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A West Virginia Town Applied For Soviet Foreign Aid, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan February 21, 2020 33 min

Vulcan - McDowell County — Vulcan miners in 1919. The Sangha Kommune

2. The Luftwaffe Veteran Behind it All

John Birges in custody. Associated Press

The blackmailer was John Birges, a Hungarian immigrant who had flown for the Luftwaffe during WWII. He built a successful landscaping business, opened a few restaurants, and became a millionaire. However, he then wrecked himself with a gambling addiction, losing about $750,000 (equivalent to about $2.3 million today) at Harvey’s alone.

With his businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, Birges decided to recoup his losses by extorting $3 million from the casino (roughly $9 million today). So he enlisted his two sons, and another two accomplices, and set his extortion plan in motion.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.