The Third Reich, under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany for 12 years. Their reign of terror changed the world forever.
Many Germans were deceived by Hitler. In the early years, they embraced him as the savior who would pull Germany out of a long economic depression and make their country great again. There was a lot of emphasis on national pride. The Nazi Party promised young Germans a new future in a brand-new Germany, and millions of children eagerly joined the Hitler Youth and similar clubs. Not only were the outings fun, but the youth enjoyed wearing uniforms, waving flags, and earning badges.
But not all of the young people in Germany and other Nazi-occupied areas were deluded by the propaganda. In a time when free speech could have deadly consequences, some wrote and distributed pamphlets denouncing the Nazi regime. Others hid Jews or spied for the underground. Some even stole weapons and sabotaged Nazi operations.
Here are their stories:
10 Helmuth Hubener
In 1939, the Nazis passed a law banning all foreign radio broadcasts, even threatening people with execution for listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and other Allied broadcasts.
In 1941, 16-year-old Helmuth Hubener (center above) began secretly listening to the BBC. As he listened to British war reports and compared them with German reports, he discovered that he had been deceived. The BBC reported victories and defeats on both sides of the war. The German news only reported German victories.
He held a secret after-hours meeting with his two best friends, Karl-Hinz Schnibbe (right above) and Rudolf Wobbe (left above). All three were fascinated by the broadcast. Helmut located a typewriter, carbon copy paper, and a swastika stamp. He wrote essays including “Hitler the Murderer” and “Do You Know That They are Lying to You?”[1]
Hubener enlisted his two friends to distribute the flyers. They placed them in apartment buildings, mailboxes, and telephone booths. As a result, the Gestapo arrested all three. They were found guilty of high treason, and Hubener was beheaded on October 27, 1942, aged only 17.
9 Hans And Sophie Scholl (The White Rose)
As a young lad, Hans Scholl eagerly embraced the Hitler Youth. He became a squad leader of 155 boys. He formed an elite squad to train future leaders for the Fatherland. Eventually, however, he became disenchanted.
In 1942, Hans and a few of his med school classmates started the White Rose. Dismayed by all the surrounding propaganda, they wanted to challenge people with the truth. They printed thousands of leaflets on a hand-crafted duplicating machine, stuffed them into stamped envelopes, and addressed them with random numbers from the phone book. Sophie Scholl, Hans’s sister, soon joined the White Rose. Sophie believed that Hitler was trying to destroy Christianity and replace it with Nazism.
When Hans and his friends received orders to spend their semester as medics on the Russian Front, the White Rose temporarily stopped production. Being on the front lines gave these students an even greater desire to wake up the German people. They had seen horrendous conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto. They knew the German army was losing the war, even as German papers boasted of victory. When they returned to school, they stepped up their operation with renewed zeal.
On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie arrived early in the morning to distribute White Rose pamphlets in the classroom buildings at Munich University. Eager to share all the leaflets, they climbed to an atrium above the building and tossed the remaining pamphlets to the floor just as students entered the building.
They were spotted, however, and a Nazi officer arrested them. After a four-day trial, Hans and Sophie were beheaded by the Gestapo. Sophie’s final words summed up her mission: “But what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”[2]
8 Knud Pedersen And The Churchill Club
Knud Pedersen, 14 years old, was outraged when the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940. In less than one day, Denmark surrendered to the Nazis. In 1941, Knud (upper right above) and seven classmates at Aalborg Cathedral School formed the Churchill Club, named after one of their heroes, Winston Churchill.
They began their war with blue paint in broad daylight. They poured paint on German roadsters that lined the streets and splashed paint on German barracks and Nazi headquarters. They turned newly placed German road signs in the opposite direction or sometimes destroyed them. They told their parents they were playing bridge.
All club members pledged to create acts of sabotage. They stole weapons from the Germans and used them to make explosives. They stored the weapons in the Cathedral School. When the Gestapo uncovered the weapons at the school, all eight members of the Churchill Gang were arrested and sent to Nyborg State Prison.[3]
In 1942 and 1943, most of Denmark’s resistance came from the Churchill Club. By 1944, Denmark became known for its underground. Smuggled guns were buried in people’s gardens. Underground newspapers revealed the truth about the war, and massive labor strikes challenged German authority.
7 Irene Gut
Irene Gut (later Opdyke) became the live-in housekeeper for Major Eduard Rugemer, a prominent Nazi. Already involved the Polish resistance, she soon began sheltering 12 Jews in the former servants’ quarters located in the basement of the house.
All went well for eight months, until Major Rugemer found three Jews in his kitchen. After getting over the initial shock, he offered Irene a deal: The Jews could stay if she would be his mistress. Irene, though shocked and humiliated, agreed.
Irene confessed the arrangement to a country priest. Years later, she would remember his judgement: “I was expecting him to say ‘Well, you had no choice, a human life is more important’ but instead he told me that I had to turn everyone out, that my mortal soul is more important than anything else. Well, I could not agree with this.”[4]
Irene Gut Opdyke spent the last 30 years of her life traveling the United States to tell her story to American schoolchildren.
6 Stefania Podgorska
At age 14, Stefania Podgorska was living with the Diamants, a Jewish family in Poland. When the Diamants were forced into the ghetto, they begged Stefania to stay in their apartment. Stefania smuggled food into the ghetto. Eventually, Mrs. Diamant was sent to Auschwitz.
One night, several weeks later, Max Diamant (Mrs. Diamant’s son) knocked on Stefania’s door. He had jumped off a train bound for a concentration camp. Even though she knew she could face the death penalty, she began hiding him. His brother’s fiancee escaped the ghetto and also moved into the house. In a short time, 11 more Jews were living in the attic.
For the last eight months of the Occupation, Stefania was ordered to allow two German nurses and their boyfriends to live in her house. The Jews remained in the attic, quiet and motionless, until the war was over. They all survived.
After the war, Max Diamant, her first tenant, changed his name to Josef Burzminski and asked Stefania to marry him.[5] They moved to the United States.
5 Diet Eman
Diet Eman was planning her wedding when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. She watched the soldiers marching into the Jewish neighborhood. They broke windows and set synagogues on fire. Her friends received official deportation letters. They were expected to report to the railroad station with a single suitcase. She knew they would be sent to concentration camps.
She and her fiance joined the Dutch Resistance. They located hiding places for Jews and stole identification papers and ration cards from the Germans. They assisted downed pilots in Nazi territory. As Diet biked across Holland, she sent reports to the Allies of German troop movements.
In May 1944, Eman was arrested and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. After four months, she managed to convince the Gestapo that she was harmless and feeble-minded. When they released her, she returned to resistance work.[6]
4 Hortense Daman
Hortense Daman (later Clews) was only 14 when Germany occupied Belgium. She began her resistance work delivering La Libre Belgique (The Free Belgium), an underground newspaper. Soon, she was carrying critical messages across the country.
Hortense became an excellent courier, able to remain cool under pressure. It was difficult for German officers to take the beautiful blonde seriously. Since her mother owned a grocery store, delivering food became a convenient cover for her spy work.
Before long, she was also delivering explosives. One day, she was delivering grenades hidden under a load of eggs. When intercepted by a German officer, she offered him some eggs (a great delicacy during the war.) He snatched the eggs from her hand before waving her away.[7]
Hortense and her parents were betrayed and arrested. Hortense and her mother were sent to Ravensbruck, her father to Buchenwald. Hortense became the subject of horrific experiments while incarcerated. Miraculously, however, she and her parents all survived.
3 Fernande Keufgens
In 1942, Fernande Keufgens (later Davis) boarded a train headed to a German munitions factory in Poland, which she had been drafted to work at. She had been told that her father would go to prison if she did not get on the train. She and three others, however, jumped off the locomotive before it crossed the German border.[8]
After jumping from the train, Fernande walked for miles through the countryside to find her uncle Hubert, a devout priest working for the Army of Liberation, a Belgian resistance group. She begged him to let her join the resistance.
She delivered false identification papers and food stamps to help Jews escape Belgium. She was accosted many times by the Nazis. Because she spoke German, however, officers were more likely to trust her.
2 Swing Youth
On March 2, 1940, German police raided a dance party in Hamburg. They found teens dancing to forbidden swing music from Great Britain and the United States. The young people wiggled and gyrated. They formed circles with jumping and clapping. Girls were wore makeup and painted their nails.
The Swing Youth rejected the Nazi lifestyle. They clearly preferred British and American culture to German nationalism. They rejected wearing uniforms, marching, drilling, and regulated hairstyles. Even though most Swing Youth did not openly criticize the Nazis, the Third Reich considered them a threat to the Nazi philosophy.
Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, ordered all leaders of the Swing Youth to be sent to a concentration camp. A special youth camp was opened for them in Moringen in 1940. A camp for girls opened in 1942.[9]
1 Edelweiss Pirates
The Edelweiss Pirates began as a hiking group in the 1930s. They also rejected the strict rules and regimentation of the Nazi party. They dropped out of school to avoid the Hitler Youth programs and became skilled draft-dodgers. Many of these teens were raised in Communist families, and almost all grew up in poverty. Many had seen their parents arrested and even murdered for their political views.
The Edelweiss Pirates often fought street battles with the Hitler Youth. They were easy to spot with their long hair and brightly colored shirts. They wore the Edelweiss emblem on their collars or hats. “We wore our hair long, we had a knife in our sock and he would not march.” stated former Edelweiss Pirate Jean Julich.[10]
As the war progressed, they became more involved in resistance activities. They produced anti-Nazi graffiti and stole food and explosives to supply adult resistance groups. They found shelter for German army deserters. Jean Julich and his friends threw bricks through military factory windows and poured sugar into the gas tanks of Nazi vehicles. The Gestapo often rounded up gang members, shaved their heads, and then released them.
They also faced more serious consequences, however. The Gestapo arrested Julich and his friends for their alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the Cologne Gestapo headquarters. At 15, Julich was sent to a concentration camp, where he endured beatings, starvation, and typhus until the Americans liberated him in 1945. The Nazis executed Julich’s friend, Barthel Schink, along with seven adults and five other “pirates.”
Lou Hunley has enjoyed sharing books with children as a teacher and children’s librarian. She created Librarian Lou, a blog about children and young adult books. When she’s not reading or writing, she enjoys playing pickleball, biking, and zip lining.
]]>Helicopters are incredible flying machines that test the limits of design and mechanics by their very existence. But which helicopters truly test the limits of aviation? What about helicopters that fly upside down? A helicopter that lifts far more than its own weight? Or a rotary machine that rivaled jet airliners in size? These record setting rotorcraft will give your head a spin!
10. Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105: The Aerobat
The iconic steed of Red Bull pilots Chuck Aaron and successor Aaron Fitzgerald, the Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105 was a revolutionary contribution to rotary aviation from Germany that stands out as the world’s first aerobatic helicopter. The machine was also new as the first light helicopter to fly with twin engines. That’s right, this super powerful helicopter can do barrel rolls, loops, and fly inverted like the most extreme stunt planes thanks to its incredible design.
Thanks to the capabilities of the Bo 105 as the first ever helicopter to achieve these things, the flight envelope and perceived utility of the helicopter as a machine was revolutionized. The hingeless rotor built from solid titanium is just one great distinguisher of this engineering marvel. The machine can climb at 1,575 feet per minute, and cruise at 150 miles per hour under the power of two 420 standard horsepower Rolls Royce engines. The machines were produced primarily in Germany and Canada, with uses ranging from military to police service as well as in the famed upside down and barrel rolling airshow demos. The helicopter also has been set up for use on aircraft carriers and even fitted out to carry missiles.
9. Mil V-12: The Biggest One
Just how big can a helicopter get? Larger than you imagined, rivaling jet airliners while barely remaining identifiable to the casual eye as a horrifically overgrown helicopter. First flying in 1968, just before the entire project was canceled, the pre-Cold War Soviet Union’s Mil V-12 project was constructed as a transporter with a range of 621 miles and a carrying capacity of one 196 passengers, or a huge load of military cargo. Weighing just over seventy six US tons and designed to fly at 150 miles per hour, the largest helicopter in world history remains unsurpassed.
The rotors each spanned just 220 feet across. Resembling a giant tube with long airplane-like wings each tipped with monster sized rotor blades, the beastly twin rotor whirlybird dwarfed many planes. In 1971, the Soviet Union demonstrated the monster at the Paris Airshow, astonishing witnesses who saw a helicopter with its rotors and vertical capabilities crossed with the look of an airliner. One of the reasons for exceptional Soviet helicopter development works was the need to move giant missiles to far off missile launch sites away from the eyes of Western spy planes more efficiently. Trains were slow and could not reach many areas but huge helicopters could.
8. Westland Lynx: Fastest Helicopter
The speediest conventional helicopter in the world looks humble, yet it retains its hold on the official world speed record for a helicopter flight since 1986. The Westland Lynx reached an average speed of just over 248 miles per hour over Somerset, England under the supervision of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) who bestowed the speed records on the helicopter for fastest speed reached in a helicopter of the 3,000–4,500 kilogram (6,613.868-99,208 pound) weight class plus the Absolute World Record for Rotorcraft. The achievements may have been decades ago but they have yet to be surpassed, as faster rotorcraft since have not been classified as true helicopters, but instead are hybrid aircraft with forward propulsion such as convertiplanes.
The record setting Westland Lynx used specialized main blades designed to fight blade stalling behavior of the blades that would be made worse by high speed flight, a design venture brought to action by the British Experimental Rotor Programme. This programme was a joint effort involving Westland cooperating with the UK Ministry of Defense. High speed main blades, water and methanol power boosts to the engine plus reduction in exhaust pipe size were just some of the overhauls that would propel the helicopter to record speed. Furthermore, the tail rotor and fins were revised to better distribute stresses of high speed flight.
7. Kellet-Hughes XH-17: The Weirdest
If a real life transforming machine got stuck between crane and helicopter mode, the Kellet-Hughes XH-17 would be it. This strange work of aeronautical engineering resembled a helicopter that collided with a crane and flew off as one big mess. The huge contraption was equipped with jet engines mounted to the tips of each rotor in a bid to get the huge machine to fly properly. The machine had its origins in a plan to study and test the concepts of rotary winged craft powered by jets on the rotor tips instead of traditional helicopter drive systems. As work progressed, the need for a humongous machine that could lift and transport large cargo items into challenging areas led to a 1949 contract requesting that the testing rig be made into a functional flying crane.
The resulting XH-17 had a rotor diameter of 130 feet, with a maximum payload of just over 10,000 pounds. Two General Electric J35 gas turbines powered the ungainly machine, while parts from a laundry list of assorted planes including a Waco CG-15 glider cockpit, B-25 wheels, and a B-29 fuel tank were used. Yes, flames and deafening noise were included in the kafuffle that marked each undertaking to get this beast airborne. Eventually the project was abandoned on grounds of practicality.
6. Kaman K-Max K-1200: Strangest Super Achiever
Likely the strangest way to construct a twin rotor helicopter, the multimillion dollar Kaman K-Max K-1200 is a US-built flying machine with synchropter, or intermeshing rotor design. The intermeshing rotors always seem ready to cut into each other, sharing airspace nanoseconds apart, but never touch. Resembling a dolphin in appearance from the side, the rotors angle and intermesh like two gears that never touch, allowing lifting capacity that far outweighs that expected from a helicopter of its size. The laterally compressed body is narrow, making the helicopter look like a fish from a front view perspective.
With its squished design, there is just room for the pilot. The remarkable achievement of this helicopter that has double the rotor and less body than a normal helicopter is the ability to actually lift a cargo load heavier than the empty weight of the helicopter itself! Weighing just 5,145 pounds, the helicopter can take on an additional 6,855 pounds of weight for a maximum gross weight of 12,000 pounds. Uses of the K-1200 include firefighting, search and rescue and supply delivery. Work on a remotely piloted version also led to the creation of a machine that could enter hazardous situations without putting aviators in danger.
5. Bell AH-1 Cobra: First Dedicated Attack Heli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hOeEVzPvc
Making its debut in the air in 1965, the Bell AH-1 Cobra was the first fully purpose built attack helicopter, placing impressive close combat air power in the hands of the US Army. Fast, muscular and bristling with firepower, the machine still serves the US Marine Corps over half a century later. The helicopter looks fairly conventional but a closer look reveals many details borrowed from fighter jets, right down to the seating layout. The crew of two sat in series in the long but narrow cockpit with a bubble canopy, the co-pilot/gunner in the front and the pilot occupying the elevated rear seat. The helicopter is sleek, attractive and carries heavy firepower in an extremely efficient layout.
Two short wings protrude from the sides of the fuselage, carrying missiles and minigun pods or cannons under the wings. A total of 3,0000 pounds of weaponry could be carried under the tiny but tough wings. Miniguns, grenade launchers or both were also mounted at the front turret under the nose. Compared to heavy transport helicopters that were the norm prior to the Cobra, the helicopter was a revolutionary step towards maneuverability and capability. Minimalistic skid undercarriage added little weight, leaving more payload capacity for the weapons.
4. Masumi Yanagisawa Engineering System Type GEN H-4: Smallest Helicopter
Looking like a patio chair with a ceiling fan attached, the Masumi Yanagisawa Engineering System Type GEN H-4 Helicopter is to a normal helicopter what a bicycle is to a pickup truck. The Japanese product is a unique flying machine for those brave enough to try it. Created in the 1990s by Gennai Yanigasawa, an electronics company head, the world’s smallest helicopter weighs only 165 pounds, making it the lightest of all helicopters, while its rotor span of 12.8 feet is the least of all.
The machine may be tiny, but it is high tech. The problem of torque and counter-rotation is solved by the machine being coaxial. Instead of a tail rotor, which is not practical to install due to the lack of any tail boom, the machine has two counter-rotating rotors similar to a beginner’s remote controlled helicopter. The machine is not exactly slow, either. Speeds of 56 miles per hour can be reached and the helicopter can stay airborne for 30 minutes at a time. You might really be able to go somewhere perched on this machine. With the rotor blades spinning, the tripod landing gear, seat and rotor hub creates the look of a tiny UFO with a human rider.
3. Dragonfly DF1: Hydrogen Peroxide-Powered
Seating just one person and looking like a shopping cart and a chair with rotor blades attached, the Dragonfly DF1 is not a normal helicopter. It is powered by rockets, fueled by hydrogen peroxide, attached to the rotor tips. Both rockets blast out with power that equates to just over 100 horsepower per rocket motor. The hydrogen peroxide propulsion systems used to make the main rotors spin are only eight inches in length and weigh one and a half pounds each. Because there is no central motor, torque does not form, eliminating the need for powerful tail rotor action.
Instead, a basic, low power tail rotor is just used for light steering duties. The power to weight ratio of the Dragonfly DF1 is impressive, given the 204 horsepower total power contrasted with a machine weight of merely 230 pounds. Ricardo Cavalcanti, Chairman Avimech Int’l Aircraft, Inc. is the creator of the machine, a renowned aeronautical engineer and nature enthusiast from Brazil who sees the creation as a more ecofriendly mode of flight. Ricardo’s machine uses a collective pitch control to gain altitude once the hydrogen peroxide rockets have got the blades spinning at 750 revolutions per minute.
2. De Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle: The Worst Helicopter
Probably the one of the most unsettling idea ever for a helicopter, the De Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle was a terrifying contraption that saw pilots standing right above rotor blades. Variations of the machine were tested from 1954 to 1956, showing promise only at first.
A twist grip throttle controller managed power, while the machine was supposed to have steer, pitch and yaw control by leaning. This was meant to be so easy that a soldier could fly the machine in a manner similar to riding a bicycle following less than half an hour’s training. Safety of the machine itself became a glaring issue following crashes. Additionally, upright standing pilots on an Aerocycle would be seemingly easy targets for enemy firepower. The US Army thought there would be an airborne cavalry unit using the machines, but instead the Aerocycle project got scrapped in the end.
Test pilot Captain Selmer Sundby, who spent time in charge of the Aerocycle tests and program development before identifying the machine as being too flawed, ultimately received a Distinguished Flying Cross in 1958 to recognize his service with the project. A single remaining Aerocycle can be seen on display at the US Army Transportation Museum in Fort Eustis, Virginia.
1. VS-300: The First Helicopter
The world’s first legitimately flyable helicopter was the Sikorsky VS-300, the work of rotary winged flight pioneer Igor Sikorsky. On September 14, 1939, the machine first got airborne in Stratford, Connecticut after construction by the United Aircraft Corporation’s Vought-Sikorsky Division. Sikorsky patented the basic design in 1931, with the flights to follow laying the groundwork for the familiar main and tail rotor helicopter ubiquitous in modern times. The machine’s first ventures into the air made use of tethers and it was not until 1940 that unrestricted flight took place. Sikorsky had started his engineering journey by making a windup toy helicopter at age 12.
A current day helicopter pilot would be most concerned by the open cockpit of this machine. The front pod looked something like the cockpit of a World War I biplane fighter, while the main blades swirled above the strapped in pilot. Sikorsky’s pioneering work used drive from a single engine to power both the main blades and anti-torque tail rotor. Not content to be the first normal single rotor helicopter, the VS-300 also got fitted with floats and became the first operational amphibian helicopter, landing and taking off from water with ease. The VS-300 is now an exhibit at the Dearborn, Michigan Henry Ford Museum.
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