Günther Pancke was born 01-05-1899 in Gnesen (Gniezno), Province, Gewrman Empire. He served during the First World War as front line officer with the rank of Leutnant. Between 1920 and 1927 he stayed in South America. He joined the Nazi Party  on 1 August 1930, and the SS on 1 June 1931. Günther Pancke here with… Read more »

The history of the 101st Airborne Division  was activated began on 16 August 1942 at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana.   It’s first commander, Major General William Carey “Bill” Lee  observed that “the 101st”…has no history, but has a Rendezvous with Destiny.” Time and time again, the 101st has kept that rendezvous and in so doing, acquired a proud… Read more »

In the Netherlands , Liberation Day is celebrated each year on May the 5th to mark the end of the occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II. The northern part of our nation was liberated largely by the First Canadian Army  under commander Lieutenant General Guy Granville Simonds,   which included in addition to Canadian forces the British 1st Corps… Read more »

In the summer and autumn of 1941, vast numbers of Soviet prisoners were captured in about a dozen large encirclement’s.  Due to their rapid advance into the Soviet Union and an anticipated quick victory, the Germans did not want to ship these prisoners to Germany. Under the administration of the Wehrmacht, the prisoners were processed, guarded, forced-marched,… Read more »

Gustav Hermann Sorge born April 24, 1911, in Reisen, nicknamed “Der eiserne Gustav” (Iron Gustav) for his brutality, was an SS senior NCO. He  was initially a guadr at Esterwegen concentration camp in the Emsland region of Germany. Later on, he was assigned to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Among the many people who were murdered at Sachsenhausen… Read more »

The Blücher was the second of five Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruisers of Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine,  built after the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles. Named for Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher , the Prussian victor of the Battle of Waterloo, the ship was laid down in August 1936 and launched in June 1937. She was completed in September 1939, shortly… Read more »

Heinz Bernard Lammerding, possibly Heinrich Bernhard Lammerding, born August 27, 1905 in Dortmund, was a German engineer and SS Obergruppenführer of the Waffen-SS. As the main contributor to the massacres of the 2nd SS Panzer Division “The Reich”  on French civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane  and Tulle   in June 1944, he was condemned to death by a… Read more »

The Allied bombing of Hamburg on 27-07-1943 during World War II included numerous strategic bombing missions and diversion/nuisance raids. As a large port and industrial centre, Hamburg’s shipyards, U-boat pens  and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries were attacked throughout the war. The attack during the last week of July 1943, Operation Gomorrah,   the name Gomorrah comes from that of one of the two Canaanite cities of Sodom and… Read more »

Treblinka was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War Ii It was located in a forest north-east of  Warsw 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the Treblinka train station  in what is now the Masovian Voivodeshin, the administrative region of the Kingdom of Poland, and of the Polish–Lithuanian …. The camp operated between 23… Read more »

While Adolf Hitler garnered much approval in his early days of leadership, many Germans soon began to see the folly of keeping such a man in power. As such, more than fifteen assassination attempts were made on his life. A few of these are more notable than others, but they all share one thing in common—they all… Read more »