This year...
	Peenemünde is a village in the northeast of the German (Western) part of the Usedom island. It stands near the mouth(s) of the Peene river, on the easternmost part of the German Baltic coast. On April 2, 1936, the Reich Air Ministry paid 750,000 reichsmarks to the town of Wolgast for the whole Northern peninsula of Usedom. By the middle of 1938, the Peenemünde facility was nearly complete.^[The Army Research Center (Peenemünde Ost) consisted of Werk Ost and Werk Süd, while Werk West (Peenemünde West) was the Luftwaffe Test Site (Erprobungsstelle der Luftwaffe). The location permitted rocket test flights over water with monitoring along about 200 miles of the Pomeranian coast. Peenemünde also developed WWII night-navigation and radar systems. **To read about Peenemünde and more about its construction, click here
	The Bürgerbräukeller was a Munich beer hall and in 1923 one of the main gathering centers of the NSDAP or Nazi Party… It was one of the largest beer halls of the company Bürgerliches Brauhaus and afterwards it merged with Löwenbräu and was transferred to that company. From there Adolf Hitler launched his Munich Putsch and marched towards the Feldherrnhalle en 1923. **To read about the Bürgerbräukeller adventure and more about its construction, click here.
	Margaretha Geertruida Zelle alias Mata Hari was born in Leeuwarden (Holland) on 7 August 1876. At the beginning of the 20th century she moved to France where she started a career as a nude dancer. She became famous and moved in the highest circles of Europe. Her fame made it easy to travel to various European countries. Even during the war. So, the French Secret Service asked Mata Hari to mingle with the Germans and find out as much as she could. However, during her first mission something went wrong and she was arrested by the British Intelligence Service. All of her alibis were watertight, so the British agents had to release her. In the meantime, the French too got suspicious. It also became clear that German army officers were paying her. Officially it was to keep them company but the French intelligence office wasn't so sure about that. When she tried to cross the French border, to visit one of her lovers, she was arrested by the French Secret Service and interrogated.  During one of these long sessions, she succumbed and confessed to be a German spy, known under the pseudonym of H21.  The trial that followed was nothing but a showcase. The French were convinced that she was:  "one of the greatest spies of the century, responsible for the death of tens of thousands of soldiers". She was found guilty and condemned to death.  On 15 October 1917 she was shot by a firing squad. **Know more of MATAHARI’S history and how I did do this story by clicking here.
	Operation Bernhard was the name of a secret German plan devised during the Second World War to destabilize the British economy by flooding the country with forged Bank of England £5, £10, £20, and £50 notes. It is the largest counterfeiting operation in history and has been fictionalized in books, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) comedy-drama miniseries Private Schulz and a 2007 Oscar-winning Austrian film, The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher). **Know more of the Bernhard operation and how I did do this story by clicking here.