The rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism — as seen as it was happening, rather than historically — and the end of the Allied Occupation will be the topics for the annual World War II Roundtable fall meetings, according to information from organizers.
The meetings will begin with a film, “Triumph of the Will,” at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 in Room 72 of the science hall at Emporia State University.
The film is touted as a top documentary, according to a news release, and provides a history of the 1934 rally of the Nazi Party in Nuremberg, Germany.
“Released in 1935, the film portrays the Nazi movement, not as history views it today, but as the German people saw it in the midst of the world depression of the 1930s when the Nazi Party seemed to represent the ‘Triumph of the Will,’” the news release explained.
A brief open discussion will follow the film.
On Nov. 5, several presenters will give points of view of three Lyon County servicemen who served through the “occupation years” of 1945 and 1946. After the war ended, the United Nations had faced the occupation of Italy, Germany and Japan.
Because of changes in circumstances since the roundtable was planned, the views of the Lyon County servicemen will be related in their own words by others who will speak on their behalf.
One of the speakers, physician and author Don Coldsmith, died this year, and two others, Jim Stolfus and Dwight Spencer, are physically unable to appear.
Their experiences are part of the Flint Hills Oral History Project Veterans Series in the archives of the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka and the Lyon County Historical Society here. They will be presented by three members of the ESU faculty.
Stolfus’s experiences in Italy with the 448th Port Battalion and later the 115th Military Police, will be given by Loren Pennington, ESU emeritus professor of history.
Germany will be seen through the eyes of Spencer, who was with Company B, 79th Battalion, 16th Armored Division and later the 4th Armored Division; the talk will be given by Christopher Lovett, ESU history professor.
Coldsmith’s experiences in Japan with the 637th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 8th Army, will be presented by Max McCoy, ESU assistant professor of journalism.
All of the roundtable events are free and open to the public.
They are sponsored by the ESU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, ESU Department of Social Sciences, Pi Gamma Mu Social Science Honor Society, Phi Alpha Theta history Honor Society, and the Lyon County Historical Society Archives and Museum.