Civilian casualties are frequently overlooked as a cost of war. Photo credit: Unsplash

War’s Victims

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

At the dawn of the 20th century, many of the world’s nations saw warfare as an acceptable alternative to diplomacy. In the prior three centuries, similarly equipped armies faced each other on clearly defined battlefields to determine the outcome of differences that eluded negotiated settlements. Inevitably these wars led to the deaths of innocent civilians who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes or livelihoods before the battles played out. Over this three hundred-year period, the ratio of civilian to military deaths was roughly 1:1.

World War I involved hostilities on a massive scale, including more than two dozen nations, and introduced the airplane and submarine as weapons of growing strategic importance. Yet by the war’s end in 1918, the number of civilian deaths (10 million) compared with military deaths (9.7 million) maintained the historic ratio.

All of this was about to change, however, as the attack on the passenger ship Athenia foreshadowed at the start of World War II.

With the war less than nine hours old, a Nazi U-boat torpedoed Athenia, leading to the deaths of 112 innocent men, women, and children. By the time World War II ended five-and-a-half years later, civilian deaths totaled approximately 45 million, while military deaths were estimated at 15 million, a 3:1 ratio.

What accounted for the rising civilian toll? The mechanized speed of war meant civilians had little time to escape the onslaught. Battlefields expanded in size and scope to encompass huge populations in Europe and Asia. The populace of large urban centers – London, Tokyo, Berlin, Stalingrad – became targets of aerial bombing campaigns as each side sought to break the will of the other. And ethnic cleansing, particularly in Nazi death camps, killed innocents on an industrial scale.

Civilian encounters with bombs, bullets, and mines weren’t the only reasons for casualties. Many more died because destroyed infrastructure caused interruption of food supplies, leading to malnutrition and starvation. Destruction of local economies wiped out livelihoods and made people homeless and more vulnerable to exposure and disease. The lingering effects of these conditions meant civilians continued to die for months or even years after the shooting stopped.

Sadly, the ratio of civilian to military deaths has only grown worse in the conflicts that have followed World War II.

Nations build monuments to honor and remember their soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice. Yet there are very few monuments to the millions of civilians who die in these same wars. Like the victims of the Athenia tragedy, they are soon forgotten.

But we must not forget them; their deaths are part of the true cost of war and should remind us to see such conflicts only as a last resort.

Joseph Goebbels, chief Nazi propagandist Photo credit: historycrunch.com.

A War of Words, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

In our last blog (July 2, 2021) we began exploring the role social media might have played in spreading disinformation about how the passenger ship Athenia met her fate on the first day of World War II. If the Internet had been available to the Nazis they could have communicated directly with the large base of national socialist sympathizers that existed in Britain, Canada, and America at the start of the war.

The Nazis initially claimed that a floating mine, exploding boiler, or mistaken torpedo from a British submarine were most likely responsible for sinking Athenia. Though easily disproved, these bogus explanations would have sounded plausible to a sympathetic audience protected by algorithms that kept their newsfeeds free of the critical accounts of Western news outlets.

But less than a week after Athenia’s sinking, the Nazi’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, launched an all-out effort to put the blame on Britain’s new First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Goebbels had concocted a story that would have had irresistible appeal for Internet conspiracy theorists. He claimed that Churchill had planted a bomb on board Athenia, timed to explode when the ship would be well out to sea, causing it to sink, kill American passengers, and bring the United States into the war against Germany.

At the time, hardly anyone outside of Germany gave this story any credence. Goebbels embellished the story with subsequent details, but they were easily debunked. Had the Internet been available, he could have distributed his lies directly to a widespread sympathetic audience through like-minded influencers. Such circulation might have allowed the “alternate facts” to take root before authorities could respond with more plausible explanations.

To bolster his story, Goebbels claimed that shipping agents were told not to book German citizens on board for fear they would uncover Churchill’s ruse; that several rescue ships “mysteriously” appeared in the area even though Athenia never sent a distress signal; and that the ship was ultimately sunk by gunfire from British destroyers so that no evidence of Churchill’s scheme would survive. None of the claims were true, but the Internet could have allowed Goebbels to keep the Allies off balance by issuing a new claim as soon as the previous claim was debunked. With claims and counter-claims ricocheting around individuals’ newsfeeds, confusion and skepticism might have seriously undermined the Allies’ early war efforts.

Even without the Internet, the United States, which announced it would remain neutral, refrained from blaming Germany for sinking Athenia in the absence of irrefutable proof. It was a sign of the political strength wielded by isolationists and the German American Bund.

Indeed, the Nazi’s denial of responsibility for the attack on Athenia left the question unanswered until the Nuremberg trials in 1946, when Grand Admiral of the German Navy Karl Dӧnitz confirmed U-30 sank Athenia on the first day of the war.

What if the Nazi's had social media when Athenia was sunk? Photo credit: National Today

A War of Words, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

This month we are going to revisit a subject covered in previous blogs, but from a slightly different angle. The subject is the Nazi’s denial of responsibility for sinking the British passenger ship Athenia on the first day of World War II. The new angle considers what might have occurred if social media had been available in 1939.

To recap, here is what happened Sept. 3, 1939. A young U-boat commander, Fritz-Julius Lemp, torpedoed Athenia just after sunset. Under maritime law, Lemp was required give warning before attacking an unarmed, unescorted merchant ship. To do so, he would have surfaced his U-boat, ordered the ship to stop, and inspected its cargo. If he found contraband cargo, he could sink the ship but only after everyone on board was safely off. 

Lemp gave no warning because he thought he was attacking an “armed merchant cruiser,” a legitimate wartime target. When he later discovered his mistake, Lemp left the scene without reporting his attack to his headquarters. As a result, Nazi officials were caught by surprise the next morning when news reports of the U-boat attack on a passenger ship began circulating. They immediately denied any responsibility for the sinking. British, American, and Canadian press reported the German denial along with skeptical reactions from Western government officials. 

Had social media been available to the Nazi’s they could have sent their message directly to their followers in the West without the skepticism of Western officials. Likewise, they could have directly communicated their explanation that a floating mine or exploding boiler likely sank Athenia.

The next day, Sept. 5, eye-witness accounts from rescued Athenia passengers arriving in Scotland and Ireland told of seeing a submarine immediately after the torpedo explosion. Social media could have allowed the Nazis to communicate directly with followers in the West that the submarine was likely British and that it had attacked Athenia by mistake. 

By now, Germany’s claims on social media and conflicting Western mass media accounts might well have caused confusion over what actually happened to Athenia. And that confusion might have been enough to blunt Britain’s efforts to turn world opinion against the Nazi’s.

Our next blog will explore how social media could have helped spread the Nazi’s biggest lie about Athenia.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announces England is at war with Germany, Sept. 3, 1939. Photo credit: Operation Meatball

How Europe Stumbled into WWII, Part 4

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

With Germany’s invasion of Poland on Friday, Sept. 1, 1939 (see blog, April 4, 2021), another major European war seemed unavoidable.  Indeed, sentiment in England now appeared resigned to war: Get on with it, and get it over. While in Germany, many thought England would not allow itself to be drawn into a simple border dispute between the Germans and the Poles.

That Friday afternoon, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with one of the fiercest critics of his appeasement policy toward the Nazis. He offered Winston Churchill a position in a small bi-partisan cabinet Chamberlain was forming to conduct the war. Churchill immediately accepted.

Early that evening, Chamberlain addressed the House of Commons to tell the members that the Government had delivered a stern warning to the German Foreign Minister in Berlin that if the Nazis use force, Britain was resolved to oppose them with force. The Prime Minister then reviewed the many steps his Government had taken to preserve peace. He blamed Hitler for the “terrible catastrophe” Europe now faced, and said England must enter the struggle it so earnestly had endeavored to avoid, “with determination to see it through to the end.”

But Chamberlain ended his talk without any declaration of war or explanation of what steps the Government might be taking to honor its agreement to protect Poland.

Saturday, Sept. 2, saw continued attacks by the German Army in Poland and the bombing of Polish cities, but no action taken by England or France. In an afternoon Cabinet meeting, Chamberlain described a proposal by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to hold talks to resolve the Polish crisis, and noted that German forces would have to withdraw from Poland before there could be any such talks. He also told the Cabinet members that France wanted another 48 hours to complete military mobilizations before delivering any ultimatum to Germany. The British military, Chamberlain said, opposed any such delay. Several Cabinet members said they believed that any ultimatum should expire at the stroke of midnight.

Chamberlain again addressed Parliament Saturday evening. To the distress of many members, the Prime Minister spoke less than five minutes and seemed to indicate that His Majesty’s Government would take no action if Germany promised to withdraw its forces from Poland and enter into talks with the Poles to resolve “the matters between them.”

As soon as Parliament adjourned that evening, key Cabinet members met with the Prime Minister in private and told him he must act now or risk losing their support and that of the British public. Chamberlain was surprised that his brief address had sounded like a capitulation and promised to act immediately.

That night he drafted an ultimatum that was cabled to the British Ambassador in Berlin to be delivered Sunday morning, Sept. 3, to the German Government. The message said that unless German forces ceased all action in Poland by noon, Berlin time, that same day, a state of war would exist between Britain and Germany.

The Sunday deadline in Berlin passed without any word from the German Government.

Fifteen minutes later, at 11:15 a.m. London time, Chamberlain went on the radio to announce to his countrymen and to the world that for the second time in the 20th century, England was at war with Germany.

The Second World War had begun.

How Europe Stumbled into WWII, Part 3

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

Throughout the summer of 1939, tensions in Europe steadily increased. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s language grew more bellicose each time he addressed Poland’s refusal to turn over the port city of Danzig to Nazi control, or allow a permanent land connection through Poland between Germany and East Prussia (see blog Feb. 3, 2021).

England and France had agreements with Poland to come to the aid of the Poles should Germany attack. In an effort to further discourage the Nazi regime from attacking Poland, an Anglo-French delegation sought a military alliance with the Soviet Union. But in late August, 1939, Germany announced the signing of a non-aggression pact with the Soviets. The pact meant the Russians would not join an alliance with France and Britain.

Announcement of the non-aggression pact prompted British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to send a letter to Hitler, warning that England would honor its commitment to Poland. Hitler dismissed Chamberlain’s warning and replied that while he would like England and Germany remain on peaceful terms, Germany would rather have war now than in another five to ten years’ time.

As August drew to a close, military mobilizations were ordered in Germany, England, and France. German soldiers massed along the border with Poland. In England, museums closed and began to shift their collections to safe storage places. Blackout preparations went into effect in major British cities. And everywhere in Europe, Americans and Canadians scrambled for passage on any ship leaving for anywhere in North America. Despite the ominous signs, many in Europe held out hope that war could be averted. People placed their hopes on possible peace conferences being proposed by the Pope and by Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini.

Between August 28 and 30, messages flew back and forth between Chamberlain and Hitler. Chamberlain insisted that in any negotiations between Germany and Poland, the interests of the Poles must be safeguarded. Hitler responded that any negotiations would have to take place in Berlin in less than 24 hours, and the Polish representative would need full negotiating powers.

In the early morning hours of August 31, Hitler issued sixteen new proposals any Polish negotiators would have to consider by the end of the day. Poland did not send negotiators to Berlin and did not respond to the new demands.

The next morning, Friday, Sept. 1, 1939, Europe woke up to the news that German military units had begun to invade Poland.

In our next blog: England’s confusing responses to the crisis.

And don’t forget to visit our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign with new videos about our documentary film, Athenia’s Last Voyage, at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/athenia-s-last-voyage-documentary/x/24232459?create_edit=true#/

Cody Ottinger

From Page to Screen, Part 3

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

I’m pausing our chronicle of the beginning of World War II to return to my periodic subject of bringing Athenia’s story to a wider audience. One of the principal reasons I wrote my novel, “Without Warning,” and started blogging four years ago was to make more people aware of this long-forgotten tragedy. Many who read the book encouraged me to make a film about it, and that has brought us to this point.

A documentary film about Athenia has a chance to reach more people, especially because the story is so compelling. The passengers aboard Athenia were ordinary people like you and me. But when faced with the possibility of dying on a sinking ship, they calmly helped each other into lifeboats to escape. You can’t help but be inspired by their selfless actions – stepping aside to let others board a lifeboat before them, diving into cold Atlantic waters to save loved ones, and even returning to the sinking ship to rescue one last person minutes before Athenia slipped beneath the sea.

To tell the story effectively requires compelling images to accompany the recollections of the nine survivors we interviewed. The images we need – historic photos, newsreel footage, filmed re-enactments, and animation – can be costly. That is why later this month we will launch a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to help secure images needed for “Athenia’s Last Voyage.”

It is a simple, straightforward way to raise the funds we need to keep our effort moving forward while we apply for filmmaking grants. The 30-day campaign will feature numerous videos with members of our production crew and some of the survivors featured in our documentary. Like many crowdfunding campaigns, ours will offer a variety of premiums for different levels of contributions. For example, donating a $50 or more will allow you to be listed in our film’s end credits.

Finally, the campaign will place our project in front of a broader public for the first time. It will be an opportunity to gauge the level of public interest in and enthusiasm for “Athenia’s Last Voyage,” and will tell us if we taking the right approach with our story.

If you are interested in helping us out with a donation, here is the link;
Athenia’s Last Voyage: Documentary

Map shows Germany's systematic occupation of Czechoslovakia, 1938-39. Credit: Pinterest

How Europe Stumbled into WWII, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

When the Munich Agreement allowed Nazi troops to occupy the Sudetenland inside Czechoslovakia (see blog Jan. 5, 2021), it also turned over to the Nazis all that country’s defensive positions guarding against a German attack.

Six months later, March 15, 1939, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler informed the Czech president that German soldiers were marching out of the Sudetenland to occupy nearly half of the country. He said this was necessary to “restore order” in the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, which included the Czechoslovak capital of Prague. If his troops met with any resistance, Hitler warned, German air forces would bomb the capital. The president had no choice but to tell his defenseless countrymen not to oppose the German occupation, and Bohemia and Moravia became a German protectorate.
Germany’s actions clearly violated the Munich Agreement. In London, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said he bitterly regretted Germany’s actions but added he would not be deterred from, “our policy of appeasement.”
Parliament and the public quickly condemned Chamberlain’s words and the continued policy of appeasement. The reaction caught the Prime Minister by surprise. To record Britain’s displeasure with the German coup, Chamberlain recalled the British ambassador from Berlin.
But within days of Germany’s occupation of Prague, a new crisis loomed. A large number of German-speaking people in the Free City of Danzig, a major port on the Baltic Sea, began calling for annexation by Germany. The Free City was administered by Poland, an otherwise landlocked nation in Eastern Europe that connected with Danzig via a long neck of land known as The Polish Corridor. The corridor also separated Germany from her ethnic cousins in East Prussia.
Hitler began demanding that Germany take control of Danzig and be given permanent access to East Prussia through the Polish Corridor. Hoping to discourage Hitler, Chamberlain’s Government announced plans to double the size of Britain’s Army and reached an agreement to aid Poland if the Poles were to be attacked “by a European power.” By early April, France reached its own agreement to aid Poland in the event of a third party attack.
The sudden turn of events in Eastern Europe rehabilitated the political fortunes of Winston Churchill. For the last ten years, Churchill had been a Conservative member of parliament, but had not held any leadership positions in Chamberlain’s Government. In his writings and speeches, however, Churchill had kept up a steady drumbeat of warnings about Hitler’s intentions and the dangers of appeasement.

Despite the accuracy of his warnings and his unquestioned organizational and rhetorical abilities, Churchill was quietly rebuffed when he inquired about the possibility of serving in any capacity in Chamberlain’s Government.

After six more tension-filled months, fortune would deal a final blow to appeasement and bring Churchill back into the Prime Minister’s government.

More in our next blog.

Young girls welcome German troops in Vienna, Austria. Photo credit: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

How Europe Stumbled into WWII, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

In the wake of WWI, England and France gradually adopted a policy of “appeasement” toward the defeated Central Powers of Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The policy grew out of several factors, including an aversion to war due to the horrible losses suffered in “The Great War;” the grave danger future wars would present to civilian populations; and the harsh treaty conditions imposed on the losing nations that crippled their economies, causing widespread poverty and social unrest.
In March of 1936, when Germany’s Nazi government sent 3,000 troops into the Rhineland, an area of Germany that had been demilitarized under treaty conditions, France and England took no action. Though a few politicians in both countries expressed alarm at Hitler’s actions, they understood their general populations – not to mention their treasuries – would not support military mobilizations.
These attitudes remained largely unchanged two years later when the Nazis annexed Austria. Then in the spring and summer of 1938, a new crisis began building on Germany’s border with Czechoslovakia, a country carved out of Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire following the First World War.
The north, west, and southern border areas within Czechoslovakia contained a concentration of German-speaking people. The area was known as the Sudetenland. Its inhabitants were often at odds with the policies of the Czech government in Prague and agitated to become part of Germany. Hitler gladly took up their cause and soon began to threaten military intervention to protect the Sudeten Germans from persecution. In response, Czechoslovakia vowed to fight any German incursion. The dark clouds of war were rapidly building, and in late September Hitler gave the Czechs until 2 p.m. Sept. 28, to cede the Sudetenland to Germany or suffer the consequences.
Under these grim circumstances, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew off to Munich for eleventh-hour negotiations with the German chancellor and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier. Representatives of the Czechoslovak government were not invited to the talks. In the end, all parties agreed to allow Nazi troops to occupy the Sudetenland as a means of protecting the local populace and avoiding a border war. The president of Czechoslovakia had no choice but to agree to the arrangement.
War had been avoided and Chamberlain flew back to a hero’s welcome in London, famously waving the signed agreement and proclaiming they had secured “peace in our time.” He announced Hitler had pledged his word that Germany would have no further territorial demands.
There was, however, one loud and consistent voice in London that criticized the agreement and appeasement in general. His unstinting comments were making Winston Churchill a pariah in his own party. Hitler, he claimed, could not be trusted. In a few short months, Churchill would be proven right and eventually welcomed back from his political “wilderness.”
More in our next blog.

Movie-making is an expensive proposition Photo credit: The Washington Post

From Page to Screen, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

It’s time to check back in on the progress of our documentary film, “Athenia’s Last Voyage,” about the sinking of a British passenger ship on the first day of World War II. Since our update early last summer, we’ve completed the film’s script, created a poster and refined our “sizzle reel.”
A sizzle reel is one of many movie-making terms of art that have entered our lexicon. It’s a six- to eight-minute film that helps people see what our documentary is about and how the story will be told, and it is used primarily for raising money (see below).
We are at a crossroads familiar to almost all filmmakers, a junction we never really thought about when we started our project. Simply put, we will need to raise some serious money to complete “Athenia’s Last Voyage.”
For example, we need to search out and acquire the rights to use historic still photos and film clips to bring to life the pre-war era at the end of the 1930’s. These images don’t come cheap. The still photos and film clips that will occupy a third or more of our hour-long documentary could easily cost up to $60,000.
And there are plenty of other expenses. We are also going to need to film reenactments of key scenes, complete animations of ships and several maps, hire a narrator and record the movie’s narration, create and record music and sound effects, and hire an experienced documentary film editor to complete our production. More expenditures are no doubt lurking in the shadows.
So where do we go from here?
We have hired a line producer – Lisa Bruhn. Kay and I had no idea how critical, helpful and encouraging Lisa would prove to be. In a nutshell, the line producer keeps track of the money, develops a realistic budget, handles the accounting and generally makes sure all the financial t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted. Just as Meghan Courtney, our director, is key to the look and feel of the final film, Lisa is key to tracking all the funding, costs, and payouts needed to bring that vision to fruition.
To raise the money for our documentary, we are seeking film-making grants from foundations. Sadly, this pool is shrinking because of Covid-19 concerns. We are encouraging donations and looking for investors through our website: www.atheniaslastvoyage.com, and next spring we will launch a crowdfunding campaign.
So, if you have friends who are interested in World War II and might want to help bring this forgotten story to light, or if you know someone who is looking to invest in an inspiring story of heroism and heartbreak, please direct them to our website. No offer of help is too small.
I thought the most demanding part of making “Athenia’s Last Voyage” would be getting the interviews and writing a script. Now that it is clear the real work has just begun, we are determined as ever to meet these newest demands and tell the story of Athenia’s survivors.

Liberty Ship construction stages Photo credit: Rare Historical Photos.

Battle of the Atlantic, Part 4

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

When the United States established a Maritime Commission to oversee the modernization of its fleet of merchant ships during World War II, it did so with typical American gusto. By September, 1941, the country began turning out mass-produced freighters known as “Liberty Ships.”
The first ship was named the “S.S. Patrick Henry” and when she was launched by President Franklin Roosevelt, he recalled the Revolutionary War hero’s quote, “Give me liberty or give me death.” These ships, Roosevelt said, would bring liberty to Europe. His promise became the identity of the entire class of ships.
Eighteen shipyards in the U.S. began turning out Liberty Ships. Each ship was made up of some 250,000 standardized parts made in locations across the country. These parts were fabricated into 250-ton sections that were delivered to the shipyards and welded together to produce a serviceable vessel capable of carrying up to 10,000 tons of cargo at a top speed of 11 knots. Pre-fabrication and assembly-line techniques allowed the original 230-day construction schedule to be reduced to an average of 42 days. By 1943, the shipyards as a group were turning out three ships a day.
After Patrick Henry, the initial ships were named after the signers of the Declaration of Independence and other famous Americans. Later in the war, any group that could raise $2 million in war bonds could propose a name. Usually it was the name of a deceased person, but not always. The New York City USO Club (a club for military personnel) proved so adept at raising funds that two ships were named in honor of the organization: “S.S. Stage Door Canteen” and “S.S. USO.”
Liberty Ships were affectionately dubbed “ugly ducklings” by Time Magazine, but they were certainly not sitting ducks. Each ship was armed with a stern-mounted 4-inch deck gun and several anti-aircraft guns. The weapons were manned by U.S. Navy personnel, while members of the ship’s civilian 44-man crew were trained to replace injured servicemen if necessary.
In September, 1942, the “S.S. Stephen Hopkins” engaged in a one-on-one gun battle with the German commerce raider “Stier.” Although the Hopkins was badly damaged, she became the first American ship to sink a German surface warship.
By 1943, the United States was turning our more cargo ships than could be sunk by German U-boats, helping to keep up a steady delivery of wartime supplies and raw materials to the British Isles and the Soviet Union. The tide of the Battle of the Atlantic had turned in the Allies’ favor, fulfilling President Roosevelt’s prophecy.