N1104 On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, sending its armies deep into Soviet territory and leaving behind a vast occupied zone with only weak German authority. Soviet power collapsed, and resistance groups began to gather in the forests. In places like Lokot, near Bryansk, the chaos of occupation created opportunities for men willing … Read more
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the attack achieved near-total tactical surprise. Much of the Soviet Air Force was destroyed on the ground, and German units encircled millions of Soviet soldiers. As the German Army advanced deep into Soviet territory, SS and police units followed. The first to arrive were … Read more
On March 15, 1939, six months after the annexation of the Sudetenland, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia in violation of the Munich Agreement. Adolf Hitler arrived in Prague, and on March 16, by a proclamation from Prague Castle, established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Konstantin von Neurath, … Read more
When Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, the Nazi movement began tightening its grip on the state. Political opponents were arrested, rival parties were destroyed, and thousands of people were sent to prisons or temporary detention centers. Within months, those temporary sites evolved into a permanent system of concentration camps, … Read more
When Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, it marked the end of German democracy. Guided by racist and authoritarian ideas, the Nazis abolished basic freedoms and sought to unite all social classes and regions behind one leader. The Third Reich quickly became a police state where individuals could be arrested … Read more
In February 1945, Joseph Stalin sat down with Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at Yalta while Marshal Zhukov's armies stood roughly 40 miles from Berlin. Roosevelt wanted Soviet help against Japan. James Byrnes, a member of the American delegation, described the situation bluntly: the question was not what the West would allow the Russians to … Read more
Filip Müller was born on January 3, 1922, in Sered, then part of Czechoslovakia. He was only 17 years old when the Second World War began on September 1, 1939. During the war, two major alliances confronted each other: the Axis powers and the Allied powers. The three principal partners in the Axis Alliance were … Read more
Josef Meisinger earned the nickname "Butcher of Warsaw" for atrocities so brutal that they appalled even his Nazi superiors. Born on September 14, 1899, in Munich, he was just 14 when World War I began. He volunteered for the army in 1916 and was seriously wounded on the Western Front the following year, receiving the … Read more
On September 12, 1942, in the South Atlantic about 600 miles off the coast of West Africa, the German submarine U-156 torpedoed a British troop ship. As the vessel sank, Commander Werner Hartenstein surfaced to capture officers for interrogation. Then he heard voices — hundreds of them. Hartenstein realized what he had done. The ship … Read more
In 1948, a seven-year-old girl in Berlin sat down to write a letter. Around her, the city lay in ruins. Two million people faced the threat of starvation. Soviet forces had blocked every road and railway into West Berlin. But Mercedes Simon was not writing about hunger or fear. She was writing to complain about … Read more