The Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, peaking at over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly by some one million people, including a few incidental individuals… Read more »

Heinz von Westernhagen was born on 29 August 1911 in Riga, capital of Latvia – then part of the Russian Empire. His early life was turbulent; the Russian revolution in 1917 turned the previously well to do Westernhagen family into nomads , and Heinz would escape the drudgery by joining the German merchant marine as… Read more »

Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp was the hub of a large group of German concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Sankt Georgen an der Gusen  in Upper Austria, roughly 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of the city of Linz. The camp operated from the time of the Anschluss , when Austria was annexed into the… Read more »

Operation Sea Lion was the German plan for the invasion of Britain in World War II (1939-1945) and was planned for sometime in late 1940, after the Fall of France. With the German victory over Poland in the opening campaigns of World War II, leaders in Berlin commenced planning for fighting in the west against France… Read more »

The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators killed children for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks. The Germans and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children…. Read more »

The RAF  underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the World War II. Under the  British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth  countries trained and formed “Article XV squadrons”  for service with RAF formations.Under a parallel agreement, the Joint Air Training Scheme, South Africa trained 33,347 aircrew for the… Read more »

The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare branch of the combined German Wehrmacht military forces during World War II. Germanny’s military air arms during World War I the Luftstretkrafte  of the Army and the Marine-Fliegersabteilung  of the Navy , had been disbanded in May 1920 as a result of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles which stated that Germany… Read more »

The affair began with a mistake made by the German aviator Major Erich Hoenmanns , the fifty-two-year-old base commander of Lodderheide airfield, near Münster. On the morning of 10 January, he had been flying a Messerschmitt BBf 108Taifun, an aircraft used for reconnaissance, liaison, and other miscellaneous roles, from Loddenheide to Cologne when he lost his way;… Read more »

The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany. They were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag  at a special meeting convened at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP)  The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and… Read more »

World War II summary: The carnage of World War II was unprecedented and brought the world closest to the term “total warfare.” On average 27,000 people were killed each day between September 1, 1939, until the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Western technological advances had turned upon itself, bringing about the most destructive war in… Read more »