Benito Mussolini fled Milan city on 25 April and attempted to escape north to Switzerland. On 27 April 1945, Benito Mussolin i and his mistress Clara Petacci, together with other fascist leaders, were travelling in a German convoy near the village of Dongo on the north western shore of Lake Como. A group of local communist partisans led by Pier Luigi… Read more »
Dries Riphagen was born as the 8th child of an Amsterdam family. Riphagen’s father worked for the Navy, while his mother died when he was six years old. His father married a second time but did not take care of the children because he was an alcoholic. At the age of 14 Dries Riphagen was sent… Read more »
Herta Oberheuser (15 May 1911 in Cologne, was a Nazi physician and a war criminal who worked at the Auschwitz and Ravensbrückconcentration camps from 1940 until 1943. In 1937, Oberheuser obtained her medical degree in Bonn, having specialized in dermatology. Soon thereafter she joined the Nazi Party as an intern, and later served as doctor for the League… Read more »
Anna Elisabeth Henkell, born 12-01-1896 in Mainz, known as “Annelies” to her friends was the daughter of wealthy champagne producer Otto Henkell and his aristocratic wife Katharina. Annelies was intelligent but her health problems throughout her life. She had a temporary engagement to Herman Hommel in her early twenties, but when met Joachim von Ribbentrop… Read more »
Fritz Bracht, nicknamed the Beast of Auschwitz, was born in Heiden on the 18th January 1899. After school he trained to become a gardener and when World War I broke out he joined the military, only to be captured by the British and held as a prisoner of war until 1919. After the war he worked… Read more »