Richard Köhler (12. Januar 1916 ; 26. November 1948 in Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg) war ein deutscher SS-Unterscharführer und als Kommandoführer im Nebenlager Ohrdruf des KZ Buchenwald eingesetzt. Richard Köhler, Mitglied der SS, war von November 1944 bis Anfang April 1945 Angehöriger des Lagerpersonals im KZ Buchenwald. In Buchenwald war Köhler Angehöriger des Kommandos 99 und spätestens ab Januar 1945 als Kommandoführer im Buchenwalder Nebenlager Ohrdruf eingesetzt. Köhler überwachte in Ohrdruf Häftlingskommandos, die Gütertransporte in Arnstadt und Krawinkel entluden. Am 8. April 1945 begleitete er einen Evakuierungstransport mit dem Ziel KZ Flossenbürg.

Nach seiner Verhaftung wurde Köhler im Buchenwald-Hauptprozess, der im Rahmen der Dachauer Prozesse stattfand, mit 30 weiteren Beschuldigten angeklagt. Köhler wurde beschuldigt, alliierte Gefangene misshandelt und getötet zu haben. Köhler gab in der Verhandlung an, nach seiner Verhaftung durch einen US-amerikanischen Offizier bei seinem Verhör misshandelt worden zu sein und sein Geständnis nur unter Zwang abgelegt zu haben. Am 14. August 1947 wurde Köhler insbesondere aufgrund illegaler Tötungen wegen „Mithilfe und Teilnahme an den Operationen des Buchenwald-Konzentrationslagers“ zum Tode durch den Strang verurteilt. Köhler wurde, trotz mehrerer Gnadengesuche, am 26. November 1948 in dem Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg hingerichtet.

Hubert Krautwurst (21. Februar 1924 ; 26. November 1948 im Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg) war SS-Hauptscharführer und als Kommandoführer im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald eingesetzt. Hubert Krautwurst, Mitglied der SS, war vom 17. Januar 1942 bis zum 10. April 1945 im KZ Buchenwald als Kommandoführer der Gärtnerei und der Kläranlage eingesetzt. Nach Kriegsende wurde Krautwurst verhaftet und als jüngster Beschuldigter im Buchenwald-Hauptprozess, der im Rahmen der Dachauer Prozesse stattfand, mit 30 weiteren Beschuldigten angeklagt. Krautwurst wurde beschuldigt, alliierte Gefangene misshandelt und getötet zu haben.

Zeugenaussagen belasteten Krautwurst schwer, so soll er am 1. Mai 1942 oder 1943 einem Häftling das Auge ausgeschlagen haben, woran dieser starb. Zudem soll Krautwurst am selben Tag zwei polnische und einen russischen Häftling in der Klärgrube ertränkt haben. Im Prozess sagten zugunsten von Krautwurst aber auch Entlastungszeugen aus, so soll Krautwurst den Häftlingen seines Kommandos Essensrationen für Schwerarbeiter ausgehändigt haben. Der Konstrukteur der Klärgrube sagte aus, dass er nichts von einem Ertrunkenen in der Klärgrube gehört habe. Am 14. August 1947 wurde Krautwurst zum Tode durch den Strang verurteilt. Krautwurst wurde trotz mehrerer Gnadengesuche am 26. November 1948 im Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg hingerichtet.

Peter Paul Merker (1890 ; unbekannt) war ein deutscher SS-Oberscharführer und als Leiter des Buchenwalder Nebenlagers Gustloff-Werke eingesetzt. Merker, Mitglied der SS, war vom September 1939 bis zum 27. Februar 1945 im KZ Buchenwald eingesetzt. Zunächst war Merker in Buchenwald als Angehöriger der Wachmannschaft, dann als Blockführer tätig und fungierte von Oktober 1943 bis Februar 1945 als Leiter des Buchenwalder Nebenlagers Gustloff-Werke, dem ersten Außenkommando bei einem Rüstungsbetrieb in Weimar.

Nach seiner Verhaftung wurde Merker im Rahmen der Dachauer Prozesse im Buchenwald-Hauptprozess mit 30 weiteren Beschuldigten angeklagt. Am 14. August 1947 wurde Merker wegen der Misshandlung von Häftlingen beziehungsweise aufgrund angeordneter Misshandlungen wegen „Mithilfe und Teilnahme an den Operationen des Buchenwald-Konzentrationslagers“ zum Tod durch den Strang verurteilt. Das Urteil wurde später in eine zwanzigjährige Haftstrafe umgewandelt. Merker wurde wahrscheinlich Mitte bis Ende der 1950er Jahre aus dem Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg entlassen. Über seinen weiteren Lebensweg ist nichts bekannt.

Emil Paul Pleissner (23. Mai 1913 in Plauen ;  26. November 1948 im Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg) war SS-Hauptscharführer und als Kommandoführer des Krematoriums im KZ Buchenwald eingesetzt. Emil Pleissner, Mitglied der SS, war von 1934 bis 1937 Angehöriger des Lagerpersonals des KZ Dachau. Seine Versetzung in das KZ Buchenwald erfolgte 1938, wo Pleissner zunächst als Blockführer bis zum März 1942 eingesetzt wurde.

Anschließend war Pleissner als Kommandoführer im Krematorium des KZ Buchenwald bis zum Februar 1943 tätig. In dieser Funktion war Pleissner eigenen Angaben zufolge bei zwei Erhängungen im Krematorium anwesend und nahm als Angehöriger des Kommandos 99 an mindestens zwei Erschießungen teil und war bei mindestens fünfzehn anwesend. Ab Frühjahr 1943 diente Pleissner in einer Panzerdivision der Waffen-SS bis Anfang Mai 1945.

Nach Kriegsende wurde Pleissner im Buchenwald-Hauptprozess, der im Rahmen der Dachauer Prozesse stattfand, mit 30 weiteren Beschuldigten angeklagt. Pleissner wurde beschuldigt, alliierte Gefangene misshandelt zu haben. Am 14. August 1947 wurde Pleissner wegen seiner Teilnahme an Hinrichtungen und der Tätigkeit im Krematorium wegen „Mithilfe und Teilnahme an den Operationen des Buchenwald-Konzentrationslagers“ zum Tode durch den Strang verurteilt. Pleissner wurde, trotz mehrerer Gnadengesuche, am 26. November 1948 in dem Kriegsverbrechergefängnis Landsberg hingerichtet.

Teodosio Clemente de Gouveia, né le 13 mai 1889 et mort le 6 février 1962, est un prélat portugais de l'Église catholique romaine qui fut archevêque du Mozambique. Ordonné prêtre le 19 avril 1919 à Tome, au Portugal, il enseigna au séminaire de Funchal de 1922 à 1929.

Il se rendit par la suite à Rome comme vice-recteur du Collège Portugais et fut plus tard (1934) nommé recteur. En 1936, il fut consacré évêque titulaire (ou in partibus) de Leuce et prélat du Mozambique, puis en 1941, archevêque de Lourenço Marques. Il fut élevé au Collège des cardinaux par Pie XII en 1946.

Clément Émile Roques né le 8 décembre 1880 à Graulhet dans le Tarn et mort le 4 septembre 1964 à Rennes en Ille-et-Vilaine était un cardinal français, archevêque d'Aix-en-Provence de 1934 à 1940, puis de Rennes de 1940 à 1964. Il suit ses études de théologie au séminaire d'Albi puis à l'Institut catholique de Toulouse. Il est ordonné prêtre le 2 avril 1904. Il exerce son ministère de prêtre au séminaire de Barral à Castres où il est successivement professeur, administrateur, préfet des études puis supérieur jusqu'en 1929.

Le 15 avril 1929, Pie XI le nomme évêque de Montauban. Il est consacré le 24 juin suivant par Mgr Pierre Cézerac, archevêque d'Albi. Le 24 décembre 1934, il est nommé archevêque de Aix-en-Provence puis le 11 mai 1940 il est transféré à Rennes. Au cours de la guerre, il se distingua par la résistance qu'il opposa aux exigences de l'occupant en soustrayant les séminaristes au Service du travail obligatoire et en assurant la protection de juifs et de résistants.

Le pape Pie XII l’éleva à la pourpre cardinalice lors du consistoire du 18 février 1946 avec le titre de cardinal-prêtre de Sainte-Balbine (S. Balbina). Il participa aux conclaves de 1958 qui élit Jean XXIII et de 1963 qui élit Paul VI. Il participa également aux premières session du concile Vatican II. Il meurt le 4 septembre 1964 et est enterré dans la crypte de la cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Rennes.

published 04/10/2013 at 05:29 BST

General Vo Nguyen Giap, who has aged 102, was the diminutive and brilliant Vietnamese general who led communist forces in the wars that forced three powerful adversaries – Japan, France and America – out of his homeland.

Such was his morale-boosting determination and genius for the feint and swoop that he was often described as a guerrilla leader equalled only by Mao Tse Tung and Che Guevara; and Giap was certainly adept at utilising terrain and highly mobile troops to outwit stronger and better equipped enemies.

But he was far more than just an able coordinator of the small-scale jungle skirmish. Major set-piece battles and broad offensives were well within his compass too, though often at high cost. At home, only Ho Chi Minh was better loved. Abroad, even Giap’s opponents – perhaps particularly his opponents – suggested that he merited a place in the pantheon of great military leaders of modern times, alongside such figures as Wellington and Rommel.

The figure Giap himself most admired and studied, however, was Napoleon. By the time Giap had left school he was able to outline in chalk the phases of all Napoleon’s most celebrated battles. It was an irony later lost on few that, having absorbed those lessons, Giap would score perhaps his most dramatic victory against France.

That moment came in March 1954, after more than seven years of fighting between French forces and Giap’s Viet Minh anti-colonial communist revolutionaries. The French, looking to draw the Viet Minh into a decisive engagement, had parachuted thousands of soldiers into an airbase located in a valley in north-western Vietnam, on the border with Laos. They were unaware, however, that Giap too was looking for a knockout blow, and that his forces had acquired heavy artillery pieces.

Despite the extraordinary difficulty of moving these around the jungle, Giap managed to ring Dien Bien Phu with men and heavy guns, placed on the high ground overlooking the airbase. When the artillery fire began raining down at the beginning of March it became clear that the French were sitting ducks.

For two months they resisted, fending off incursions which came between each new barrage. But on May 1 the Viet Minh launched a huge offensive, and within a week overran French positions. The last words of the radio operator before being cut off were: “Vive la France!” More than 11,000 men were taken prisoner; fewer than 4,000 returned to France alive.

This shattering defeat forced France to the negotiating table, with talks beginning on May 8, one day after the garrison’s surrender. The result was a Vietnam split into a communist north and French-backed south.

Though this division was supposed to be temporary, and the last French forces withdrew in 1956, South Vietnam immediately found a new sponsor – and Giap a new enemy – in the United States.

Vo Nguyen Giap was born on August 25 1911 in Quang Binh province in what is now central Vietnam but what was then, along with Laos and Cambodia, the French protectorate of Indo-China. His father was a literate farmer who sent Giap to the French college at Hue.

Giap’s nationalism – a key characteristic throughout his life that saw him resist overt interference from either Moscow or Beijing – emerged early. He was in his mid-teens when he joined the underground Newannam movement, which called for a unified, independent Vietnam, and he was arrested for fomenting revolution before his 18th birthday.

After his release from several months in jail, he attended the University of Hanoi, and while he studied Politics and Law he taught history at a private school, where his deep knowledge of military strategy, and of Napoleon’s battles in particular, impressed his students. It was while he was in Hanoi that Giap joined the Indo-Chinese Communist Party, which had been founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930. Throughout the 1930s he read widely, deepening his knowledge of military strategy and earning a living as a journalist and from teaching.

In 1939 the Communist Party was banned by the French authorities, and Giap fled into exile in China, leaving behind his wife and members of his family, some of whom died after being locked up and tortured in French jails.

It was in China that he met Ho Chi Minh, and in 1941 they together rebranded the Indo-Chinese Communist Party to form the Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoa (the League for the Independence of Vietnam) — better known as the Viet Minh.

Ho appointed Giap his military leader and, with the support of China, Giap prepared to lead an army back into Indo-China, which Japanese forces had been occupying since the start of the Second World War.

The Viet Minh guerrilla campaign against Japan began at the end of 1944, and Giap’s fighting men quickly forged a working alliance with American forces, sharing intelligence and helping to shelter US pilots who had been shot down.

Soon after the Japanese surrender, the Viet Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and named Ho Chi Minh President and Giap Minister of the Interior. In elections in January 1946, the Viet Minh won 230 out of 300 seats in the new state’s national assembly.

France, however, refused to cede its colonial possessions and, while in theory recognising the Democratic Republic, in fact continued to exert a powerful economic influence in the country that amounted to a rival administration. By December 1946 this uneasy arrangement had exploded into conflict, with Ho calling for the French to be expelled in a national war of resistance. Once again Giap was given the job of leading Ho’s army.

This time, however, his task was more than to harass an army in retreat, as the Viet Minh had done with the Japanese. Instead, Giap had to mobilise, equip and drill an army capable of taking on a highly-trained Western opponent. To do so he produced a handbook on guerrilla tactics, published in 1962 under the title People’s War, People’s Army. This encouraged his soldiers to cultivate the loyalty of locals, without whose support victory would be impossible, and always to engage the enemy at a time of their choosing. “The enemy may outnumber you 10 to one,” he advised, “but if you compel him to disperse his forces widely you may outnumber him 10 to one locally, wherever you choose to attack him.”

The most important quality he tried to instil was patience. Time, he counselled, would inevitably stretch the resources and morale of a colonial occupier. For Giap, meanwhile, the “cause” was more important that the fate of individuals. Absorbing huge losses was not a concern. After all, he noted, “every minute thousands of men died all over the world”.

His plan to sap the French was divided into three stages: guerrilla skirmishes; concerted battles; all-out counter-offensive. By 1951, having spent five years in guerrilla attacks, Giap moved into stage two. By 1953, as France wearied of war, he had moved into stage three and prepared for Dien Bien Phu.

But by 1956, following the French withdrawal, Ho and Giap’s dreams of a united, independent Vietnam appeared as distant as ever when the new American-backed president of South Vietnam refused to call the national elections that had been part of the ceasefire deal after Dien Bien Phu. Vietnam’s “temporary” division appeared to become permanent, and nationalists in the South went into hiding and mobilised as the guerrilla Viet Cong.

Over the next decade, as America intensified its military aid to the South’s government in Saigon, so Giap increased aid to the Viet Cong. Finally, in 1965, America committed hundreds of thousands of troops and launched an air campaign against the North. Giap, in turn, dispatched troops to fight in the South, led by Nguyen Chi Thanh, though Giap remained in overall command.

While Thanh sought decisive engagements, Giap once again counselled patience, taunting America as early as 1967 that its Army was bogged down in an unwinnable war. When Thanh was killed that year, Giap took direct command of the campaign against America in South Vietnam and within months had pulled off another tactical masterstroke.

This came in early 1968, when he appeared to be mustering his forces for a Dien Bien Phu-style ambush on an American fortress at Khe Sanh during the lunar New Year, or Tet. But as America reinforced Khe Sanh, Giap’s men instead launched a general attack on a host of targets across the South. The Tet Offensive, as it became known, did not sweep America from Vietnam or force its diplomats immediately to the negotiating table. But with Tet, Giap, a man who barely stood 5ft tall, had forced a fundamental change in attitudes to the Vietnam War in America, where commitment to the conflict soon began to crack.

The level of Giap’s contribution to the planning of the Tet offensive has since been disputed, with reports of wrangling over detail between him and his senior commanders. But its effect is not in doubt. Peace talks began in Paris the following year.

It would be another four years, punctuated by a series of bloody campaigns, before the last American troops left Vietnam. Even without American military financial backing, which was swiftly suspended, anti-communist forces in South Vietnam continued to fight. But, under Giap’s guidance and – for once – with the odds very much on their side, communist forces eventually swept into Saigon in the spring of 1975, proclaiming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Giap was named Defence Minister and, the following year, Deputy Prime Minister. But his influence with the Communist Party never matched his own popular standing and, following his departure from the defence ministry in 1980, he was removed from the Politburo in 1982. He retained his position as Deputy Prime Minister and served on the Central Committee until 1991. Some analysts have suggested that his fiery temperament and his greater devotion to uniting Vietnam than to the global anti-capitalist cause stymied his rise.

Vo Nguyen Giap’s first wife, a fellow communist, died in a French prison after he had fled to China in 1939. For the past three years he had been living in a military hospital in Hanoi, and he is survived by his second wife, Dang Bich Ha, whom he married in 1949, and four children.

General Vo Nguyen Giap, born August 25 1911, died October 4 2013

Võ Nguyên Giáp, né le 25 août 1911 à An Xá (actuel Viêt Nam, alors en Indochine française) et mort le 4 octobre 2013 à Hanoï, à l'âge de 102 ans, est un général et homme politique vietnamien. Chef de l'Armée populaire vietnamienne pendant la guerre d'Indochine et ministre de la défense du Nord Viêt Nam durant la guerre du Viêt Nam, il est le seul général ayant vaincu à la fois l'armée française et l'armée américaine au cours de sa vie. Il est connu pour être le vainqueur de la bataille de Ðiện Biên Phủ (1954), qui a sonné la défaite et le départ des Français d'Indochine. Le général Vo Nguyên Giap est entré dans l’histoire militaire et les études militaires et stratégiques de son vivant, admiré par ses amis et ennemis, dont le général français Raoul Salan et le général américain William Westmoreland. « Général autodidacte », selon ses propres termes, il n'a suivi les cours d'aucune académie militaire.

Né en 1911 à An Xá, dans la province de Quảng Bình, Võ Nguyên Giáp est un fils d'un mandarin pauvre et nationaliste. À l'école maternelle, il apprend quelques rudiments de français. En 1924, il fréquente la prestigieuse école Quốc Học à Huế (Ngô Dinh Diêm et Hô Chi Minh y ont été élèves). C'est là que commence son apprentissage politique. Dès l'âge de 14 ans, il commence à militer contre la présence française. Il est expulsé de l'école à la suite de l'échec d'un mouvement de protestation contre l'interdiction des menées nationalistes. Il reçoit l'éducation du lycée français Albert-Sarraut puis enseigne l'Histoire dans une école privée de la capitale. De 1930 à 1932, il est emprisonné à la prison de Lao Bảo, où il rencontre Nguyễn Thị Quang Thái9, qu'il épousera en 1939 et qui lui donnera une fille. De 1933 à 1938, il poursuit des études d’histoire, de droit et d’économie à l'université de l'Indochine à Hanoï. Le poète réunionnais Raphaël Barquisseau est son professeur. En 1937, Giáp devient lui-même professeur d'histoire à l'école Thang-Long à Hanoï et adhère au Parti communiste vietnamien. C'est un admirateur de Bonaparte — dont il étudie les campagnes et les tactiques, en particulier « l'effet de surprise » —, à tel point que ses élèves le surnomment « le général » ou « Napoléon ».

En 1939, il fuit en Chine à la déclaration de guerre qui voit l'interdiction du Parti communiste indochinois lié à l'Union soviétique, elle-même alliée des Allemands par le pacte germano-soviétique. Marxiste convaincu, il porte une véritable haine au capitalisme qu'il rend en particulier responsable des décès de sa première épouse morte en prison en 1941 et de sa belle-sœur guillotinée à Saïgon par l'Administration coloniale française. Il prend part au Congrès de Tsin-Ti qui voit la fondation du Việt Minh, puis est chargé par Hồ Chí Minh de l'organisation de la guérilla contre les Japonais en Indochine. En 1944, il fonde l'Armée populaire vietnamienne (APV). Après le coup de force des Japonais du 9 mars 1945, il profite de la disparition de l'administration française pour intensifier le recrutement de membres du Viêt-Minh.

Le 8 mars 1946, le général Salan, commandant des forces françaises de l'Indochine du Nord, reçoit à sa demande, à Hanoï, Võ Nguyên Giáp qu'il ne connaît pas directement. Il vient discuter des conditions d’application, sous l'aspect militaire, de la convention franco-vietnamienne signée le 6 mars précédent. Ces discussions conduisent, le 3 avril, à la signature d'un accord entre le général Salan et Võ Nguyên Giáp. Les deux hommes se revoient le 7 avril 1946 au matin, quand Nguyên Giáp se rend au domicile du général Salan pour offrir à son épouse un petit paravent laqué (leur fille Dominique étant née trois semaines plus tôt), et, le soir, lors d’un dîner avec Hồ Chí Minh, dîner au cours duquel les différends relatifs à l'application des Accords de mars apparaissent au grand jour.

Au cours de la conférence préparatoire de Đà Lạt, du 17 avril au 11 mai 1946, le général Salan, alors chef de la mission militaire française, a pour principal interlocuteur Võ Nguyên Giáp avec lequel il noue des relations personnelles au cours des soirées suivant les séances officielles. Giáp aurait été alors jusqu'à offrir à Salan le commandement des troupes de la République démocratique du Viêt Nam. Bien des années plus tard, le général américain Westmoreland rendra hommage à Giáp dans un livre intitulé Võ Nguyên Giáp.

Giap retrouve Salan à Hanoï le 16 mai suivant, au cours d’un dîner informel, avant d’accompagner Hồ Chí Minh à la conférence de Fontainebleau avec Phạm Văn Đồng, le diplomate, resté alors à Paris. Quand le général Salan revient en Indochine le 19 mai 1947, c'est la guerre. Jusqu'à son retour en métropole le 28 mai 1953, il aura trouvé face à lui un adversaire implacable en la personne de Võ Nguyên Giáp. En son nom, un diplomate vietnamien viendra saluer au Val de Grâce en juillet 1984 la dépouille du général Salan, devenu entretemps l'ancien chef de l'OAS. Ainsi Raoul Salan occupa-t-il une grande place dans la vie de Võ Nguyên Giáp qui le tenait en haute estime.

Võ Nguyên Giáp devient ministre, chargé des forces de sécurité, du premier gouvernement Hồ Chí Minh, et à ce titre organise des « purges », dont sera victime en 1951 le lieutenant-général Nguyen Binh. En 1946, il est nommé ministre de la Défense nationale de la République démocratique du Viêt Nam. C'est lui qui dirige les actions militaires contre les Français. Il est notamment le vainqueur de la bataille de Ðiện Biên Phủ (mai 1954), qui entraîne la signature des accords de Genève, en juillet 1954, qui instaurent une partition du pays le long du 17e parallèle et à l'issue desquels la France quitte la partie nord du Viêt Nam.

En 1960, les combats recommencent au sud. Une insurrection communiste (les communistes sud-vietnamiens étant appelés en abrégé Viêt Cong) contre le gouvernement pro-occidental de Saïgon va se développer et bientôt être soutenue et armée par le Viêt Nam du nord. Giáp va y jouer un rôle déterminant. Il dirige les opérations de l'ensemble de la guerre durant quinze ans et forcera les Américains à quitter le sud du pays. Il obtient la victoire finale en 1975 à la suite de la « campagne Hồ Chí Minh » durant laquelle il lance ses célèbres mots d'ordre aux soldats communistes : « rapidité, audace et victoire sûre ». Le 30 avril, ses troupes entrent à Saïgon.

Giap, grâce à ses manœuvres souvent anticonformistes, a la réputation de n'avoir jamais connu la défaite. Il faut distinguer ici la légende de la réalité : en 1951 il a été battu à plusieurs reprises par le général de Lattre de Tassigny, d'abord à Vinh Yen (18 janvier 1951), Dong Trieu, Mao Khé (mars 1951), Ninh Binh (mai 1951), à la bataille du Day (juin 1951) et à Nghia Lo (octobre 1951). Puis, en 1972, ses troupes subirent un grave revers à la bataille de Kon Tum — l'homme par qui Giap fut défait cette fois-là était un stratège civil américain, John Paul Vann, ancien lieutenant-colonel exclu de l'armée pour ses positions critiques face à la stratégie du général Westmoreland. Mais, s'il lui est arrivé de perdre des batailles, comme d'autres chefs militaires, il est vrai qu'il gagna deux guerres, contre les Français puis contre les Américains.

En 1976, il participe à la réunification du Viêt Nam et devient vice-Premier ministre du gouvernement de la République socialiste du Viêt Nam, mais il perd le commandement des forces armées8. Il démissionne du poste de ministre de la Défense en 1980. En 1982, il est exclu du bureau politique du Parti communiste vietnamien (PCV)8, officiellement pour des raisons d'âge et de santé, mais on parle de divergences avec les deux hommes forts du Viêt Nam, le secrétaire général du PCV Lê Duẩn et le chef de la commission d'organisation du PCV, Lê Đức Thọ. Cependant, il reste vice-premier ministre jusqu’en 1991 et il est réhabilité lors du 6e congrès du PCV en 1986. Võ Nguyên Giáp vivait retiré à Hanoï, mais s'exprimait régulièrement sur l'évolution politique de son pays. Võ Nguyên Giáp meurt le 4 octobre 2013 dans l'après-midi, selon une source gouvernementale, à l'âge de 102 ans.

Võ Nguyên Giáp fut le commandant en chef de l'Armée populaire du Viêt Nam durant trente ans et l'un des principaux acteurs de la Bataille de Điện Biên Phủ. À propos de cet événement décisif de la Guerre d'Indochine, plusieurs ouvrages publiés affirment que le général Henri Navarre, le commandant en chef du corps expéditionnaire français, a, lors de l'opération Castor, largué ses parachutistes sur Ðiện Biên Phủ en se fiant à des renseignements qui signalaient le mouvement vers le nord-ouest d'unités de l'armée vietnamienne ayant franchi la Da (rivière Noire). Dans ses Mémoires, le général Giáp explique que l'occupation de Ðiện Biên Phủ au cours de l'hiver et du printemps 1953-1954 était intentionnelle et succédait à l'« Opération Mouette » dans le delta du Nord. Celle-ci devait permettre à Navarre d'avoir les mains libres pour pouvoir lancer l'opération Atlante visant à occuper les trois provinces libres de la Ve interzone, dans le Centre méridional. Il estime que c'était là une action raisonnable, une nécessité dans l'exécution du plan Navarre et que, par conséquent, il ne s'agissait pas, du moins initialement, d'une erreur de la part de Navarre. Cinquante ans après, le général Giáp raconte notamment comment il a réussi par deux fois à sauver ses troupes, s'abstenant même parfois de combattre en laissant Navarre se croire vainqueur.

En 1998, dans un entretien, le général américain William Westmoreland, critiquait les prouesses militaires de Giàp. Tout en reconnaissant qu'il fut un « adversaire formidable » Westmoreland déclarait que, si celui-ci avait « été formé aux tactiques de guérilla en petites unités, il avait persisté dans une guerre de grandes unités avec des pertes terribles pour ses propres hommes. De son propre aveu, au début de 1969 je crois, il avait perdu, quoi, un demi-million de soldats ? Il a déclaré cela. Maintenant, un tel mépris pour la vie humaine peut en faire un adversaire formidable, mais cela n'en fait pas un génie militaire. Un commandant américain perdant des hommes comme cela n'aurait guère duré plus de quelques semaines ».

Le 4 octobre 2013, un responsable gouvernemental a annoncé que Võ Nguyên Giáp était mort à l'hôpital militaire central 108 à Hanoï où il était hospitalisé depuis 2009. Il avait 102 ans (103 selon la façon de compter l'âge en Asie). Des funérailles nationales ont eu lieu les 12 et 13 octobre en présence des principaux dirigeants vietnamiens. Elles ont été retransmises en direct dans tout le pays par la chaîne de télévision nationale Vietnam Television et la radio nationale Voix du Vietnam. Võ Nguyên Giáp a été enterré dans sa province natale de Quang Binh le 14 octobre.

published 06/01/2014 at 05:54 GMT

Brigadier Denys Begbie was an officer who repaired a crucial bridge in Italy while under withering enemy fire.

Brigadier Denys Begbie,who has died aged 92, was awarded an MC in the Italian Campaign; he subsequently had a distinguished career in military and civil engineering.

On September 16 1944 Begbie, then a lieutenant commanding a platoon of 501 Field Company Royal Engineers, was sent to repair a strategically important bridge, east of San Marino, that was on the main divisional axis of advance. After work had begun, it became clear that, contrary to intelligence reports, the village of Trarivi, overlooking the bridge and only 1,000 yards away, was still in enemy hands.

From this perfect vantage point, the Germans directed heavy and accurate mortar and shell fire for five hours. Throughout this period, Begbie kept his sappers on the job and the work was completed within the time originally estimated. The citation for the award to him of an Immediate MC stated that he had shown inspired leadership and dauntless courage.

Denys Lloyd Glynn Begbie was born at Blackheath, London, on November 14 1921 and educated at Cheltenham College before going up to Bristol University to read Civil Engineering. He joined the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1940 and was commissioned two years later.

In 1943 he survived unscathed the sinking by torpedo of the troop ship taking him to war in North Africa and then led his platoon of sappers in two months’ arduous and dangerous battlefield engineering with the First Army in Tunisia. In January 1944 he joined the Eighth Army in Italy and commanded a platoon of 56th (London) Infantry Division engineers at the battle of Anzio.

This desperate conflict, during which he and his men had sometimes to fight as infantry, lasted for six weeks and he described it afterwards as “perhaps the crucible of my career”. He and his sappers then fought their way northwards with the tanks, infantry and artillery, bridging river after river, clearing and laying mines, building and repairing defence positions and roads. They worked at night and under fire, in extremes of weather and with little respite.

In 1946 he returned to England to complete his degree. Postings to Cyrenaica, the Canal Zone and HQ Far East Land Forces followed and it was in Singapore that he suffered the loss of a daughter in infancy. This led to a compassionate posting in London and two years’ engineering design work constructing a nuclear weapon test base at Christmas Island in the Pacific. The project’s success, ultimately under his direction, laid the foundation for his later employment as a senior military and civil engineer.

Ten years later, while serving at Nato HQ in France, he was transferred in an emergency to relocate the HQ from Fontainebleau to Brunssum, Holland. For many months he worked under great pressure and was appointed OBE in recognition of his achievement.

After three years at the MoD as Director, Engineer Services, in 1976 Begbie resigned from the Army and joined Rendel Palmer & Tritton, engineering consultants who, at that time, were busy overseeing the final stages of construction of the Thames Barrier.

In 1980, he moved to the Institution of Civil Engineers, initially as Director of Professional Interests; two years later he was promoted to become Director, Education, Training and Membership.

After leaving the Institution in 1986 he was elected to the West Sussex County Council. In retirement, he was deputy chairman of the RE Association and then vice-president of the Institution of Royal Engineers, a governor of four schools and president of the local British Legion.

Besides rowing, playing rugby and tennis in his younger days, Begbie enjoyed golf, skiing and sailing. He was also an assiduous watercolourist, a skilled bridge player and co-author of Vol XI of The History of the Corps of Royal Engineers.

Denys Begbie married, in 1948, Rosemary Shepherd, who survives him with their three daughters.

Brigadier Denys Begbie, born November 21 1921, died December 5 2013

published 28/12/2013 at 07:00 AM GMT by Hannah Furness

True influence of Clementine Churchill revealed in full in an exhbition of gifts sent by Royals, politicians and fans across the globe.

Winston Churchill with his wife Clementine in 1951

Her husband is widely recognised as one of the most important leaders in the history of Britain, but the true influence of Clementine Churchill, wife of former Prime Minister Sir Winston, on winning the Second World War can now be revealed.

An exhibition of gifts to the Churchill family, on display at their former home in Chartwell, Kent, shows Clementine as central to Churchill's diplomatic missions, providing social graces and tactful interventions during his most difficult periods.

Winston and Clementine Churchill attend the christening of their grandchild Charlotte in 1954

Various presents, posted by politicians, dignitaries and fans around the world, reveal how she helped negotiate in her own home, working "tirelessly" to keep up with Sir Winston's engagements and hailed as the "real force behind Churchill".

One gift, a lalique crystal cockerel, was sent personally to Clementine alone from Charles de Gaulle, and is said to be intended as an apology, after she intervened to smooth over his disagreement with her husband.

Others include thank you presents for her central role in co-ordinating sending aid to Russia, as well as a nineteenth-century cut glass fruit bowl in the shape of a Viking Long Boat from Stalin.

How the brandy glass would be used (Jonathan Primmer/National Trust)

The exhibition, which includes 30 pieces sent to the Churchills towards the end and following the Second World War, are now on display at National Trust property Chartwell.

Some of them, such as a drawer of silver cutlery given by the people of Sheffield, are on loan from the family, with Sir Winston's great-grandson Randolph Churchill opening the display.

Judith Evans, the house and collections manager of the property for the National Trust, told the Telegraph the gifts showed the true extent of Clementine's influence at the time.

"She was an incredible woman," she said. "She was quite a big player. She helped maintain difficult relationships and worked quietly behind the scenes for the war effort.

"She made sure they dined with the right people and led by example in keeping domestic life going."

Lalique crystal cockerel (Jonathan Primmer/National Trust)

Speaking of the gift of the lalique cockerel, from De Gaulle, she said the rumoured inspiration for sending it began with an argument over dinner.

"De Gaulle came to Chartwell and used to dine with them," she said. "Clementine got on very well with him by all accounts.

"On one evening, it is said, there was a disagreement between De Gaulle and Churchill over dinner. Clementine got very cross and felt he should have more respect for her husband.

"When he went away, he felt very keenly that he had upset her, and the cockerel is supposed to have been sent to appease her."

Other gifts sent to the Churchills include a cut glass fruit bowl with silver mounts, in the shape of a Viking Long Boat, from Stalin after the Moscow Conference in 1944 and a brass brandy glass warmer from Portugal in the shape of a donkey pulling a cart.

Silver cigar box (Jonathan Primmer/National Trust)

President Roosevelt sent a series of large maps as a Christmas present in 1945, while King Peter II of Yugoslavia bestowed a silver cigar box made by Asprey of London in 1942.

As well as gifts designed for Sir Winston, such as a cigar box with his portrait and an ivory miniature as a 69th birthday gift from the 3rd Battalion 11th Sikh Regiment at Teheran, the family also received countless parcels of food, thank you cards and several animals.

A menagerie including a lion, a white kangeroo, a duck-billed platypus, and black swans are all recorded as being donated, but were not kept at the house.

Evans added many of the gifts were already housed at Chartwell, but had been archived away in previous decades because they "didn't fit with the decor".

Jon Primmer, the curator of the exhibition, said: "We wanted to show off the breadth of gifts they received from friends all around the world, from the common man to royalty.

"Every gift was met with thanks. They would make sure everyone who was kind enough to send them things was recognised."

The exhibition, Gift of Power, is open at Chartwell in Westerham, Kent, until February 23, 2014, with a children’s trail around the garden highlighting the animals Churchill was offered as gifts.

published 27/12/2013 at 07:00 AM GMT by Hannah Furness

Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5, tells how her mother helped the secret service during the Second World War.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, whose inquiry inside MI5 exposed Michael Bettaney

The former director general of MI5 has told how her own mother trained pigeons to save lives in the Second World War because she “needed something to do”, with one receiving the Dickin Medal for animal gallantry.

Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, who was head of MI5 from 2002 to 2007, said her mother Mary, who would become Vicountess Dilhorne, had been employed to train pigeons in wartime, from her Victorian cottage in Oxfordshire.

The small group of pigeons went on to carry vital messages back from Europe, with one winning the coveted Dickin Medal for animal valour; one of only 32 birds to receive the award.

Dame Eliza will speak of her mother’s contribution during a special Radio 4 Today programme broadcast this morning (Fri), as she visited her old family home to find out more.

Speaking of her mother, Dame Eliza said: “She needed to do something. She had two young children, but she needed to have a job.

“She was recruited by what was then the war office to train and house carrier pigeons."

She added: “My mother was told – and I don’t know whether this is true - that one of the pigeons brought back confirmation of what was happening at Peenamunde, where the V2 rockets were being made, which led to the RAF raid.”

Colin Hill, the curator of Bletchley Park’s ‘Pigeons at War’ exhibition, confirmed a team of around 20 pigeons belonging to Dame Eliza's mother had flown for the secret service, delivering messages from France, Holland and Belgium.

“The majority of her pigeons brought very important messages back,” he said. “One flew three different journeys and he was given the Dickin medal.

“Any pigeons that won the medals had got to be on something to save lives. We know for a fact that one of the runs her pigeon was on was to bring messages back about the V1 and V2.”

published 28/12/2013 at 03:01 PM GMT by Bruce Anderson

We're going to need a great of luck to avoid a nuclear catastrophe - and this can be traced back to the First World War and the death of Frederick III in 1888.

British soldiers line up in a trench during World War One

As we look forward to the First World War commemorations, three stark conclusions are hard to refute. First, that in the course of this century we will need a great deal of luck to avoid a nuclear catastrophe. Second, that the Enlightenment has failed. Third, that this can all be traced back to the Great War.

As a result of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, it seemed that mankind might make a decisive break with the scarcity and oppression that had characterised previous eras. There was, admittedly, one early warning. The French Revolution proved that a radical reconstruction of society on abstract principles was likely to end in tyranny and bloodshed. But after 1815, the 19th century developed into one of the most successful epochs in history. Living standards, life expectancy, productivity, medicine, the rule of law, constitutional government, versions of democracy – there was dramatic progress on all fronts, and in the spread of civilisation across the globe.

Then one of the scourges of modern life struck and killed. In 1888, Frederick III became Emperor of Germany. Queen Victoria’s son-in-law, he was a thoughtful man who had an easy relationship with his English relatives. By temperament he was a constitutionalist, a liberal and no enthusiast for militarism. As he had served in the field with distinction, Frederick could have mobilised the prestige to justify his pacific inclinations.

It was not to be. Already in the grip of cancer when he ascended the throne, he lived for only 99 days. There is an irony. Frederick, not a blood relation, would have had much in common with Prince Albert. The new Emperor, William, Albert’s grandson, was more like some of the worst Hanoverian princes. Envious and insecure, he was a strutting little ponce of an emperor: Kaiser Sarkozy.

It is by no means certain that 1914 could have been avoided. There was a great deal of tinder around, and most of the policymakers had a wholly insufficient understanding of the horrors of modern war. But a German emperor of immense authority, who would have been seeking a 20th-century version of the post-1815 settlement, who might even have invented the concept of collective security – it could have worked.

If so, Adolf Hitler’s name might now be gathering dust in a police file: “Failed artist and casually employed house painter, who sometimes tries to rabble-rouse the bierkeller dregs in the poorer quarters. Once spent the night in the cells for causing a disturbance outside a Jewish household…” An early British socialist, Robert Tressell, wrote a novel about house painters, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Without the Great War, Hitler would have been a mere unchronicled ragged-trousered misanthropist.

If only; 1914-1945 was the worst period in European history since the Dark Ages. In 1914, there was talk of “the war to end all wars” – possibly the most fatuous geopolitical mistake of all time. It makes “the new world order” sound like common sense. By the end of the First World War, they were rolling the pitch for the Second. Enlightenment, the Whig theory of history, any other theory based on inevitable and steady improvement: they had all formed a Pals’ battalion and died in the trenches.

The deaths continued. By 1945, Europe was staring into the abyss, and we know what Nietzsche said: “If you stare into the abyss for long enough, it will stare back at you.” The stare was broken, the Third and final war avoided, not by a reassertion of civilised values, but by the atom bomb. Mankind survived because of mutually assured destruction.

Apropos of atomic weapons, there is another terrible thought. If Hitler had not been anti-semitic, he would have won the Second World War. Instead of dismissing atomic/nuclear physics as “Jewish science”, suppose he had persuaded enough Jewish scientists to work for him? He would almost certainly have had the Bomb first. But anti-semitism was at Hitler's black and evil core. In the bleak midwinter, why do we need ghost stories to provide a frisson of pretend horror, when real horror is available in unlimited quantities just by contemplating the last 100 years?

The wars left Britain too exhausted to deal with a brace of imperial difficulties. Even if we had not been so depleted in blood and treasure, India would have been tricky. From Macaulay onwards, the wisest intellects who involved themselves with Indian affairs knew that English rule was a trusteeship, not a 1,000-year Reich. But when it came to India, Churchill’s was not a wise intellect, and he would have had supporters. No wars, therefore no imperial overstretch: assuming that wisdom had prevailed, India could have been brought to independence gradually, not in a post-war scuttle. It could also have been brought to independence as one country – so no Pakistan, that most dangerous of all failed states.

Equally, if there had been no First and Second World Wars, there would have been nothing like the same pressure for a Jewish nation in Palestine. The odd rich philanthropist, satiated with first-growth claret and sick of the falsity of drawing rooms, might have persuaded some similar-minded kibbutzniks of the delights of ditch-digging. As they would probably have paid the previous Arab proprietors 50 times what the land was worth, there might have been no trouble. It should have been possible to create a self-governing Jewish enclave in Palestine for the price of a few broken heads in the odd inter-communal riot.

Without Pakistan, without a chronic and insoluble Palestinian crisis – those two Ps that will continue to torment mankind, no matter how many mattresses are used to squash them – this century would look promising.

As it is, we have the two Ps, and mutually assured destruction is breaking down. It worked during the Cold War, and it has worked between India and Pakistan. Could it work between Israel and Iran? Could the Iranians be trusted not to hand some stuff out at the back door? For that matter, is it inconceivable that there could be a seepage from Pakistan? What about miniaturisation? A couple of hundred quid in a high-street computer shop will buy you something more powerful than the Pentagon’s computer resources 40 years ago. All other forms of technology are becoming smaller, cheaper and more accessible. Is nuclear weaponry really immune from that?

While the whole world was turned upside down in the 20th century, Islamic societies were not immune. Though it would be absurd to talk as if Islam was the same from Morocco to Malaysia, there are forces and fractures in the Muslim world, many of them related to religion; some of them producing young men who hate us and everything we stand for. The West has lost control, and it all started in 1888. We will need a lot of good fortune to steer through the next few decades. Happy New Year.

published 26/12/2013 at 06:00 PM GMT

Ron Clark was a pilot whose Lancaster, Phantom of the Ruhr, was one of just 35 – out of 7,373 – to survive 100 flights in the war.

Ron Clark, who has died aged 92, was a Lancaster pilot during the Second World War. During the dedication of the Bomber Command Memorial in June 2012, he flew in a Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) bearing the name of his wartime bomber.

Clark was a young sergeant pilot when he and his crew joined No 100 Squadron in May 1943. They were allocated a Lancaster III newly delivered to the squadron from the factory. The crew named the bomber Phantom of the Ruhr, and the flight engineer, “Bennie” Bennett, painted the Grim Reaper on the nose — a cloaked and hooded skeleton figure hurling bombs towards the enemy. Bennett also started a mission tally, with bomb symbols for raids on Germany and ice cream cones for sorties to Italian targets.

Clark and his crew flew 24 of their 30 operations in Phantom, including four raids during the Battle of Hamburg and three to Berlin. They were also on the famous raid to attack the German experimental rocket testing facility at Peenemunde.

After Clark and his crew were posted elsewhere, Phantom flew on to complete 121 operations. Almost half of all Lancasters delivered during the war (3,345 out of 7,373) were lost on operations, with the loss of more than 21,000 crew members. Phantom of the Ruhr was one of only 35 to become a Lancaster “Centurion”.

The BBMF’s Lancaster, one of only two airworthy in the world, wore the markings of the Phantom of the Ruhr for a number of years. On June 28 2012 it made a fly-past to mark the unveiling by the Queen of the RAF Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park. Clark joined the crew to make the poppy drop during the ceremony.

 It was 67 years since he had last flown in a Lancaster, and he took the second pilot’s seat for the fly-past.

Some years earlier Clark had donated his original battledress tunic to the BBMF. It still fitted him and he wore it during the flight over London.

Ronald James Clark was born on April 18 1921 in West Cumbria and attended Whitehaven Grammar School. Aged 18 he joined the RAF and trained as a pilot in the United States under the US-UK bilateral Arnold Scheme.

After returning to Britain he completed his training as a bomber pilot and joined No 100 at Waltham, near Grimsby. He flew his first operation on the night of June 11/12 1943, when he attacked Düsseldorf at the height of the Battle of the Ruhr.

On July 11 Clark and his crew completed their longest bombing sortie when they attacked Turin. They landed back at Waltham after being airborne for 11 hours. Two weeks later Bomber Command launched the first of four raids over a 10-day period against Hamburg. Clark flew on all four attacks, which resulted in a devastating firestorm destroying most of the city.

On August 17 Clark flew in the second wave of bombers that attacked Peenemunde on the Baltic coast. This was the first time Bomber Command employed a “Master of Ceremonies” (later known as the “master bomber”) and the site was badly damaged, delaying the work on the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket.

On the night of September 23, Clark (now a warrant officer) and his crew took off for their 24th operation in Phantom to attack Mannheim. Over the target area at 20,000ft the Lancaster was illuminated by searchlights and subjected to heavy fire from ground defences. Clark took evasive action as he pressed on to bomb the target. A shell hit the bomber, almost severing the controls. The aircraft went into a steep dive, but Clark managed, with the aid of Bennett, to regain control, despite the aileron control snapping. At the same time a night fighter attacked them, and cannon shells raked the fuselage, causing damage to the port wing, the aircraft’s flaps and the tailplane. Clark finally managed to evade the enemy fighter and escape at 4,000ft.

He flew the crippled bomber back to base and made a safe landing without the use of the flaps. He was awarded an immediate DFC. Bennett received a DFM.

After a further five operations Clark and his crew were rested, and he became an instructor at a bomber training unit. In 1945 he was posted to No 7 Squadron, which was earmarked for Tiger Force, Bomber Command’s contribution to the attack against the Japanese mainland. Before the force could deploy to the Pacific, however, the atom bombs were dropped, bringing the war to an end.

Clark was loaned to BOAC, and he joined the company after leaving the RAF in 1946 as a flight lieutenant. Initially he flew flying boats from Calshot before flying converted Halifax bombers and the York transport. After transferring to Heathrow he flew the Argonaut and the Douglas DC 7; he spent his final years as a senior captain on the VC 10 before retiring in 1976.

A passionate gardener and cyclist, Clark was in great demand at book signings and was a keen member of the 100 Squadron Association. When the squadron’s standard was laid up in Ripon Cathedral in 2011 he was invited to address the large congregation. At his funeral in the RAF’s church, St Clement Danes in London, members of the BBMF acted as his pall-bearers.

Ron Clark married, in 1950, Molly Fowler, who survives him with their two daughters.

Ron Clark, born April 18 1921, died September 29 2013

published 29/12/2013 at 06:13 PM GMT

Lieutenant-Colonel John Gaff was a bomb disposal expert in Ulster who defused a booby-trapped device and won the George Medal.

Lt-Col John Gaff in Belfast in 1974

Lieutenant-Colonel John Gaff , who has died aged 86, was in overall command of all bomb disposal units during his posting to Northern Ireland in the 1970s and was awarded a George Medal.

In 1974 Gaff was posted to the Province as Chief Ammunition Technical Officer (CATO) and was the Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) adviser to the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland during one of the most active periods of the insurgency.

On March 21 he was summoned to the railway signal box at Dunloy Halt, where three armed men had placed a bomb; a second bomb was on the railway track. He assumed command of the operation and quickly defused the bomb on the railway track.

The bomb in the signal box, however, proved more difficult to neutralise as its exact position was not known — and it was suspected that it was booby-trapped. For nearly eight hours Gaff investigated every inch of the site despite the great danger.

Then he noticed a small bump under a piece of linoleum at the bottom of a stairwell in the signal box building. This turned out to be the pressure switch of the booby trap. It was a sensitive device, and Gaff had to place disruptive equipment alongside the pressure switch, knowing that the slightest pressure in the wrong place would detonate the device and result in his being killed or badly injured.

 After the booby trap circuit had been disrupted he found 70lb of explosive charge under the stairs. The successful neutralisation of the bomb, after nearly 15 hours of hazardous work, avoided damage to the signal box and kept open a vitally important railway line.

Gaff was awarded a George Medal, in the words of the citation, “for the outstanding personal courage and devotion to duty which he demonstrated throughout his tour of Northern Ireland in an extremely hazardous and highly technical field of operations”.

Lt-Col John Gaff (centre) briefing the press at HQ Northern Ireland

John Maurice Gaff was born at Guildford on May 27 1927 and educated at the Royal Grammar School in the town. His sense of adventure was evident early on. Aged 10, he used up a week’s pocket money for his first trip in an aeroplane, a 30-minute flight in a De Havilland Dragon Rapide.

When he was in his teens he fashioned a primitive snorkel out of an Army gas mask, tied two bricks around his waist and, with a friend in a ferry boat holding the hose through which he was breathing, walked along the bed of the river Wey.

In 1944 he volunteered to join the Army and, in 1946, after infantry training, was commissioned into the Queen’s Royal Regiment. Shortly after being posted to the 1/6th Battalion in Palestine, he transferred to the Parachute Regiment and joined 9 Parachute Battalion. On the day that his company motored into Haifa, the police station in the town was blown up, just seconds before they passed the building.

His duties included suppressing riots, searching houses for arms, manning vehicle checkpoints and escorting supply columns. He trained as a frogman, and much of his off-duty time was spent helping Royal Navy divers sweep the bottom of vessels for limpet mines while they were in the oiling basin taking on fuel.

Having become interested in explosives, Gaff was appointed weapons training officer. On one occasion he was delivering a message to one of the staff at HQ South Palestine District and had placed the letter on the officer’s desk when the wind from the fan blew it on to the floor.

As he bent down to pick it up, there was a huge explosion as a bomb planted in a stolen Army truck detonated. The officer sitting behind the desk was killed instantly. Gaff, semi-conscious, was carried out on a stretcher. On the way to the hospital, the ambulance was machine-gunned by the same gang.

Lieutenant-Colonel John Gaff

Gaff’s battalion, renamed 8/9 Para Battalion, left Palestine in 1948 after partition and returned to England. He was then posted to the Demonstration & Experimental Company at Netheravon, where one of the tasks was to carry out jump trials on new aircraft. In all he made more than 300 jumps during his tour.

After a posting to RAF Cardington, where he trained parachute territorials in balloon descents, Gaff obtained a regular commission in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and qualified as an Inspecting Ordnance Officer – later designated Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO).

He served at a base ammunition depot at Singapore during the Malaya Emergency, and there was considerable unrest in the Chinese student community at the time. He returned to Britain in 1957 upon his posting to Central Ordnance Depot, Donnington, as Guided Weapons Liaison Officer. A series of home appointments followed, interspersed with postings to Berlin and central Westphalia, BAOR.

In 1974 he was sent to Northern Ireland. Rapid development of equipment and methods of response became essential in the face of constant changes in IRA tactics. Much time and effort was employed in countering car bombs, but the next threat entailed the capture of a driver and his family — the family being held hostage until the driver had done the terrorists’ bidding.

Cars were driven into barracks and drivers ordered to throw away the keys. Gaff countered this by organising the construction of “panic pits” into which the driver could drive and get clear from the car before it exploded.

On one occasion Gaff became stuck in a petrol tanker with an unexploded device, but managed to extricate himself by stripping down to his underclothes and squeezing through the inspection hatch without setting it off. The filming by the BBC of the operational part of the television film The Bomb Disposal Men took place during his tour.

In May 1975, after 31 years’ service, Gaff resigned from the Army and set up a consultancy offering training and equipment for bomb disposal. He carried out bomb risk surveys, trained EOD operators, installed the systems needed and provided a full range of EOD equipment to foreign governments. His work involved extensive travel to Africa, the Middle East and the Far East.

In 1998 he sold the business and became secretary and treasurer of the Gallantry Medallists’ League. He was later elected president, a position he held for six years. He was also treasurer of the local branch of the MS Society and worked as divisional secretary for SSAFA Forces Help.

As a young man Gaff enjoyed sport, particularly gymnastics and rugby; an early passion for bicycles developed into a later one for motorbikes. He qualified as a glider pilot and also went diving whenever possible — he was among the first to dive on the wreck of the Mary Rose. In retirement, music and gardening gave him great pleasure.

John Gaff married, in 1950, Christine Brown, who survives him with their daughter and two sons.

Lt-Col John Gaff, born May 27 1927, died November 28 2013

Hermann Borchers (5 December 1910 – 31 August 1974) was a Sturmbannführer (Storm Unit Leader/Major) in the Waffen SS during World War II. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany during World War II. He was also one of three brothers all awarded the Knight's Cross. Hermann Borchers was born on 5 December 1910, in Wendhausen near Lüneburg. He attended the local elementary school and joined the SA on 1 November 1928.

In 1931 to assist with his language skills in English and French he lived in England and Belgium until 1934. On his return home he volunteered to join the SS-VT in August 1934 (SS number 257.879) and was posted to the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and in March 1935 joined the NSDAP (party number 257.879). Selected to become an officer he was posted to the SS-Junkerschule in Braunschweig in June 1936. After graduation he was transferred to the staff of the Reichsführer-SS in May 1937, and served in the Schutzpolizei in Lübeck being promoted to Leutnant of Schutzpolizei. In May 1938 he was sent to the Police School at Berlin Köpenick. In March 1940 he married Elfriede Lifka and they had a son who was born in December 1940. In February 1941, he was given command of a company in the 26th Polizei Regiment in Norway and assisted in the formation of the Hird Battalion which was formed to guard Russian and Serbian prisoners of war.

In August 1942 he returned to Germany and was assigned to training the police and the SS Motorised Reserve Battalion and remained in that role until February 1943, and the formation of the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen when he was given command of the 1st Company, 19th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, until July 1944, when he took over command of the I.Battalion 19th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment. During the Normandy campaign his battalion was located on the west bank of the River Orne. The battalion attacked and captured the feature 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) east of Saint-Martin. Acting alone the battalion fought off a four hour attack by the British which included the destruction of two tank squadrons. For his success in defending the St Martin's area Borchers was promoted to Hauptsturmführer (Chief Storm Leader/Captain) and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Hermann Borchers survived the war and died on 31 August 1974, in Berlin.

Zanis Butkus (July 29, 1906 – May 15, 1999) was a Latvian Hauptsturmführer (Captain) in the Waffen SS during World War II. Butkus was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Nazi Germany during World War II. Zanis Butkus was born on 29 July 1906, in Augstkalne, Latvia to Fricis and Anna Butkus. After leaving school, he worked on his parents farm. He joined the Latvian Army in 1927 and remained in the military until 1929. Butkus was renowned for his shooting abilities, as he won numerous championships throughout Latvia and the Baltic region. In 1932 he married a Latvian girl, Velta, with whom he had four daughters, Ulla, Inta, Mirdza and Marga. Ulla and Inta emigrated to the United States, while Marga and Mirdza remained in Latvia.

In 1941, after the Red Army's occupation his wife and daughter were deported to Siberia. Butkus joined the partisans to fight against the Soviet forces until the Germans invaded the territory of Latvia. In August 1943 on the Volchov Front, Butkus led an assault team into the Soviet lines and proceeded to capture a string of bunkers, without suffering a single casualty. His force soon returned to the German lines with numerous prisoners and a substantial amount of equipment. Butkus was given a commission on the spot and later having taken part in 59 close combat engagements, Butkus was awarded the Knight's Cross.

He survived the war and died on 15 May 1999 in Palmer, Alaska. The Latvian Legion's attachment to the SS, unit designations and ranks were considered a formality. Latvian and Estonian soldiers regardless of whether they volunteered or were drafted, were not members of the Nazi party. In 1949-50, United States Displaced Persons Commission investigated the Estonian and Latvian "SS" and found these military units to be neither criminal nor Nazi collaborators. On 12 September 1950, Harry N. Rosenfield, the United Nations Refugee Relief Association commissioner, wrote to Jūlijs Feldmanis, Latvia's chargé d'affaires in Washington, saying that «the Waffen-SS units of the Baltic States (the Baltic Legions) are to be seen as units that stood apart and were different from the German SS in terms of goals, ideologies, operations and constitution, and the Commission does not, therefore, consider them to be a movement that is hostile to the government of the United States under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons Act, as amended.»

published 16/03/13 at 23:26 CET

The annual march to honour Latvia’s World War II Waffen SS divisions, part of the armed wing of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, always attracts some criticism.

This year, critics of the commemorative event protested during the event. They believe it distorts history – honouring Nazism and insulting victims of the regime.

But the veterans, now in their 80s and 90s, the men say they were fighting for Latvian freedom and against the return of the Soviet Red Army – which occupied Latvia before the war.

Followed by supporters carrying national flags, they walked through the city to lay flowers at the central Freedom Monument.

Despite the protest, a police spokeswoman said the event passed peacefully. Around 3,000 people took part this year.

published 05/05/2002 at 12:01 AM BST by Daniel Foggo

HUNDREDS of SS veterans who fought for Germany during the Second World War are living quietly in Britain and attending secret reunions to celebrate their time under the Third Reich.

Evidence of the network's existence has been uncovered by The Telegraph following interviews with ex-soldiers from Hitler's elite divisions, many of whom have lived in this country since being brought here as prisoners of war after Germany's defeat in 1945.

SS veterans sing old Nazi songs at the gatherings, which have also been attended by members of the British National Party. At least one BNP member has been given honorary membership of the Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Ehemaligen Soldaten der Waffen-SS (Mutual Aid Association for Soldiers of the Former Waffen-SS), the SS veterans' association.

The existence of SS reunions was confirmed by Werner Volkner, a former corporal with the Totenkopf, or Death's Head division of the SS, part of which guarded the concentration camps. Mr Volkner, 78, said: "We are notified of when the reunions are to happen but the information must be kept secret."

He said that he knew of other veterans in England, Wales and Scotland but refused to give their identities. "The average age of those attending is 83," he said.

Mr Volkner added that the meetings allowed old comrades who had "shared their last crust of bread together during the war" simply to keep in touch and were not used to discuss politics.

The singing of Waffen-SS marching songs was done out of nostalgia, he said. "The texts and words go back to 1700, some of them," he said.

The SS - short for Schutzstaffel, or Protection Force - was formed in 1925 to guard Hitler, and was regarded as the most ruthless and loyal fighting force in the Third Reich.

The Telegraph investigation into former Nazis has established that SS veterans have infiltrated British society to a previously unimagined extent. Mr Volkner actually joined the British Army after the war. He has two sons who have also served in the British forces.

Another former SS member was Janis Lipe, who served in Latvia as a medic with the rank of second lieutenant. After the war his membership of the SS went unnoticed and he worked during the 1950s at the Jewish Home and Hospital in Tottenham High Road, North London.

Mr Lipe later worked as a nursing orderly at a Jewish old people's home in Balham, south London, and became a dental officer for London County Council in 1958. Mr Lipe, who lived in Balham, died in 1992, aged 73.

Documents confirming his true past, which were taken from his home in a house clearance following his death, have only now come to light. Copies of them are in the possession of this newspaper.

The SS reunions are also attended by elements within British neo-Nazi groups. Keith Beaumont, who according to information obtained by this newspaper is a BNP member, attends many reunions of Waffen-SS. Some are held in Britain, although Mr Beaumont denies this.

His close friend, Andy Jones, who owns the Crime Through Time museum in Newent, Gloucestershire and buys Nazi militaria from Mr Beaumont, said: "Keith has definitely been to Waffen-SS reunions in Britain because he has told me."

Mr Beaumont, who says his wife Linda is a Metropolitan police officer, buys and sells Waffen-SS memorabilia. His home in Holland-on-Sea in Essex is adorned with Nazi paraphernalia. His hallway contains a golden bust of Hitler next to a photograph of his wife in her police uniform.

His alsatian dog is called Blondie, after Hitler's German Shepherd. Mr Beaumont told The Telegraph that the Russians built the gas ovens at Auschwitz to make the Nazis look guilty.

He describes David Irving, the Holocaust-denying writer, as "the greatest historian Britain has ever had". Mr Beaumont has attended so many reunions that he has been awarded honorary membership of the SS veterans' association.

"Across Great Britain as a whole there are hundreds of Waffen-SS veterans," he said. Mr Beaumont denied being a current member of the BNP.

The BNP leader, Nick Griffin, said last night: "I have no time for this kind of historical necrophilia. If he is a member then we will be questioning whether he should remain one."

published 05/10/2011 at 18:30 GMT by Hannah Cleaver

German investigators are pursuing hundreds of former Nazi death camp guards around the globe – after the conviction of John Demjanjuk set two important legal precedents.

Kurt Schrimm, head of the Zentrale Stelle, the authority tasked with finding and investigating Nazi crimes, told The Local that the conviction of Demjanjuk in May changed the rules for his investigators in two important ways.

“For decades the framework was different, but the Demjanjuk case showed that German courts could have jurisdiction in a case which had taken place outside of Germany – and that there was no need for the prosecution of individual actions,” he said.

Ukraine-born Demjanjuk, 91, was sentenced to five years in prison by the Munich District Court for helping to murder at least 28,000 people while working as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Poland. After his conviction, he was freed pending appeal.

Schrimm’s colleagues currently scattered around the world are now hoping to unearth other former workers at Nazi death camps, even though the chances of success may be slim.

He said he currently had active investigations in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and is also in contact with the authorities in Bolivia.

The work is not Nazi-hunting as portrayed in Hollywood films, he said. “We are not trying to find Mr X. It is a question of looking at the records in local archives, working with people on the ground to filter out people who arrived from Germany during the late 1940s and 1950s.”

He admitted the chances of securing another conviction were small, but said it was his office’s responsibility to do the research to establish what happened when and who was involved – then the state prosecutor would decide whether the information was sufficient to launch a prosecution.

Although the legal precedents set by the Demjanjuk case could be overturned by a higher court, Schrimm said he was not prepared to wait for the appeals that lawyers said they would launch – his potential targets are too old.

“We cannot wait for the outcome of any appeal, it would take too long and we would lose valuable time. It could take around a year for any appeal to be decided,” he said.

He is being joined in the hunt by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s top man Efraim Zuroff, who told American news wire AP that he would launch a new campaign to raise awareness and try to track down remaining Nazi war criminals.

“It could be a very interesting final chapter,” he told AP. “This has tremendous implications even at this late date.”

In a statement sent to The Local, Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors said, "As our numbers - those of the victims - have also rapidly dwindled, this represents the final opportunity to witness justice carried out in our lifetimes. Time is the enemy here.

"The efforts by prosecutors is a praiseworthy signal that modern Germany is determined to demonstrate its unshakeable commitment to democracy and is a needed lesson for younger Germans far removed from the horrors committed by a previous generation."

The “Great War” claimed nearly 40 million lives and set the stage for World War II,  the Holocaust, and the Cold War.  One hundred years later, historians  are beginning  to recognize how unnecessary it was. In Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!,  acclaimed political  psychologist Richard Ned Lebow examines the chain of events that led to war and what could reasonably have been done differently to avoid it. In this highly original and intellectually challenging book, he constructs plausible worlds, some better, some worse, that might have developed.

He illustrates them with “what-if” biographies of politicians,  scientists, religious leaders, artists, painters, and writers, sports figures, and celebrities, including  scenarios where: there is no Israel; neither John Kennedy  nor Barack Obama become president; Curt Flood, not Jackie Robinson, integrates baseball; Satchmo and many Black jazz musicians leave for Europe, where jazz blends with klezmer; nuclear research is internationalized  and all major countries sign a treaty outlawing the development of atomic weapons; Britain and Germany are entrapped in a Cold War that threatens to go nuclear; and much more.


Pub Date : 07/01/2014
ISBN : 978-1-137-27853-1
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online : Oct. 28th, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue : Nov. 15th, 2013
Author : Richard Ned Lebow