THE BATTLE FOR MAGDEBURG — Karel Margry describes how Magdeburg, located on the Elbe river in central Germany, was one of the last big German cities to be captured by the American army before the German capitulation. The battle began on April 17, 1945, and involved two American divisions, which assaulted the city in a concentric attack from three directions. Opposition proved stiffer than expected and it took two days of difficult street-fighting to reduce the city. JU 52 Crashes at Heraklion — Yannis Prekatsounakis reveals how he has identified the crash details of two Junkers Ju 52 aircraft made famous in a cine sequence of the first paratroopers dropping west of Heraklion airfield on May 20, 1941, the first day of the German airborne invasion of Crete. Führerhauptquartier ‘Wolfsschlucht 3’ — When Hitler met Maréchal Philippe Pétain, the head of the Vichy government of France, at Montoire-sur-le-Loir in October 1940, the organisers of the diplomatic tour chose a useful shelter for the Führer’s special train at a railway tunnel at Saint-Rimay, four kilometres to the north-east. Two years later this same tunnel became the site of Führerhauptquartier ‘Wolfsschlucht 3’, the westernmost of Hitler’s headquarters. Jean Paul Pallud tells the story.
