World War II – October 2019

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World War II veteran Bob Maxwell, America’s oldest Medal of Honor

recipient, died May 11 in Bend, Oregon, at age 98. In fighting at Besançon,

France, on September 7, 1944, Maxwell grabbed a blanket and threw

himself on a live German grenade. He was badly hurt, but the blanket

cushioned the explosion and saved his life. The Medal of Honor citation

noted his “act of instantaneous heroism” that “saved the lives of his

comrades.” After the war, Maxwell taught auto mechanics at community

colleges in Oregon. He once told an interviewer that his actions didn’t

make him a hero: “there was nothing else to do,” he claimed.

GREECE HAS REQUESTED TALKS with Germany regarding Ath-

ens’s claims to more than $300 billion in reparations for German

aggression in World War II.

The Greek foreign ministry formally made the request June 4.

The Greek parliament had overwhelmingly approved the idea of

pursuing the payments in April.

The German government paid Greece 115 million deutschmarks

in reparations in 1960 (approximately $230 million today) and con-

siders the issue long since settled.

In 2016, a Greek parliamentary committee calculated that Ger-

many owed reparations of 292 billion euros ($330 billion) for World

War II and another 9.2 billion euros ($10.4 billion) for World War I.

The Germans—stepping in after an offensive by their fascist ally

GREECE SEEKS BILLIONS

IN WAR REPARATIONS

Italy failed—invaded Greece in April 1941,

drove to Athens, and raised their f lag over the

Acropolis. The Nazis destroyed hundreds of

Greek villages and killed tens of thousands

of Greeks in reprisal for resistance. The Ger-

mans also forced the Bank of Greece to hand

over a big loan in 1942, used in part to finance

their military campaign in North Africa.

Tensions between the two countries f lared

up again in the aftermath of the recent global

financial crisis: Germany led European Union

creditor countries in pushing debt-strapped

Greece into a painful austerity program.

DISPATCHES

Wehrmacht sold iers

raise the swastika

over Athens in 1941.

Greece is asking for

massive compensation

from Germany for

wartime damage.