2,000,000 infantrymen, had-at-it near the Russian city of Kursk. This article was written a year before the clash, and it informed the readers that armored engagements were becoming larger and larger with each one. America's Hemispheric Allies Declare War Before FDR (PM Tabloid, 1941) Within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, the nations of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominion of Canada all declared war upon Imperial Japan. The United States wouldn't do so until the next morning.
Although there were a number of Latin American countries that declared war on the Axis, only two, Brazil and Mexico, put men in the field (Mexican nationals served in the U.S. military)- click here to read about the Brazilians. Mission to Moscow (PM Tabloid, 1943)A few months after PM Daily was established, the editor announced that he had gone to great lengths to purge their ranks of Communists. However, as the attached movie review makes clear, they missed one. While the rest of the country was absolutely scandalized by the pro-Soviet Warner Brothers production, Mission to Moscow (1943), Peter Furst, the reviewer in question was absolutely delighted:
"The film reflects the undisguised admiration of [U.S. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies (1876 – 1958)] for Joseph Stalin and his government, as well as the Ambassador's conviction that the famous Soviet 'purge' trials of 1936 - 38 were based on proof 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that the former leaders punished were guilty of plotting with Germany and Japan for the overthrow of the Stalin regime." Rommel Returned to Where he Began (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Marshal Erwin Rommel's Axis forces in Egypt have been beaten back by British guns and planes. A Cairo communique said yesterday that the German armored divisions had retreated west of the British minefields to the starting line of his offensive which opened a week ago... Captured Axis prisoner disclosed how Rommel had touched off the offensive last Monday with a proclamation to his men that "we are off to Cairo.'" Press Reviews from Coast to Coast (PM Tabloid,1945)Here is a smattering of editorial opinions collected from numerous newspapers across the United States concerning the Japanese surrender and the close of World War II. Identifying The War Criminals (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Conspicuously absent from the first list of Japanese war criminals issued by Allied occupation authorities is the Zaibatsu - the industrialist class which backed the military's war plans, then fattened of the raw materials brought in from conquered territory and from war profits at home... The arrest order includes the entire Tojo Cabinet responsible for the sneak attack on Pearl harbor, and 28 others ranging from the infamous Lt. General Massaharu Homma down to lesser officers charged with atrocities against prisoners."
Click here to read more about the Zaibatsu. The Life and Death of Trotsky (PM Tabloid, 1940)Appearing in the pages of a slightly left-leaning New York paper was this obituary of Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940):
"Thus, at 9:25 last night, ended the life of the man who, with Lenin, brought about the world's most profound revolution and with his death, ended the bitterest of modern feuds - Trotsky against Stalin." Truman's Record in the Senate (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Down the line, since [Truman] voted in the Senate in 1935 for U.S. participation in the World Court, his positions on foreign relations and international policy have been consistently on the side of FDR and for the fight against fascism." Bundist Arrested As Spy (PM Tabloid, 1942)Johannes Kroeger, ex-leader of the German-American Bund was picked up by the FBI in the Fall of 1942 for espionage. Employed as a bus driver on Long Island, New York, Kroeger would regularly carry the employees of the Republic Aviation Company to and from work. When pressed for details, the FBI remarked:
"Workers in aviation plants talk too much."
 Air Corps Ordinance (PM Tabloid, 1942) VJ-Day on New York City (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Seven million New Yorkers let down their hair last night in the wildest, loudest, gayest, drunkest kissingest, hell-for-leather celebration the big town has ever seen."
Click here to read about VE-Day in New York City... POWs at Fort Dix (PM Tabloid, 1945)"German prisoners of war are not coddled at the Fort Dix camp. The PWs are not mistreated, but neither is any kindness shown them. The officers supervising them are not cruel or lenient; they adhere strictly to the letter of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners."
PM reporter Jack Shafer knew all this to have been true, because he went to Fort Dix and saw for himself. Eating Crow (PM & Newsweek Magazine, 1945)Four years after Pearl Harbor, the editors of the Japanese newspaper Asahi gazed out of the windows from their offices and saw the charred remains of their enemy-occupied homeland and recognized that they'd made a fatal mistake:
"We once more refresh our horror at the colossal crime committed and are filled with a solemn sense of reflection and self-reproach..." Truman's Busiest Day (PM Tabloid, 1945)April 14, 1945 is remembered as President Truman's first day as Chief Executive. FDR died on the twelfth and he was sworn-in shortly after that. Just what he did with the rest of that day, much less on the thirteenth, is a mystery to me - but, let it be known here and now that his first day exercising his Presidential Authority was on the fourteenth. He met with the brass caps from the Pentagon, planned speeches, spoke on the telephone with numerous New Deal big-wigs and shook many, many hands. All involved were in agreement that it was the busiest day in his life. Watching American Fascisti (PM Tabloid, 1940)A year and a-half before Pearl Harbor American law enforcement agencies got serious about the domestic fascist groups. This article pertains to a twenty-five page Federal order instructing the FBI and local authorities to tap phones and monitor the movements of all groups sympathetic to Axis philosophies.
Game, Set, Match (PM Tabloid, 1945)"The Red Army has Berlin. The once fat, strong heart of German power, now a wreck, was taken in 12 days of [the] bloodiest battle by the overwhelming might of Marshals Zhukov and Konev. The surrender of the remnants of the Nazis in the ruins of the Chancellery where Hitler is said to have his end, and the smashed-up Tiergarten turned a page in history>" The Navy Tells It (PM Tabloid, 1942)One year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the Navy released its report to the press with updates on all the various repairs that were put into effect.
- from Amazon:
Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
The Curtain Falls on the North African Campaign (PM Tabloid, 1943)"The chase is over in Tunisia."
"Breathing hard, Rommel's Afrika Korps has succeeded in outstripping its pursuers and taken refuge behind the fortress heights that guard the Tunis-Bizerte pocket. Pounding on the gates are the British Eighth Army of General Bernard Montgomery [and] Lt. General George Patton's American and French Army..." Stalingrad Exordium (PM Tabloid, 1942)A short article explaining the significance of Stalingrad to Stalin (aside from its name) and the battle that took place there 24 years earlier during the revolution - when the city was called Tsaritsyn. U.S. POWs Singled Out for Abuse (PM Tabloid, 1945)PM war correspondent Victor Bernstein filed this story three weeks before VE-Day concerning a 180-mile forced march that was the lot of assorted Allied prisoner of war in Germany. Numerous interviews with the survivors of the march revealed that the Nazis lording over as many as 4,000 POWs choosing to brutalize the U.S. prisoners in much the same way they abused Poles and Soviets. British POWs seemed not to attract their ire. Preparing for Battle (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Brazil and the U.S.A. have signed a trade agreement whereby Brazil's army gets needed war equipment in exchange for raw materials needed in the United States... During the last year, large quantities of arms and material have reached Brazil from the U.S. for development of defense at vital ports and construction of airdromes to guard Brazil's 5,700 miles of seacoast." German Army Thirsted for Grozny Oil (PM Tabloid, 1942)The summer of 1942 found the German Army in the Soviet Union nearing the end of its oil reserves. It was decided that this problem could best be solved by seizing the Red oilfields of the Caucasus Mountains - and so began the Battle of the Caucasus (25 July 1942 – 12 May 1944). Oscars at War (PM Tabloid, 1943)War-torn Hollywood was at its best for the Academy Award Ceremony at the Coconut Grove Hotel in March, 1943. To no one's surprise, Mrs. Miniver walked home with most of the most coveted trophies. Brazil's German Problem (PM Tabloid, 1942)You can be sure that when Brazil declared war upon Nazi Germany in 1942, there was no talk of "our diversity is our strength" - for they were worried about the 1,000,000 Teuto-brasileiros (German-Brazilians) who dwelt among them who seldom, if ever, made much of an effort to assimilate:
"The Germans, in their towns and communities, have set up schools of their own, schools in which German teachers, with better equipment than the Brazilian national schools provide, have been preaching loyalty to the German fatherland... It was charged by investigators that German school children were being taught obedience to Hitler and the German clergymen were taking their texts from Mein Kampf."
A Report on Bergen-Belsen (PM Tabloid, 1945)Here are the observations of Patrick Gordon Walker (1907 - 1980), a broadcast journalist with the BBC who was present with the British Army when they liberated the Bergen-Belsen Death Camp on April 15, 1945.
"Men were hung for hours at a time, suspended by their arms, hands tied behind their back in Belsen. Beatings in workshops were continuous, and there were many deaths there. Just before I left the camp, a crematorium was discovered." Jews and the UN Conference (PM Tabloid, 1945) Allied Efforts in North Africa (PM Tabloid, 1943)By the time this article appeared at the New York City newsstands, the British had chased Rommel's Afrika Korps out of Egypt, the Americans had suffered their first defeat at the Kasserine Pass and was in the process of walloping the Tenth Panzer at El Guettar. The anonymous general who penned this article took all that into consideration but believed there was much more fight left in the Germans than there actually was.
The U.S. 34th Division fought in Tunisia, click here to read about them.
Failing To Attract An Audience (PM Tabloid, 1940)In spite of the incredible films that Hollywood churned out in 1939 - Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it seemed that there were some folks in 1940 who just wouldn't be satisfied. This completely irked the citizens of Hollywood. And so the editor of Variety dispatched pollsters hither and yon to ask why they
thought the movies stunk. Treblinka (PM Tabloid, 1944)One of the very few escapees from the Treblinka death camp wrote the attached account describing the horrendous moral outrages that he had seen there:
"Experiments were started with the cremation of corpses. It turned out that women burned easier than men. Accordingly, corpses of women were used for kindling the fires... the sight was terrifying, the worst that human eyes have ever beheld." Fighting in Winter (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Within a few weeks, Winter again will be sweeping down on the greatest battlefield in history... At Leningrad, the Fall rains are almost over. Now comes a month of dangerously dry, clear weather and then the snow. The Moscow zone will be thickly carpeted in white in seven or eight weeks. Allied strategists hope that the second Russian war Winter will bring a repition of the first, when Soviet skill in cold weather fighting finally drove the Nazis back. Bringing the African-Americans On-board (PM Tabloid, 1942)Here is a small notice concerning the Office of War Information and the steps they took during the Summer of 1942 to ensure the patriotic enthusiasm of the African-American community in the war effort:
"Two well-known Negro newspapermen have been selected to supervise the gathering and issuance of Negro news. The head of the new division - still untitled - will be Ted Poston, former New York newspaperman. He will be assisted by [filmmaker] William D. Alexander [who will make newsreels]."
Soviets Hold Their Reserves for Stalingrad (PM Tabloid, 1942)"The Russians undoubtedly have a reserve army that they are waiting to throw in at a moment that a counter-offensive would be of greatest value. Tne Nazis haven't crippled the southern army. Except at Voronezh, where it has made a stand costing the Germns thousands of men and hundreds of tanks, the Red Army has been falling back in good order." One Journalist's Encounter with General Patton (PM Tabloid, 1945)We have no idea who Tom O'Reilly was - beyond what can be immediately conjectured, that he was a staff columnist with PM, and so admired that they thought it a grand idea to clean him up and send him off to see Nazi Germany in its death throes. O'Reilly had a very candid, off-the-cuff manner of writing, which came across as quite humorous when he explains how unimpressed he was with General Patton's dramatic appearance. New Jersey Law Nabs Top Bundists (PM Tabloid, 1940)In 1937 the elders of New Jersey passed a law that was tailor-made for the thugs of Camp Nordland. Knowing well who the Bundists were, the law clearly condemned "'the unlawful assembly of three or more persons' and 'and the uttering of speeches, the sale of literature, display of emblems and uniforms which counseled... hatred, violence or hostility against groups of persons... by reason of race, color, religion or manner of worship.'"
In 1940 the law netted a harvest of the three highest Bund leaders. The French Navy In The Balance (PM Tabloid, 1940) Arab Population Growth as Israel is Reborn (PM Tabloid, 1945)"It is in Palestine where the Jews are building a national home, that the Arab enjoys higher standards of living and of health than anywhere in the Middle East... The Arab population of Palestine has risen from 600,000 to 1,200,00." ''White Man's War'' (PM Tabloid, 1942)During the winter of 1942, Private Harry Carpenter, U.S Army, made a big honking mistake when he decided to declare that the current war was "a white man's war". Arrested by the MPs and carted-off to stand before Magistrate Thomas O'Hara, Carpenter found that he had reaped the whirlwind: he was charged with treason against the United States. Establishing a Jewish Homeland - But Not In Israel (PM Tabloid, 1943)Having no idea that The Great I Am had His own plans for the Jews of Europe, numerous heads of government convened to plan a homeland for the Jews - in Latin America.
"A vast plan for resettling thousands of Jews and other refugees in South America currently is being studied in several important Latin American capitals..." Absolutely Walloped (PM Tabloid, 1945) A short article by a respected military journalist of the time, Max Werner, on how severely Nazi Germany had been beaten.
Click here to read other articles from 1945. The British Six-Pounder (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Six-pounder guns are being turned out in large numbers in one of the Royal Ordnance factories in England. Most of the workers who make them are women. The gun is highly mobile and is said to have a high rate of fire and remarkable armor penetration." The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse (PM Tabloid, 1943)"The reason the Nazis banned The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse was that it was a political preachment against Hitler 'socialism,' by a man [Fritz Lang] whose films were appreciated by the Germans as true interpretations of the social trends of post-war Germany... Lang's intention in the film was, in his own words, 'to expose the masked Nazi theory of the necessity to deliberately destroy everything which is precious to a people so that they would lose all faith in the institutions and ideals of the State. Then, when everything collapsed, they would try to find help in the new order.' • Watch The Movie • A Futile Defense Tactic (PM Tabloid, 1945)"The Japanese are making frenzied and costly attempts at Okinawa to stem our advance toward the home islands, but their efforts appear no more successful than they were in the Philippines and Iwo Jima." The Fashion Industry Kowtows (PM Tabloid, 1941)Two Weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack, the New York fashion industry hastily manufactured profiles that were both feminine and practical for the new lives American women were about to have thrust upon them. Overnight, durable and launderable fabrics became uppermost in the thinking of the new war workers and culottes gained greater importance as the need for bicycles became a viable mode of transport for getting to the defense plants. Ravensbrück (PM Tabloid, 1945)Here is an eyewitness account of the daily life at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Ravensbrück was the largest concentration camp for women in Germany. The Germans gassed between 5,000 and 6,000 prisoners at Ravensbrück before Soviet troops liberated the camp in the April of 1945. We Want to Fight (PM Tabloid, 1944)On the very first day of America's participation in World War II, an African American sailor at Pearl Harbor named Dorrie Miller shot down four enemy planes and saved 12 men from drowning. One would think that this would make the gang on capitol Hill sit up and realize that the war would be shorter if other men of a similar hue could be released upon our enemies, but this was not the case. Very few American blacks were permitted to fight and this article serves as a testimony to their frustration. The Surrendering Italians (PM Magazine, 1943)"Italians who were assigned to the defense of key hill positions surrendered in droves as the U.S. attack intensified... Many of the Italians had been without food for two days. There water was exhausted. Some of the captives shamelessly wept as the Americans offered them food and cigarettes."
Click here to read about American POWs during the Vietnam War.
Saboteurs to be Tried in Military Court (PM Tabloid & Yank Magazine, 1942)"The eight Nazi agents, who landed from U-boats on the shores of of Long Island and Florida, planning to cripple American war production, are in jail here [Washington, D.C.] under heavy guard, awaiting military trial on four charges that carry the death penalty." Tokyo POWs Liberated (PM Tabloid, 1945) Women In The War Effort (PM Tabloid, 1942)Eight months into America's entry into the war came this article from PM reporting the War Manpower Commission and their data as to how many American women up to that point had stepped up to contribute their labor to the war effort (over 1,500,000):
"Women have been found to excel men in jobs requiring repetitive skill, finger dexterity and accuracy. They're the equals of men in a number of other jobs. A U.S. Employment Service has indicated women can do 80 percent of the jobs now done by men."
The German Eastward Thrust (PM Tabloid 1941)"Sub-surface evidence that the war on the Russian Front is going into a more crucial phase is mounting... if the present German drive achieves the bulk of its objectives, the Russians will have had some of their resistance power taken away from them. They will not have quite the same communications, the same supply facilities or the same freedom of movement they have had to work with thus far."
-what the Heck was PM Tabloid? click here and find out...
French Slavery Becomes A Reality (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Petain clamped the chains of Nazi slavery on the men and women of France today. The aged Marshal, Pierre Laval, and their quisling cabinet, promulgated a decree ordering all French men and women to compulsory labor. The decree, which the Government frankly admitted meant slavery in Germany for thousands of Frenchmen, was signed by Petain on Friday night."
Click here to read about the enslavement of Europe... The Champ is Gone (PM Tabloid, 1945)This highly personal column appeared in one of New York City's evening papers and seemed characteristic of the feeling experienced by much of the U.S. after hearing about the unexpected death of President Roosevelt.
Written by Joe Cummiskey, the column stands out as the type of remembrance that is thoroughly unique to those who write about sports all day long, which is who Mr. Commiskey was:
"Somehow or other, if you were in sports, you never thought of FDR so much as connected with the high office which he held. Rather, you remembered him most the way he'd chuckle, getting ready to throw out the the first ball to open the baseball season. Or how he'd sit on the 50 at the Army-Navy game..."
Red Drive Toward Rostov (PM Tabloid, 1942)"The Red Army crossed the Don River at three points and advanced spearheads upwards of ten miles to the south of the Stalingrad Axis seige army, threatening it with more strict encirclement and at the time moving the key city of Caucacus. Moscow dispatches stressed the importance of this action which apparently swings a considerable weight along the railroad toward Rostov." Inching Forward in Tunisia (PM Tabloid, 1943)"The Axis forces in Tunisia, fighting desperately from their mountain fortifications, have stalled for a little longer the day of their defeat..." The Dangers of the Bund (PM Tabloid, 1940)Here is an article from the man who would shortly be America's premiere spy-master: William "Wild Bill" Donovan. In this report he examined the Trojan horse tactics of the German "Foreign Organization":
"Children of Germans naturalized half a century ago are still counted German by Berlin and every effort is made to convince them of the fact... It is safe to say that a very fair proportion of the non-refugee Germans who have become American since Hitler came to power did so with the secret intention of turning free and democratic America into 'their' - that is, Hitler's - America."
Click here to read about the Canadian Bund... Goering Captured (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Reich Marshall Hermann Goering, No. 2 Nazi, wanted by civilization as directly responsible for the torture and death of millions innocent men, women and children, is well and not unhappy...Goering seemed delighted with his captivity and appeared unaware that he may be tried as a major war criminal." Stalingrad Turns in Favor of Reds (PM Tabloid, 1942)"At Stalingrad the initiative appears to be slowly shifting into the hands of the Russians...The Russian attack was reported to be growing in vigor and German counterthrusts were repulsed with heavy losses...German losses in the hand-to-hand street fightings were reported by prisoners to run as high as 70 percent in some regiments."
Longing to Meet the Reds (PM Tabloid, 1945)"The aspiration to be the first to meet the Red Army is aired all the way up and down the line, from division generals to the boys in the foxholes. And if the Yanks had their way, they'd hit the first road east and keep helling it eastward till they hit the vodka. As one soldier from an armored division put it:"
"'This is what the hell we've been pushing across Europe for and I don't want to lose the pie when I practically have it in my mouth.'" Doenitz Not to be Tried as War Criminal (PM Tabloid, 1945)For reasons unknown, the men who ran the Allied war effort chose to ignore the fact that it was German Admiral Karl Doenitz who issued the order that German U-boats were to machinegun all Allied lifeboats after sinking their vessels. The attached journalist was right in pointing out that Doenitz was whitewashed. But it didn't stick - he was found guilty at Nuremburg and served 12 years. Americans Answered The Call (PM Tabloid, 1942)When it came across the wire that Fall of 1942 saw the U.S. Navy enlistments increase by 150%, the editors of PM were not slow to dispatch a team down to the induction center to check it out (at 67 Broad St., NYC).
Many, many African-Americans answered the call as well, but with understandable reservations...
More about W.W. II induction can be read here
Doenitz: Hitler's Successor (PM Tabloid, 1945)When Hitler blew his brains out (April 30, 1945), what was left of the baton was passed to the Nazi fleet admiral, Karl Doenitz (1891 - 1980). This article points out that the admiral was a predictable choice for Hitler to make and no one at SHAEF was surprised. Discovering the Deathworks (PM Tabloid, 1945)"American troops in Germany last week hit the Nazi death camp belt, an area that revealed such horrors - the bodies of thousands of Allied prisoners shot, starved, beaten and burned to death - that even the cynics of the civilized world now could not fail to be convinced of the truth of German atrocities." American Units Get Active (PM Tabloid, 1943)
Click here to read about the Rangers in North Africa.
Violence Directed at Veterans (PM Tabloid, 1945)The White Crackers residing in California cared little about the triumphs of the 442: during the Spring of 1945, two honorably discharged Japanese Americans were fired upon by passing cars - the racists were never caught. Secretary of War Henry Stimson labeled the attacks as "an inexcusable and dastardly outrage." Victory is Assured (PM Tabloid, 1943)While speaking at the 141st anniversary of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Chief of Staff General George Marshall gave a great big shout out to three American generals. Pointing out that all of them were graduates of West Point (as he was) the general could not help but conclude that the Axis didn't have a chance. Fair Employment Laws Enforced (PM Tabloid, 1942)Some six months prior to Pearl Harbor FDR signed Executive Order 8802 which made it illegal for defense contractors to discriminate based on race or religious faith. Eight months later the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices was convened in New York City to review the evidence at hand indicating that numerous defense contractors were failing to comply with the law. The Japanese Zero (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Soon after Pearl Harbor Americans began hearing about a Japanese warplane called called the Zero. It had an unusual name, it was virtually unknown, even to aircraft experts, and almost immediately it began to take on an air of sinister mystery. Information now available shows there is no good reason for the mystery, although the plane has been a big factor in the Jap drive... The Zero has no secret weapons or engineering developments. It is simply a pretty good pursuit or fighter." Geneva Red Cross Condemned (PM Tabloid, 1945)"A bitter indictment of the International Red Cross Committee for its failure to tell the world what it knew about barbarous conditions in the prison camps of Nazi Germany, at a time when public indignation might have eased the tragic plight of millions, appears in the May issue of the magazine Jewish Frontier, out today." The Drive on Berlin (PM Tabloid, 1945)"Flags of two new kinds are flying in the city - white flags displayed by the panic-stricken populace, and the first Soviet flags that, Reuters says, are hoisted over what tall buildings are left within the captured districts. Three Soviet guards carried a blood-soaked banner 2000 miles from Stalingrad to Berlin. Pravda says the soldiers kneeled and kissed the flag and then raised it over a ruined building." Government Heath Care for California Migrants (PM Tabloid, 1940)This is a report on the 1939 government-sponsored medical outreach program for "California's Grapes of Wrath migrants":
"The counties of San Joaquin Valley have well organized health departments... [Migrants] are entitled to drugs, special diets, eyeglasses and appliances if authorized by the medical director. Since many patients are in need not so much of medicines than of food, the Association may pay a medical grocery bill just as it pays the druggist. It also provides school lunches and nursery meals."
More on migrant laborers can be read here...
A Great Time to be Alive (PM Tabloid, 1945)It is our wish to successfully give utterance to the true feelings from each era that we are able to represent on this website; for this reason, we posted the attached column by Max Lerner (1902 - 1992), in which he expresses his excitement as to how great it was to be alive in one of the Allied nations at the time of Hitler's demise.
"The two big fascist leaders in whose shadow our whole generation has lived - Mussolini and Hitler - are now lying dead amidst the ruins of their empires, one following the other in the space of a few days...We are not only the anvil. We are the hammer. To know that is to grow in stature in a great time." Anti-Nisei Bigotry in Two States Compared (PM Tabloid, 1945)In the wake of the SCOTUS opinion, Korematsu v. U.S., some talk could be heard about the return of the Japanese Americans to the previous homes. This article examines the anti-Nisei attitudes in two Western states, California and Oregon. It was the conclusion that the former had become a bit more tolerant and the later a bit worse (sadly the last paragraphs, printed on brittle brown paper, withered away in our hand.) A Great Cheer from Coast to Coast (PM Tabloid, 1945)An anonymous reporter relays all that came across his desk in the way of wild victory celebrations on VJ Day. Spread out over 14 paragraphs are eyewitness accounts of the pandemonium that spread across the nation when the news arrived that the war was over. The Japanese Run Out of Ships (PM Tabloid, 1944)After the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the U.S. Navy believed that the Japanese had lost over half their original strength:
"Naval observers in Washington are exhilarated by the evident extent of the Japanese defeat but, in true Navy tradition, they are being canny about it. It isn't what we have sunk or disabled [that matters], it's what is left that can still fight." Mussolini Betrayed Italian Labor (PM Tabloid, 1943)After Hitler drafted everyone who could possibly be drafted, he found that he now had a labor shortage. He reached out to his fellow Fascist, Mussolini, asking for additional workers - Italy complied and numerous volunteers went forth. These Italians returned two years later and told how they were consistently abused:
"They were treated by the master race like the millions of Russian, Polish, French, Yugoslav war prisoners who are forced to produce for the Nazi war machine. Far from home, cut off from their families, the Italian workers suffered hardships often as great as the workers from Nazi-occupied countries." ''The Man Who Stopped Rommel'' (PM Tabloid, 1942)Australian general Leslie Morshead (1889 - 1959) gave Rommel and his Afrika Korps a tough time of it during the North Africa campaign (1940 - 1943). The Germans called him Ali Baba Morshead, and they knew what he was capable of. He kicked Rommel out of Tobruk and El Alamein and when his work was done in the Mediterranean, he was transferred to the Pacific Theater where he gave the Japanese no end of grief.
The Partisan War (PM Tabloid, 1941)"A Red Army officer, who said the German Army was being constantly harassed behind its lines by partizan activities and guerilla warfare, told me details of a number of recent incidents in White Russia. He said almost every village in German-occupied territory had supplied one or more groups of partizans who lived in the woods and used every opportunity to waylay detachments of infantry patrols and tanks." Despair and Hunger (PM Tabloid, 1940)PM correspondent Richard O. Boyer (1903 – 1973) was in Berlin in June of 1940 when Paris fell to the German Army. He was dumbstruck by the surprising gloominess that hung heavily upon the German people the week of that great victory:
"I could not understand it all and could scarcely believe the testimony of my own eyes. The scarlet banners with their black swastikas that garlanded the city everywhere in response to Hitler's orders seemed only to emphasize the worried melancholy. The victory bells that rang each day at noon acquired the sound of a funeral dirge when one looked at the tired, pinched faces of the Germans hurrying along the pavements ... When I expressed surprise to a glum man sitting near me he glanced impatiently up and only said, 'We celebrated once in 1914'."
The Japanese home front suffered from tuberculosis - click here to read about it... A Pearl Harbor Day Recollection (PM Tabloid, 1942)A year after the Pearl harbor attack, one of the PM journalists recalled for their readers how many Americans in the lower 48 had heard the news on the radio that evening. VE- Day in Sight (PM Tabloid, 1945)This report was filed shortly after the Soviet - U.S. link-up on the River Elbe and one week from the official Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945. The Red Army was in Berlin and the British and Americans were
"pressing relentlessly from all points of the compass on the Nazi Alpine redoubt. A second a third meeting between the Western and Easter Allies may have already taken place... To the south, General George S. Patton's tank columns, sweeping across the Austrian frontier, were in field radio contact with the Soviets."
Click here to read about the Soviet - U.S. link-up on the Elbe. Shifting Men from the ETO to the Pacific (PM Tabloid, 1945)This article appeared two days before the German capitulation; the Allies were in Berlin, Hitler was dead and the Pentagon was planning to send some men home while shipping a million off to fight the Japanese. 70,000 American Prisoners of War (PM Tabloid, 1945)In a manly display of boastful "trash-talking" a few weeks before VE-Day, the over-burdened P.R. offices of the German high command issued a statement indicating that their military had in their possession some "70,000" U.S Prisoners of war. This was in contrast to the records kept by the Pentagon whose best guess stood in the neighborhood of 48,000.
"The statement revealed that 27 of the 78 prisoner of war camps in Germany have been overrun by the Red Army and U.S./British forces, and that 15,000 Yanks have been liberated." FDR's Sense of Sympathy (PM Tabloid, 1942)When a 22-year-old expectant father wrote to President Roosevelt complaining that he'd been unemployed for four months, FDR wasted little time in contacting one of his alphabet agencies and seeing to it that the gent was offered a defense job. Brereton Steps Up (PM Tabloid, 1942)"Major General Lewis E. Brereton (1890 - 1967) is the new commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East." FDR's Proposal to Limit Personal Income (PM Tabloid, 1942)By the end of the war, FDR's administration had placed taxable personal income as high as 94%(!). His Brain Trust were all big believers in Federal intervention into the economy - offering all sorts of price freezes and wage freezes in order to limit competition during the Great depression (as if that was a good). As the war kicked-in to high gear, FDR installed a low ceiling upon all high-earners and capped their salaries at $25,000.00 per-year.
Click here to read about FDR's airplane.
The Rationing of Meat (PM Tabloid, 1943)"When meat rationing finally comes, it is going to be just as stiff on the individual as canned goods rationing. On the average, the meat ration will provide about four ounces per citizen per day... The trick is more stews and meat gravies and no steak." ''Truman's First Ten Days'' (PM Tabloid, 1945)The left-of-center New York daily PM examined the liberal Bonafide's of President Harry Truman and they liked what they saw. Jim Crow and the Draft (PM Tabloid, 1940)Wishing to avoid some of the taint of racism that characterized the American military during the First World war, Republican Senator William Barbour (1888 - 1943) announced that he intended to introduce an amendment to the 1940 conscription legislation that would open all branches of the U.S. Military to everyone regardless of skin color. The article goes on to list all the various branches that practiced racial discrimination. Nazis Shrugged-Off Atrocities (PM Tabloid, 1945)At the invitation of General Eisenhower, the most prominent newspaper editors in the country crossed the Atlantic to witness the atrocities that transpired at Nazi concentration camps. They were shocked to find that the German people 'feel absolutely no sense of guilt.'"
The Japanese Planned to Fight Until the End (PM Tabloid, 1945)The American magazines and newspapers of late April and early May, 1945, were all about the end of the German Army and now its time to clobber the Japanese. The attached article, from May 6, addressed the subject that this would not be an easy task. If the Atom Bomb hadn't come along, the Pentagon believed the war would have gone on for another two or three years, and the Japanese were determined to fight until the end:
"The influential Tokyo paper Sangyo Kezei said editorially on April 30: 'Japan will fight on regardless of any sudden changes in Europe.'"
A similar article can be read here. | 
