Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd (U.S Navy), Commander, Battleship Division One. Killed, age 57, December 7, 1941 aboard USS ARIZONA (BB-39) Kidd was killed on the bridge during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. Rear Admiral Daniel Judson Callaghan (U.S. Navy) Commander, Task Group 67.4. Killed, age 52, November… Read more »
Fritz Klein was born in Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary (now Codlea in central Romania), on 24 November 1888. Klein was considered a Volksdeutscher, or ethnic German. He studied medicine at the University of Budapest and completed his military service in Romania, finishing his studies in Budapest after World War I. He lived as a doctor in Siebenbürgen In 1939, as a Romanian citizen he was drafted into the Romanian army, where after… Read more »
Welthauptstadt Germania, “World Capital Germania” refers to the projected renewal of the German capital Berlin during the Nazi period, part of Adolf Hitler’s vision for the future of Germany after the planned victory in World War II. Three years before the end of WWII, in 1942, Hitler said, “Berlin will be comparable as a world capital only to Egypt, Babylon or Rome.”… Read more »
On 6 February 1941 Stahlecker was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Polizei and took over as commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe A, in hopes of furthering his career with the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), Nazi Germany’s security police and intelligence organization. In June 1941, Einsatzgruppe A followed Army Group North and operated in the Baltic states and areas of Russia up to Leningrad.Its mission was to hunt down and murder the Jews, Gypsies, Communists,… Read more »
Viktors Bernhard Arājs was born on 13 January 1910 in the town of Baldone, then part of the Russian Empire His father was a Latvian blacksmith and his mother came from a wealthy family of Baltic Germans. Arājs attended Jelgava Gymnasium, which he left in 1930 for mandatory national defense service in the Latvian Army. In 1932, Arājs studied law at the University of Latvia in Riga,… Read more »