Some aspects of life in Germany changed immediately upon the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939; others changed more slowly. Germany did not fully mobilise at first. In fact, it was not until 1943 that Germany focussed its economy on war production. Nazi policy was not to burden the people on the home front… Read more »

The Schutzstaffel, SS; also stylized as , literally “Protection Squadron” was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party) in Nazi Germany. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (Hall-Protection) made up of NSDAP, SA streetfighter,  volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich… Read more »

The Falaise Pocket or Battle of the Falaise Pocket (12–21 August 1944) was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy. A pocket was formed around Falaise, Calvados,  in which the German Army Group B under Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel  with the 7th Army  under SS Oberstgruppenführer Paul “Papa” Hausser  and the Fifth Panzer Army (formerly Panzergruppe West) under General of Panzer Troops Heinrich Eberbach were encircled by the Western… 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 »

Nobody escaped the regime of Hitler, even those who served under him. Hitler executed 84 German Generals for various reasons like: The commander of the German Home Army, General Friedrich Fromm,  is shot by a firing squad for his part in the July plot to assassinate the Fuhrer. Ludwig Beck  was in the custody of General… Read more »

Gesche joined the Nazi party in 1922 when he was only 17 and first met Hitler in Berlin a short time afterwards. The Führer remained devoted to him for the remainder of his life, despite the fact that Gesche had a heavy drinking problem. Gesche was known as a ruthless brawler and intimidating to Nazi opponents. Himmler intrigued… 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 »

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power began in Germany in September 1919 when Hitlerr joined the political party known as the Deutsche Arbeitspartei – DAP (German Workers’ Party) . The name was changed in 1920 to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party  , commonly known as the Nazi Party). This political party was formed and… Read more »

After the successful Allied invasions, D-Day” of western France, Germany gathered reserve forces and launched a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes, which collapsed by January. At the same time, Soviet forces were closing in from the east, invading Poland and East Prussia. By March, Western Allied forces were crossing the Rhine River , capturing hundreds… Read more »

Gerda Bormann-Buch was born 23-10-1909 in Konstanz am Bodensee. She  was the daughter of Supreme Nazi Party Judge and SS Obergruppenführer Walter Buch .  After the end of the Second World War in Europe, Buch was seized and sentenced to five years in a labour camp. In July 1949, in the course of another wave of Denazification, he was… Read more »