Thread by @danbarker

About 20 years ago I moved to Germany for a little while. I'd been there twice before, both on school trips. But this time I moved to work, in Frankfurt. I spoke the tiniest bit of German, so I tried to learn a little bit more from some tapes made by a man called 'Michel Thomas'.

The tapes said "No books, no writing, Just confidence - in hours". Quite a good sales pitch.

That's Michel on the cover. The tapes were pretty good. There are Italian, French, Spanish versions too.

I presumed he wasn't a real person- like Mavis Beacon wasn't an actual person...

I later learned that he was a real person, only he wasn't born 'Michel'; He was born Moniek Kroskof, in Poland, in 1914.

Oddly he would never tell people his age: "People pigeonhole you the moment they know your age."

As a child, his family sent him to Germany. They didn't want him to grow up in the antisemitic climate of Lodz, so he went to live with an Aunt in Breslau, which was in Germany at the time (now Wroclaw).

He spent the rest of his childhood there, becoming fluent in German.

When Hitler came to power, he again moved, this time to Bordeaux, where he studied philology (the structure, history, and relationships of languages) at the university there.

He quickly became fluent in French too.

In 1937 (age 23) he travelled back to Poland to visit his family, before moving to Vienna.

He later learned this would be the last time he'd see his family. They were all killed in Auschwitz.

A year later, he was forced to move back to France - this time to Nice. Austria had been annexed by Nazi Germany, and as a Polish Jew there was literally no place for him there legally. Poland, fearing an influx of people, cancelled thousands of passports. He was made stateless.

In Nice he began working to help other Jews obtain forged papers for Jews. He volunteered for the French Army, working in the intelligence corps.

In 1940, the Vichy Regime was formed. He was arrested for 'influence peddling', and put in solitary confinement for 4 months.

After a mistaken release, he was arrested again, and moved to Vernet, in the Pyrenees. And from there he was moved to a slave labour camp in the Alps...

From there, he was moved to Les Milles, where many other stateless victims of Nazi persecution were held, under the Vichy law for 'étrangers de race juive' ('Jewish foreigners'). The camp was known as 'l'abattoir'.

Between August 1942 & September 1942, 2,000 Jews were sent from the camp to Auschwitz.

In August 1942, after 2 years in camps, Michel Thomas escaped.

He joined the French Resistance, and made his way to Lyon where he became a recruiter of other Jewish resistance fighters.

Lyon was a dangerous and, at one stage, Michel was captured and interrogated by Klaus Barbie ('Le Boucher de Lyon' - 'The Butcher of Lyon').

This is Klaus - the Gestapo chief of Lyon.

Michel managed to convince him that he was a French painter, and once again escaped.

After further arrests, torture, and evasion, he became part of a commando group in Grenoble, ending up as a lieutenant.

When allied forces eventually arrived, he took a role liaising between the American forces & French resistance, attached to the 45th Infantry Division.

His work was so impressive, he was recommended for a Silver Star - the third highest decoration for valor in the US military.

In 1945, he went on to join the US Counter Intelligence Corps. Having become fluent in 8 languages by this point, he was deemed very useful to the US Army, moving through Europe. He went with the American troops into Germany.

He was there on the day Dachau was liberated. He gathered statements, and in particular information on Emil Mahl - 'the hangman of Dachau' - who had taken part in 800-1000 hangings, and had fled prior to the liberation.

Michel tracked him to Munich, and personally extracted a confession from him, leading to his conviction.

In the final days of the war, Michel got a tip about a convoy of SS trucks near Munich. Following this up, he found they'd gone to a paper mill in Freimann, and had dumped 68,000 kilos of Nazi documents - including pictures & ID cards of the entire membership - to be pulped.

These became the heart of the 'Berlin Document Center' - the archive set up to collect as much documentation as possible from the Nazi era - required as evidence for the Nuremberg Trials against war criminals.

Following the war, Michel stayed on in Germany stationed with the Counter Intelligence Corps. Among other work, he and another CIC agent, Theodore Kraus, also captured & interrogated Gustav Knittel - eventually sentenced for his part in the Malmedy Massacre of unarmed POWs.

Michel also performed a grand sting operation.

Following the war, a group of five SS officers representing a further 4,000 were granted an audience with the leader of the Grossorganisation - a much larger underground network of Nazis, still spread across Germany.

On meeting the grand leader (Dr Frundsberg), they were heavily rebuked for maintaining their organisation as a splinter group, outside of his own. They were ordered to either disband, or to become part of the Grossorganisation itself.

Months later... of course... when the SS officers were arrested, they refused to believe that 'Dr Frundsberg' of the 'Grossorganisation' had in fact been Michel Thomas, a Counter Intelligence officer, and that all of the information they'd given would be used in their trials.

Toward the end of 1946, Michel was recommended for US citizenship.

He ended up in Beverly Hills, opening up a language school - 'The Polyglot Institute' - in 1947.

Over the years he taught Princess Grace of Monaco, Emma Thompson declared him her 'Inspiration'. Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Donald Sutherland, Bob Dylan, Bill Murray, Warren Beatty were taught by him.

In 1983, Klaus Barbie, who had interrogated Michel all those years ago in France, was arrested. Michel travelled to his trial in 1987 and, aged 73, gave testimony as part of the successful case to convict the Butcher of Lyon.

His story was covered in numerous magazines, newspapers, TV shows. His language courses ended up selling for up to $20,000.

He was covered by Forbes, the BBC, the New York Post. And he released those tapes I bought.

And then comes the twist.

Something strange happened in 2001.

A reporter named @RoyRivenburg published an article titled 'Larger than Life' in the LA Times.

The article covered Michel Thomas' language learning techniques, but it also questioned his whole backstory.

How could it be possible that he was the only survivor of three concentration camps?

Had he really liberated Dachau?

Had he found that cache of Nazi documents at the paper mill, including the ID cards of every Nazi member?

Did he turn up at Klaus Barbie's trial and give fake testimony?

... was he even in the military?

Michel Thomas of course sued the LA Times.

The case was heard in the Central California District Court. In February 2002, the judge ruled in favour of the LA Times.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling.

... and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, despite Michel's plea.

Following the case, the 'Friends of Michel Thomas' set up a website claiming his entire story to be true. Lots of documents were unearthed as evidence.

Michel attended the 2002 reunion of the US 45th Division's 180th Infantry Regiment. (that's him in the middle, at the front)

And in 2004, John McCain finally put him forward for that Silver Star he'd been recommended for. The third highest military decoration for valor. It was presented to him by Bob Dole.

So was it all true?

Was Michel Thomas, who was fluent in 8 languages, & taught Grace Kelly French, also the survivor of 3 Nazi camps, the saviour of the Nuremberg Trials, the liberator of Dachau, the captor of numerous war criminals, and the mastermind behind a daring sting of an SS network?

Either way: RIP Michel Thomas, born Moniek Kroskof.

He died 15 years ago this January.

And thanks for the tapes:

No books.
No writing.
Just confidence - in hours.