Siegfried Seidl, was an Austrian career officer and Commandant of the Theresianstadt concentration camp located in the present-day czech Republic. He  also was commandant of the Bergen Belsen, and later served as staff officer to Adolf Eichmann. After the war, in 1947, he was tried in Austria and convicted as a war criminal; sentenced to death, he… Read more »

Konstantin Hierl (born 24 February 1875 in Parsberg, Germany) was a national socialist politician and official. He was a cousin of Johann Baptist Hierl , auxiliary bishop in Regensburg (1911-1936). After the visit of the Humanist Gymnasium in Burghausen and Regensburg, Hierl joined the Bavarian Army’s 11th Infantry Regiment “von der Tann”  in 1893 as a… Read more »

The Polish Navy  of the Second Polish Republic  (1919–39) was prepared mostly as means of supporting naval communications with France in case of a war with the Soviet Union. However, after it became apparent that the aggressive side would be Germany, and the entrance to the Baltic Sea would be blocked, three out of four… Read more »

Walter Buch born 24-10-1883 in Bruchtal, Baden, was a German jurist German jurist, official in Nazi Germany and SS Obergruppenführer. He  was also Martin Bormann‘s father-in-law. After the end of World War II in Europe, Buch was classified as a major regime functionary or “Hauptschuldiger” in Denaziffication proceedings in 1949. On 12 November of that year, he committed suicide. Born… Read more »

The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed at 18:36 near Compiegne, France, by officials of Nazi Germany and the French Third Republic. It did not come into effect until after midnight on 25 June. Signatories for Germany included senior military officers like Wilhelm Keitel. the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, while those on the French side were more… Read more »

Karl Kaufmann was born in Krefeld on 10 October 1900.  He served as a war volunteer in World War I and in the Brigade Hermann Ehrhardt (1919–1920).   A founding member of the NSDAP in 1921; after the re-establishment of the party, he rejoined in 1925 and quickly became one of Adolf Hitler’s favourites. He was appointed Gauleiter… Read more »

The German Army was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht , the regular German Armed Forces, from 1935 until it was demobilized and later dissolved in August 1946. The Wehrmacht also included the Kriegsmarine  (Navy) and the Luftwaffe  (Air Force). During World War II, a total of about 13 million soldiers served in the German Army. Most army personnel… Read more »

Alwin-Broder Albrecht 1 May 1945) was a German naval officer who was one of Adolf Hitler’s adjutant’s.  He was born 18-09-1903 in Sankt Peter-Ording in the Province of Schleswig-Holstein. In 1922 he joined the Reichsmarine. On 1 June 1934, he was promoted to Kapitänleutnant. Then on 01-11-1937, he was promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitan. When Hitler’s liaison officer to the… Read more »

The Iron Cross, abbreviated EK, was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). It was established by King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia  in March 1813 backdated to the birthday of his late wife Queen Louise  on 10 March 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars (EK 1813)…. Read more »

Operation ‘Watch on the Rhine’ was the deliberately misleading German name for Hitler’s new offensive, suggesting a defensive plan on the western border of Germany. Instead Hitler was making one last throw of the dice to launch an attack through the same heavily wooded mountainous terrain that had surprised France in 1940. This time it… Read more »