German Army

In an observation tower high above the training fields southwest of Berlin, a former East German officer is barking commands to former West German tanks as they sweep flawlessly through intricate maneuvers. Here in the dust of Brueck, Capt. Axel Winkler is rediscovering his Prussian military roots, helping fashion a unified German army that is one lean but very mean fighting machine. Winkler is one of 9,500 East German officers battling for a place in the new Bundeswehr, or federal army.

Nearly 67 years after coming home from war, Vincent Benedict was overcome with emotion Wednesday when an Army officer presented him with a long-delayed Prisoner of War Medal. "I am not worried about being a POW; I'm worried about the guys who died," Benedict said amid tears during the surprise medal presentation at his Bryn Mawr home, set up by his family with the aid of Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.). Benedict, who will turn 100 on July 4, suffers from some of the infirmities of advanced age. His hearing is poor, and he has problems with short-term memory.

I offer a few remarks regarding the article by Richard Cohen on the March 11 Op-ed Page, "Waldheim has an old excuse. " It is interesting to note the various techniques that Mr. Cohen uses to impute nefarious acts to Mr. Waldheim. Guilt by association is of course the most striking of these. Any officer in the German army during World War II could certainly be accused of the guilty knowledge that Mr. Cohen attributes to Mr. Waldheim. Mr. Cohen draws a very dramatic picture of one scene from the endless atrocities committed by the Nazis during the war - "the expulsion of Jews from Salonika" - but dramatic or not, this says nothing whatsoever about Mr. Waldheim's conduct during the war. The verdict is assumed, and the facts are skewed, so that the writer can get to the central issue: the moral condemnation.

Austrian President Kurt Waldheim said yesterday that he had canceled plans to speak at ceremonies next month marking the 50th anniversary of Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria. The decision was made to ensure that the commemoration "goes smoothly," said Waldheim, who will instead address the nation on television on March 10, the day before the ceremony. Waldheim's decision came after many politicians, economic experts and cultural figures said they would boycott the event if Waldheim spoke at the ceremony.

Those seeking to think outside the multiplex this weekend have two excellent options, one a romanticization of war and the other the reality of conflict. The African Queen (1951), a World War I-era tale, stars Humphrey Bogart as a souse and Katharine Hepburn as a spinster. In this story of implausible love and improbable heroism, the pair wheeze down a river in a leaky launch, fight the occupying German army, and fall for each other. Saturday at Smithbridge Cellars Winery, 159 Beaver Valley Rd., Chadds Ford.

On June 6, 1944, Nikolai A. Tsymbal and his armored regiment were in Belarus, continuing their grueling push to drive the German army from Soviet soil. He remembers the day for two reasons: He was promoted to senior lieutenant, and Soviet radio announced that the Allies had finally opened up a "Second Front" in France. Tsymbal had little time to dwell on the news, however, for the Red Army was on the verge of an offensive that, in terms of casualties inflicted on the Germans, would dwarf the Normandy invasion.

Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim spent World War II in the midst of horrendous crimes, of which he has said: He wasn't in the German army; If you can prove he was in the German army, he wasn't anywhere near the war crimes; If you can prove he was near the war crimes, he didn't know about them. If you can prove he knew about them, he didn't take part in them. After a year of studying Waldheim's war record, the Justice Department finally announced that it was placing him on its "Watch List," which means he cannot enter the United States - unless he wants to visit the United Nations.

As they used to sing on Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the others. " Of the following four recent items, can you find the one that doesn't belong? A new book reveals that in the 1920s Yale University adopted an informal admissions policy that restricted Jewish enrollment to about 10 percent - and the policy remained in force until the early 1960s. The book, Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale, by Dan Oren, was published by Yale University Press.

It was worth it. The fear. The December nights spent huddled together in a freezing barn. The picturesque villages marred by bombs and filled with the stench of death and dying. This weekend, on the 45th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, Ted Schneider remembered all the horrible sights and sounds of that pivotal campaign. And he concluded once again: It was worth it. Schneider, a 71-year-old New Hope councilman and activist, was a 26-year- old American infantryman during that fight to drive the German army out of Belgium and Luxembourg.

CHARLES J. NORBECK was standing in ranks during a lull in fighting in Europe during World War II when the legendary Gen. George Patton approached him. "Where are you from, Soldier?" Patton asked. "Philadelphia, Sir," Charlie replied. "That's the City of Brotherly Love, right?" Patton said. "Well, we're not here to love any brothers; we're here to kill the sons of bitches!" Charlie couldn't have agreed more. As a trooper in Patton's 3rd Army, he fought across Europe from Normandy to Germany, stopping off to rescue the 101st Airborne Division trapped at Bastogne, Belgium, on the way. Charlie, who entered the Army in 1939 and was discharged as a sergeant in 1945, received a Silver Star and other medals, as well as two Purple Hearts for wounds he received.

Nearly 67 years after coming home from war, Vincent Benedict was overcome with emotion Wednesday when an Army officer presented him with a long-delayed Prisoner of War Medal. "I am not worried about being a POW; I'm worried about the guys who died," Benedict said amid tears during the surprise medal presentation at his Bryn Mawr home, set up by his family with the aid of Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.). Benedict, who will turn 100 on July 4, suffers from some of the infirmities of advanced age. His hearing is poor, and he has problems with short-term memory.

CHARLES J. NORBECK was standing in ranks during a lull in fighting in Europe during World War II when the legendary Gen. George Patton approached him. "Where are you from, Soldier?" Patton asked. "Philadelphia, Sir," Charlie replied. "That's the City of Brotherly Love, right?" Patton said. "Well, we're not here to love any brothers; we're here to kill the sons of bitches!" Charlie couldn't have agreed more. As a trooper in Patton's 3rd Army, he fought across Europe from Normandy to Germany, stopping off to rescue the 101st Airborne Division trapped at Bastogne, Belgium, on the way. Charlie, who entered the Army in 1939 and was discharged as a sergeant in 1945, received a Silver Star and other medals, as well as two Purple Hearts for wounds he received.

One wonders what the audience-response cards from test screenings of "Valkyrie" must have been like. "This is a suspenseful thriller, like 'Mission: Impossible,' although I'm not sure how I feel about the mission actually being impossible. This Hitler guy should probably die. " Yes, that would be a crowd-pleaser, but the filmmakers are shackled by the constraints of history. "Valkyrie" tells the true story of a nearly successful attempt to kill Hitler, and director Bryan Singer feels that it's important to include as much historical accuracy as possible, such as making sure that everyone in the German army who is not Tom Cruise is British (no wonder they wanted to kill Hitler)

Military items will be offered at two sales Thursday. Both will feature World War II items, and, since their starting times are different, it should be possible for collectors to attend both. Coincidentally, both sales include items linked to Gen. George Patton's Third Army. Beginning at 9 a.m. in Hatfield, Alderfer Auction Co. will offer more than 300 lots of military collectibles from various countries and periods, though the emphasis is on World War II field gear, such as belts, buckles, canteens, backpacks, coats and binoculars.

William A. Seegers, 106, of Malvern, a retired Linotype operator who fought in the German army during World War I, died of pneumonia July 9 at his daughter's home in Richmond, Calif. Mr. Seegers grew up in Bleicherode, Germany. In 1918, when he was 17, he was drafted into the army. He deserted because of his family's antiwar views, his daughter Virginia Harrison said, but he rejoined the army when he learned that deserters were being hanged. He was honorably discharged in April 1919.

In soft words, an 81-year-old Jewish woman took an auditorium of Lower Merion teenagers back to one of the ugliest episodes of history - and showed them the beauty there. Gerda Weissmann Klein was 15 - the age of many in the audience - when the Nazis invaded Poland. Within a few years, they took her to a work camp and forced her to weave cloth for the German army. By the end of the war, her parents, brother, and most of her friends had been killed. But while her story is painful, her message is one of hope, love and duty.

For some reason - maybe it was a mechanical problem, maybe some traffic ahead - the train stopped at the Soviet-occupied East German border, and the passengers were told to disembark and walk around the tiny village. Paul Werner Heinzel, a former German prisoner of war just released from a U.S. camp in France, took the opportunity to call relatives in a nearby town. What he learned surprised him: His young bride, Brigitte, was not waiting for him on the other side of the border as they had planned.

Those seeking to think outside the multiplex this weekend have two excellent options, one a romanticization of war and the other the reality of conflict. The African Queen (1951), a World War I-era tale, stars Humphrey Bogart as a souse and Katharine Hepburn as a spinster. In this story of implausible love and improbable heroism, the pair wheeze down a river in a leaky launch, fight the occupying German army, and fall for each other. Saturday at Smithbridge Cellars Winery, 159 Beaver Valley Rd., Chadds Ford.

On March 15, 1945, within artillery fire of the front lines, Eddie Steeg stood in a German street on the west bank of the Rhine and said so long to a few Army buddies. And then off he went, on a 30-day furlough, to his home in Camden. He expected to hitch up with them sometime that April, to face what was left of the fading German army, on the other side of the river. Steeg never saw most of them again. Until this weekend. He and nine guys from Illinois to Massachusetts got together at the Ramada Inn in Essington, Delaware County, near Philadelphia International Airport.

As I stood on the overlook here in July, I didn't need the movie Saving Private Ryan to imagine the terror and vulnerability American soldiers felt on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The seven-mile French beachhead in Normandy, part of what is now Omaha Beach, has craggy limestone cliffs 100 feet high. Along the top, the German army had strung huge rolls of barbed wire. The overlook still has the concrete gun emplacements that were trained on the Second Ranger Battalion, called Rudder's Rangers after their commander, Lt. Col. James E. Rudder, as they made their way to the top that dawn.