Edda Goering is the daughter of Hermann Goering, one of the leading Nazi politicians of World War II. When Goering married his wife Emmy Sonneman in 1935, she became the first lady of Germany since Adolf Hitler was unmarried, and Adolf Hitler is believed to have been Edda’s godfather. Edda was born on 02 June 1938,… Read more »

The 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS,   also known as the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (1944),or simply the Dirlewanger Brigade, was a military unit of the Waffen SS  during World War II. Composed of criminals expected to die fighting in the front-line, the unit was led by Oskar Dirlewanger . Oskar Dirlewanger   (26 September 1895 – 7 June 1945) was a German… Read more »

The Brandenburgers were members of the Brandenburg German special forces unit during World War II. Originally the unit was formed by and operated as an extension of the military’s intelligence organ, the Abwehr.  Members of this unit took part in seizing operationally important targets by way of sabotage and infiltration.  Being foreign German nationals who were convinced Nazi volunteers, constituent members had… Read more »

Rudolf Lange was a German SS functionary and police official during the Nazi era. He served as commander in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and all RSHA personnel in Riga, Latvia He attended the Wannsee Conference, and was largely responsible for implementing the murder of Latvia’s Jewish population. Einsatzgruppe A killed over 250,000 people in less than six months. Lange   was… Read more »

After Adolf Hitler) (did you know) had approved Anton Mussert   as “Leider van het Nederlandse Volk” (Leader of the Dutch People) NS  in December 1942, he was allowed to form a national government institute, a Dutch shadow cabinet called “Gemachtigden van den Leider“, which would advise Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart from 1 February 1943. The institute would… Read more »

During the Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) the Combat Group of the 1ST SS Panzer Division,   Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, led by SS Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper,  was approaching the crossroads at Baugnes near the town of Malmédy. There they encountered a company of US troops, the Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation… Read more »

A Texas man thought to be the US Navy sailor kissing a nurse in an iconic end of World War Two photo has died. Glenn McDuffie    died 09-03-2014 aged 86 at a nursing home in Dallas on Sunday, his daughter said. McDuffie’s claim to be the man in the famed VJ day photo was… Read more »

By far his greatest weakness was his belief that he was a military and strategic genius. He wasn’t. He had some startling early successes, but the longer the war went on, the more out of touch he became with the realities on the ground. He ignored the evidence because he was so certain that he… Read more »

Erich Topp was born 02-07-1914 in Hanover, the son of engineer John Topp, and joined the Reichsmarine in 1934, serving his first stint after being commissioned as Leutnant zur See on the light cruiser Karlsruhe in 1937, before transferring to the U-Bootwaffe in October 1937. In May 1933, Topp joined the Nazi Party  and in… Read more »

The Waffen-SS ( Armed SS) was the armed wing of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel  (SS, “Protective Squadron”).  Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands. The origins of the Waffen-SS can be traced back to the selection of a group of 120 SS men in March 1933 by… Read more »