Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of massacres carried out by German forces and by local Ukrainian collaborators during their campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first, and best documented, of the massacres took place 29–30 September 1941, killing 33,771 Jews. The decision to kill all the Jews in Kiev was made by the military governor, Generalmajor Kurt Eberhard, … Read more »
During the Battle of Berlin (16 April 1945 – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker , while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were one or two blocks away from the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker. On 2 May General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet… Read more »
The organizers of the Nazi Euthanasia Programme, later known as Action T4, Karl Brandt and Victor Brack, ordered that the killing of patients could only be carried out by clinicians, because the letter of authorization from Adolf Hitler dated 1 September 1939 only referred to doctors. The operation of the gas tap was therefore the job of… Read more »
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking or Rape of Nanjing, was an episode during the Second Sino Japanese War of mass murder and mass rape by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing, then capital of the Republic of China. The massacre occurred over six weeks starting December 13, 1937, the day… 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 »
The Deutsches Jungvolk “German Youth” was a youth organisation in Nazi Germany for boys aged 10 to 14, and was a section of the Hitler Youth movement. Through a program me of outdoor activities, parades and sports, it aimed to indoctrinate its young members in the tenets of Nazi ideology. Membership became fully compulsory for eligible boys in 1939. By the end… Read more »
In June 1941, 24-year-old Pavlichenko was in her fourth year of studying history at the Kyiv University when Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union. Pavlichenko was among the first round of volunteers at the recruiting office, where she requested to join the infantry and subsequently she was assigned to the Red Army’s 25th Rifle Division . Pavlichenko had the option… Read more »
In 1933, a young Hans Jürgen Massaquoi stood in a schoolyard in Hamburg, wearing a swastika patch on his sweater, surrounded by the load of fair-haired, blue-eyed kids, that you see in the photo above. Young Hans-Jürgen, the son of a German nurse and a Liberian diplomat , the grandson of Momulu Massaquoi, the consul general of Liberia in… Read more »
Female guards were generally low class to middle class and had no work experience; their professional background varied: one source mentions former matrons, hairdressers, street car ticket takers, opera singers, or retired teachers. Volunteers were recruited by ads in German newspapers asking for women to show their love for the Reich and join the SS-Gefolge… 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 »
