WWI German soldiers with captured machine guns and a car on a rail carriage

WWI German soldiers with captured machine guns and a car on a rail carriage

Remains of RAF airmen found in German field

The Cotton Boll Conspiracy

The remains of five British airmen have been found nearly 70 years after crashing in a muddy field outside Frankfurt, Germany, during World War II.

The discovery was made possible with the help of an eyewitness who saw the Lancaster bomber crash in April 1943 after returning from a raid on the Skoda armaments works at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, according to The Telegraph.

It took hours of digging by volunteers to uncover the bomber after Peter Menges, now 83, led them to the site outside the village of Laumersheim, near Frankfurt, where he’d seen the plane crash and explode after being hit by German anti-aircraft fire.

“A Rolls Royce engine and landing gear of the Lancaster bomber was found followed by ‘hundreds’ of fragments of human bones in what would have been the cockpit,” according to The Telegraph.

The bomber was one of three dozen aircraft which didn’t survive the…

View original post 264 more words

WWII

Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front winter 1943–1944, US naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad

Vocabulary

German World  Vocabulary

Against   |     Genen

Drive, Go, Run, Move      |     Fahren

Out     |     Aus

Counter-Offensive     |     Genenoffensive

World War II    |     Zweter Weltrieg

Move   |     Gehen

Russian World  Vocabulary

Sieg Heil Das Deutsche Reich/ World War Zone Translated Sieg Heil The German Empire / World War Zone

Aar (German Aare) River

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Aar (German Aare) River

The Aar rises in the great Aar Glaciers of the Bernese Alps, in the canton of Bern and west of the Grimsel Pass.^[1] It runs east to the Grimsel Hospice, below the Finsteraarhorn, and then northwest through the Haslital, forming on the way the magnificent Handegg Waterfall, 46 m (151 ft), past Guttannen. Between Innertkirchen and Meiringen, the river carves through a limestone ridge in the Aar Gorge or Aareschlucht.^[1]

A little past Meiringen, near Brienz, the river expands into Lake Brienz. Near the west end of the lake it receives its first important tributary, the Lütschine. It then runs across the swampy plain of the Bödeli between Interlaken and Unterseen before flowing into Lake Thun.^[1]

Near the west end of Lake Thun, the river receives the waters of the Kander, which has just been joined by the Simme. On flowing out of the lake it passes through Thun, and then flows through the city of Bern, passing beneath eighteen bridges and around the steeply-flanked peninsula on which the Old City is located. The river soon changes its northwesterly flow for a due westerly direction, but after receiving the Saane or Sarine it turns north until it nears Aarberg. There, in one of the major Swiss engineering feats of the 19th century, the Jura water correction, the river, which had previously rendered the countryside north of Bern a swampland through frequent flooding, was diverted by the Hagneck Canal into Lake of Bienne. From the upper end of the lake the river issues through the Nidau-Büren channel and then runs east to Büren. The lake absorbs huge amounts of eroded gravel and snowmelt that the river brings from the Alps, and the former swamps have become fruitful plains: they are known as the “vegetable garden of Switzerland”.

From here the Aar flows northeast for a long distance, past the ambassador town Solothurn^[1] (below which the Grosse Emme flows in on the right), Aarburg (where it is joined by the Wigger), Olten, Aarau,^[1] near which is the junction with the Suhre, and Wildegg, where the Hallwiler Aa falls in on the right. A short distance further, below Brugg it receives first the Reuss, and shortly afterwards the Limmat. It now turns due north, and soon becomes itself a tributary of the Rhine, which it surpasses in volume when the two rivers unite at Koblenz (Switzerland), opposite Waldshut, Germany. The Rhine, in turn, empties into the North Sea after crossing into the Netherlands.

Yvonne Catterfeld German singer, actress and TV host

Creator of the German Reichswehr, General von Seeck Generaloberst Hans von Seeckt

Creator of the German Reichswehr, General von SeeckGeneraloberst Hans von Seeckt

Image title	Am 22. April [1936]konnte der Schöpfer der deutschen Reichswehr, Generaloberst von Seeckt, bei bester Gesundheit seinen 70. Geburtstag in der Reichshauptstadt begehen. Der Führer hat aus diesem Anlass Seeckt zum Chef des Infanterie-Regiments 67 ernannt. Reichskriegsminister Generalfeldmarschall von Blomberg überbrachte dem Generaloberst, vor dessen Haus Doppelposten als Ehrenwache aufgezogen waren, die Glückwünsche der Wehrmacht. Eine Ehrenkompanie des Infanterie -Regiments 67 erwies militärische Ehren.Generaloberst von Seeckt schreitet zusammen mit dem Reichskriegsminister Generalfeldmarschall von Blomberg die Front der Ehrenkompanie der 67er ab. Scherl Bilderdienst BerlinADN-ZB/Archiv Faschistisches Deutschland 1933 – 1945 Ehrung zum 70. Geburtstag von Generaloberst von Seeckt am 232.4.1936 in Berlin. -Generaloberst von Seeckt schreitet zusammen mit dem Reichskriegsminister Generalfeldmarschall von Blomberg die Front der Ehrenkompanie der 67er ab.
Date and time of data generation	22 April 1936
IIM version	2
Headline	Generaloberst Hans von Seeckt – 70. Geburtstag
Credit/Provider	Bundesarchiv
Short title	Bild 183-1988-0106-500
Hide extended details

Russian Translation

22 Апреля [1936] был создателем германского рейхсвера генерала фон Секта, его 70-в полном здравии День рождения отмечают в столице.Секта лидер назначил по этому случаю в качестве начальника пехотного полка, 67 Военный министр фельдмаршал фон Бломберг привел генерал-полковник, были доставлены в дом в виде двойной охраной почетного караула, поздравления армии.Почетный караул полка пехоты оказалось 67 воинскими почестями.

Генерал фон Секта падает вместе с военным министром фельдмаршал фон Бломберг, перед почетным караулом в 67 года. Scherl фото службе Берлине

ADN-ZB/Archiv фашистской Германией 1933 – 1945 в честь 70-й День рождения генерала фон Секта по 232.4.1936 в Берлине. –
Генерал фон Секта падает вместе с военным министром фельдмаршал фон Бломберг, перед почетным караулом в 67 года.

English Translate

On 22 April [1936] was the creator of the German Reichswehr, General von Seeckt, his 70th in perfect health Birthday celebrating in the capital. The leader Seeckt appointed for the occasion as Chief of Infantry Regiment, 67th War Minister Field Marshal von Blomberg brought the Colonel-General, were brought before the House as a double guard of honor guard, the congratulations of the army. An honor guard of the infantry regiment turned 67 military honors.

General von Seeckt falls off together with the War Minister Field Marshal von Blomberg, the front of the guard of honor of the ’67. Scherl Picture Service Berlin

ADN-ZB/Archiv Fascist Germany 1933 – 1945 honoring the 70th Birthday of General von Seeckt on 232.4.1936 in Berlin. –
General von Seeckt falls off together with the War Minister Field Marshal von Blomberg, the front of the guard of honor of the ’67.

WWI – Generalloberst Han von Seeckt

Bundesarchiv Bild 136-B1296, Süddeutschland, Manöver der 5. und 7. Divison (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Europe at The Height Of German Domination, 1941-1942

Germany The Third Reich 1933-45

Germany The Third Reich, 1933-45

Sources: The Library of Congress Country Studies; CIA World Factbook Adolf Hitler was born in the Austrian border town of Braunau am Inn in 1889. When he was seventeen, he was refused admission to the Vienna Art Academy, having been found insufficiently talented. He remained in Vienna, however, where he led a bohemian existence, acquiring an ideology based on belief in a German master race that was threatened by an international Jewish conspiracy responsible for many of the world’s problems. Hitler remained in Vienna until 1913, when he moved to Munich. After serving with bravery in the German army during World War I, he joined the right-wing Bavarian German Workers’ Party in 1919. The following year, the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei–NSDAP). Its members were known as Nazis, a term derived from the German pronunciation of “National.” In 1921 Hitler assumed leadership of the NSDAP.

As leader of the NSDAP, Hitler reorganized the party and encouraged the assimilation of other radical right-wing groups. Gangs of unemployed demobilized soldiers were gathered under the command of a former army officer, Ernst Röhm, to form the Storm Troops (Sturmabteilung–SA), Hitler’s private army. Under Hitler’s leadership, the NSDAP joined with others on the right in denouncing the Weimar Republic and the “November criminals” who had signed the Treaty of Versailles. The postwar economic slump won the party a following among unemployed ex-soldiers, the lower middle class, and small farmers; in 1923 membership totaled about 55,000. General Ludendorff supported the former corporal in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923 in Munich, an attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government. The putsch failed, and Hitler received a light sentence of five years, of which he served less than one. Incarcerated in relative comfort, he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), in which he set out his long-term political aims.

After the failure of the putsch, Hitler turned to “legal revolution” as the means to power and chose two parallel paths to take the Nazis to that goal. First, the NSDAP would employ propaganda to create a national mass party capable of coming to power through electoral successes. Second, the party would develop a bureaucratic structure and prepare itself to assume roles in government. Beginning in the mid-1920s, Nazi groups sprang up in other parts of Germany. In 1927 the NSDAP organized the first Nuremberg party congress, a mass political rally. By 1928 party membership exceeded 100,000; the Nazis, however, polled only 2.6 percent of the vote in the Reichstag elections in May.

A mere splinter party in 1928, the NSDAP became better known the following year when it formed an alliance with the DNVP to launch a plebiscite against the Young Plan on the issue of reparations. The DNVP’s leader, Alfred Hugenberg, owner of a large newspaper chain, considered Hitler’s spellbinding oratory a useful means of attracting votes. The DNVP-NSDAP union brought the NSDAP within the framework of a socially influential coalition of the antirepublican right. As a result, Hitler’s party acquired respectability and access to wealthy contributors.

Had it not been for the economic collapse that began with the Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929, Hitler probably would not have come to power. The Great Depression hit Germany hard because the German economy’s well-being depended on short-term loans from the United States. Once these loans were recalled, Germany was devastated. Unemployment went from 8.5 percent in 1929 to 14 percent in 1930, to 21.9 percent in 1931, and, at its peak, to 29.9 percent in 1932. Compounding the effects of the Depression were the drastic economic measures taken by Center Party politician Heinrich Brüning, who served as chancellor from March 1930 until the end of May 1932. Brüning’s budget cuts were designed to cause so much misery that the Allies would excuse Germany from making any further reparations payments. In this at least, Brüning succeeded. United States president Herbert Hoover declared a “reparations moratorium” in 1932. In the meantime, the Depression deepened, and social discontent intensified to the point that Germany seemed on the verge of civil war.

In times of desperation, voters are ready for extreme solutions, and the NSDAP exploited the situation. Skilled Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels launched an intensive media campaign that ceaselessly expounded a few simple notions until even the dullest voter knew Hitler’s basic program. The party’s program was broad and general enough to appeal to many unemployed people, farmers, white-collar workers, members of the middle class who had been hurt by the Depression or had lost status since the end of World War I, and young people eager to dedicate themselves to nationalist ideals. If voters were not drawn to some aspects of the party platform, they might agree with others. Like other right-wing groups, the party blamed the Treaty of Versailles and reparations for the developing crisis. Nazi propaganda attacked the Weimar political system, the “November criminals,” Marxists, internationalists, and Jews. Besides promising a solution to the economic crisis, the NSDAP offered the German people a sense of national pride and the promise of restored order.

Three elections–in September 1930, in July 1932, and in November 1932–were held between the onset of the Depression and Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933. The vote shares of the SPD and the Center Party fluctuated somewhat yet remained much as they had been in 1928, when the SPD held a large plurality of 153 seats in the Reichstag and the Center Party held sixty-one, third after the DNVP’s seventy-three seats. The shares of the parties of the extreme left and extreme right, the KPD and the NSDAP, respectively, increased dramatically in this period, KPD holdings almost doubling from fifty-four in 1928 to 100 in November 1932. The NSDAP’s success was even greater. Beginning with twelve seats in 1928, the Nazis increased their delegation seats nearly tenfold, to 107 seats in 1930. They doubled their holdings to 230 in the summer of 1932. This made the NSDAP the largest party in the Reichstag, far surpassing the SPD with its 133 seats. The gains of the NSDAP came at the expense of the other right-wing parties.

Chancellor Brüning was unable to secure parliamentary majorities for his austerity policy, so he ruled by decree, a right given him by President Hindenburg. Head of the German army during World War I, Hindenburg had been elected president in 1925. Ruling without parliament was a major step in moving away from parliamentary democracy and had the approval of many on the right. Many historians see this development as part of a strategic plan formulated at the time by elements of the conservative establishment to abolish the republic and replace it with an authoritarian regime.

By late May 1932, Hindenburg had found Brüning insufficiently pliable and named a more conservative politician, Franz von Papen, as his successor. After the mid-1932 elections that made the NSDAP Germany’s largest party, Papen sought to harness Hitler for the purposes of traditional conservatives by offering him the post of vice chancellor in a new cabinet. Hitler refused this offer, demanding the chancellorship instead.

General Kurt von Schleicher, a master intriguer and a leader of the conservative campaign to abolish the republic, convinced Hindenburg to dismiss Papen. Schleicher formed a new government in December but lost Hindenburg’s support within a month. On January 30, 1933, Papen again put together a cabinet, this time with Hitler as chancellor. Papen and other conservatives thought they could tame Hitler by tying him down with the responsibilities of government and transferring to themselves his tremendous popularity with a large portion of the electorate. But they proved no match for his ruthlessness and his genius at knowing how–and when–to seize power. Within two months, Hitler had dictatorial control over Germany.
The Third Reich, 1933-45

Data as of August 1995

NOTE: The information regarding Germany on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Germany The Third Reich, 1933-45 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Germany The Third Reich, 1933-45 should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.

Citation model:

The World Factbook 2009. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
Comments and queries are welcome and may be addressed to:

Central Intelligence Agency
Attn: Office of Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20505
Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 AM-4:30 PM Eastern Standard Time
Telephone: [1] (703) 482-0623
FAX: [1] (703) 482-1739

 

Normandy Campaign

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of Normandy or Normandy Campaign includes the following:

• Operation Overlord– The Western Allied campaign in France from June 6 – August 25, 1944
• Operation Overlord^[11] was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune, commonly known as D-Day). A 12,000-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving almost 7,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June; more than three million troops were in France by the end of August.^[12]Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on D-Day itself came from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Free French Forces and Poland also participated in the battle after the assault phase, and there were also minor contingents from Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway.^[13] Other Allied nations participated in the naval and air forces.

  Once the beachheads were secured, a three-week military buildup occurred on the beaches before Operation Cobra, the operation to break out from the Normandy beachhead, began. The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to expand the foothold on France, and concluded with the closing of the Falaise pocket on 24 August, the Liberation of Paris on 25 August, and the German retreat across the Seine which was completed on 30 August 1944.^{[14][verification needed]}

• The Invasion of Normandy, or “Operation Neptune” – The initial part of Overlord, from June 6 – mid-July 1944

  • The Invasion of Normandy was a successful Allied operation of World War II. The term may also refer to:

    • Henry I of England’s invasion of Normandy culminating in the Battle of Tinchebray (1106)
    • The French and Breton Normandy campaigns of 1200–1204
  • The Normandy Landings on June 6, 1944
  • Operation Cobra, the breakout from Normandy, starting on July 25, 1944

The “Battle of Normandy” is the official term for the British and Canadian military campaign lasting from June 6 – September 1, 1944.

Senior officers aboard the USS Augusta during the Normandy Invasion. Second from the left is Lieutenant General Omar Bradley.

Battle Of Stalingrad (1942-1943)

The Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad was a major and decisive battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943[6][7][8][9] and was marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties. It is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with the higher estimates of combined casualties amounting to nearly two million. The heavy losses inflicted on the German army made it a significant turning point in the whole war.[10] After the Battle of Stalingrad, German forces never recovered their earlier strength, and attained no further strategic victories in the East.[11]

The German offensive to capture Stalingrad commenced in late summer 1942, and was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble. The German offensive eventually became mired in building-to-building fighting; and despite controlling nearly all of the city at times, the Wehrmacht was unable to dislodge the last Soviet defenders clinging tenaciously to the west bank of the Volga River.

On 19 November 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack targeting the weak Romanian and Hungarian forces protecting the 6th Army’s flanks.[12] After heavy fighting, the weakly held Axis flanks collapsed and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded inside Stalingrad. As the Russian winter set in, the 6th Army weakened rapidly from cold, starvation and ongoing Soviet attacks. Command ambiguity coupled with Adolf Hitler’s resolute belief in their will to fight further exacerbated the German predicament. Eventually, the failure of outside German forces to break the encirclement, coupled with the failure of resupplying by air, led to the final collapse. By the beginning of February 1943, Axis resistance in Stalingrad had ceased and the remaining elements of the 6th Army had either surrendered or been destroyed.[13]:p.932

English: Soviet offensive following the German failure to retake Stalingrad (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clip HBO Band Of Brothers German General Speech

Clip, Band, Brothers, German, General, Speech

German Order (decoration)

The German Order (German: Deutscher Orden) was the most important award that the Nazi Party could bestow on an individual for “duties of the highest order to the state and party” and designed by Benno von Arent. This award was first made by Adolf Hitler posthumously to Reichsminister Fritz Todt at his funeral in February 1942. A second posthumous award of the German Order was given to SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich at his funeral in June of that same year.

Cynics called the award the “dead hero order” as it was almost always awarded posthumously. The only two persons who received the German Order who survived the war and its consequences were Konstantin Hierl and Arthur Axmann.

The German Order was originally to be awarded in three grades, but only the neck order (the highest grade) was ever awarded. This award ranks the second rarest award in the Third Reich (second only to the National Prize for Art and Science). The holders of this award were supposed to form a confraternity.

Adolf Hitler viewed this award as his personal decoration to be bestowed only upon those whose services to the state and party he deemed worthy. For this reason, plus the fact that the reverse of the medal bears a facsimile of his signature, it was also informally known as the ‘Hitler Order’.

There were in all eleven confirmed recipients of this award between 1942 and 1945. According to some documents, the order was intended to be awarded to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, but this was never done.

Confirmed Recipients and Date of Award

• Fritz Todt (posthumous), February 12, 1942
• Reinhard Heydrich (posthumous), June 9, 1942
• Adolf Hühnlein (posthumous), June 21, 1942
• Viktor Lutze (posthumous), May 8, 1943
• Adolf Wagner (posthumous) April 17, 1944
• Josef Bürckel (committed suicide September 28, 1944), October 3, 1944
• Rudolf Schmundt (posthumous), October 7, 1944
• Konstantin Hierl, February 24, 1945
• Karl Hanke (killed during a POW escape attempt at a transport, June 8, 1945), April 12, 1945
• Karl Holz (killed in action April 20, 1945), April 19, 1945
• Artur Axmann, April 28, 1945

Documentary on the German (Axis) – Russian war of 1941-1945

Documentary on the German (Axis) – Russian War of 1941-1945

Hermann Göring