The cartoonist who created the Peanuts gang and television specials like “A Charlie Brown Christmas” drew from some of his experiences as an Army staff sergeant during World War II to fashion the enduringly popular comic series.
Charles Schulz, the cartoonist behind “Peanuts,” took part in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp and the occupation of Munich shortly before the end of the war.
Biographies about Schulz, as well as his own essays, talk about the impact military service had on him and the characters he created.
“The three years I spent in the army taught me all I needed to know about loneliness,” Schulz wrote in “My Life with Charlie Brown,” published in 2010. “My sympathy for the loneliness that all of us experience is dropped heavily upon poor Charlie Brown.”