Martin Blumenson

Martin Blumenson (born November 8, 1918 in New York City , † April 15, 2005 in Washington, DC ) was an American officer ( lieutenant colonel ), military historian and non-fiction author. He was in World War II as a historian of the US Army during the Normandy landings there and biographer of General George S. Patton .

Life

Blumenson was born in New York, grew up in New Jersey in a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants and studied at Bucknell University with a bachelor's degree in 1939 and a master's degree in 1940 and Harvard University with a master's degree in 1942. In his In his youth he played the piano and performed a. a. at Carnegie Hall and various jazz clubs in New York.

He then joined the US Army (1942-1946; again 1950-1957). During the Second World War he was an officer and historian in the 3rd and 7th Army in the European theater of war (France, Germany). From 1948 to 1950 he was an instructor in history at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York. During the Korean War he was a historian with the 9th US Corps and from 1957 to 1967 Senior Historian with the Office of Chief of Military History of the United States Department of the Army , where he worked on the official history of the US Army in World War II (he wrote the volume Breakout and Pursuit about the fighting that followed the Normandy landings that broke up the encirclement and Salerno to Cassino ). In 1967 he was President of the American Military Institute . From 1967 to 1969 he was a Consultant on Domestic Matters in the White House (tenure of President Lyndon B. Johnson ).

From 1969 to 1971 he was Visiting Professor for Military and Strategic Studies at Acadia University (Canada). In 1971 he gave the Harmon Memorial Lecture in Military History at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. From 1971 to 1973 he was the Ernest J. King Chair of History at Naval War College . In 1974/75 he was Mark W. Clark Visiting Professor of History at The Citadel . In 1975/76 he held a visiting professorship ( Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History ) of the Military History Research Collection at the US Army War College Library, then Adjunct Professor. From 1979 to 1983 he was a Professional Lecturer in International Affairs at George Washington University . In 1982 he was visiting professor at Bucknell University. 1983/84 he was Adjunct Professor at the National War College . In 1988 he was the Marie Fisher Distinguished Professor at the University of North Texas . In 1990 he was a Centennial Committee Visiting Professor at the University of Texas at Austin . From 1990 to 1993 he was a member of the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee.

He is best known for his biography of Patton (under which he himself served as a lieutenant).

Blumenson was married to a French woman and had a son.

Patton Diary

Military historian Peter Lieb accused Blumenson of forging a passage in his edition of the Patton Papers because it would portray the American army and Patton in a bad light. In the Battle of the Bulge (battle for the village of Chenogne ) US soldiers of the 11th Panzer Division (B Company of the 21st Motorized Infantry Battalion) murdered 60 to 70 German prisoners of war on January 1, 1945, including some paramedics ( massacre of Chenogne ). They were lined up on the side of the road and shot with machine guns. In the basement of one of the remaining buildings in Chenogne, which was almost completely destroyed in the fierce fighting, was a German field hospital of the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division with wounded, medics marked with red cross bandages and civilians. When they came out of the position to surrender, they were gradually shot, including wounded, a total of 21 men. The mayor of the village reported that two days later he found the 21 men lying in a line. According to an American witness, there was an order not to take prisoners (a few weeks before that there was the Malmedy massacre of US prisoners of war by the Waffen SS). Patton prevented an investigation (there was no official investigation as far as known). In his war diary, Blumenson manipulated the passage where paramedics were mentioned and changed it so that only normal soldiers were mentioned. Originally there was in the entry of January 4, 1945 that the 11th Panzer Division was very inexperienced ( very green ) and had suffered unnecessary losses and murdered over 50 German medics . Blumenson made this in his 1974 edition of the Patton Papers: Unfortunately, there were several shootings of prisoners . Patton's entry is actually wrong as only a part of the mentioned were paramedics.

Awards

1995: Samuel Eliot Morison Prize

Fonts

• Anzio : The gamble that failed , Cooper Square Press 2001
• Bloody River: the real tragedy of the Rapido , Texas A&M University Press 1998 (devastating defeat of the 36th Texas Division when attempting to cross the Rapido River in Italy in 1944)
• The Battle of the Generals: The Untold Story of the Falaise Pocket -The Campaign That Should Have Won World War II , William Morrow 1993
• Breakout and Pursuit , United States Army in World War II: the European Theater of Operations, Center of Military History, US Army, Washington DC 1961, Online
• The Duel for France, 1944: The men and battles that changed the face of Europe , Da Capo 2000
• Kasserine Pass , Cooper Square Press 2000 ( Battle of the Kasserin Pass )
• Masters of the art of command , Houghton Mifflin 1975
• Eisenhower , Ballentine Books 1972
• Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945 , William Morrow 1994
• The Patton Papers: 1940–1945 , Houghton Mifflin, 2 volumes, 1974, Da Capo 1996
• Salerno to Cassino , United States Army in World War II: the European Theater of Operations, Center of Military History, US Army, Washington DC 1969, Online
• Sicily, whose victory? , Ballantine Books 1969
• Mark Clark , New York: Congdon and Weed 1984
• The Vildé Affair: Beginnings of the French Resistance , Houghton Mifflin 1977

literature

• Matt Schudel: WWII Historian, Patton Expert Martin Blumenson Dies . In: The Washington Post , April 17, 2005, p. C11.

Web links

• Search for "Martin Blumenson" in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
• Martin Blumenson in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Steven Ossad, Tribute to a Mentor: Martin Bluemenson (1918–2005)
2. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : US-Massacre of Chenogne - The crime that General Patton wanted to cover up , Welt Online , January 1, 2020.