February 19th, 1983, the Beverly Hilton Ballroom. James Brown was performing at his own 50th birthday celebration, and Michael Jackson, already the biggest star on Earth from Thriller, stood in the wings, watching his idol with religious reverence. Then, James executed a spin so impossibly smooth, so perfectly controlled that Michael literally stopped moving, stopped…
The transaction was almost complete. The customer had listened patiently to a 10-minute explanation of why the bad album was overrated, had asked thoughtful questions, had accepted recommendations for better Michael Jackson albums, and was now ready to pay. The 19-year-old clerk rang up Thriller and Off-the-Wall, feeling satisfied that he’d steered another customer toward…
[music] [music] Many sources suggest that Hitler wanted to prolong the war because he believed that the Allies would fall out, specifically the Americans and the Soviets, and that open conflict between the two was likely. This was certainly his thinking in April 1945 as the Third Reich faced oblivion. A rump Nazi state might…
The date is December 23rd, 1944, Bastogne, Belgium. It is before dawn and it is brutally cold, kind of cold that gets inside a parachute harness and makes your hands forget how to grip a static line. 11,000 American soldiers are surrounded inside this Belgian town. They have been cut off for a week. No…
Major Werner Pluskat had been staring at the English Channel for 4 years, not because he wanted to, because it was his job. As commander of the first battalion of the 352nd Artillery Regiment, he was positioned at Widerstandsnest 62, a concrete observation bunker sunk into the bluffs overlooking what the Allies would code name…
The date, November 12th, 1942. 4 days after Operation Torch, North Africa. Somewhere along the road between Tibessa and the Tunisian border, a messmmit BF109G2 descends toward 300 meters. In the cockpit, a Luftvafa veteran, two years of combat, France, Malta, the Western Desert. He’s made this run dozens of times. He knows the procedure….
November 1942, the skies above Algeria and Tunisia. For 18 months, Luftwafa fighter pilots had perfected the art of convoy killing over the western desert. A Messer Schmidt BF 10009 would drop below 300 meters, line up on a column of British trucks crawling along some dusty road and open fire. Maybe a Bren gun…
The date is June 21st, 1942. Washington DC, the White House. Winston Churchill is sitting across from Franklin Roosevelt in the map room. They are in the middle of a strategic conference. Military aids are moving around them. Charts cover the tables. The room smells of cigarette smoke and power. An aid enters quietly. He…
There are men in history whose legacy is defined by a single act, a single decision, or a single moment that changes the course of events forever. And then there are men whose legacy is defined by an entire system. A system so vast, so mechanized, and so brutal that it outlived them, consumed millions…
There are war criminals. And then there is Oscar Dilly Ringanger, a man so savage that his own SS commanders filed formal complaints against him. So unhinged that his troops, convicted felons, poachers, men pulled from prison cells to fight, begged their superiors to have him removed or shot. Yet Hinrich Himmer, the architect of…
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