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Nancy Kassebaum

Nancy Josephine Kassebaum Baker (born July 29, 1932 ) is an American politician from Kansas who served as a member of the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997. She is the daughter of Alf Landon, who was Governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937 and the 1936 Republican nominee for president, and the widow of former U.S. senator and diplomat Howard Baker.

With her victory in the 1978 U.S. Senate election in Kansas, Kassebaum entered the national spotlight as the only woman in the U.S. Senate, and as the first woman to represent Kansas. She was also the first woman ever elected to a full term in the Senate without her husband having previously served in Congress.

In her three terms in the Senate, Kassebaum demonstrated a political independence that made her a key figure in building bi-partisan coalitions in foreign affairs and domestic policy. As chair of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, she played a limited role in legislation to sanction the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. The legislation which was enacted in 1986, over a presidential veto, was drafted by Senators Lugar, Roth, McConnell, and Dole, although later in life, Kassebaum claimed credit for it. As chair of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, she led the fight for major health care reforms that, for the first time, assured health insurance coverage for people changing jobs with pre-existing medical conditions.

Early life and education
Nancy Josephine Baker was born in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Kansas First Lady Theo (née Cobb) and Governor Alf Landon. She attended Topeka High School, and graduated in 1950. She graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1954, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, and where she met her first husband, John Philip Kassebaum. They were married in 1955. In 1956, she received a master's degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan. They settled in Maize, Kansas, where they raised four children.

She worked as vice president of Kassebaum Communications, a family-owned company that operated several radio stations. Kassebaum also served on the Maize School Board. In 1975, she and Philip were legally separated; their divorce became final in March 1979. Kassebaum worked in Washington, D. C., as a caseworker for Senator James B. Pearson of Kansas in 1975, but returned to Kansas the following year.

Elections
In late 1977, Senator Pearson announced he would not seek re-election to a third full term. The unexpected announcement of a rare open seat immediately drew a flood of candidates into the 1978 Republican primary, including two highly respected state senators, three successful businessmen, three others, and Nancy Kassebaum.

At the time that she entered the race, Kassebaum was legally separated from her husband, Philip, but not yet divorced. She chose to use the name Nancy Landon Kassebaum, to capitalize on her father's political reputation in the state. She defeated eight other Republicans in the 1978 primary elections to replace retiring Republican James B. Pearson, and then defeated former Democratic representative William R. Roy (who narrowly lost a previous election bid to Kansas's junior senator, Bob Dole, in 1974) in the general election. For the rest of her political career, she was primarily known as Nancy Kassebaum. She was re-elected to her Senate seat in 1984 and 1990, but did not seek re-election in 1996.

Key issues
From the start of her Senate tenure, Kassebaum defied stereotypes, voting moderate to liberal on most social issues, but conservative on federal spending and government mandates. She helped lead an unsuccessful bi-partisan effort to curb soaring federal deficits in the early years of the Reagan administration. But she developed a reputation as a centrist broker, with significant impact on key issues in both foreign policy and domestic affairs. Kassebaum is known for her health care legislation, known as the Kennedy-Kassebaum Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was co-sponsored by U.S. senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts, a Democrat. She was also active in foreign policy. She expressed strong support of anti-apartheid measures against South Africa in the 1980s.

Foreign relations
In 1981, Kassebaum became chair of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, and entered the growing controversy surrounding the policy of apartheid — racial segregation and discrimination — in South Africa. She issued a public call for President Reagan and other Republicans to toughen U.S. policy toward the white minority government in Pretoria.

Although President Reagan condemned apartheid, he strongly opposed economic sanctions, despite growing pressure from Congress, including Kassebaum and senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To break the impasse, the two senators joined key Democrats in supporting targeted sanctions against the South African government, setting specific anti-apartheid goals and conditions, including a demand that South Africa release African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela from prison.

The bi-partisan legislation, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, passed the House and Senate by overwhelming margins, but was then vetoed by President Reagan, forcing Kassebaum and Lugar into a major battle against the president and leadership of their own party. On September 29, 1986, the House voted 315-to-84 to override Reagan's veto. The Senate followed suit three days later, and, on a 78-to-21 vote, passed the bi-partisan sanctions bill into law.

In March 1982, Kassebaum headed a U.S. delegation to observe national elections in El Salvador, where the U.S.-backed military junta was battling leftist guerrillas, while being unable to control human rights abuses by government forces and far-right paramilitary groups. The heavy turnout on Election Day convinced Kassebaum that the leftists lacked popular support.

Kassebaum became a key member of bi-partisan efforts to support the Salvadoran government with economic and military aid, while pressuring the government on human rights, land reforms, and more effective steps to prevent a guerrilla victory. She repeatedly urged the Reagan administration to set a clear policy for a political solution  to the civil war, while avoiding deeper U.S. military involvement in the region.

Domestic policy
When Republicans won control of Congress in the 1994 elections, Kassebaum became chair of the Senate Labor Committee, with broad jurisdiction over federal domestic policy. One of her first actions was to introduce health insurance reform legislation, co-sponsored by the committee's senior Democrat, Sen. Ted Kennedy. The bill focused on helping some 25 million workers get, and keep, health insurance coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions, even when changing, or losing, a job.

In a year of heated debate, Kassebaum found herself at times opposing amendments from fellow Republicans, including her Kansas colleague, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and pressuring Kennedy and Democrats to reach compromises. As a result, House and Senate conferees ultimately settled on a final version of the legislation, known as the Kassebaum-Kennedy Act, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in both houses, and was signed into law by President Clinton, on August 21, 1996.

In her last months in the Senate, Kassebaum also won passage of a new law preserving a beautiful tract of Kansas tallgrass prairie in the national park system. After more than 50 years of controversy, the idea of a Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve became a reality just two months before Kassebaum left office. The new preserve covers 10,876 acres in the heart of the Flint Hills, with its native limestone house, barn and school. Under Kassebaum's bill, signed into law by President Clinton, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is the only NPS unit dedicated to preserving and providing public access to untamed tallgrass prairie that once covered more than 400,000 square miles of the American heartland.

Other issues
Early in her career, Kassebaum was tapped to serve as Temporary Chairman of the 1980 Republican National Convention. Presiding over the first two days of the convention, her appointment to that role was seen by many as a nod from the Reagan campaign to the moderate and liberal wings of the party. In 1991, Kassebaum was mentioned by Time magazine as a possible running mate for President George H. W. Bush if Vice President Dan Quayle was not the Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 1992 United States presidential election.

Kassebaum voted for the successful Supreme Court nominations of Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer. She voted for the nomination of Robert Bork, which was rejected by the Senate. Kassebaum later expressed regret for voting to confirm Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1991, expressing disappointment in his performance. The year after the hearings, she noted, "I was never once asked by anyone at the White House or by any of my colleagues about how I reacted to Anita Hill's public allegations of sexual harassment, or how I thought the allegations should be handled."

Kassebaum voted against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed Congress and the states to ban or restrict abortions.

Kassebaum voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to override President Reagan's veto).

Prior to completing her third term, on December 7, 1996, Kassebaum married former U.S. Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, who retired from the U.S. Senate after serving three terms in 1985, and included terms as both majority and minority leader.

Post-political career
Kassebaum was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1996.

After leaving the Senate, Kassebaum served on the Board of Trustees for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation. She was Chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the George C. Marshall Foundation and the American-Turkish Council. Senator Kassebaum also served on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on US-China Relations, the African Law Institute Council-ABA, and the International Medical Corps.

Kassebaum remained active on issues such as campaign finance reform. She served on the Americans for Campaign Reform Advisory Committee, and in 1997 President Clinton asked Kassebaum and former Vice President Walter Mondale “to assist in the cause of bipartisan campaign finance reform.” Their work resulted in recommendations to revamp campaign finance laws that was delivered to Congress in October.

In 2000, Kassebaum was appointed as Co-Chair of The Presidential Appointee Initiative Advisory Board, a Brookings Institution commission that delivered reform recommendations to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

From 2001 to 2005, Senator Baker served as the United States Ambassador to Japan and Kassebaum accompanied him to Japan, living in Tokyo during this time. Kassebaum was recognized for her work with Baker in Japan, including organizing a regional conference in Tokyo to combat human trafficking in Asia in 2004.

Kassebaum is an Advisory Board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. She is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

She is a noted critic of former President Donald Trump. In 2018, she, alongside other incumbent and former Republican politicians, endorsed Laura Kelly, the Democratic candidate and eventual victor, in the 2018 Kansas gubernatorial election. She also endorsed Kelly's successful reelection in 2022. Kassebaum also endorsed Republican-turned-Democrat Barbara Bollier for the 2020 Senate election in Kansas over her Republican opponent Roger Marshall. In 2014, Kassebaum expressed support for same-sex marriage.

Awards
Kassebaum was awarded an honorary doctorate from Kansas State University in 2015.[new citation] Kansas State University also offers the Kassebaum Scholarship, to recognize students who aspire to careers in public service, and up to five students receive this award annually. Her ties to Kansas State University date from 1966, when the Landon Lecture Series on Public Issues was inaugurated as a tribute to her father, former Kansas Gov. Alfred Landon. Her four children are also Kansas State University alumni.

Kassebaum was honored by the Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas as Distinguished Kansas in 1978, and she received it Citation for Distinguished Statesmanship in 2000.

In 1985, Kassebaum received the Distinguished Service Citation from her alma mater, University of Kansas.

In 1996, she was awarded American Library Association Honorary Membership.

Personal life
In 1955, Kassebaum married John Philip Kassebaum, and they had four children. They separated in 1975, and divorced in March 1979.

She then married former U.S. Senator and Diplomat Howard Baker of Tennessee on December 7, 1996. After leaving Tokyo in 2005 at the end of his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, they split time between his home in Huntsville, Tennessee, and her home in Burdick, Kansas. Baker died on June 26, 2014.

Her son, William Kassebaum, is a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives. Her other son, filmmaker Richard Kassebaum, died of a brain tumor August 27, 2008, at the age of 47.

title: Nancy Kassebaum


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Margaret Livingston

Margaret Livingston (born Marguerite Livingston; November 25, 1895 – December 13, 1984), sometimes credited as Marguerite Livingstone or Margaret Livingstone, was an American film actress and businesswoman during the silent film era. She is remembered today as "the Woman from the City" in F. W. Murnau's 1927 film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

Early life
Livingston was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to John Livingston, a Scottish immigrant, and Eda Livingston (née Frome), who was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She was raised in Salt Lake City along with her older sister, Ivy, who also became a film actress.

Career
The young Livingston made her debut in films in 1916. She made over 50 films during the "silent era," most notably in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and a further 20 films after she successfully made the transition to sound film in 1929, including Smart Money starring Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. She occasionally dubbed voices for some other actresses, including Louise Brooks for The Canary Murder Case (1929). Livingston was a guest on William Randolph Hearst's yacht the Oneida during the weekend in November 1924 with film director and producer Thomas Ince, who later died of heart failure. In the Peter Bogdanovich film The Cat's Meow (2001), Livingston, played by Claudia Harrison, is depicted as having an affair with Ince at the time of his death.

Later life
On August 18, 1931, Livingston married the band leader Paul Whiteman in a ceremony in Denver, Colorado. She retired from film acting in 1934. Livingston was unable to have children, and adopted four with her husband. She spent the remainder of her life investing in oil ventures and real estate, and was a partner in the construction of the Colonial House in West Hollywood, California.

Death
Livingston died in Warrington, Pennsylvania on December 13, 1984, at age 89.

Filmography

 * The Chain Invisible (1916) as Elizabeth King
 * Alimony (1917) as Florence (as Marguerite Livingston)
 * Within the Cup (1918) as Minor Role
 * The Busher (1919) (uncredited)
 * All Wrong (1919) as Ethel Goodwin (as Marguerite Livingston)
 * Haunting Shadows (1919) as Marian Deveraux (as Marguerite Livingston)
 * What's Your Husband Doing? (1920) as Madge Mitchell
 * Water, Water, Everywhere (1920) as Martha Beecher
 * Hairpins (1920) as Effie Wainwright
 * The Brute Master (1920) as The Native 'Taupou'
 * The Parish Priest (1920) as Agnnes Cassidy
 * Lying Lips (1921) as Lelia Dodson
 * The Home Stretch (1921) as Molly
 * Colorado Pluck (1921) as Angela Featherstone
 * Passing Through (1921) as Louise Kingston
 * Eden and Return (1921) as Connie Demarest
 * The Social Buccaneer (1923) as Princess Elise
 * Divorce (1923) as Gloria Gayne
 * Love's Whirlpool (1924) as A Maid
 * Wandering Husbands (1924) as Marilyn Foster
 * Her Marriage Vow (1924) as Estelle Winslow
 * Butterfly (1924) as Violet Van De Wort
 * The Chorus Lady (1924) as Patricia O'Brien
 * The First Year (1926) as Mrs. Barstow
 * Capital Punishment (1925) as Mona Caldwell
 * Up the Ladder (1925) as Helen Newhall
 * I'll Show You the Town (1925) as Lucille Pemberton
 * Greater Than a Crown (1925) as Molly Montrose
 * The Wheel (1925) as Elsie Dixon
 * Havoc (1925) as Violet Deering
 * After Marriage (1925) as Alma Lathrop
 * The Best People (1925) as Millie Montgomery
 * When the Door Opened (1925) as Mrs. Grenfal
 * Wages for Wives (1925) as Carol Bixby
 * The Yankee Señor (1926) as Flora
 * Hell's Four Hundred (1926) as Evelyn Vance
 * A Trip to Chinatown (1926) as Alicia Cuyer
 * The Blue Eagle (1926) as Mrs. Mary Rohan
 * Womanpower (1926) as Dot
 * Breed of the Sea (1926) as Marietta Rawdon
 * Slaves of Beauty (1927) as Goldie
 * Secret Studio (1927) as Nina Clark
 * Lightning (1927) as Dot Deal / Little Eva
 * Married Alive (1927) as Amy Duxbury
 * The Girl from Gay Paree (1927) as Gertie
 * Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) as The Woman from the City
 * American Beauty (1927) as Mrs. Gillespie
 * Streets of Shanghai (1927) as Sadie
 * A Woman's Way (1928) as Liane
 * Mad Hour (1928) as Maid
 * The Scarlet Dove (1928) as Olga
 * Wheel of Chance (1928) as Josie Drew
 * The Way of the Strong (1928) as Marie
 * Say It With Sables (1928) as Irene Gordon
 * Through the Breakers (1928) as Diane Garrett
 * Beware of Bachelors (1928) as Miss Pfeffer, the vamp
 * His Private Life (1928) as Yvette Bérgere
 * The Apache (1928) as Sonya
 * The Last Warning (1929) as Evalynda Hendon
 * Dreary House (1928) as Nancy Crowl
 * The Bellamy Trial (1929) as Mimi Bellamy
 * The Canary Murder Case (1929, voice only, dubbed dialogue for Louise Brooks) as Margaret Odell (uncredited)
 * The Office Scandal (1929) as Lillian Tracy
 * The Charlatan (1929) as Florence Talbot
 * Innocents of Paris (1929) as Madame Renard
 * The Girl Who Wouldn't Wait (1929) as Judy Judd
 * Tonight at Twelve (1929) as Nan Stoddard
 * Acquitted (1929) as Marian Smith
 * Seven Keys to Baldpate (1929) as Myra Thornhill
 * Murder on the Roof (1930) as Marcia
 * For the Love o' Lil (1930) as Eleanor Cartwright
 * What a Widow! (1930) as Valli
 * Big Money (1930) as Mae
 * The Lady Refuses (1931) as Berthine Waller
 * Kiki (1931) as Paulette Vaile
 * God's Gift to Women (1931) as Tania Donaliff
 * Smart Money (1931) as District Attorney's girl
 * Broadminded (1931) as Mabel Robinson
 * Call Her Savage (1932) as Molly
 * Social Register (1934) as Gloria (final film role)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Margaret Livingston


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Margaret Livingstone

Margaret Stratford Livingstone is the Takeda Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School in the field of visual perception. She authored the book Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing. She was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.

Education and career
Livingstone was born in Virginia, started college at Duke University and then transferred to Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she received her undergraduate degree in 1972. In 1981 she earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Following her Ph.D. she worked as a visiting fellow at Princeton University and then was a postdoctoral fellow under David H. Hubel at Harvard University. In 1983 she became an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and in 1988 she was promoted to professor, and in 2014 she was named the Takeda Professor of Neurobiology.

Research
Livingstone's early research was on neurons that respond to serotonin, which she conducted by using lobsters as a model organism. She went on to examine the visual responses in cats, monkeys, and how primates sense color. Her research provides insight into how mammals perceive form and movement, the physiological details leading to dsylexia, and the region of the brain used to identify faces.

Allegations of animal cruelty
In 2022, following Livingston's election as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, she published an inaugural article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled Triggers for Mother Love, in which she described the reactions of monkey mothers to being given a stuffed toy after the removal of their baby. This drew attention to her research on vision with monkey infants, which included suturing the eyelids of two monkeys shut.

In response, a group of over 250 scientists sent a letter to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to request retraction of the article. PETA also asked for retraction of the article, and asked that Livingston's work be defunded. In a response statement, Harvard Medical School defended the value of Livingston's work.

Awards and honors
In 2011, the Society for Neuroscience awarded Livingstone the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2020 she was elected to the United States' National Academy of Sciences.

title: Margaret Livingstone


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1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom)

The 1st Airborne Division was an airborne infantry division of the British Army during the Second World War. The division was formed in late 1941 during the Second World War, after the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, demanded an airborne force, and was initially under command of Major-General Frederick A. M. "Boy" Browning. The division was one of two airborne divisions raised by the British Army during the war, with the other being the 6th Airborne Division, created in May 1943, using former units of the 1st Airborne Division.

The division's first two missions—Operation Biting, a parachute landing in France, and Operation Freshman, a glider mission in Norway—were both raids. Part of the division was sent to North Africa at the end of 1942, where it fought in an infantry role during the Tunisian campaign over the next few weeks, and when the Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943, the division undertook two brigade sized landings. The first, Operation Ladbroke, carried out by glider infantry of the 1st Airlanding Brigade and the second, Operation Fustian, by the 1st Parachute Brigade, were far from completely successful. The 1st Airborne Division then took part in a mostly diversionary amphibious landing, codenamed Operation Slapstick, as part of the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943.

In December, most of the 1st Airborne Division (minus the 2nd Parachute Brigade, left behind in Italy) returned to England, and began training and preparing for the Allied invasion of Normandy. It was not involved in the Normandy landings in June 1944, being held in reserve. In September 1944 the 1st Airborne took part in Operation Market Garden. The division, with the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade temporarily attached, landed 60 mi behind German lines, to capture crossings on the River Rhine, and fought in the Battle of Arnhem. After failing to achieve its objectives, the division was surrounded and took very heavy casualties, but held out for nine days before the survivors were evacuated.

The remnants of the 1st Airborne Division returned to England soon after. The division never fully recovered from their losses at Arnhem and the 4th Parachute Brigade was disbanded. Just after the end of the war in Europe, the depleted formation took part in Operation Doomsday in Norway in May 1945. They were tasked with the disarmament and repatriation of the German occupation army. The 1st Airborne Division then returned to England and was disbanded in November 1945.

Background

Inspired by the success of German airborne operations during the Battle of France, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill directed the War Office to investigate the possibility of creating a force of 5,000 parachute troops. As a result, on 22 June 1940, No. 2 Commando assumed parachute duties, and on 21 November was re-designated the 11th Special Air Service Battalion, with a parachute and glider wing.

On 21 June 1940 the Central Landing Establishment was formed at Ringway airfield near Manchester. Although tasked primarily with training parachute troops, it was also directed to investigate the use of gliders to transport troops into battle. At the same time, the Ministry of Aircraft Production contracted General Aircraft Ltd to design and produce a glider for this purpose. The result was the General Aircraft Hotspur, which was capable of transporting eight soldiers and was used for both assault and training purposes.

The success of the first British airborne raid, Operation Colossus, prompted the War Office to expand the airborne force through the creation of the Parachute Regiment, and to develop plans to convert several infantry battalions into parachute and glider battalions. On 31 May 1941, a joint army and air force memorandum was approved by the Chiefs-of-Staff and Winston Churchill; it recommended that the British airborne forces should consist of two parachute brigades, one based in England and the other in the Middle East, and that a glider force of 10,000 men should be created.

Formation history
The existing 11th Special Air Service Battalion was renamed the 1st Parachute Battalion and, together with the newly raised 2nd and 3rd Parachute Battalions, formed the first of the new airborne formations, the 1st Parachute Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Richard Nelson Gale, who would later command the 6th Airborne Division from 1943 to 1944. The 2nd and 3rd Parachute Battalions were formed from volunteers, between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-two, who were already serving in infantry units. Only ten men from any one unit were allowed to volunteer.

In October 1941, Brigadier Frederick Arthur Montague "Boy" Browning was promoted to major general, named the Commander Parachute and Airborne Troops, and ordered to form a headquarters to develop and train airborne forces. The next unit formed was the 1st Airlanding Brigade on 10 October 1941, by the conversion of the mountain warfare trained 31st Independent Infantry Brigade Group, commanded by Brigadier George Frederick "Hoppy" Hopkinson, later to command the division. The brigade comprised four battalions: the 1st Border Regiment, 2nd South Staffordshire Regiment, 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, and the 1st Royal Ulster Rifles. The men who were unsuitable for airborne forces were replaced by volunteers from other units. By the end of the year Browning's command had become the headquarters of 1st Airborne Division.

Browning expressed his opinion that the force must not be sacrificed in "penny packets", and urged the formation of a third brigade. Permission was finally granted in July 1942, and the 2nd Parachute Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Ernest Down, who would later succeed Hopkinson in command of the division, was formed. The 2nd Parachute Brigade was assigned the existing 4th Parachute Battalion, and two new battalions converted from line infantry units, the 5th (Scottish) Parachute Battalion, converted from the 7th Battalion, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, and the 6th (Royal Welch) Parachute Battalion, from the 10th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers.

The 3rd Parachute Brigade was formed in November 1942 and assigned to the 1st Airborne Division. The brigade, under Brigadier Alexander Stanier, comprised the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion, previously the 10th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, the 8th (Midlands) Parachute Battalion, converted from the 13th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and the 9th (Eastern and Home Counties) Parachute Battalion, formerly the 10th Battalion, Essex Regiment. Soon afterwards, the 1st Parachute Brigade left the division, to take part in Operation Torch, codename for the Allied landings in French North Africa, and ended up participating in numerous operations in North Africa, although fighting in an infantry role.

In April 1943, the commander of the 1st Airlanding Brigade, Hopkinson, was promoted to major general and given command of the division in succession to Browning. Later that year, the division was deployed to Tunisia for operations in the Mediterranean theatre. The 3rd Parachute Brigade and two battalions from the 1st Airlanding Brigade—the 1st Ulster Rifles and 2nd Ox and Bucks—remained behind in England, forming the nucleus of the newly raised 6th Airborne Division. On arrival, the 1st Airborne Division was reinforced by the 4th Parachute Brigade. The 4th Parachute Brigade had been formed in the Middle East during 1942. In addition to the 156th Parachute Battalion, which had been raised from British troops stationed in India, it comprised the 10th and 11th Parachute Battalions, which had been raised from troops based in Egypt and Palestine.

The division took part in two brigade sized operations in Sicily, and an amphibious assault at Taranto in Italy. During the fighting in Italy, Major General Ernest Down became the divisional commander, after his predecessor, Major General Hopkinson, died of wounds received in the fighting. After brief service in Italy, the division returned to England in December 1943, leaving the 2nd Parachute Brigade behind as an independent formation.

1944–1945
After the division arrived in England, Down was posted to India to oversee the formation of the 44th Indian Airborne Division, and was replaced by Major General Roy Urquhart. In September 1944, for Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade was attached to the division. Following Market Garden, fewer than 2,200 men from the 10,000 that were sent to the Netherlands returned to the British lines.

Having suffered such severe casualties, the 4th Parachute Brigade was disbanded, with its surviving men being posted to the 1st Parachute Brigade. The division then went through a period of reorganisation, but had still not fully recovered by the end of the war, due to the acute shortage of manpower throughout the British Army in 1944–1945. Still under strength in May 1945 when the war in Europe ended, it was sent to Norway to disarm the German army of occupation; returning to Britain in November 1945 where the 1st Airborne Division was disbanded.

France
Operation Biting, also known as the Bruneval Raid, was the codename for a raid by Combined Operations in 1942. Their objective was a German Würzburg radar installation at Bruneval in France. Due to the extensive coastal defences erected by the Germans to protect the array, it was thought a commando raid from the sea would incur heavy losses, and give the garrison sufficient time for the radar equipment to be destroyed. It was therefore decided that an airborne assault followed by sea-borne evacuation would be the ideal way to surprise the garrison and seize the technology intact.

On the night of 27 February, 'C' Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion, under the command of Major John Frost, parachuted into France a few miles from the installation. The force then proceeded to assault the villa in which the radar equipment was kept, killing several members of the German garrison and capturing the installation after a brief fire-fight. A technician that had come with the force partially dismantled the Würzburg radar array and removed several key pieces to take back to Britain; the raiding force then retreated to the evacuation beach. The detachment assigned to clear the beach had failed to do so, however, and another brief fire-fight was required to eliminate the Germans guarding the beach. The raiding force was then picked up by a small number of landing craft and transferred to several Motor Gun Boats which brought them back to Britain. The raid was entirely successful. The airborne troops suffered only a few casualties, and the pieces of the radar they brought back, along with a German radar technician, allowed British scientists to understand German advances in radar and to create counter-measures to neutralise those advances.

Norway
Operation Freshman was the first British airborne operation conducted using gliders, its target was the Vemork Norsk Hydro chemical plant in Norway, which produced heavy water for Nazi Germany. By 1942 the German atomic weapons programme had come close to being able to develop a nuclear reactor, but in order for the reactor to function it would require a great deal of heavy water. The source of this water was the Norsk Hydro plant, which had been occupied in 1940; when the British government learned of the German nuclear developments, it was decided that a raid would be launched to destroy the plant and deny the Germans the heavy water. Several tactics were discussed and discarded as impractical, and it was finally decided that a small force from the 1st Airborne Division, comprising 30 sappers from 9 Field Company RE (Airborne), Royal Engineers, would land by glider a short distance from the plant, and demolish it with explosives.

Two aircraft, each towing one glider, left Scotland on the night of 19 November 1942. All managed to reach the Norwegian coast, but none were able to reach their objective. The first pair suffered from navigational difficulties and severe weather, which resulted in the tow rope snapping and the first glider crash-landing, with its towing aircraft returning to base; eight airborne troops were killed outright, four were severely injured and five unhurt. The survivors were captured shortly after the crash. The second pair fared even worse, with both aircraft and glider crashing into a mountain for unknown reasons; the aircrew and several men were killed outright, and those who survived were taken prisoner. None of the prisoners survived for very long, being either poisoned or executed as a result of Adolf Hitler's Commando Order, which stated that all British Commandos personnel were to be killed immediately when captured.

Sicily
Operation Turkey Buzzard, also known as Operation Beggar, was a supply mission to North Africa that took place between March and August 1943. The mission was undertaken by the division's glider pilots and No. 295 Squadron Royal Air Force, as part of the preparations for the Allied invasion of Sicily.

The mission involved Halifax bombers towing Horsa gliders 3200 mi from England to Tunisia. The Horsas were needed to complement the smaller American Waco gliders, which did not have the capacity required for the planned operations. During the mission two German Condor patrol aircraft located and shot down a Halifax-and-Horsa combination. Altogether five Horsas and three Halifaxes were lost, but 27 Horsas arrived in Tunisia in time to participate in the invasion of Sicily.

Operation Ladbroke was a glider assault by the 1st Airlanding Brigade near Syracuse, that began on 9 July 1943 as part of the invasion of Sicily. The brigade were equipped with 144 Waco and six Horsa gliders. Their objective was to land near the town of Syracuse, secure the Ponte Grande Bridge, and ultimately take control of the city itself with its strategically important docks.

On the way to Sicily, 65 gliders were released too early by the towing aircraft and crashed into the sea, drowning around 252 men. Of the remainder, only 87 men arrived at the Pont Grande Bridge, which they successfully captured and held beyond the time they were to be relieved. Finally, with their ammunition expended and only 15 soldiers remaining unwounded, they surrendered to the Italian forces. The Italians sought to demolish the bridge after regaining control of it, but were unable to do so because the airborne forces had removed the explosive charges. Other troops from the airlanding brigade, who had landed elsewhere in Sicily, destroyed communications links and captured artillery batteries.

Operation Fustian, the division's second mission in Sicily, was carried out by the 1st Parachute Brigade. Their objective was the Primosole Bridge across the Simeto River. The intention was for the parachute brigade, with glider-borne forces in support, to land on both sides of the river. While one battalion seized the bridge, the other two battalions would establish defensive positions to the north and south. They would then hold the bridge until relieved by the advance of XIII Corps, part of the Eighth Army which had landed on the southeastern coast three days previously.

The start of the operation was a disaster. Many of the aircraft carrying the paratroopers from North Africa were shot down, or were damaged and turned back, due to both friendly fire and enemy action. The evasive action taken by the pilots scattered the brigade over a large area, and only the equivalent of two companies of troops were landed in the correct locations. Despite this and the defence by German and Italian forces, the British paratroops captured the bridge. Resisting attacks from the north and south, they held out against increasing odds until nightfall.

The relieving force led by the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, which was short of transport, found it hard going to reach the parachute brigade and were still 1 mi away when they halted for the night. By this time, with casualties mounting and supplies running short, the brigade commander, Brigadier Gerald Lathbury, had relinquished control of the bridge to the Germans. The following day the British units joined forces, and the 9th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry with armour support attempted to recapture the bridge. It was not finally secured until three days after the start of the operation, when another battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, led by the paratroopers, established a bridgehead on the northern bank of the river.

Italy
Operation Slapstick was an amphibious landing at the Italian port of Taranto, part of the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943. The mission had been planned at short notice, following an offer by the Italian government to open the ports of Taranto and Brindisi on the heel of Italy to the Allies. The 1st Airborne Division was selected to undertake the mission, but at the time they were located in North Africa. A shortage of transport aircraft meant the division could not land by parachute and glider, and all the landing craft in the area were already allocated to the other landings: Operation Avalanche at Salerno on the western coast, and Operation Baytown at Calabria. Instead, the division had to be transported across the Mediterranean by ships of the Royal Navy. The landing was unopposed, and the airborne division successfully captured the ports of Taranto, and later Brindisi on the Adriatic coast, in working order.

The only German forces in the area were elements of the German 1st Parachute Division, which engaged the advancing British in ambushes and at roadblocks during a fighting withdrawal north. By the end of September, the 1st Airborne Division had advanced 125 mi to Foggia. Reinforcements from two infantry divisions, the 8th Indian and British 78th, had by then been landed behind them, which allowed the airborne troops to be withdrawn back to Taranto. Despite casualties for the 1st Airborne Division in Italy being relatively light, the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major-General George Hopkinson, was killed while watching an assault by the 10th Parachute Battalion where he was mortally wounded by a burst of machine gun fire. He was replaced by Brigadier Ernest E. Down, previously the commander of 2nd Parachute Brigade.

England
By December 1943 the division had returned to England and begun training for operations in North-West Europe under the supervision of I Airborne Corps. Although the 1st Airborne Division was not scheduled to take part in the Normandy landings, a contingency plan, Operation Wasteage, was drawn up whereby the division would be parachuted in to support any of the five invasion beaches if serious delays were experienced. This plan turned out not to be required.

While the 6th Airborne Division were still fighting in Normandy, numerous plans to parachute the 1st Airborne Division into France were formulated, all to no avail. In June and July 1944, the plans included Operation Reinforcement, which was a landing to the west of St Sauveur-le-Vicomte to support the US 82nd Airborne Division, and Operation Wild Oats that would have seen the division land south of Caen to meet the advancing 7th Armoured Division moving from Villers-Bocage and the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division and 4th Armoured Brigade advancing south out of the Orne bridgehead in a move to encircle and capture Caen. Such an airborne operation was vetoed by Trafford Leigh-Mallory, as being too risky for the aircraft involved. At any rate, the land portion of the attack (generally considered to be part of Operation Perch) bogged down due to German resistance and the delayed deployment of troops to Normandy. There was also Operation Beneficiary, intended to support the American XX Corps in capturing St Malo, and Operation Lucky Strike which had the objective of seizing bridges across the River Seine at Rouen. In Operation Sword Hilt, the division was to isolate the port of Brest and destroy the Morlaix viaduct. Operation Hands Up was intended to support the US Third Army by seizing the Vannes airfield.

By August the division was still waiting to be deployed, but now plans envisioned using them as part of a larger force. Operation Transfigure involved the division, the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, the US 101st Airborne Division, and the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade landing at Rambouillet St Arnoult, to close the gap between Orléans and Paris. Operation Axehead, using the same force, was to seize the bridges over the River Seine in support of 21st Army Group. Operation Boxer, with the same force, was to seize Boulogne and assault V1 flying bomb sites. Near the end of the month, Operation Linnet, with the same units as before, was formulated to seize crossings over the Escaut. Operation Infatuate, drawn up in early September, involved the entire I Airborne Corps landing in Belgium to trap the retreating German armies in the Scheldt estuary, as well as aiming to threaten Antwerp.

Finally, in September, there was Operation Comet, in which the division's three brigades were to land in the Netherlands and each capture a river crossing. The first of these was the bridge over the River Waal at Nijmegen, the second the bridge over the River Maas at Grave, and the last was the bridge over the River Rhine at Arnhem. Planning for Comet was well advanced when on 10 September the mission was cancelled. Instead, a new operation was proposed with the same objectives as Comet but to be carried out by three divisions of the First Allied Airborne Army.

Arnhem
Operation Market Garden was an airborne assault by three divisions in the Netherlands in September 1944, including the British 1st and the American 82nd and 101st, to secure key bridges and towns along the expected Allied axis of advance. Farthest north, 1st Airborne, supported by the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade, landed at Arnhem to secure bridges across the Nederrijn. Initially expecting an easy advance, XXX Corps, under Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks, to reach the airborne force at Arnhem within two to three days.

1st Airborne landed some distance from its objectives and was quickly hampered by unexpected resistance, especially from elements of the 9th SS and 10th SS panzer divisions. Only a small force was able to reach the Arnhem road bridge, while the main body of the division was halted on the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, XXX Corps was unable to advance north as quickly as anticipated and failed to relieve the airborne troops. After four days, the small British force at the bridge was overwhelmed and the rest of the division became trapped in a pocket north of the river, where they could not be sufficiently reinforced by the Poles, or by XXX Corps when it arrived on the southern bank. After nine days of fighting, the shattered remains of the airborne forces were eventually withdrawn south of the Rhine. 1st Airborne lost 8,000 men during the battle and never saw combat again.

Norway post-war
In May 1945, immediately after the Allied Victory in Europe Day, the 1st Airborne Division was sent to disarm and repatriate the 350,000-strong German occupation army in Norway. The division maintained law and order until the arrival of the occupation force, Force 134. During its time in Norway, the division was tasked with supervising the surrender of the German forces in Norway, as well as preventing the sabotage of important military and civilian facilities.

The German Instrument of Surrender was delivered on 8 May to General Franz Böhme, the commander of all German forces stationed in Norway; the 1st Airborne Division landed near Oslo and Stavanger between 9 and 11 May. Most of the transport aircraft carrying the division landed safely, but one crash caused several fatalities. The division encountered little of the expected German resistance. Operational duties included welcoming back King Haakon, looking after Allied ex-prisoners of war, arresting war criminals and supervising the clearing of minefields. While in Norway, the division was also able to investigate what happened to the airborne troops that had taken part in Operation Freshman. The division returned to Britain, and was disbanded on 26 August 1945.

Order of battle
The division had the following composition:

Commanders
Commanders of the division included;

 * 1943—1944 Major General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague Browning GCVO KBE CB DSO
 * 1944—1945 Major General Robert Elliott Urquhart CB DSO

Units

 * 1st Parachute Brigade
 * 1st Airlanding Brigade
 * 2nd Parachute Brigade
 * 3rd Parachute Brigade
 * 4th Parachute Brigade
 * Divisional troops
 * Divisional headquarters and signal squadron
 * 1st Airlanding Light Regiment, Royal Artillery
 * 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery
 * 204th (Oban) Independent Anti-Tank Battery (later 2nd Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery)
 * 1st Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery
 * 5th Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery
 * 283rd Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Battery (later 1st (City of London Yeomanry) Airlanding LAA Battery) (left 21 February 1944)
 * 1st Forward (Airborne) Observation Unit, Royal Artillery
 * 21st Independent Parachute Company, Army Air Corps
 * 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron
 * 9th (Airborne) Field Company, Royal Engineers
 * 261st (Airborne) Field Park Company, Royal Engineers
 * 591st (Antrim) Airborne Squadron, Royal Engineers (from 1 June 1945)
 * 250th (Airborne) Light Company, Royal Army Service Corps
 * 93rd Company, Royal Army Service Corps
 * Detachment Ordnance Field Park
 * Detachment, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Workshop
 * 89th Field Security Section, Intelligence Corps
 * 1st Airborne Division, Provost Company, Royal Military Police

title: 1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom)


text:
Soursop

Soursop (also called graviola, guyabano, and in Latin America guanábana) is the fruit of Annona muricata, a broadleaf, flowering, evergreen tree. It is native to the tropical regions of the Americas and the Caribbean and is widely propagated. It is in the same genus, Annona, as cherimoya and is in the Annonaceae family.

The soursop is adapted to areas of high humidity and relatively warm winters; temperatures below 5 °C will cause damage to leaves and small branches, and temperatures below 3 °C can be fatal. The fruit becomes dry and is no longer good for concentrate.

With an aroma similar to pineapple, the flavor of the fruit has been described as a combination of strawberries and apple with sour citrus flavor notes, contrasting with an underlying thick creamy texture reminiscent of banana.

Soursop is widely promoted (sometimes as graviola) as an alternative cancer treatment, but there is no reliable medical evidence that it is effective for treating cancer or any disease.

Annona muricata
Annona muricata is a species of the genus Annona of the custard apple tree family, Annonaceae, which has edible fruit. The fruit is usually called soursop due to its slightly acidic taste when ripe. Annona muricata is native to the Caribbean and Central America but is now widely cultivated – and in some areas, becoming invasive – in tropical and subtropical climates throughout the world, such as India.

The A. muricata fruit is generally called guanábana in Hispanic America, and the tree is a guanábano. Both tree and fruit were called in some parts of Venezuela, but that word is currently less commonly used.

Annona muricata is also the main host plant for tailed jay (Graphium agamemnon) caterpillars. They eat the leaves voraciously and usually stick under the leaves to pupate.

Botanical description

Annona muricata is a small, upright, evergreen tree that can grow to about 30 ft tall.

Its young branches are hairy. Leaves are oblong to oval, 8 cm to 16 cm long and 3 cm to 7 cm wide. They are a glossy dark green with no hairs above, and paler and minutely hairy to no hairs below. The leaf stalks are 4 mm to 13 mm long and without hairs.

Flower stalks (peduncles) are 2 mm to 5 mm long and woody. They appear opposite from the leaves or as an extra from near the leaf stalk, each with one or two flowers, occasionally a third. Stalks for the individual flowers (pedicels) are stout and woody, minutely hairy to hairless and 15 mm to 20 mm with small bractlets nearer to the base which are densely hairy.

The petals are thick and yellowish. Outer petals meet at the edges without overlapping and are broadly ovate, 2.8 cm to 3.3 cm by 2.1 cm to 2.5 cm, tapering to a point with a heart shaped base. They are evenly thick, and are covered with long, slender, soft hairs externally and matted finely with soft hairs within. Inner petals are oval shaped and overlap. They measure roughly 2.5 cm to 2.8 cm by 2 cm, and are sharply angled and tapering at the base. Margins are comparatively thin, with fine matted soft hairs on both sides. The receptacle is conical and hairy. The stamens are 4.5 mm long and narrowly wedge-shaped. The connective-tip terminate abruptly and anther hollows are unequal. Sepals are quite thick and do not overlap. Carpels are linear and basally growing from one base. The ovaries are covered with dense reddish brown hairs, 1-ovuled, style short and stigma truncate. Its pollen is shed as permanent tetrads.

The fruits are dark green and prickly. They are ovoid and can be up to 30 cm long, with a moderately firm texture. Their flesh is juicy, acidic, whitish and aromatic.

Distribution
Annona muricata is tolerant of poor soil and prefers lowland areas between the altitudes of 0 to 1200 m. It cannot stand frost. The exact origin is unknown; it is native to the tropical regions of the Americas and is widely propagated. It is an introduced species on all temperate continents, especially in subtropical regions.

Cultivation
The plant is grown for its 20 - 30 cm long, prickly, green fruit, which can have a mass of up to 15 lb, making it probably the second biggest annona after the junglesop. Away from its native area, some limited production occurs as far north as southern Florida within USDA Zone 10; however, these are mostly garden plantings for local consumption. It is also grown in parts of China and Southeast Asia and is abundant on the Island of Mauritius. The main suppliers of the fruit are Mexico followed by Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Haiti. To aid soursop breeders and stimulate further development of genomic resources for this globally important plant family, the complete genome for Annona muricata was sequenced in 2021.

Culinary
The flesh of the fruit consists of an edible, white pulp, some fiber, and a core of indigestible black seeds. The pulp is also used to make fruit nectar, smoothies, fruit juice drinks, as well as candies, sorbets, and ice cream flavorings. Due to the fruit's widespread cultivation, its derivative products are consumed in many countries, such as Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and Fiji. The seeds are normally left in the preparation, and removed while consuming, unless a blender is used for processing.

Soursop is also a common ingredient for making fresh fruit juices that are sold by street food vendors. In Indonesia, the fruit is commonly called sirsak and sometimes made into dodol sirsak, a sweet which is made by boiling the soursop pulp in water and adding sugar until the mixture caramelizes and hardens. In the Philippines, it is called guyabano, derived from the Spanish guanábana, and is eaten ripe, or used to make juices, smoothies, or ice cream. Sometimes, the leaf is used in tenderizing meat. In Vietnam, this fruit is called mãng cầu Xiêm (Siamese soursop) in the south, or mãng cầu (soursop) in the north, and is used to make smoothies, or eaten as is. In Cambodia, this fruit is called tearb barung, literally "western custard-apple fruit". In Malaysia, it is known in Malay as durian belanda ("Dutch durian") and in East Malaysia, specifically among the Dusun people of Sabah, it is locally known as lampun. Popularly, it is eaten raw when it ripens, or used as one of the ingredients in ais kacang or ais batu campur. Usually the fruits are taken from the tree when they mature and left to ripen in a dark corner, whereafter they will be eaten when they are fully ripe. It has a white flower with a very pleasing scent, especially in the morning. While for people in Brunei Darussalam this fruit is popularly known as "durian salat", widely available and easily planted.

Soursop leaves are sold and consumed in Indonesia as herbal medicine. The leaves are usually boiled to make tea.

Subspecies as synonyms

 * Annona muricata var. borinquensis

Nutrition
Raw soursop is 81% water, 17% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and has negligible fat (see table). In a 100 gram reference amount, the raw fruit supplies 276 kJ of food energy, and contains only vitamin C as a significant amount (25%) of the daily value, with no other micronutrients in appreciable amounts (table).

Phytochemicals
The compound annonacin is contained in the fruit, seeds, and leaves of soursop. The leaves of Annona muricata contain annonamine, which is an aporphine-class alkaloid containing a quaternary ammonium group. The plant also contains lichexanthone, a compound in the xanthone class.

Potential neurotoxicity
The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center cautions, "alkaloids extracted from graviola may cause neuronal dysfunction". Annonacin has been shown in laboratory research to be neurotoxic. In 2010, the French food safety agency, Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des produits de santé, concluded that "it is not possible to confirm that the observed cases of atypical Parkinson syndrome ... are linked to the consumption of Annona muricata".

False cancer treatment claims
In 2008, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States stated that use of soursop to treat cancer was "bogus", and there was "no credible scientific evidence" that the extract of soursop sold by Bioque Technologies "can prevent, cure, or treat cancer of any kind." Also in 2008, a UK court case relating to the sale of Triamazon, a soursop product, resulted in the criminal conviction of a man under the terms of the UK Cancer Act for offering to treat people for cancer. A spokesman for the council that instigated the action stated, "it is as important now as it ever was that people are protected from those peddling unproven products with spurious claims as to their effects."

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Cancer Research UK state that cancer treatment using soursop is not supported by reliable clinical evidence. According to Cancer Research UK, "Many sites on the internet advertise and promote graviola capsules as a cancer cure, but none of them are supported by any reputable scientific cancer organizations" and "there is no evidence to show that graviola works as a cure for cancer".

title: Soursop


text:
Talk:Heck cattle

POV Issues
I consider the econd link not to be neutal to the subject. Just have a look at the cover of the book Aikhenbaum et al. published and you see the propagandistic aim of this book. Just the fact thst the Zubr is called a "POLISH species" says much about the neutrality of this link! How can an animal species, once widepread throughout Europe be polish? Anyway, read what the dutch say about Heck Cattle and it's role for the environment, and you will learn more about Heck Cattle than in the second link. Thre is much literature about Heck Cattle in other languages, but because americans don't botther to learn foreign languages all this information will be out of reach for you. You may mock about the Eurpoean enviromentalism and go on to destroy our own last untouched areas. One day, I hope, you will learn. 145.254.191.26 19:45, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

This article could need some POV work.

1) This page seems to be very critical towards categorising the Heck cattle as "Aurochs". Fact is, cattle are one and the same species as Aurochs, so why is calling Heck cattle "aurochs" so bad and wrong? There is a similar project trying to recreate the Quagga. Their logic is that if you breed specimens of related subspecies that look like the quagga, you'll arrive at a quagga. Please, if the categorization is so erroneous give genetic evidence why the Heck cattle can't be called aurochs.

2)The article also seems to consider the Nazi background as VERY important. I doubt that many Heck cattle, and many of its breeders are active in the national socialist party. Wiglaf

 * The Aurochs is extinct. You consider the aurochs ande the cow as being the same species. They may be, but they are different subspecies at least. As such you may breed an animal that has the same exterior, but it is not the same animal. An animal is more than just an exterior. As to "genetic evidence" you ask for a bit much, please provide science with genetic material of the aurochs and it will prove you wrong.

 * As to the Nazi link, it is part of the story. As such it belongs in an encyclopedia. Historic info is not to say that present day breeders are Nazi's. The same logic would make all present day landowners in Louisiana slavers. GerardM 08:00, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Still, as a species it is hardly extinct, as cattle is widely regarded as deriving from the Aurochs. As a wild form, it is. Categorization is not an entirely objective process, and so I suggest the article be careful about considering the Auroch "extinct" as a species. You're right about the nazi piece. Wiglaf
 * Aurochs are universally considered extinct except by the small minority who support the Heck cattle. It is basically a fringe belief. Rmhermen 14:01, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Really? It is the first time, I meet this controversy, but I am not a biologist. Technically, we could consider cattle domesticated Aurochs, like swine is domesticated wild boars, right? Wiglaf
 * No they are classified as two separate species. And one is extinct. Rmhermen 20:00, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

You seem to believe in the possibility of creating new species in a few thousand years! You probably consider the dog to be a separate species from the wolf, the swine from the wild boar, the horse from the tarpan, etc. The neutrality of this page is contestable. By the way you can't compare with dinosaurs and birds unless you have very warped idea of time spans. There is NO distiction between species that fit this one. Sorry, but you're wrong.Wiglaf
 * Luckily, this page does not depend on the opinion of myself or you who admit to not being a biologist. It depends on the actually classifications made by actual biologists who classify them as separate species -just as they classify tarpan and horses or dog and wolves. Zebu and cattle are both species decended from aurochs. According to

cattle and zebu "diverged some hundreds of thousands of years ago" based on genetic analysis. Rmhermen 00:26, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

 * I am back to fix this POV problem. Here is small list of links where cattle is called Bos primigenius taurus (i.e. the same species):
 * 1)
 * 2)
 * 3)
 * 4)
 * 5)
 * 6)
 * 7)

 * I am glad if we could settle this POV problem once and for all. This is Wikipedia after all. The same revised naming appears with dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and horses (Equus ferus caballus). Regards.--Wiglaf 11:21, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * By the way, Rmhermen, concerning your last edit, explain to me why Bos primigenius taurus is unscientific and why you feel it is POV to have both names in the article. Do you think we should request an arbitration in this matter?--Wiglaf 17:45, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * I think we are working on two different things here. You are trying to promote a view that aurochs and cattle are the same species (which I find hard to support given there are no complete specimens of aurochs and little if any DNA testing of the few remains.) I am trying to avoid the statement from the Heck cattle promoters that Heck cattle are a different species or sub-species from cattle, that they are truly reconstructed aurochs. The trinomial name you promote indicates that aurochs and cattle are separate sub-species, not separate species but does not imply that aurochs are not extinct. In that system, aurochs is bos primigenius primigenius. I also note many uses of Bos taurus taurus including by the Smithsonian' sNational Zoo. Modern cattle are not simple descendants of aurochs but are often hybrids of other species and sub-species depending on location. African cattle often have Bos indicus genes, some others are hydrid with Bos grunniens (yak) or Bos bison bison (beefalo). Rmhermen 18:11, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

 * Note that I am not a breeder of Heck cattle, and I don't have an agenda of presenting them as one and the same. I do, however, have a certain expertise in categorisation theory and I think we should be careful with taxonomy concerning closely related species or subspecies. Especially when one of them is more or less derived from the other (this is why you're sure to find Bos primigenius taurus for cattle, Equus ferus caballus for horses and Canis lupus familiaris for dogs). Because of this, I don't think it is NPOV that the article categorically states that they are different species.--Wiglaf 19:34, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Whether they are distinct at the species or sub-species level is a different (and not entirely resolvable) matter than the fact that they are different. The fact that Bos taurus (or Bos primigenius taurus) is (depending on breed) partially to mainly (perhaps overwhelmingly) derived from Bos primigenius (or Bos primigenius primigenius) does not mean that they are not different. A lot of this has to do with the modern redefinition of the term species especially in light of genetic research. Rmhermen 20:12, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * I should also say that some writers still consider Bos primigenius, Bos taurus and Bos indicus separate species. Others consider them to be species Bos primigenius, and Bos taurus with subspecies Bos taurus taurus and Bos taurus indicus. Other consider it Bos primigenius primigenius, Bos primigenius taurus and Bos primigenius indicus. It is not entirely resolved but it does not imply a lack of difference between the groupings. Regardless of the classification level, you can note from that a 10,000 year or 200,000 year timeframe based on archeological or genetic results, respectively, is not considered an impediment to recognizing them as three distinct groups. Rmhermen 20:35, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

 * I am not surprised at all at what you tell me. Such disagreement is quite predictable when we have a number of "species" that can interbreed. I think that it is much better if the article states that there is disagreement on the taxonomy, than just to state that they are different species.--Wiglaf 20:42, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * The point I am making is that there is no practical difference between stating that they are different species or different sub-species in these cases. Many of these can and do interbreed even at the genus level. Species is not a magic word, just another level of classification. Adjusting it up or down a level doesn't change the level of difference between the groups. Rmhermen 21:10, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * Well it is a magic word for people who are not aquainted with the problems here. The basic distinction between a species and a subspecies is that crossbred subspecies can have fertile offspring whereas crossbred species normally cannot. I really don't understand why you're so determined to have it only one way. This is Wikipedia, it is supposed to be neutral and claiming that one version is sufficient is POV.--Wiglaf 21:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Count me confused because you have been the one insisting throughout this page that they be listed as the same species. Rmhermen 23:04, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

 * I did not. Already in my second post I wrote that Categorization is not an entirely objective process, and so I suggest the article be careful about considering the Auroch "extinct" as a species. IIRC, you were bent on removing anything that did not say that they were different species period.--Wiglaf 19:40, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Please submit some source that claims that aurochs are not extinct. Rmhermen 20:24, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Of course they are extinct, but an extinct subspecies is not the same thing as an extinct species, and in this case its status as a species is not set in stone.--Wiglaf 20:26, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * No extinct as a sub-species is exactly the same as extinct as a species. Dead, gone, ain't no more and never will be. The same as an extinct genus, or family or order. No animal's status as a species is set in stone -have you read our articles on species and lumpers and splitters, etc. Rmhermen 20:38, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually genetic research may advance to Jurassic Park-level so "never will be" may be a bit strong. Rmhermen 20:43, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually genetic research may advance to Jurassic Park-level so "never will be" may be a bit strong. Rmhermen 20:43, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * You actually believe that I am a promotor of Heck cattle. LOL. Stop imagining things for God's sake. This discussion does not concern whether Heck cattle and Aurochs are the same subspecies. It concerns you dicatorial way of defining them.--Wiglaf 20:48, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * No, I beleive you have never seen one (and neither have I) and care little about them (and neither do I). I do beleive you have some odd idea of the word "species" that you are trying to promote but I still don't fully understand what your definition entails. Rmhermen 20:53, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * No, I don't. Explain to me what it entails. My odd idea about species is shared by every scholar who defines them as Bos primigenius taurus1), 2), 3), 4) , 5) , 6) , 7) Wiglaf 20:56, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * First that is not universal or perhaps even common yet. Many still classify them as separate species. But your definition goes much further as you say "why is calling Heck cattle "aurochs" so bad and wrong";, "as a species it is hardly extinct, as cattle is widely regarded as deriving from the Aurochs". Aurochs is extinct, that is if you use Bos primigenius taurus, you must also use Bos primigenius primigenius, which is the name of the extinct sub-species, the aurochs. Modern cattle are not aurochs just because they are descended from them, any more than cattle are buffalo or goats are sheep. You have merely shifted the level from species to sub-species. Heck cattle are Bos primigenius taurus, not Bos primigenius primigenius. Actually Heck cattle are Bos primigenius taurus cross Bos prinigenius indicus with only a small proportion of indicus which resulted from interbreeding with the Watusi breed which is known to be about half indicus.Rmhermen 21:23, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining, I agree. However, you wrote "a different and extinct species (Bos primigenius)" and I hope that the article won't stay as categorical about their classification in the future. It is a question of NPOV.--Wiglaf 21:33, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Many or even most scholars still treat them as separate species so it is not incorrect. If you are going to add qualifying statements to every species in similar situations, good luck. There are hundreds already in Wikipedia, if not thousands that will require changing. Rmhermen 21:47, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't need to. Serious articles usually note these problems, i.e. dog, cat and swine. Or the contributors are very sensible and you can discuss the matter with them without pulling it down to this level, e.g. perch.--Wiglaf 15:51, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Sorry to say, but browsing your contrversy it does not seem to make much sense. I noticed that quite often in WP that people talk a lot who demonstrate that they do not have expertise or good knowledge in the field concerned. What they most probably do not realize is that precisely by such behaviour they contribute quite efficiently to keeping away people who would indeed have such expertise from contributing in this project. Those would feel repelled when they notice it, and they are right.147.142.186.54 (talk) 16:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Other attempt to breed wild cattle?
Have there not been an other more scientific attempt to “breed back” wild cattle? I have heard of a project that used “Spanish fighting bulls and Corsican mountain cows”. (This is my own translation from Swedish. The breeds might not be called so in English.)  The result bore a physical resemblance to the Aurochs depicted in prehistoric art. It might also be able to survive in the wild. Something Heck cattle can’t according to Swedish historian Peter Englund.

2007-03-28 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

 * Hello Lena, I do not quite understand what you mean, I am sorry to say.

 * 1) The term "breed back" is a catch phrase; it is based on wishful thinking, on an illusion, at least in cases such as this when the creature is extinct. You can create "models", "look-alikes", that also may serve as "ecological aequivalents". That is all. And that is independent of your degree of scientific knowledge, or funds, or whatever; because it is in the nature of things.

 * 2) The breeds that you name were indeed part of the "raw materials" that the Heck brothers used, and their results were and are said to resemble cave paintings (Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, or other sources will tell you so). So what is the difference to the Heck cattle project (except that they were a bit more sophisticated, did not use just two breeds) ? It looks like you confused something, or you read about the same project, but the name was not mentioned, or you forgot it, or something like that.

 * 3) Breeding does continue today, with modern knowledge and new and larger "primitive" breeds added (see the German language article by a German broadcaster that is linked to the article here). So the animals that were "created" in the 1920es are altered today so that they do resemble the Aurochs (itself extinct-for-ever) even more...

 * 4) Survive in the "wild" ? All Heck cattle are kept outdoors, all year round (at least in Germany) (except for a few individuals in zoos), even in Bavaria with 20 degrees minus or less in winter time (celsius scale). They even get sort of a winter fur (see beautiful photographs in GEO magazine, some issue in the 90es had a long article on Heck cattle). I do not know if they could today defend themselves against Siberian Bears, or lions (as true aurochs would have the "opportunity" to do in historic times). But wolves are coming back to Germany, and since the bulls stay with the herd all the time (unlike in domestic cattle that are allowed to graze in the open for a while) I do not doubt the herd would defend their calves succesfully against (almost) any wolf attack! So what else would you demand? Or what did your mister Englund have in mind ? Or why would an historian be able to make meaningful statements about this topic (I guess that was an error of yours when you provided a link to "historian" - which apparently does not need any explanation - instead of to his name; I corrected that in your statement above)? Where did he write that, what did he mean, did he bother to give any reason, did he strike you as knowledgeable about this issue ? Please enlighten me a bit !

 * With Urus-loving regards, Sincerly

 * Sophophilos: 147.142.186.54 (talk) 16:40, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I expressed myself quite woolly. When I wrote “able to survive in the wild” I meant surviving without human intervention, such as fences, feeding and so on. An historian is not automatically qualified on this subject. Peter Englund wrote like this in Swedish:

”Försök bedrevs även med att återskapa utrotade djurarter, framför allt då den halvt mytiska uroxen: nazistiska vetenskapare korsade under stort besvär fram en besynnerlig pastisch på detta kreatur - bland annat med hjälp av amerikansk buffel - som sedan släpptes löst, men inte ett enda av dessa genetiska förträffligheter överlevde mötet med det fria.”

My own translation to English:

“Attempts where also carried on to recreate exterminated species, above all the half mythical aurochs: Nazi scientists interbreed with great difficulties a strange pastiche of this cattle – amongst other things by means of American buffalo – which was then let free, but not a single one of these genetic excellences survived the encounter with the wildlife.”

I assumed that he meant Heck cattle but he may have misunderstood it all. After all, he is just a social scientist who has written a essay on the Nazi view of animals.

2008-05-26 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Alleged "NS-connection" to Heck project
I find the section of the article quite misleading. As an uninformed reader you may get the impression that this "somehow" was "a Nazi project". There is just one reference given, but that does not even mention, let alone deal with the breeding project. It is an article from the Berlin Zoological Garden yearbook of 2002 (in German, of course); written by a historian, it deals with political pressure to make the (very popular) zoo a "Jew-free area" (concerning questions of administration, shareholders' circle and admittance of visitors) after the NS regime came to power, and how the administration and board reacted to it. It shows that there was hesitation first, and then compliance with such demands, and after the war a complete lack of interest in dealing with that shameful chapter. - So far, no surprise. I know the zoo very well (I kept an annual ticket as a teenager), and I know the institute where the author works ("Institute for Research in Antisemitism", faculty of Humanities, Technical University, Berlin - a unique institution in this - state-run - large University in the German capital city) (because I spent the first two University terms of my life at that faculty). - So the zoo management gave in to political pressure by the Nazis. That is ugly, but seems almost inevitable in such circumstances: in any dictatorship you cannot be (openly) "anti-government" and keep your job. So you could become an opponent, personally, but then you would soon be replaced by someone else, who is not. It makes a difference from the point of view of personal ethics and morale, certainly, yes, but not from the point of view of institutional management (it is going to be streamlined very soon, anyway). The director was Lutz Heck. Apparently he was too willing to give in to pressure. That would paint him in a bad light as a human, if confirmed.

My understanding is that the two brothers worked together in this project, from the beginning, intellectually ( I do not know about finances and staff etc). All sources I read so far state that it was started in the early 1920es; that means in the midst of the troubled Weimar Republic aera. That means about a full decade before the Nazi regime was invited to power by an ill-guided ageing president. They were driven, I understand, by ideas of conservation biology, and probably nostalgia for "things ancient", and "things wild and untamed" or so. These are sentiments that were prominent in Germany since the Romantic age; and are still prominent in many circles both in Germany and other countries.

The Nazi goverment and their skillful propaganda wing usurped about everything and every element of German culture that would fit into their fantasies and plans, from classical music and German literature and archaeology to folk songs to adolescent hiking groups to nature conservation. I do not see why that would mean that those things "were" or "became" "inherently" "Nazi-affin" in any way. As far as I know, Hermann Goering was also an active supporter of the Wisent conservation project. Would that give the project itself (begun much earlier, and continued internationally until today) a "bad odour" ?

Probably the Heck brothers, as most other scientists and administrators in Germany in that time, were very naiv, or conservative, or perhaps even optimistically looking forward to the new rulers. They would probably become party members also - I guess everyone in a dictatorship who holds any sort of high office had to ( I know for certain that ordinary high school teachers in Nazi time Germany became highly suspicious when they did not; directors would certainly have benn forced, or removed from office; let alone anyone "more important" than a school head). They might have been even supporters in the core of their hearts, that could be so. But who knows that- any of you, without evidence ? There were all sorts of attitudes in those years.

Since this, the Nazi dictatorship, is a very ugly chapter, I request everyone, from whatever country, to be careful when making any statements. For this article that means, make a statement only when you are certain about it, and have good and clear evidence, that actually backs up your statement(s), and name that evidence, and be very careful with your wording, so that every reader will understand - without having to ask back again - what precisely you want to state and express with your words and what not.147.142.186.54 (talk) 16:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

for your consideration: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/hitler-has-only-got-one-bull-and-its-alive-and-well-in-the-west-country-1672104.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.35.95 (talk) 18:43, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The citations for this article really need work
I think this article needs work. Citations are missing, and some of the citations in the article seem like they aren't up to the standards of verifiabilty. Linking to newspaper articles on History or Science that don't show their sources is generally unreliable. It creates a brick wall in the research chain.

The 1920 start date for the Hellabrun breeding program of the Heck Cattle for instance, would seem to require a citation, as the start dates for breeding programs or other scientific endeavors are important for establishing priority in academic or intellectual property concerns.

The second citation for instance, "Heute haben Sie wieder eine Carla im Zoo" Der Berliner Zoologische Garten und seine jüdischen Aktionäre, Monika Schmidt, Bongo, 9.4.2002is a broken link. And if you hunt around and dig up the article somewhere else (http://www.wernercohn.com/Resources/Bongo.pdf) it doesn't mention the Heck cattle specifically. It refers (as already pointed out) to pressure on the Zoo administration to accept Government directives in a context of the aryanisation of the Zoo's board of directors. The citation should support the following, "Lutz Heck, director of the Berlin Zoological Gardens, began extensive breeding programs supported by the Nazis during World War II to bring back the aurochs." That isn't to be found, either directly or indirectly in the article cited. It appears simply not verifiable using the citation.

Citation No.3, Fox News: 'Nazi Cows' Roam English Countryside is a highly edited abstract version of this article's first citation from The Times' A shaggy cow story: how a Nazi experiment brought extinct aurochs to DevonWhy would we cite two articles with exactly the same (one of them admittedly having rather abbreviated) content? This creates the rather misleading impression of verifiability by having "mulitple" sources. And since the sources themselves don't cite, we would seem to hit that unverifiable brick wall again.

Robbie.johnson (talk) 08:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

 * Indeed, the English article doesn't hold a candle in form or citation compared with the French Article of the same topic. 92.12.110.140 (talk) 00:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Person
Is this really the most suited infobox? Regards, --Klemen Kocjancic (talk) 07:25, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Wtf?
NOTHING about the Nazis? Is this a joke or just censorship? Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 22:35, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Recent deletion
Thanks for reverting my recent edits, that's very kind of you guys. The problem with the reference is that it is not a peer-reviewed printed paper that was officially published by Science, it was merely an e-letter as Science refused to publish it for good reason. It is full of unobjective, resentful critique and has the dubious message that it would be "unpredictable" if a ecologically native species is reintroduced in its habitat. Cattle are used in many conservation grazing projects where it has been shown that their grazing helps to maintain open and semi-open land biodiversity. Thus, adding that exclusively online published e-letter with its unobjective and not fact-based message is not an improvement of the article. I understand that the authors have a certain degree of resentfulness, but Wikipedia is not a platform for the resentiments of single individuals but is meant to be an objective encyclopedia. DFoidl (talk) 16:54, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You violated WP:3RR; please immediately undo your deletion. The material you deleted is referenced by a document written by several individuals with the credentials to comment on the subject in a different journal after Science apparently did not publish the letter there. The letter, as published in Organon, is not used to reference controversial statements but instead describes certain criticisms the have been held by opponents. The letter is also hosted on the Polish Academy of Sciences's website. The sum of the evidence here is that this material is fine and that the letter used to source it is reliable for this material. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:43, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * What they write is still wrong, so it should not be on Wikipedia. It's as simple as that, if Wikipedia is to be taken seriously. DFoidl (talk) 17:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * If these scholars have had their comments published in a journal and their published letter hosted on a university website, your assertion that What they write is still wrong is insufficient to warrant the removal of the content. You must make specific arguments addressing the contents of the letter, the material referenced to the letter, and the individuals responsible for the letter using reliable sources. Otherwise, the content will eventually be reintegrated into the article. Additionally, you deleted another, different passage that I restored, apparently unaware of what you were deleting. If you believe that content should be excluded, please use reliable sources and Wikipedia policy to justify that position. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:26, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Heck cattle


text:
Richard Wurmbrand

Richard Wurmbrand, also known as Nicolai Ionescu (24 March 1909 – 17 February 2001) was a Romanian Evangelical Lutheran priest, and professor of Jewish descent. In 1948, having become a Christian ten years before, he publicly said Communism and Christianity were incompatible. Wurmbrand preached at bomb shelters and rescued Jews during World War II. He experienced imprisonment and torture by the Communist regime of Romania, which maintained a policy of state atheism.

After serving a total of fourteen years, he was ransomed for $10,000. His colleagues in Romania urged him to leave the country and work for religious freedom from a location less personally dangerous. After spending time in Norway and England, he and his wife Sabina, who had also been imprisoned, emigrated to America and dedicated the rest of their lives to publicizing and helping Christians who are persecuted for their beliefs.

He wrote more than 18 books, the most widely known being Tortured for Christ and Answer to Moscow's (Atheist) Bible. Variations of his works have been translated into more than 65 languages.

Early life
Wurmbrand, the youngest of four boys, was born in 1909 in Bucharest in a Jewish family. He lived with his family in Istanbul for a short while, his father died when he was 9, and the Wurmbrands returned to Romania when he was 15.

As an adolescent, he was sent to study Marxism in Moscow, but returned clandestinely the following year. Pursued by Siguranţa Statului (the secret police), he was arrested and held in Doftana Prison. When returning to his mother country, Wurmbrand was already an important Comintern agent, leader, and coordinator directly paid from Moscow. Like other Romanian Communists, he was arrested several times, then sentenced and released again.

He married Sabina Oster on 26 October 1936. Their son Michael was born in 1941. Wurmbrand and his wife (known as Bintzea to her friends) converted to Christianity in 1938 due to the witness of Christian Wolfkes, a Romanian Christian carpenter; they joined the Anglican Church's Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ UK). Wurmbrand was ordained twice—first as an Anglican, then, after World War II, as a Lutheran priest. In 1944, when the Soviet Union occupied Romania as the first step to establishing a communist regime, Wurmbrand began a ministry to his Romanian countrymen and to Red Army soldiers; the Socialist Republic of Romania had a doctrine of state atheism. When the government attempted to control churches, he immediately began an "underground" ministry to his people. Wurmbrand was a professor in the only Lutheran seminary in his country. Though a devout Lutheran priest, Wurmbrand was highly ecumenical in that he worked with Christians of many denominations. Wurmbrand is remembered for his courage in standing up in a gathering of church leaders and denouncing government control of the churches. He was arrested on 29 February 1948, while on his way to a Divine Service.

Imprisonments
Wurmbrand, who passed through the penal facilities of Pitești, Craiova, Gherla, the Danube–Black Sea Canal, Văcărești, Malmaison, Cluj and ultimately Jilava, where he spent three years in solitary confinement. This confinement was in a cell twelve feet underground, with no lights or windows. There was no sound because even the guards wore felt on the soles of their shoes. He later recounted that he maintained his sanity by sleeping during the day, staying awake at night, and exercising his mind and soul by composing and then delivering a sermon each night. Due to his extraordinary memory, he was able to recall more than 350 of those, a selection of which he included in his book With God in Solitary Confinement, which was first published in 1969. During part of this time, he later wrote about communicating with other inmates by tapping out Morse code on the wall. In this way he continued to "be sunlight" to fellow inmates rather than dwell on the lack of physical light.

Wurmbrand was released from his first imprisonment in 1956, after eight and a half years. Although he was warned not to preach, he resumed his work in the underground church. He was arrested again in 1959 and sentenced to 25 years. During his imprisonment, he was beaten and tortured. He stated that his physical torture included mutilation, burning and being locked in a large frozen icebox. His body bore the scars of physical torture for the rest of his life. For example, he later recounted having the soles of his feet beaten until the flesh was torn off, then the next day beaten again to the bone, claiming there were not words to describe that pain.

During his first imprisonment, Wurmbrand's supporters were unable to gain information about him; later they found out that a false name had been used in the prison records so that no one could trace his whereabouts. Members of the Secret police visited Sabina posing as released fellow prisoners. They claimed to have attended her husband's funeral. During his second imprisonment, his wife Sabina was given official news of his death, which she did not believe. Sabina herself had been arrested in 1950 and spent three years in penal labour on the canal. Sabina's autobiographical account of this time is titled The Pastor's Wife. Their only son, Mihai, by then a young adult, was expelled from college-level studies at three institutions because his father was a political prisoner; an attempt to obtain permission to emigrate to Norway to avoid compulsory service in the Romanian army was unsuccessful.

Eventually, Wurmbrand was a recipient of an amnesty in 1964. Concerned with the possibility that Wurmbrand would be forced to undergo further imprisonment, the Norwegian Mission to the Jews and the Hebrew Christian Alliance negotiated with Communist authorities for his release from Romania for $10,000 (though the going rate for political prisoners was $1,900). He was convinced by underground church leaders to leave and become a voice for the persecuted church. He devoted the rest of his life to this effort, despite warnings and death threats.

He was a friend of Costache Ioanid, the Romanian Christian poet.

Achievements, influence, and death
Wurmbrand travelled to Norway, England, and then the United States. In May 1966, he testified in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee. That testimony, in which he took off his shirt in front of TV cameras to show the scars of his torture, brought him to public attention. He became known as "The Voice of the Underground Church", doing much to publicise the persecution of Christians in Communist countries. He compiled circumstantial evidence that Karl Marx was a Satanist.

In April 1967, the Wurmbrands formed Jesus to the Communist world, later renamed Voice of the Martyrs, an interdenominational organisation working initially with and for persecuted Christians in Communist countries, but later expanding its activities to help persecuted believers in other places, especially in the Muslim world.

In 1990, he and his wife returned to Romania for the first time in 25 years. The Voice of the Martyrs opened a printing facility and bookstore in Bucharest. The new mayor of Bucharest had offered a storage space for the books under former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu's palace, where he had spent years in confinement, praying for a ministry to his homeland. Wurmbrand engaged in preaching with local ministers of nearly all denominations.

Wurmbrand wrote 18 books in English and others in Romanian. His best-known book, titled Tortured for Christ, was published in 1967. In several of them, he wrote very boldly and emphatically against Communism, yet he maintained a hope and compassion even for those who tortured him by "looking at men ... not as they are, but as they will be ... I could also see in our persecutors. a future Apostle Paul ... [and] the jailer in Philippi who became a convert." Wurmbrand last lived in Palos Verdes, California.

He died at the age of 91 on 17 February 2001 in a hospital in Torrance, California. His wife, Sabina, had died six months earlier on 11 August 2000. In 2006, he was voted fifth among the greatest Romanians according to the Mari Români poll.

Books

 * 100 Prison Meditations
 * Alone With God: New Sermons from Solitary Confinement
 * Answer to Half a Million Letters
 * Answer to Moscow's (Atheist) Bible
 * Christ in the Communist Prisons
 * Christ On The Jewish Road
 * From Suffering To Triumph!
 * From The Lips Of Children
 * If Prison Walls Could Speak
 * If That Were Christ, Would You Give Him Your Blanket?
 * In God's Underground
 * Jesus (Friend to Terrorists)
 * Marx & Satan (Crossways Books, 1986)
 * My Answer To The Moscow Atheists (Arlington House, 1975)
 * My Correspondence With Jesus
 * Reaching Toward The Heights
 * The Answer to Moscow's Bible
 * The Oracles of God
 * The Overcomers
 * The Sweetest Song
 * The Total Blessing
 * Tortured for Christ (1967)
 * Victorious Faith
 * With God In Solitary Confinement

Videography

 * Tortured for Christ – Docudrama.
 * Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand – documentary DVD.
 * Torchlighters: The Richard Wurmbrand Story – animated DVD for children 8–12.
 * Tortured for Christ - The Nazi Years – Docudrama.

Cited sources

 * Wurmbrand, Richard (1967). Tortured for Christ. Living Sacrifice book co.

title: Richard Wurmbrand


text: User:Canyonrat

title: User:Canyonrat