The Night of the Long Knives, in June 1934, saw the wiping out of the SA’s leadership and others who had angered Hitler in the recent past in Nazi Germany. After this date, the SS lead by Heinrich Himmler was to become far more powerful in Nazi Germany. For all the power the Enabling Act gave Hitler, he still felt threatened… Read more »

The Waffen-SS, Armed SS) was the armed wing of the Nazi Party’s SS organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands. The Waffen-SS grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions during World War Ii, and served alongside the Heer (regular army), Ordnungspolizei (uniformed police) and other security… Read more »

About 265,000 German, Romanian, and Italian soldiers, the 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment,  and other volunteer subsidiary troops including some 40,000 Soviet conscripts and volunteers fighting for the Germans (Beevor states that one quarter of the Sixth Army’s  front line strength were Hiwis collaborationists recruited from the ranks of Soviet POWs were called) were surrounded. A Hiwi… Read more »

Istvan Reiner    stares straight into the camera with his big, dark eyes- he looks happy, playing with card and a hole-punch. Not long after the photo was taken, he was deported to Auschwitz, and sent with his grandmother into the gas chambers and murdered. I wonder what kind of a child he was; shy and… Read more »

Einsatzgruppen, “task forces” “deployment groups”; singular Einsatzgruppe; official full name Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD) were Schutzstaffel SS  paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting, during World War II .   The Einsatzgruppen were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, and had an integral role in the… Read more »

DUBOIS, Werner Karl born 26-02-1913 in Wuppertal, brought up by his grandmother. Eight years elementary school. Worked as joiner, brushmaker, printer and on a farm. Member  of SA since July 1933, NSDAP  and SS since January 1937 (SS-Totenkopfverband Brandenburg).  Driver at SS-Gruppenkommando Oranienburg. Driver and guard at the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. In August 1939 to Aktion T4, was a… Read more »

Karl Hermann Frank was born in Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic), on the 24th January 1898. As a Sudeten German, a growing hatred of Czechoslovakians magnified, and eventually overtook Frank, as the events leading up to, and during the war, added to the festering resentment bubbling inside him. Indeed, his animosity towards the Czech people… Read more »

Engelbert Dollfuss born 04-10-1892 was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Having served as Minister for Forests and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government. In early 1933, he shut down parliament, banned the Austrian Nazi party  and assumed dictatorial powers. Suppressing the Socialist movement in February 1934, he cemented the… Read more »

One day after France signed the armistice  in Compiégne with Germany in June 1940, Adolf Hitler celebrated the German victory over France with a triumphant tour of Paris. Hitler surveying his conquest with his various companions and became one of the most iconic photos of the 1940s and World War 2. This was the first and the… 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 »