Remembering The Ritchie Boys

The Ritchie Boys was a US military intelligence unit were Jews that had fled Germany and Austria from the Nazis to America and joined the US Army.

Trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland they were trained in intelligence, counter-intelligence, interrogation, investigation and psychological warfare. Speaking fluent German and understanding German culture, they were very valuable in providing timely intelligence to the Allies.

Detroit Free Press: 70 years after D-Day: West Bloomfield man remembers how he fled Nazis, then helped defeat them

Stern was one of what came to be known as the Ritchie Boys — German Jews who had fled the Nazis to America and returned to Europe with the U.S. military. Their fluency in German and understanding of cultures and customs helped them provide intelligence to U.S. commanders.

At Camp Ritchie, he spent two months of grueling training, learning close combat, aerial maps, interrogation techniques, Morse code, terrain intelligence and other skills.

Mr. Stern, the Ritchie Boy featured in the article had the job of interrogating German POWs to gain actionable intelligence and did his job very well indeed.

After the war, he sadly learned that his parents and siblings, who had not be able to flee Germany, were killed by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland.

The Ritchie Boys made an important and little-known contribution to the Allied victory in World War 2.

 An interesting documentary movie about these men, The Ritchie Boys and it is well worth watching.