History > WW2 > 1939-1945

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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
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/section.cfm?section_id=13

Germany > Nazi era > War criminals

Franz Josef Huber 1902-1975

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/
artsfeatures

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/
movies/film-how-the-nazis-created-a-dream-factory-in-hell.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._Pabst

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/jan/16/
artsfeatures

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/11/
arts/film-the-enduring-art-of-a-poet-of-all-that-is-fleeting.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/06/
movies/film-how-the-nazis-created-a-dream-factory-in-hell.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/25/
movies/review-film-man-who-made-films-under-the-third-reich.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/01/
archives/pabsts-paracelsus-a-handsome-filmthe-cast.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1956/04/12/
archives/screen-last-ten-days-german-film-tells-of-hitlers-downfall.html

Heinrich Hoffmann    1885-1957

Hitler with his staff at his "Wolf's Lair" field headquarters

in May or June 1940.

Heinrich Hoffmann is in the front row on the far right.

Original caption

For documentary purposes

the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions,

which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme.

Faschistenführer Hitler mit seinem Stab im Hauptquartier

Im Juni 1940 ließ sich Hitler mit seinem Gefolge,

es ist anzunehmen, daß dieses Foto in der „Wolfsschanze“

(gebaut von 1940–1942)

aufgenommen wurde,

im Führerhauptquartier fotografieren.

Soweit bekannt vlnr:

SA-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Brückner,

OKH-Adjutant Major Engel,

Reichspressechef Dr. Otto Dietrich,

Hitlers Begleitarzt Dr. Karl Brandt,

Chef des OKW Generaloberst Wilhelm Keitel,

Luftwaffenadjutant Generalmajor [Karl] Bodenschatz,

Adolf Hitler,

Wehrmachtsadjutant Oberst Rudolf Schmundt,

SS-Adjutant SS-Gruppenführer Julius Schaub,

Chef des Wehrmachtsführungsamtes im OKW General Alfred Jodl,

Adjutant Himmler und Verbindungsmann zu Hitlers SS-Gruppenführer Karl Wolff,

Leiter der Parteikanzlei Reichsleiter Martin Bormann,

Hitlers Leibarzt Prof. Dr. [Theo] Morell,

Luftwaffenadjutant Hauptmann von Below,

Reichsbilderstatter der NSDAP Heinrich Hoffmann.

Die „Wolfsschanze“, ein von Hitler geprägter Name,

lag in der Nähe der Stadt Ketrzyn,

Wojewodschaft warmińsko-mazurskie (früher Rastenburg,

Amtsbezirk Allenstein), Republik Polen.

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99057, Führerhauptquartier,

Adolf Hitler mit Stab.jpg

Wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R99057,_F%C3%BChrerhauptquartier,_Adolf_Hitler_mit_Stab.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Heinrich_Hoffmann_(photographer)

Adolf Hitler's official photographer,

and a Nazi politician and publisher,

who was a member of Hitler's

intimate circle.

Hoffmann's photographs

were a significant part

of Hitler's propaganda campaign

to present himself and the Nazi Party

as a significant mass phenomenon.

He received royalties

from all uses of Hitler's image,

even on postage stamps,

which made him a millionaire

over the course of Hitler's rule.

After the Second World War

he was tried and sentenced

to 10 years in prison

for war profiteering.

He was classified

by the Allies'

Art Looting Investigators

to be a "major offender"

in Nazi art plundering of Jews,

as both art dealer and collector

and his art collection,

which contained many artworks

looted from Jews,

was ordered confiscated

by the Allies.

Hoffmann's sentence

was reduced to 4 years on appeal.

In 1956,

the Bavarian State ordered

all art under its control

and formerly possessed

by Hoffmann

to be returned to him.

Wikipedia - 27 May 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Heinrich_Hoffmann_(photographer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Heinrich_Hoffmann_(photographer)

Wilhelm Furtwängler    1886-1954

The sublime artistry

of Wilhelm Furtwängler

collided with his role

as de facto chief conductor

of the Nazi regime.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/
arts/music/wilhelm-furtwangler-classical-music.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/
arts/music/wilhelm-furtwangler-classical-music.html

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

Walter Friedrich Schellenberg    1910-1952

Walter Friedrich Schellenberg    1910-1952

Wikipedia

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/
Bundesarchiv_Bild_101III-Alber-178-04A%2C_Walter_Schellenberg.jpg

Georg Wilhelm Müller (front row, to the left)

and Reinhard Heydrich

and SS-Oberführer Heinrich Fehlis (leader of SD and SiPo in Norway)

to the right.

Also SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Kluckhohn,

SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Schellenberg,

Rudolf Schiedermair,

and other SS police officers

at Ekeberg cemetery for German soldiers in Oslo

during Heydrich's visit to Norway, 3–6 September 1941.

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Schellenberg#/media/
File:Fo30141711030060-2_Bekransning_p%C3%A5_%C3%A6reskirkeg%C3%A5rden_p%C3%A5_Ekeberg_september_1941_Heydrich.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Schellenberg

German SS functionary

during the Nazi era.

He rose through

the ranks of the SS,

becoming one

of the highest ranking men

in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD)

and eventually assumed the position

as head of foreign intelligence

for Nazi Germany

following the abolition

of the Abwehr in 1944.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Schellenberg - added July 7, 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Schellenberg

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    1884-1950

 (born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz)

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/
movies/film-how-the-nazis-created-a-dream-factory-in-hell.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/10/
archives/the-making-of-a-king-
a-german-historical-drama-with-emil-jannings-a.html

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, Alois Hudal.

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/
the-ratline-by-philippe-sands-review-on-the-trail-of-the-nazi-who-got-away

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/03/
the-ratline-by-philippe-sands-review-
on-the-trail-of-the-nazi-who-got-away

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/
east-west-street-origin-genocide-crimes-against-humanity-philippe-sands-review

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/
hans-frank

Theodor Dannecker    27 March 1913 - 10 December 1945

Theodor Dannecker

(...)

was a German SS-captain

(Hauptsturmführer),

a key aide to Adolf Eichmann

in the deportation of Jews

during World War II.

A trained lawyer Dannecker first served

at the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin

before being sent to France

as specialist on Nazi anti-Jewish policies

(Judenberater).

Throughout the war

Dannecker oversaw

the implementation of the Final Solution

sending Jewish men, women and children

from France (1942), Bulgaria (1943),

Italy (1944) and Hungary

to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Captured in 1945

by American soldiers

he committed suicide in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Theodor_Dannecker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Theodor_Dannecker

https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/100823/
l-horreur-des-rafles

https://www.memorialdelashoah.org/
98-photos-inedites-sur-la-rafle-du-billet-vert.html

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/
world/europe/muller-an-architect-of-the-holocaust-is-said-to-be-buried-in-jewish-cemetery-in-berlin.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/
world/europe/franz-josef-huber-gestapo-nazi.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/
world/europe/muller-an-architect-of-the-holocaust-
is-said-to-be-buried-in-jewish-cemetery-in-berlin.html 

Ernst-Robert Grawitz    1899-1945

chief Nazi doctor

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/05/
nazi-doctor-gay-people-carl-vaernet-escaped-justice-danish

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
_3560000/3560175.stm

https://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/
hosted/life/da14a7f5324a75cd.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4257253.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/14/
newsid_3549000/3549905.stm 

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/
dday-featured-film/

German Resistance to Hitler

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/21/
secondworldwar-russia  

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/21/
secondworldwar-russia

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 - broken link

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/
factfiles/nonflash/a1138501.shtml - broken URL

October 23, 1940

France, Hendaye

Adolf Hitler meets Francisco Franco

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

Adolf Hitler (first from the left)

and Francisco Franco

(first from the right in the foreground)

during the meeting of Hendaya.

The original description claimed this photograph

was taken at the Station of Irun.

Photograph: Heinrich Hoffmann

Heinrich Hoffmann

(12 September 1885 – 15 December 1957)

was Adolf Hitler's official photographer,

and a Nazi politician and publisher,

who was a member of Hitler's intimate circle.

- Wikipedia - 27 May 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Heinrich_Hoffmann_(photographer)

Hoffman's photos are PD in US,

see commons:Category:Photographs by Heinrich Hoffmann

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Meeting_at_Hendaye

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
File:Meeting_at_Hendaye_(en.wiki).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
Category:Photographs_by_Heinrich_Hoffmann

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Heinrich_Hoffmann_(photographer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Meeting_at_Hendaye

https://www.ina.fr/video/AFE85000178/
entrevue-historique-du-chancelier-hitler-
avec-le-general-franco-video.html  - 13 November 1940

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/3533400/
Franco-feared-Hitler-would-kidnap-him.html

September 1, 1939

Germany invades Poland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/
newsid_3506000/3506335.stm - 1 September 1939

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/
File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H27337,_Moskau,_Stalin_und_Ribbentrop_im_Kreml.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Primary source > Das Bundesarchiv

http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1252826541/?
search%5Bform%5D%5BSIGNATUR%5D=Bild+183-H27337

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/
holocaust-secondworldwar

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/
roadwar/munich_rev2.shtml - broken URL

1938-1939

Munich agreement / Annexation of Austria / Czechoslovakia partition

The Disabled

- the Nazis’ First Victims

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/
opinion/nazis-holocaust-disabled.html

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/
the-nazi-rise-to-power

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
the-nazi-rise-to-power

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/
opinion/i-loved-my-grandmother-but-she-was-a-nazi.html

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/
533675156/photos-trove-of-nazi-artifacts-uncovered-in-argentina

Spain    Guernica    1937

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Bombing_of_Guernica

Nearly 4,000 child refugees arrive in the UK – archive, 1937

https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2017/may/23/
guernica-spain-war-refugees-80-1937-southampton

https://www.nytimes.com/1937/05/16/
archives/refugees-from-spain-a-problem-for-france-children-from-basque.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1937/05/07/
archives/guernica-inquiry-favored-by-eden-he-says-britain-has-evidence-air.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1937/05/07/
archives/repercussions-from-spain.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/
bombing-guernica-franco-spain-civil-war-1937 - 30 April 1937

https://www.theguardian.com/media/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/25/
newspapers-national-newspapers - 28 April 1937

https://www.nytimes.com/1937/04/28/
archives/historic-basque-town-wiped-out-rebel-fliers-machinegun-civilians.html

November 1936

German-Japanese Treaty

Berlin and Tokio

announce their pact

https://www.theguardian.com/century/1930-1939/
Story/0,,127041,00.html

1936

Germany begins rearming

and invades the Rhineland

up to the French border

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/overview
_britain_1918_1945_03.shtml - broken link

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/
roman-vishniac-rediscovered-photographer-nazism

September 1935

Hitler’s Nazi party convention

in Nuremberg

https://www.theguardian.com/society/gallery/2017/mar/10/
countdown-to-the-second-world-war-in-pictures

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/
the-pioneering-women-who-took-on-hitler-and-fleet-street

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/
the-pioneering-women-who-took-on-hitler-and-fleet-street

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
1935_Saar_status_referendum

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/25/
the-pioneering-women-who-took-on-hitler-and-fleet-street

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

Photography

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/
countdown-to-the-second-world-war-in-pictures

Hitler youth

Hitler signs autographs to members of the Hitler Youth.

Photograph: ullstein bild/Getty Images

An Ordinary Youth by Walter Kempowski review

– life under the Nazis

The unspoken tensions between banality and evil

give this German autobiographical novel,

first published in 1971,

a powerfully unsettling impact

G

Thu 14 Dec 2023    10.00 CET

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/14/
an-ordinary-youth-by-walter-kempowski-review-life-under-the-nazis

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 - broken link

Adolf Hitler

and Nazi youth leader Baldur von Schirach [ left ]

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/
world-war-two-eighty-years-on-world-still-haunted-by-catastrophe-foretold

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
indoctrinating-youth

2023

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/14/
an-ordinary-youth-by-walter-kempowski-review-life-under-the-nazis

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/09/
joining-the-hitler-youth-was-not-a-choice-it-was-mandatory

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/03/
joseph-ratzingers-choice-to-join-the-hitler-youth

2020

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/aug/18/
high-flying-zeppelin-and-hitler-youth-germany-between-the-wars-
in-pictures - Guardian pictures gallery

1936

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1936/sep/13/
life1.lifemagazine

Nazi Germany’s elite schools

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/
nazis-based-their-elite-schools-on-top-british-private-schools

1930s

USA

In the 1930s,

while Adolf Hitler was inciting

the German people

toward bellicosity

and Nazis were establishing

horrific concentration camps

around Germany,

Nazi summer camps

for youngsters

— like the one

near Windham, N.Y.,

featured in the clip —

popped up around this country.

The pro-Hitler retreats

were sponsored

by German loyalists,

such as the German-American Bund

led by Fritz Kuhn.
 

The Bund,

"which came to include

more than 70 local chapters,"

according to a 2014

National Archives blog post,

"was founded in 1936

to promote Germany

and the Nazi part in America.

The most well-known

of the organization's activities

was the 1939 pro-Nazi rally

held at Madison Square Garden

that drew a reported

20,000 attendees."

This was the same year

that Hitler staged

military strategy sessions

with top Nazi leaders.

And declared war on Poland

— and decided to battle

Britain and France,

if necessary.
 

https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/28/
402679062/nazi-summer-camps-in-1930s-america

https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/28/
402679062/nazi-summer-camps-in-1930s-america

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/
culture-in-the-third-reich-by-moritz-follmer-review-when-fascism-stole-the-show

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/13/
culture-in-the-third-reich-by-moritz-follmer-review-
when-fascism-stole-the-show

Nazi architecture

https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2016/jun/02/
nazi-architecture-then-and-now-in-pictures

Art / artworks looting

http://lootedart.gov.pl/en/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/
arts/design/nazis-antiquities-looted.html

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jan/02/
retrieved-after-decades-the-painting-supposedly-bought-by-the-nazis

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/16/
france-to-return-klimt-painting-looted-by-the-nazis-in-1938

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/03/
963688893/supreme-court-says-
germany-cant-be-sued-in-nazi-era-art-case

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/
arts/design/poland-nazi-looted-art.html

Nazis, fear and violence:

when reporting from Berlin was dangerous

https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2021/jul/12/
guardian-200-nazis-hyperinflation-and-violence-
when-reporting-from-berlin-was-a-dangerous-job

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 - broken link

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

Rudolf Hess

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/
nazi-war-criminals-spandau-prison-west-germany-national-archives

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/20/
uk-pressed-for-rudolf-h

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/01/
pursuit-nazi-mind-daniel-pick

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/21/
rudolf-hess-body-removed-nazi

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2010/jan/18/
moss-side-stories-rudolf-hess

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1987/aug/18/
warcrimes.germany

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/
rudolf-hess-spandau-hitler-deputy-archive-1970

https://www.theguardian.com/century/1940-1949/
Story/0,,127470,00.html

Albert Speer 1905-1981
 

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 - broken link

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/
arts/design/albert-speer-jr-architect-and-son-of-hitler-confidant-
dies-at-83.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/
books/gerald-gross-who-published-memoirs-of-a-hitler-associate-is-dead-at-94.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/13/
secondworldwar.kateconnolly

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/
obituaries/albert-speer-dies-at-76-close-associate-of-hitler.html

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/ - broken link

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/von-braun/

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/23/
772742561/the-dark-side-of-the-moon

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/us/18haeussermann.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/
secondworldwar-international-criminal-justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/24/
nazis-run-gerald-steinacher-review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/
secondworldwar-international-criminal-justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/03/germany.
kateconnolly

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
uk_news/magazine/4443934.stm - 21 November 2005

Adolf Eichmann    1906-1962

Fritz Sauckel    1894-1946
 

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/
fritz-sauckel

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/
devils-diary-alfred-rosenberg-nazi-germany-review

Nazi theorist

whose views on race are thought

to have helped incite Hitler’s

persecution of Jews

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/
books/tracking-an-elusive-diary-from-hitlers-inner-circle.html

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/
alfred-rosenberg-biography

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/05/
devils-diary-alfred-rosenberg-nazi-germany-review

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/
books/tracking-an-elusive-diary-from-hitlers-inner-circle.html

 

Paul Joseph Goebbels    1897-1945

Heinrich Himmler    1900-1945

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 - broken link

Martin Bormann

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/
training-assassins-for-a-nazi-attack.shtml

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
wannsee-conference-and-the-final-solution

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/
reinhard-heydrich-key-dates

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/
world/europe/franz-josef-huber-gestapo-nazi.html

Leni Riefenstahl    1902-2003

1939

 in 1939 (Hitler) ordered

the first Nazi

mass-murder programme,

Aktion T4,

targeting the mentally ill.

(...)

In 1940,

Bühler was living

in an asylum

at Emmendingen,

in Baden-Württemberg.

On 5 March that year,

a small convoy of vehicles

arrived at the institution,

staffed by SS men

in civilian clothes.

They loaded 50 patients

on to the buses,

including Bühler,

and drove them

to a specially adapted home

for disabled people

at Grafeneck castle,

in Swabia.

The patients were stripped

and pushed into a gas chamber

disguised as a shower room,

and killed with carbon monoxide.

This “euthanasia” action,

as the Nazis called it,

is widely seen as a precursor

to the Holocaust,

and when it had achieved

its targets,

many of Aktion T4’s

hardened veterans

were reassigned

to extermination camps

in the east.

By the war’s end,

about 200,000 psychiatric patients

would be killed by Hitler’s regime,

including 30 Prinzhorn artists.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/08/
how-the-art-of-the-insane-inspired-the-surrealists-and-was-twisted-by-the-nazis

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/08/
how-the-art-of-the-insane-inspired-the-surrealists-
and-was-twisted-by-the-nazis

    Austria

Hans Asperger /

Johann Friedrich Karl Asperger    1906-1980

Eight-year study

finds pioneer of paediatrics

assisted in Third Reich’s

‘euthanasia’ programme

(...)

The Austrian doctor

after whom Asperger syndrome

is named

was an active participant

in the Nazi regime,

assisting in the Third Reich’s

so called euthanasia programme

and supporting

the concept of racial hygiene

by deeming certain children

unworthy to live,

according to a study

by a medical historian.

(...)

But by unearthing

previously untouched documents

from state archives,

including Asperger’s

personnel files

and patient case records,

Czech has revealed a scientist

who allied himself so closely

with the Nazi ideology

that he frequently referred children

to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic,

which was set up

as a collecting point for children

who failed to conform

to the regime’s criteria

of “worthy to live”.

Nearly 800 children died

at the clinic

between 1940 and 1945,

many of whom were murdered

under the notorious

child “euthanasia” scheme.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/
hans-asperger-aided-and-supported-nazi-programme-study-says

Sheffer also gives a long-overdue

and gripping analysis

of Asperger’s own writing before,

during and after the Third Reich.

She details his wartime denigration

of the cognitively and physically

disabled children in his care.

She frames him

as complicit

in “negative eugenics”

and a careerist.

Jewish doctors were forbidden

to practise public medicine

during the Anschluss.

While never a Nazi party member,

Asperger did not protest

about his more senior

Jewish colleagues’ exclusion.

Aged 28,

he became the head

of the Curative Education Clinic

within Vienna’s

prestigious children’s hospital.

Sheffer writes: “In May 1938,

Asperger began to work

for the Nazi state

as a psychiatric expert

for the city’s

juvenile court system.

He also applied

to consult for the Hitler Youth.”

Sheffer reveals

that Asperger actively

endorsed

the forced sterilisation laws,

citing his words

that some people were

“a burden on the community”

and that “the proliferation

of many of these types

is undesirable for the Volk,

ie, the task is

to exclude certain people

from reproduction”.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/04/
aspergers-children-origin-autism-nazi-vienna-edith-sheffer-review

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/30/
leo-kanner-discovery-of-autism-was-not-independent-of-hans-asperger

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/27/
aspergers-children-origins-autism-nazi-vienna-edith-sheffer-review

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/04/
aspergers-children-origin-autism-nazi-vienna-edith-sheffer-review

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/
books/review-aspergers-children-autism-nazi-vienna-edith-sheffer.html

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/12/
610716324/doctor-behind-asperger-s-syndrome-
subject-to-name-change

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/22/
what-we-must-learn-from-asperger-expose

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/
hans-asperger-aided-and-supported-nazi-programme-
study-says

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/
world/europe/hans-asperger-nazis.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/
opinion/sunday/nazi-history-asperger.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/20/
463603652/was-dr-asperger-a-nazi-the-question-still-haunts-autism

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/
436742377/neurotribes-examines-
the-history-and-myths-of-the-autism-spectrum

1937

Munich

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.

https://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.

source: next edition

It was Goebbels’ idea, in 1937,

to stage the Degenerate Art show.

With 3 million visitors,

this touring exhibition

remains

the best attended of all time,

but it didn’t celebrate art;

it pilloried it.

From the second leg, in Berlin,

the propaganda directorate

rifled the Heidelberg clinic

for more than 100 works,

including several by Bühler,

and displayed a selection of these

alongside the professional art.

The idea,

as the official guidebook stated,

was to show that the avant garde

were even more “sick”

than real “lunatics”.

This was held up as evidence

of the great Jewish-Bolshevik

conspiracy aimed

at undermining German culture

and polluting the race

with inferior blood.

Cultural degeneration,

the “slowly rotting world”,

as Hitler put it,

prefigured biological degeneration,

which was hastening the Germans

“towards the abyss”.

The solution was simple:

a “relentless war

of cultural cleansing”.

Modern art was removed

from German museums,

to be sold off or simply destroyed,

and “degenerate” artists

were hounded out of the country.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/08/
how-the-art-of-the-insane-inspired-the-surrealists-and-was-twisted-by-the-nazis

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/
aug/08/how-the-art-of-the-insane-inspired-the-surrealists-
and-was-twisted-by-the-nazis

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24819441 - 6 November 2013

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/04/
munich-hoard-lost-art-nazis 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/
arts/design/01abroad.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/16/
secondworldwar

Berlin Olympics    1936

The 1936 Olympics, hosted by Germany in Berlin,

were attended by 49 teams from around the world.

The US team was the second largest,

with 18 of its 359 competitors African Americans.

Alabama’s Jesse Owens became an Olympic immortal

by winning four gold medals and infuriating Hitler

at an Olympics designed to highlight the Nazi party’s ideals.

Here, Owens is surrounded

by Nazi salutes while receiving his long jump gold.

To his rear is Germany’s Luz Long, who took silver.

The pair bonded afterwards,

posing for pictures together and exchanging warm words.

“Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace,”

Owens later said.

‘We could feel the gravity of it. It was electrifying’:

50 photographs that reshaped sport

G

Sat 11 Mar 2023    08.00 GMT

Last modified on Sat 11 Mar 2023    11.25 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/mar/11/
we-could-feel-the-gravity-of-it-it-was-electrifying-50-photographs-that-reshaped-sport

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/sport/2023/mar/11/
we-could-feel-the-gravity-of-it-it-was-electrifying-50-photographs-that-reshaped-sport

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jun/14/
shameful-legacy-olympics-1936-berlin 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/
history/3054754.stm

Third Reich

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/
books/review/castle-gripsholm-kurt-tucholsky.html

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

Marinus van der Lubbe    1909-10 January 1934

Marinus van der Lubbe (standing left)

in court in November 1933.

Photograph: Keystone-France/

Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

‘Blind chance’ or plot?

Exhumation may help solve puzzle of 1933 Reichstag blaze

Tests carried out on remains of young communist

who confessed to arson attack that proved a gift to Hitler

G

Sun 26 Feb 2023    06.00 GMT

Last modified on Sun 26 Feb 2023    07.56 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/26/
blind-chance-or-plot-exhumation-may-help-solve-puzzle-of-1933-reichstag-blaze

The 24-year-old,

who had carried out

three minor arson attempts

two days beforehand,

was the only person arrested

in the burning Reichstag,

and claimed repeatedly

up to his execution by guillotine

on 10 January 1934

that he alone had set the fire

to inspire workers to rise up

“against capitalist rule

and fascist seizure of power”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/26/
blind-chance-or-plot-exhumation-may-help-solve-puzzle-of-1933-reichstag-blaze

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/26/
blind-chance-or-plot-exhumation-
may-help-solve-puzzle-of-1933-reichstag-blaze

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/12/
secondworldwar.germany

https://www.nytimes.com/1934/01/11/
archives/van-der-lubbe-dies-on-nazi-guillotine-germany-beheads-

reichstag.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1933/11/14/
archives/hollander-takes-all-blame-in-fire-
van-der-lubbe-in-reichstag-case.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/09/
dr-goebbels-gives-evidence-in-reichstag-fire-trial-archive-1933 - 9 November 1933

https://www.nytimes.com/1933/09/30/
archives/dutchman-admits-firing-reichstag-van-der-lubbe-confirms-his.html

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/
freya-von-moltke-obituary

27 February 1933

Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire

was an arson attack

on the Reichstag building,

home of the German parliament

in Berlin,

on Monday 27 February 1933,

precisely four weeks

after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler

was sworn in

as Chancellor of Germany.

Marinus van der Lubbe,

a Dutch "council communist",

was the apparent culprit;

however,

Hitler attributed the fire

to Communist agitators.

He used it as a pretext to claim

that Communists were plotting

against the German government,

and induced

President Paul von Hindenburg

to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree

suspending civil liberties,

and pursue a "ruthless confrontation"

with the Communists.

This made the fire pivotal

in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

Wikipedia, 26 February 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

Following the attack

in February 1933,