For most of the world, VE Day did not mean peace
Meanwhile for many Germans, there were mixed feelings. Relief that the war was ended combined with bitterness and a sense of humiliation. These were feelings that led to most Germans blotting out their memories of this period. In Germany is known as Tag der Befreiung (day of liberation), in other words liberation from Nazi rule. However, during the many years I spent in Germany I cannot recall anyone ever celebrating VE day, just as I never met a German who admitted to having been a Nazi or having a Nazi relative.
Claus Gunther, a 14-year-old member of Hitler Youth, who had been evacuated to a Bavaria recalled: 'There was a weight off my heart because I would not have to do military service.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
4 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Breakthrough in hunt for Hitler's gold with dig to begin for legendary £250m ‘Amber Room' treasure stolen by Nazis
The man leading the hunt has spent the last decade searching for the legendary train GOLD RUSH Breakthrough in hunt for Hitler's gold with dig to begin for legendary £250m 'Amber Room' treasure stolen by Nazis Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A BREAKTHROUGH may have been made in the hunt for Hitler's legendary gold train - said to be packed with jewels, gold and the lost £250m Amber Room. Since 1945, governments, the Polish Army and treasure hunters have scoured the terrain searching for the train - and now they believe its location may be in northern Poland. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 4 Legend has it that the train holds up to £20bn worth of Nazi treasure, including the contents of the Amber Room (pictured in 1917) 4 Poland's deputy culture minister said in 2015 that he was 99 percent sure of the existence of the fabled Nazi train 4 Polish authorities have officially granted permission for a new search, according to Wirtualna Polska. Gdańsk's Office for the Protection of Monuments has reportedly approved drilling and archaeological surveys in Dziemiany - located in the Kościerzyna district of northern Poland. The search aim to uncover a suspected WWII-era bunker, which could conceal the fabled train and its valuable artefacts. Marcin Tymiński, spokesperson for the Pomeranian Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments, said there might be a hidden German deposit in Dziemiany. read more world news GOLD TRAIN Nazi gold train hunters uncover letter 'revealing location of Hitler's treasure' 'Some speculate it could even be the lost Amber Room,' he added. The Nazis established a military training ground in Dziemiany for SS units at the end of 1943, according to Jan Delingowski who is leading the treasure hunt. Delingowski, a former merchant fleet radio officer, has spent the last decade searching for the legendary train in the region of Kashubia. In an interview on the YouTube channel History Hiking on Sunday, he pointed to historical evidence linking the suspected treasure site to Nazi official Erich Koch, RMF24 reports, RMF24 reports. Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazis in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945. After WWII, Koch was tried in Poland and convicted in 1959 for war crimes - including responsibility for the deaths of around 400,000 Poles. Mystery of Nazi shipwreck that may hold £100million of Hitler's GOLD & the legendary 'Amber Room' treasure Koch was sentenced to death, but the sentence was never carried out - officially due to his poor health. However, according to declassified files from Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), cited by Rzeczpospolita, the real reason was that the communist-era Polish Security Service and the Soviet KGB hoped he would reveal the location of the Nazi gold train. An inmate who met Koch in the 1980s claimed the Nazi official revealed the treasure's hiding place before his death. Citing the inmate's account, Delingowski says the convoy veered off the road 'somewhere between Czersk and Człuchów, heading toward the Oder'. 4 The hunt for the Nazi gold train has lasted decades Credit: Getty Images - Getty The crates are said to be stashed in a bunker disguised and hidden 'on a hill near a lake, at the site of former SS barracks'. Previous explorations of the region led to the discovery of a brick tank, Wirtualna Polska reports. Based on the testimony and Delingowski's decade-long research, authorities have granted permission to investigate the site. The official decision reads: 'Based on findings from prior heritage surveys, there is reason to believe that a World War II-era slit bunker is located on the plot (...), which may qualify as a historical monument. "Furthermore, historic material - including archaeological artefacts - may be present inside and around it.'
Spectator
23-07-2025
- Spectator
London is due a lido renaissance
There are 1,000 spaces available for the 6-9 a.m. lane swimming session at Tooting Bec Lido in south London. On Sunday it was fully booked. After a few frantic lengths (at 91m, it is Europe's longest), we are all shooed out at 8.50 a.m. by the lifeguards to make way for the daytime swimmers. Those slots are like gold dust and sell out within minutes of becoming available. Across London it's the same story: swimming spaces are a precious commodity. After three heatwaves so far this summer and the warmest June on record for England, it's easy to see why so many people are craving access to outdoor water. In total, the capital has just 15 lidos (if one includes a couple of ponds). Even the Serpentine is fully booked on good days. When people are queueing up to wade through duck poo it's hard not to wonder whether maybe there should be more facilities available. Other cities in Europe are way ahead of us. Zurich and Geneva have their lakes. Paris has opened up areas of the Seine for swimming for the first time in a century. In Munich's English Garden, one can paddle in the Eisbar (officially verboten, but this is widely ignored, in contrast to the stereotype of strait-laced Germans) or surf on the artificially constructed wave. Even the northern Europeans are at it: Copenhageners are diving off the docks, Amsterdamers are cooling off in the canals and Berliners have more than 50 lakes and pools from which to choose. It wasn't always like this. In the 1930s, the golden days of lidos, London had 68 public outdoor pools. Many were magnificent art deco constructions that became hubs of glamour and entertainment. But with the growth of foreign holidays in the postwar years, the popularity of lidos declined, and the council financial constraints of the 1980s and 1990s meant many closed. A similar picture is replicated across the country. The website All the Lidos lists 150 or so public outdoor pools across the UK, down from a peak of more than 300. Many cities, particularly in Scotland and Wales, have none at all. (For anyone wanting a more in-depth history of the rise and fall, Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style is on at the Design Museum in Kensington until 17 August.) But a group of lido evangelists are working to reverse the decline. Future Lidos was set up during lockdown to bring together existing and planned projects, share resources and co-ordinate campaigns. Its co-founder Deborah Aydon tells me that 2023 was a high point, with new pools opening in Hull, Bath and Brighton. It was even dubbed the 'year of the lido'. In total, Future Lidos counts 38 different revival campaigns. In Macduff, Aberdeenshire, 'Friends of Tarlair' are making progress in redeveloping the art deco pool where Wet, Wet, Wet played in the 1990s. In London, architects Studio Octopi have proposed an ambitious plan to replicate the floating lidos that once graced the Thames. There are also more straightforward options: Battersea, Richmond and Regent's Park all contain lakes and ponds, but at present their use is limited to the birds. Sadly, most projects tell the same story of wading through the bureaucracy and inertia that seems to make any construction in this country so slow and expensive. The recently opened Sea Lanes pool in Brighton is doubly notable: as well as being the first new public outdoor pool to be built in the UK since the 1990s, it was fully funded by private investment. Combining seafront swimming with a gym, sauna, pilates and several cafes and bars, it already gets more than 100,000 annual visitors. According to Duncan Anderson, who helped develop the business plan and now runs the centre, it's a model that could be replicated elsewhere: 'As long as the council is open to a partnership pools can be built with zero public money.' It's not just fair-weather swimming that is rising in popularity, either. London Fields Lido in Hackney is heated all year round; in January you can find bobble-hatted swimmers sliding into the steamy water. Elsewhere, inspired by various apparent health benefits, and possibly a touch of self-flagellation, thousands of people are visiting unheated lidos in all months. At Brockwell Lido in south London – which narrowly survived the 1990s purge through the hard work of local volunteers – I've joined throngs of swimmers in sub 8°C water, and hundreds turn out for their Christmas Day swim. Sian Richardson, an enthusiastic year-round swimmer, set up the aptly named Bluetits for like-minded masochists in 2014; today it has more than 150,000 members. Swimming makes us physically fitter, but it also helps many people with their mental balance. Charles Sprawson, in his superb social and cultural history of swimming, Haunts of the Black Masseur, wrote: 'Like Narcissus many of the swimmers suffered from a form of autism, a self-encapsulation in an isolated world, a morbid self-admiration, an absorption in fantasy.' He may have been talking about the Romantic poets who repopularised swimming in Britain, but his words feel fitting for today's urbanites. Perhaps with more access to swimming, we might be a bit more resilient (working title for the campaign: more dips, fewer PIPs). The UK is surrounded by water but too few of us have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in it regularly. London could be one of the world's great swimming cities and lead the nation's aquatic renaissance. It already has some of the finest parks and lots of natural waterways. There is ample space and enormous demand. Surely it's time to open up the ponds and start digging the pools. The way things are going we are all going to need a place to help cool us down and keep us sane.
Daily Mirror
20-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
Grave of football hero who defied the Nazis restored after heartwarming campaign
The family of a hero Derby County goalkeeper, who refused to give Nazi salute in defiant gesture against Hitler in a 1930s match, has thanked fans after his rundown grave was restored The rundown grave of a one of football's bravest heroes has been restored following a fundraising campaign. John 'Jack' Kirby was goalkeeper for Derby County when he heroically defied Adolf Hitler's Nazis. Derby were on tour in Germany in 1934 and when they played matches the team was ordered to all give Nazi salutes. All did, except Kirby who refused point blank and was captured in this iconic photo showing his contempt. He was buried in Derbyshire, but his grave fell into a state of disrepair until historian and Derby fan Kal Singh Dhindsa launched a campaign to raise money to repair it. Kal, 45, a supply teacher, told the Mirror: 'When I first saw the photo I was immediately in awe of this man. "What an inspirational player - having the bravery to stand up to Hitler and Nazi Germany. When I started this appeal there were donations from supporters from all sorts of clubs. Lots from Derby but also from our rivals Nottingham Forest. It was lovely to see the football world come together to honour such a man. 'Jack Kirby is a Derbyshire legend of defiance. It was a pleasure to see this through. The original grave was in a very weathered state. It was almost impossible to find then decipher what was written on it. "Myself and family members decided that the best thing to do would be to restore it as close as possible to what it looked like when it was first put down. Despite never meeting him, Jack Kirby's great-niece, Rachel Kirby, said she idolised her great-uncle for his defiant act 90 years ago. She said: 'His grave had become weathered and unrecognisable to fans, but thanks to Kal and generous supporters, it has now been beautifully restored, with the lettering once again clear for all to see.' Rachel said her Uncle Jack shared a close bond with her father, Douglas. Even into his 90s dad took great pride in visiting the grave and laying flowers, but sadly we lost dad to dementia," she added. "I know how he would have been deeply moved by this tribute. I'm incredibly proud and so thankful to everyone who donated, shared, and supported. I'd love people to visit and remember him." Born in South Derbyshire on 30 September 1909, Kirby made 191 appearances for the Rams after arriving from Derbyshire-based Newhall United in Derby County's tour in 1934, Kirby refused to salute in all four matches in four cities against German teams, of which the Rams lost three and drew one
