In the summer and autumn of 1941, vast numbers of Soviet prisoners were captured in about a dozen large encirclement’s. Due to their rapid advance into the Soviet Union and an anticipated quick victory, the Germans did not want to ship these prisoners to Germany. Under the administration of the Wehrmacht, the prisoners were processed, guarded, forced-marched,… Read more »
Gustav Hermann Sorge born April 24, 1911, in Reisen, nicknamed “Der eiserne Gustav” (Iron Gustav) for his brutality, was an SS senior NCO. He was initially a guadr at Esterwegen concentration camp in the Emsland region of Germany. Later on, he was assigned to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Among the many people who were murdered at Sachsenhausen… Read more »
The Special Air Service was a unit of the British Army during the Second World War that was formed in July 1941 by Sir David Stirling and originally called “L” Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade—the “L” designation and Air Service name being a tie-in to a British disinformation campaign, trying to deceive the Axis into thinking there… Read more »
The Blücher was the second of five Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruisers of Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine, built after the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles. Named for Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher , the Prussian victor of the Battle of Waterloo, the ship was laid down in August 1936 and launched in June 1937. She was completed in September 1939, shortly… Read more »
Heinz Bernard Lammerding, possibly Heinrich Bernhard Lammerding, born August 27, 1905 in Dortmund, was a German engineer and SS Obergruppenführer of the Waffen-SS. As the main contributor to the massacres of the 2nd SS Panzer Division “The Reich” on French civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane and Tulle in June 1944, he was condemned to death by a… Read more »