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On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. The Nazi regime quickly began restricting the civil and human rights of Jews and opened its first concentration camp, Dachau, near Munich. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its European allies established more than 44,000 camps and other … Read more

Hermann Fegelein was born on October 30, 1906, in Ansbach, then part of the German Empire. As a young boy, he worked at his father's equestrian school in Munich and later became a proficient rider who participated in jumping events. In 1925, Fegelein joined the 17th Bavarian Cavalry Regiment, which he left in 1928. The … Read more

The Allied landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, marked a turning point in World War II and the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. The following month, in July 1944, Soviet forces liberated Majdanek, the first major Nazi camp in German-occupied Poland. Only after the liberation of the concentration camps did … Read more

Otto Hermann Moll was born on March 4, 1915, in the town of Hohen Schönberg, then part of the German Empire. When Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Moll was 17 years old. He trained as a gardener and joined the SS on May 30, 1935. In the Nazi state, … Read more

Fritz Katzmann rose from a modest apprenticeship in carpentry to become one of the most notorious SS and police leaders of the Holocaust in Eastern Galicia. Born on May 6, 1906, in Bochum, then part of the German Empire, he was the son of a minor official and grew up in a modest family. After … Read more

Heinrich Himmler has long puzzled historians. As Reichsführer SS, he commanded an organization of some 900,000 men and controlled the police and security apparatus of Nazi Germany. Yet he never moved to oust Adolf Hitler and seize power for himself. That does not mean no such plot existed. In the final months of the war, … Read more

In February 1945, the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union met at Yalta in Crimea to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. One key point of their meeting was that after the war, Nazi leaders would be found and prosecuted. In November 1945, a tribunal of American, … Read more

When the Third Reich collapsed in May 1945, its leaders were hunted across a devastated Europe. Heinrich Himmler, once among the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, was on the run. Disguised as a sergeant of the Geheime Feldpolizei, he tried to flee through northern Germany with a small group of aides. On May 22, … Read more

Karel Čurda was born on October 10, 1911, in the small south Bohemian village of Nová Včelnice, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, František Čurda, earned a living as a worker, while his mother, Rosalie Čurdová, kept a modest household and cared for six children. Čurda, the youngest of the family, finished local … Read more