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History > 20th century > WW2 > Axis powers > Germany and other countries > Nazi era > Timeline in pictures
Germany: Territorial Expansion (1935-1939) Map
Cartography by Mapping Solutions, Alaska. Source: Map 1, "Territorial Changes, 1935-1939," in Germany and the Second World War, edited by the Research Institute for Military History, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
Volume I, The Build-up of German Aggression, by Wilhelm Deist, Manfred Messerschmidt, Hans-Erich Volkmann, and Wolfram Wette.
Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1990.
German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/Map_1_english_for_pdf_Bh_final.pdf http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/map.cfm?map_id=2884
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/index.cfm
Georg Wilhelm Pabst 1885-1967
Austrian film director and screenwriter.
He started as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers during the Weimar Republic.
(...)
After making A Modern Hero (1934) in the USA and Street of Shadows (1937) in France, Pabst (who was planning to emigrate to the United States) was caught in France in 1939 whilst visiting his mother, when war was declared, and was forced to return to Nazi Germany.
Under the auspices of propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, Pabst made two films in Germany, during this period; The Comedians (1941) and Paracelsus (1943). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._Pabst - 29 October 2020
After 1933, along with many others in the German film industry, Pabst refused to work under the Nazis, and sought work in Hollywood.
But he wasn't prepared to dilute his talent.
On his one Hollywood film, A Modern Hero, Warner Brothers complained that Pabst was giving his leading actress "too much freedom" and, unaware that the German director was one of the creators of "invisible editing" - where shots are edited in the director's head - the studio demanded that Pabst shoot more footage so they could re-edit his work and make the final cut.
For Pabst the experience was commercially and aesthetically disastrous, and perhaps affected his judgment when he crossed over from Switzerland into Nazi-occupied Austria in August 1939.
Later, Pabst explained his actions with a flurry of excuses:
he had tickets booked on the liner Normandy in his pocket;
he had to have a hernia operation in Vienna;
he had to dispose of family property and he had to take his mother with him to America.
Whatever his motives, Germany's invasion of Poland the following month meant that Pabst literally missed the boat.
After the war all his excuses were dismissed by the grande dame of German film, Lotte Eisner, who remembers telling Pabst "rather harshly" that "the man with the perfect alibi is always the guilty one".
During the war Pabst was ordered by Joseph Goebbels to make a couple of anodyne movies;
but after the war the director didn't help his cause by never making any statement of regret.
For his German followers, who were waiting for him in America and who knew him as "the red Pabst", this refusal was tantamount to an act of betrayal.
The accusations must have cut deep.
Pabst never gained his old momentum.
As Eisner said, "The films he shot after tha lacked the old strength. It was not the old Pabst - the strong man of the left wing."
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/jan/16/
G. W. Pabst, best known for his silent films starring Louise Brooks, was probably the most respected director to work for the Nazis.
No one knows exactly why this master of realism re-entered the Nazi dream factory in 1939, after spending most of the decade in the United States and France.
In the early 30's his signature had become films that spoke eloquently for pacifism and social justice.
"Paracelsus" (1943), one of two films Pabst made for the Nazis, contains many standard elements of Goebbels's favored type of propaganda: a historical story of a rebel Fuhrer-figure fighting intellectuals, foreigners and pestilence.
"Paracelsus" successfully combats the plague in medieval Basel after the disease has spread as a result of the deviousness and stupidity of Latin-speaking physicians.
Like most of the other great men captured in Nazi cinema, Paracelsus was a stand-in for Hitler.
In 1948, Pabst switched sides again and made "Der Prozess" ("The Trial"), one of the first postwar films to deal critically with anti-Semitism.
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/06/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._Pabst
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/jan/16/
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/11/
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/06/
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/25/
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/01/
https://www.nytimes.com/1956/04/12/
Albert Maria Forster 1902-1952
Nazi German politician, member of the SS and war criminal.
Under his administration as the Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia (the other German-annexed section of occupied Poland aside from the Warthegau) during the Second World War, the local non-German population of Poles and Jews was classified as sub-human and subjected to extermination campaign involving ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and in case of some Poles with German ancestry, forceful Germanisation.
Forster was directly responsible for the extermination of non-Germans and was a strong supporter of Polish genocide, which he had advocated for before the war.
Forster was tried, convicted and hanged in Warsaw for his crimes, after Germany was defeated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Forster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Forster
Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg 1865-1951
German industrialist and political leader
As the head of a huge newspaper and film empire and a prominent member of the conservative German National Peoples’ Party, he exercised a profound influence on German public opinion during the Weimar Republic period (1918–33) and materially contributed to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/274838/Alfred-Hugenberg
https://global.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Hugenberg
Emil Jannings (born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz) 1884-1950
After the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933, Jannings continued his career in the service of Nazi cinema.
During the Third Reich, he starred in several films which were intended to promote Nazism, particularly the Führerprinzip by presenting unyielding historical characters, such as Der alte und der junge König (The Old and the Young King 1934), Der Herrscher (The Ruler 1937) directed by Veit Harlan, Robert Koch (1939), Ohm Krüger (Uncle Kruger, 1941) and Die Entlassung (Bismarck's Dismissal, 1942).
He also performed in his famed role in The Broken Jug directed by Gustav Ucicky.
Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels named Jannings an "Artist of the State" (Staatsschauspieler) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Jannings#Nazi_Germany - 27 October 2020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Jannings#Nazi_Germany
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/06/
https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/10/
Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter
8 July 1901, Vienna, Austria-Hungary – 14 July 1949, Rome, Italy
Von Wächter, though indicted in 1945 for mass murder, is the man who escapes justice, the one who gets away.
(...)
a committed Nazi, a party member since 1923 who rose through the ranks as Hitler consolidated his power to be appointed governor of Kraków in 1939 and then of Galicia in 1942, directly accountable to Heinrich Himmler until the fall of the Nazi regime.
In 1945, wanted by the allies, Von Wächter evades capture, surviving as a fugitive for three years in the Austrian Alps before coming under the protection of a Vatican bishop,
Hiding in Rome, an anonymous tenant in the Vigna Pia monastery, Von Wächter waits for safe passage via the secret channels by which Nazi refugees were trafficked to Argentina along “the ratline”, a shadowy pathway out of Rome in a city now abuzz with Soviet and American spies.
Three months in, Von Wächter is taken ill under mysterious circumstances.
Two monks drop him off at the nearby Santo Spirito hospital, under a false identity.
Four days later, he’s dead.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/03/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/03/
https://www.ft.com/content/7d6214f2-b2be-11e2-8540-00144feabdc0
Hans Frank 1900-1946
Hans Frank photographed in Graz, Austria, in 1938.
Photograph: Imagno/Getty Images
East West Street by Philippe Sands review – putting genocide into words G Sunday 22 May 2016 06.30 BST Last modified on Sunday 22 May 2016 06.33 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/22/
early supporter of the Nazi party.
He studied law and eventually became the personal legal advisor to Adolf Hitler.
After the outbreak of World War II, Frank was appointed Governor General of occupied Poland.
In this capacity, Frank was responsible for the exploitation and murder of hundreds of thousands of Polish civilians, as well as the deportation and murder of Polish Jews.
He was found guilty on counts three and four (war crimes and crimes against humanity) and sentenced to death.
Frank was executed on October 16, 1946. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007108
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
Heinrich Müller 28 April 1900 - May 1945 ?
the chief of Hitler’s dreaded Gestapo, or secret police — was one of the most senior Nazis to escape capture or certified death at the end of World War II.
(...)
Müller was among the Nazi commanders who planned the Holocaust at the infamous conference at Wannsee lake in Berlin in January 1942.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/
Ernst-Robert Grawitz 1899-1945
chief Nazi doctor
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/05/
Berlin 1945
Excellent aerial view showing devastation and bombed out buildings over wide area of Communist, Russian controlled Berlin, extending north beyond its border of the Brandenburg Gate, following Allied capture of the city.
Location: Berlin, Germany Date taken: July 1945
Photographer: William Vandivert Life Images
Berlin 1945
Large crowd of German citizens lined up on street waiting for bus w. bombed out buildings as a backdrop following Allied occupation of the city.
Location: Berlin, Germany Date taken: July 1945
Photographer: William Vandivert Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=4a2bfcf72a3034f6
1945
Battle of Berlin
21 April 1945
Red Army enters outskirts of Berlin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/21/newsid
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/berlin_01.shtml
February 13-15, 1945
Bombing of Dresden, led by Royal Air Force and followed by the U.S. Army Air Force
Dresden
Streetcars running through ruins of bldgs. destroyed in 1945 allied fire bombing of city in post-WWII Russian zone.
Location: Dresden, Germany Date taken: 1946
Photographer: William Vandivert Life Images
http://images.google.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4257253.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/14/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/23/germany.secondworldwar
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/13/secondworldwar.germany
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/31/germany.secondworldwar https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/feb/07/featuresreviews.guardianreview2 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/mar/03/military.germany
Erwin Rommel 1891-1944
Dubbed the "Desert Fox" for the skillful military campaigns he waged on behalf of the German military in North Africa, Erwin Rommel earned the grudging respect of even his adversaries.
At the start of World War II, Rommel was largely responsible for Adolf Hitler's personal safety as he sought to expand his Nazi empire.
Despite the tactical brilliance Rommel displayed in North Africa, German advances there were halted in 1943.
In January 1944, Rommel was made commander in chief of all German armies from the Netherlands to the Loire River.
In France, Rommel sought to fortify Nazi territory and prevent an Allied invasion.
He was not successful.
On June 6, 1944, while Rommel was in Germany celebrating his wife's birthday, the Allies landed at Normandy.
Soon after, Rommel was seriously wounded when Allied aircraft strafed his motorcar.
As a result, he was forced to return to Germany to recover.
While he was hospitalized, a failed attempt on Hitler's life was made.
Rommel, a recent critic of Hitler's leadership, was implicated in the plot.
Shortly thereafter, two German soldiers visited Rommel's sickbed.
They offered him the unpleasant choice of committing suicide by ingesting poison pills or standing trial in what would most likely be a rigged and losing effort.
Rommel chose the poison. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/dday-featured-film/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/
1941
The Reich's forgotten atrocity
The Nazi plan to starve 30 million people in the east went unrealised.
But more than 3 million Soviet POWs were murdered
(...)
As German leaders prepared for the invasion of the Soviet Union in spring 1941, they agreed a quick summer victory would be followed by the starvation of some 30 million people.
A Hunger Plan foresaw the "extinction of industry as well as a great part of the population".
Soviet cities would be destroyed, Soviet industry destroyed, and eastern lands reduced to depopulated prairie ripe for German agrarian colonisation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/21/secondworldwar-russia
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/21/
In early March 1941, Bulgaria joined the Axis alliance and, in April 1941, participated in the German-led attack on Yugoslavia and Greece.
In return, Bulgaria received most of Thrace from Greece, and Macedonia as well as parts of eastern Serbia from Yugoslavia.
Though Bulgaria participated in the Balkan Campaign, it refused to enter the war against the Soviet Union in June 1941 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005451
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bulgaria
Romania The Straga Taree (Watch of the Country), a compulsory fascistic Rumanian Youth Organization
Romania
Uniform-clad pupils at the Chisinau School for Girls giving the official salute of the Straga Taree (Watch of the Country), a compulsory fascistic Rumanian Youth Organization.
Location: Chisinau, Bessarabia, Romania Date taken: February 1940
Photographer: Margaret Bourke-White Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=d88f2b870db9a55b
Romania and Hungary joined the Tri-partite Pact - originally signed by Germany, Japan and Italy - in November 1940, as Hitler prepared his attack against Bolshevism on the Eastern Front.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/timeline/
Adolf Hitler meets Francisco Franco France Hendaye October 23, 1940
Smiling German ldr. Adolf Hitler (R) shaking hands w. Spanish leader Generalissimo Francisco Franco (2L) during Hitler's only official meeeting w. Franco.
Location: Hendaye, France Date taken: October 23, 1940
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=2bab5be9c6f1bc41
https://www.ina.fr/video/AFE85000178/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/
The economic impact of the Treaty of Versailles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/05/versailles-
September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/ https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-poland-fall-1939 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-administration-of-poland https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/warsaw https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/news--polish-question-16-points/zrt36v4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/news--invasion-of-poland/zmd68xs
23-24 August 1939
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact / Nazi-Soviet Pact
Treaty of Non-Aggression between the Third German Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
L to R: Stalin and Ribbentrop at the signing of the Pact 23 August 1939 Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Primary source > Das Bundesarchiv
http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1252826541/?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8212451.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8214391.stm
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/05/
22 May 1939
Italy and Germany sign the Pact of Steel to help each other in the event of war
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/higher/history/
Munich agreement / Annexation of Austria / Czechoslovakia partition 1938-1939
The Disabled - the Nazis’ First Victims
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/
Nazi Party / Nazis
The Nazi Party was one of a number of right-wing extremist political groups that emerged in Germany following World War I.
Beginning with the onset of the Great Depression it rose rapidly from obscurity to political prominence, becoming the largest party in the German parliament in 1932.
Key facts
1
The Nazi Party’s meteoric rise to power began in 1930, when it attained 107 seats in Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag.
In July 1932, the Nazi Party became the largest political party in the Reichstag with 230 representatives
2
In the final years of the Weimar Republic (1930 to 1933), the government ruled by emergency decree because it could not attain a parliamentary majority.
Political and economic instability, coupled with voter dissatisfaction with the status quo, benefitted the Nazi Party.
3
As a result of the Nazis’ mass support, German president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933.
His appointment paved the way to the Nazi dictatorship after Hindenburg’s death in August 1934.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/
Führerbau Munich
Hitler/Jaeger File The Fuhrerbau, Hitler's official residence in Munich, 1938.
Location: Munich, Germany Date taken: September 1938
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers. http://www.life.com/image/ugc1000272/in-gallery/27022
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=bf548c3dc50e8a0e
Hitler/Jaeger File Interior of the Fuhrerbau.
Location: Munich, Germany Date taken: 1940
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers. http://www.life.com/image/ugc1000272/in-gallery/27022
Life Images
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/bca87b03a90b2624.html
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerbau
Nazi artifacts
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/20/
November 1936
German-Japanese Treaty
Berlin and Tokio announce their pact
https://www.theguardian.com/century/1930-1939/
1936
Germany begins rearming and invades the Rhineland up to the French border
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/overview
Foreboding detail … a Berlin street in 1935, with a Swastika flag in a doorway.
Photograph: Roman Vishniac/Mara Vishniac Kohn courtesy International Center of Photography
Terror in focus: the Jewish photographer who captured the rise of Nazism G Sun 28 Oct 2018 15.00 GMT Last modified on Mon 29 Oct 2018 15.02 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/28/
September 1935
Hitler’s Nazi party convention in Nuremberg
https://www.theguardian.com/society/gallery/2017/mar/10/
June 18, 1935
Anglo-German Naval Agreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_Naval_Agreement
Saar referendum 1935
Shiela Grant Duff covered the Saar plebiscite for the Observer in Saarbrucken, 1935.
Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images
The pioneering women who took on Hitler … and Fleet Street Foreign correspondent was deemed ‘no job for a female’ between the wars. A new book celebrates the lives of the journalists who proved otherwise G Sun 25 Oct 2020 06.29 GMT Last modified on Sun 25 Oct 2020 08.36 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/25/
A referendum on territorial status was held in the Territory of the Saar Basin on 13 January 1935.
Over 90% of voters opted for reunification with Germany, with 9% voting for the status quo as a League of Nations mandate territory and less than 0.5% opting for unification with France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Saar_status_referendum
In January 1935, on a freelance commission for the Observer, she (Shiela Grant Duff) had travelled to Saarbrucken, then a League of Nations protectorate, to cover the Saar plebiscite.
The Saar region, 730 square miles of coal-rich hills abutting Luxembourg, had been confiscated from Germany at the Versailles peace negotiations.
The plebiscite over the Saar’s return to German control in January 1935 was marked by extreme German brutality, forcing Jews, communists and anti-fascists to flee to France.
The coverage in the British press was characterised by relief that the whole thing was over, that Hitler, having got back the Saar, would pipe down.
Grant Duff, independent of the diplomatic press corps, stayed on in Saarbrucken and watched.
She wrote in the Observer: “The million swastikas which hang on the walls in the Saar give the impression that a plague of spiders has descended …
The Nazis can tell their enemies by their eyes.
Panic can be seen in all the gestures and bearing of working class women who tell how they have been threatened, how they have been mocked and spat upon …
Others … tell how their doors have been broken open in the middle of the night.”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/25/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Saar_status_referendum
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/25/
National socialist demonstration in Berlin, Germany in front of the Brandenburger Gate.
‘Only a strong Germany can provide employment to its people’, 1931
Photograph: Imagno/Getty Images
The 1930s revisited Countdown to the second world war - in pictures G Friday 10 March 2017 23.55 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/society/gallery/2017/mar/10/
Hitler youth
Group of boys in Hitler Youth.
Location: Germany Date taken: 1939
Photographer: Heinrich Hoffmann [ Hitler's official photographer ] Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/08e125f572ffc7f3.html
Adolf Hitler and Nazi youth leader Baldur von Schirach inspect Hitler youth at the Nuremberg rally in 1934.
Photograph: Ullstein bild Dtl./Getty Images
WWII: eighty years on, the world is still haunted by a catastrophe foretold G Sun 1 Sep 2019 09.00 BST Last modified on Sun 1 Sep 2019 09.15 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/01/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/indoctrinating-youth
of the organization's activities
https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/28/
https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/28/
Culture in the Third Reich
the Nazis exploited films and theatre to spread their poisonous ideology
Even before the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, they had placed their tanks on the battlefield of the imagination.
“Event culture” with darker undertones was in full swing.
A heady mixture of pagan-inspired rituals, firework displays launched on river boats and rallies with folk music was the nationalist answer to the freewheeling modernism of the Weimar Republic.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/13/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/13/
Nazi architecture
https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2016/jun/02/
Karl Doenitz 1891-1980
Time Covers - The 40S TIME cover 05-10-1943 ill. of German Admiral Karl Doenitz.
Date taken: May 10, 1943
Photographer: Boris Artzybasheff
Life Images http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007107
From 1939, Karl Doenitz was Commander of Germany's U-Boat fleet.
In 1943, Doenitz was appointed Commander in Chief of the German War Navy, and in May 1945, after Hitler committed suicide, Doenitz was appointed Reich President.
[ At Nuremberg ] Doenitz was found guilty on counts two and three (crimes against peace and war crimes) and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007107
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/karl-doenitz
Rudolf Hess 1894-1987
Inside minimum security prison at Fortress of Landsberg are (L) Adolf Hitler & (2R) visitor Rudolf Hess w. other unident. prisoners.
Location: Germany
Date taken: 1924 Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=8cc9265d437fb1bc
was a longstanding personal aide to Hitler, and deputy party leader of the Nazi party (until 1941).
In May 1941, Hess flew to Scotland hoping to make peace between Germany and Britain.
He was immediately arrested and imprisoned.
Hess was found guilty on counts one (conspiracy) and two (crimes against peace) and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Hess was the only one of the defendants to serve the full life term; he committed suicide in prison at age 93. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007113
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/rudolf-hess
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/29/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/20/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/01/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/21/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2010/jan/18/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1987/aug/18/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/
https://www.theguardian.com/century/1940-1949/
Albert Speer 1905-198
Adolf Hitler's architect and armaments minister
Hitler/Jaeger File
Top Nazi Party members march in remembrance of 1923 Beer Hall Putsch (front, L-R) Friedrich Weber, Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler, unident. (Martin Bormann?), Julius Streicher; (back, L-R) Albert Speer, Walter Schultze, Alfred Rosenberg & unidents.
Location: Munich, Germany Date taken: November 09, 1938
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers.
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=4fbe3f8750ed6862
Albert Speer was a trained architect.
After joining the Nazi party in 1930, Speer became Hitler's personal architect.
In 1942, he was named Minister of Armaments and Munitions, assuming significant responsibility for the German war economy.
In this position, Speer used millions of forced laborers to raise economic production.
Speer was found guilty on counts three and four (war crimes and crimes against humanity) and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
He was released in 1966. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007128
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/albert-speer
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/13/
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/
Wernher von Braun 1912-1977
German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, born in 1912 in Wirsitz, Germany, took an early interest in rockets and the possibility of space exploration.
As a young man, he joined the German Rocket Society (Verein fur Raumschiffahrt).
In 1932, von Braun joined the German army to work on the development of ballistic missiles.
By 1937, he was the head of the Peenemeunde Rocket Center and leader of the Nazi rocket program that eventually developed the V-1 “buzz bomb” and the deadly V-2, the world’s first ballistic missile. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/features/hunt-for-nazi-scientists/wernher-von-braun/101/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/von-braun/
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/23/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/us/18haeussermann.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/24/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/03/germany.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Fritz Sauckel 1894-1946
was Plenipotentiary General for the Deployment of Labor.
Sauckel was responsible for providing forced laborers to meet Germany's increasing war production needs.
Under his authority, the Germans deported millions of forced laborers from the occupied territories to Germany.
He was found guilty on counts three and four (war crimes and crimes against humanity) and sentenced to death.
Sauckel was hanged on October 16, 1946. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/article.php?ModuleId=10007124
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
Alfred Rosenberg 1893-1946
Alfred Rosenberg [ left ] with Adolf Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, November 1923.
Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
The Devil’s Diary review – the mind of Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s ‘chief ideologue’ G Thursday 5 May 2016 16.00 BST Last modified on Saturday 7 May 2016 00.05 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/05/
Nazi theorist whose views on race are thought to have helped incite Hitler’s persecution of Jews
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/
official chief Nazi philosopher, head of the Nazi party's foreign affairs department, and Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
Rosenberg established an organization whose mission was to loot and confiscate cultural treasures from all over Europe and bring them to Germany.
As Reich Minister for the Occupied East, he played a role in the annihilation of Soviet Jews and the deportation of other Soviet civilians for forced labor.
Rosenberg was found guilty on all four counts (conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity) and sentenced to death.
He was hanged on October 16, 1946. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007123
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/05/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10111573/
Paul Joseph Goebbels 1897-1945
Heinrich Himmler 1900-1945
Time Covers - The 40S TIME cover: 02-12-1945 ill. of Germany's Nazi SS Gestapo leader Heinrich Himmler.
Date taken: February 12, 1945
Photographer: Ernest Hamlin Baker
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=e57be60f46edaccc
By June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Himmler controlled not only the police but the political administration of the occupied territories and, through his control of the SS, the concentration camp system.
In 1943, Hitler appointed Himmler minister for the interior.
In this post he oversaw the 'Final Solution' - the attempt to exterminate all the Jewish people in Europe - and administered the system of forced labour. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/himmler_heinrich.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/himmler_heinrich.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/radicalisation_01.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/features/local-history/training-assassins-for-a-nazi-attack.shtml
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/18/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/05/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/14/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/02/17/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/26/
Martin Bormann 1900-1945
Hitler/Jaeger File Reichs Veternans Day.
L to R: Martin Bormann, von Epp, and Heinrich Himmler.
Location: Kassel, Germany Date taken: June 04, 1939
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers. http://www.life.com/image/ugc1000272/in-gallery/27022
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=eddcfc03e70c95f7
became the chief of staff for Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, in 1933.
Virtually unknown to the German public, Bormann as a close assistant to Hitler was a powerful force behind the scenes in internal politics.
Following Hess' flight to Great Britain, Bormann became head of the Party Chancellery (1941) and, officially in 1943, Secretary to the Fuehrer.
His hand could be seen in an array of domestic policies, including the murder of the Jews, the "euthanasia" effort, the plunder of artwork, and the expansion of forced-labor programs.
He also signed a series of edicts ordering deportations of Jews to the east.
Bormann died in an effort to flee Berlin in the last days of World War II, but was long thought to be at large.
He was tried in absentia at Nuremberg, where he was sentenced to death.
West German authorities officially declared him dead in 1973 after his remains were discovered and positively identified. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007106
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-bormann
Robert Ley 1890-1945
Hitler/Jaeger File Robert Ley (rt), Amman, Mrs. Ley ? in back.
Location: Berlin, Germany Date taken: June 06, 1939
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers. http://www.life.com/image/ugc1000272/in-gallery/27022
Life Images http://www.life.com/image/ugc1000272/in-gallery/27022
In 1933, after all German trade unions were dissolved, Robert Ley established the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF; German Labor Front).
As head of the DAF, whose membership totaled 25 million, Ley was known as the "undisputed dictator of labor" in Germany.
Nevertheless, he was overshadowed on labor issues during the war by rivals like Albert Speer and Fritz Sauckel, his codefendants in 1945.
Ley was indicted on counts one, three, and four (conspiracy, war crimes, and crimes against humanity).
Obsessed with the idea of becoming a martyr, Ley committed suicide in his cell at Nuremberg shortly before the trial began. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007118
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/robert-ley
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich 1904-1942
SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA) and one of Reichsführer-SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler's top deputies http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005477
Heydrich was Hitler's right-hand man and was tipped to one day succeed the leader himself.
He was ruler of the occupied Czech Republic and by 1942 he had killed hundreds and was ferociously stamping out resistance. http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/features/local-history/training-assassins-for-a-nazi-attack.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/features/local-history/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
Leni Riefenstahl 1902-2003 Hitler's favourite film propagandist
Hitler And Riefenstahl
German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (C) taking a walk w. German fuhrer Adolf Hitler (R) and Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels during their visit to her new home.
Location: Dahlem, Germany Date taken: June 1937
Photographer: Heinrich Hoffmann
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=6ddbc0f0b01086c5
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jun/14/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/feb/16/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10698820 - June 4, 2007
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1429805 - 13 September 2003 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1429468 - 12 September 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3093574.stm - 9 September 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3093154.stm - 9 September 2003 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1424500 - September 9, 2003
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/sep/09/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/10/
https://www.theguardian.com/arts/pictures/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/18/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/986528.stm - 23 October 2000
1937
Entartete Kunst - Degenerate Art - exhibition
It is one of the most shuddered-at chapters in the story of art.
In July 1937, Nazi officials turned up in full uniform alongside evening-suited cultural eminences of the Third Reich at an art gallery in Munich for the opening of the Exhibition of Degenerate Art.
They came not to praise modern art, but to laugh at it.
Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, Georg Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner – the masters of modernism, including giants of Germany's own avant garde, were shown in this exhibition as deviant, decadent practitioners of so-called Degenerate Art – "Entartete Kunst".
Sections of the show had titles such as "Total Madness", "The Prostitute Raised to a Moral Ideal", "The Negroisation of Art".
Modern art was interpreted in the catalogue as a conspiracy by Russian Bolsheviks and Jewish dealers to destroy European culture.
The admiration for African carvings that had so fired Picasso and other artists was taken as proof of modern art's racial degeneracy. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/04/munich-hoard-lost-art-nazis
In six weeks it had a million visitors, and a million more caught it on tour.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/04/munich-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/16/
Berlin Olympics 1936
Lamp, one of Germany's shooters.
Location: Germany Date taken: 1936
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/7f57a13d02874619.html - broken link
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jun/14/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/
Third Reich
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/
Austria Chancellor Dollfuss 1892-1934
Time Covers - The 30S TIME cover 09-25-1933 Engelbert Dollfuss, photo credit Knozer.
Date taken: September 25, 1933
Life images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=f685e09a27554dec - broken link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1033454.stm
1933
Ermächtigungsgesetz
act passed in both the Reichstag and Reichsrat on 23 March 1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
Political opposition is outlawed by Hitler's notorious enabling act of 1933
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/07/
Nazi Germany 1933-1945
Hitler/Jaeger File Reichstag session, Kroll Opera House. Hitler makes keynote address answering Roosevelts appeal to avoid war.
Location: Berlin, Germany Date taken: April 28, 1939
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers. Life Images
Hitler/Jaeger File Buckeberge, Thanksgiving Day, 1937. "The Street of People."
Location: Buckeberge, Germany Date taken: 1937
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers.
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/44a05f0d791af31a.html Other photo http://images.google.com/hosted/life/68529c66b28dfb01.html
Hitler/Jaeger File Exterior shot of the Chancellery.
Location: Berlin, Germany Date taken: 1939
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers.
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f144bdd59e2f78e0.html
Hitler/Jaeger File Sepp Hilz, with model and painting "Peasant Venus," chosen by Hitler fro display at "Day of German Art".
Location: Munich, Germany Date taken: 1939
Photographer: Hugo Jaeger
Hugo Jaeger was one of Hitler's personal photographers.
Life Images http://images.google.com/hosted/life/7b53e310d9f75ced.html
Hitler Youth Drummers, 1936
Their work, estimated to stand at 700,000 shots, reflects several chapters of German history – from the cultural awakening during the years of the Weimar republic, through the Third Reich, and on to the second world war
Photograph: Dr Paul Wolff
High-flying Zeppelin and Hitler youth: Germany between the wars – in pictures Dr Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler were two of Germany’s most renowned photographers during the 1930s. Their work captures airships, athletes and the rise of fascism Tue 18 Aug 2020 07.00 BST G
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
Graf Zeppelin, 1928
Alfred Tritschler’s photographic skill can be seen in his dynamic sports shots and bold airship photographs
Photograph: Alfred Tritschler
High-flying Zeppelin and Hitler youth: Germany between the wars – in pictures Dr Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler were two of Germany’s most renowned photographers during the 1930s. Their work captures airships, athletes and the rise of fascism G Tue 18 Aug 2020 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
From the series: Flugplatz Frankfurt am Main
A new Zeppelin hall under construction. During the end phase of the second world war significant portions of the Wolff archive were destroyed
Photograph: Dr Paul Wolff
High-flying Zeppelin and Hitler youth: Germany between the wars – in pictures Dr Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler were two of Germany’s most renowned photographers during the 1930s. Their work captures airships, athletes and the rise of fascism G Tue 18 Aug 2020 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
Hydro power generator stands, Siemens-Schuckert, Berlin, 1936 Wolff made portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. He took photographs and continued to publish books on his use of the Leica camera until his death
Photograph: Dr Paul Wolff
High-flying Zeppelin and Hitler youth: Germany between the wars – in pictures Dr Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler were two of Germany’s most renowned photographers during the 1930s. Their work captures airships, athletes and the rise of fascism G Tue 18 Aug 2020 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
Opening of the Opel Baths in Wiesbaden, 1934
The Wolff and Tritschler photobook by Hans-Michael Koetzle is nominated for the Kraszna-Krausz photo book awards this year
Photograph: Dr Paul Wolff
High-flying Zeppelin and Hitler youth: Germany between the wars – in pictures Dr Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler were two of Germany’s most renowned photographers during the 1930s. Their work captures airships, athletes and the rise of fascism G Tue 18 Aug 2020 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/section.cfm?section_id=13
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/04/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
Nazi art experts who helped loot European Jews
Bruno Lohse (1911-2007)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/
Fritz Todt 1891-1942
Organisation Todt Siegfried Line
Fritz Todt March 1940 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1969-146-01,_Fritz_Todt.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Todt
Primary source > Das Bundesarchiv Original title: Reichsminister Dr. Todt. Der Führer ernannte den Generalinspetor für das Deutsche Strassenwesen, Dr. Todt, zum Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition. 23.3.40. Röhr[n?]-Weltbild Archive title: Porträt Fritz Todt in Uniform (Obergruppenführer) Dating: März 1940 Signature: Bild 146-1969-146-01 Inventory: Bild 146 - Sammlung von Repro-Negativen
http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_Todt
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1003364
1933
Nazi Germany
Adolf Hitler comes to power on a programme to reverse
He withdraws from the disarmament conference and leaves http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/overview_britain_1918_1945_03.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/sceptred_isle/page/197.shtml?question=197
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
1925
Adolf Hitler establishes the SS
From modest beginnings the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons), became a virtual state within a state in Nazi Germany, staffed by men who perceived themselves as the “racial elite” of Nazi future.
In the Nazi state, the SS assumed leading responsibility for security, identification of ethnicity, settlement and population policy, and intelligence collection and analysis.
The SS controlled the German police forces and the concentration camp system.
The SS conceived and implemented plans designed to restructure the ethnic composition of eastern Europe and the occupied Soviet Union.
From 1939, the SS assumed responsibility for “solving” the so-called Jewish Question;
after 1941, its leadership planned, coordinated and directed the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question.
(...)
In 1925, Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei-NSDAP), or Nazi party, established the SS.
Subordinated to the chief of staff of the SA (Sturmabteilungen; Assault Detachments), the SS had the following duties:
protecting Hitler and other Nazi leaders and speakers, providing security for political meetings, and soliciting subscribers to the Nazi party newspaper, Der Völkischer Beobachter (The Race-Conscious Observer).
On January 20, 1929, at a time when the SS numbered 280 men, Hitler appointed Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer-SS (Reich Leader of the SS).
Himmler saw an opportunity to develop an elite corps of the Nazi party based on race-nationalist (völkisch) visions of “racial purity,” and loyalty to Hitler as the personification of the future of the German nation. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007400
In order to strengthen the position of the SS relative to the established German elites after a victorious war, SS chief Heinrich Himmler persuaded Hitler in late 1939 to permit the establishment of an armed SS force known as the Waffen SS.
Although initially restricted to four divisions, the Waffen SS eventually fielded more than 20 divisions, putting half a million men under arms and establishing a command and operations structure to rival the German Army. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007405
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
Nov. 9, 1923
Hitler is arrested after trying to stage a coup, the farcical “Beer Hall Putsch,” in his first bid to take power
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/
28 June 1919
The economic impact of the Treaty of Versailles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/versailles_01.shtml
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/05/
Nov. 9, 1918
Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates the throne, sending Germany into its turbulent experiment with democracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/
Prussia
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17301646
Related > Anglonautes > History > 20th century
World War II > Germany, Europe Antisemitism, Adolf Hitler, Nazi era, Holocaust
Related > Anglonautes > Arts > Photography / Photographers
Margaret Bourke-White USA 1904-1971
Related German History in Documents and Images GHDI http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/index.cfm
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