Hitler in a blue suit

The Reichstag (German Parliament) torched in 1933 by Nazis.

They gathered in front of the presidential building. Business people, magnates and hand-picked allies were invited to attend and listen to their incumbent leader. The country faced a winter election. And those invited, that day, were told their leader would assure them of victory.

“We must stand before the election,” the leader said to the assembly of his faithful. “Regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat. [If defeated] we will remain in power by other means, with other weapons.”

The date was February 20, 1933. The location was the presidential palace in Berlin. The election was the last election in Germany prior to the World War II. Seven days later, Nazi sympathizers used a secret tunnel to enter Germany’s national assembly building. Inside the Reichstag building, they scattered gasoline and lit the fire that would destroy all but the outer shell of the Parliament (not restored until German reunification in 1990). (more…)

Dam Buster – a hero grounded in humility

Fred Sutherland’s RCAF portrait.

They called him “Doc.” But Fred Sutherland told me that he didn’t know anything about medicine. Somebody who came to see Fred off at the train station, when he left to join the Air Force in 1941, decided because Fred’s dad was a family doctor in that part of Alberta, that the son ought to be nicknamed “Doc.”

“He called me ‘Doc,’” Fred told me, with some embarrassment in 2017. “So, it stuck. All through the war they called me that.” (more…)