For instance, as far as the Russians go the Germans thought that they were barbaric and backward opponents who were as cruel if not more so than the nazis pretended not to be.  However, the Germans still had some degree of respect for their Russian opponents. The Russians were exceedingly tough both in their abilities… Read more »

Carinhall was the country residence of Hermann Goering. It was built on a large hunting estate northeast of Berlin in the Schornheide forest, between the lakes Großdöllner See and Wuckersee in the north of Brandenburg. Named in honour of his Swedish first wife, Carin Goering  (1888–1931), the residence was constructed in stages from 1933 on a large… 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 »

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 »

During World War II, Rüsselsheim, an industrial town that housed many key targets, including the Opel plant, was bombed several times by the Royal Air Force (RAF) . The RAF followed a policy of “area bombing” of cities at night while the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF)  relied on “precision bombing” by day. On the… Read more »

  D-Day– 6 June 1944, when Allied forces stormed into Hitler’s Fortress Europa in Normandy – is rightly celebrated for the valor of the American and British citizen soldiers who scaled the fearsome cliffs of Pointe-du-Hoc and other dug-in Wehrmacht concrete bunkers on Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno beaches. Most of us have seen… Read more »

Ilse Koch born Margarete Ilse Köhler 22 September 1906 was the wife of Karl Otto Koch,      commandant of the Nazi concentration camps Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943). She was one of the first prominent Nazi’s to be tried by the U.S military. After the trial received worldwide media attention, survivor accounts of her actions resulted in other authors describing her abuse of prisoners as… Read more »

  A nice introduction to the SS. The SS (Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler) was a number of things–Hitler’s body guard, law enforcement duties, concentration camp controllers, and soldiers (the Waffen-SS). This volume examines the work of the SS from 1939-1945. Early on, there was competition between the SA and the SS (to be devoted to Hitler,… Read more »

Schleifstein was born 1941, Josef (Janek) Szlajfsztajn to Israel and Esther Szlajfsztajn (born Shvitzman) in the Jewish ghetto outside Sandomierz, Poland during the German occupation. Schleifstein and his parents lived in the Sandomierz ghetto until it was evacuated in June 1942, after which they were moved to the Czestochowa Ghetto, where his parents were likely put to work in the Hasag factory . Schleifstein’s parents kept him… Read more »

Rochus Misch was the last survivor from Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. The former SS man had operated the telephones in the bunker and had proudly reminisced about his wartime duties for the “boss”. He worked as a bodyguard, a courier and a telephone operator.   He had called Hitler “a very normal man… he was no brute, he… Read more »