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20 July Plot
On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The name "Operation Valkyrie"—originally referring to part of the conspiracy—has become associated with the entire event. The apparent aim of the assassination attempt was to wrest political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) and to make peace with the Western Allies of World War II, Allies as soon as possible. The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown, but they would have included unrealistic demands for the confirmation of Germany's extensive annexations of European territory. The plot was the culmination of efforts by several groups in the German resistance to Nazism, German resistance to overthrow the Nazi German government. The failure of the assassination attempt an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information and access to Hitler. He used his position to create an extensive bureaucracy and involve himself as much as possible in the decision making. Bormann joined a paramilitary ''Freikorps'' organisation in 1922 while working as manager of a large estate. He served nearly a year in prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Höss (later commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp) in the murder of Walther Kadow. Bormann joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) in 1937. He initially worked in the party's insurance service, and transferred in July 1933 to the office of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, where he served as chief of staff. Bormann gained acceptance into Hitler's inner circle and accompanied him everywhere, providin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party (; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the Extremism, extremist German nationalism, German nationalist, racism, racist and populism, populist paramilitary culture, which fought against the communism, communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeoisie, bourgeois, and anti-capitalism, anti-capitalist rhetoric. This was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders, and in the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to Antisemitism, antisemitic and Criticism of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberkommando Des Heeres
The (; abbreviated OKH) was the Command (military formation), high command of the German Army (1935–1945), Army of Nazi Germany. It was founded in 1935 as part of Adolf Hitler's German rearmament, rearmament of Germany. OKH was ''de facto'' the most important unit within the German war planning until the Battle of Moscow, defeat at Moscow in December 1941. During World War II, OKH had the responsibility of strategic planning of Field army, Armies and Army Groups. The General Staff of the OKH managed operational matters. Each German Army also had an Army High Command ( or AOK). The Armed Forces High Command () then took over this function for theatres other than the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern front. The OKH commander held the title of Commander-in-chief of the Army (). After the Battle of Moscow, the OKH commander Field marshal Walther von Brauchitsch was removed from office, and Hitler appointed himself as Commander-in-Chief of the Army. From 1938, OKH was, togeth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Beck
Ludwig August Theodor Beck (; 29 June 1880 – 20 July 1944) was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II. Although Beck never became a member of the Nazi Party, in the early 1930s he supported Adolf Hitler's forceful denunciation of the Versailles Treaty and belief in the need for Germany to rearm. Beck had grave misgivings regarding the Nazi demand for all German officers to swear an oath of fealty to the person of Hitler in 1934, but Beck believed that Germany needed strong government, which Hitler could successfully provide if the Führer was influenced by traditional elements within the army, rather than by the SA and SS. In serving as Chief of Staff of the German Army between 1935 and 1938, Beck became increasingly disillusioned and stood in opposition to the increasing totalitarianism of the Nazi regime and to Hitler's aggressive foreign policy. Public foreign-policy disagreeme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Oster
Hans Paul Oster (9 August 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a general in the ''Wehrmacht'' and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the ''Abwehr'' (German military intelligence), Oster was in a good position to conduct resistance operations under the guise of intelligence work. He was involved in the Oster Conspiracy of September 1938 and was arrested in 1943 on suspicion of helping ''Abwehr'' officers caught helping Jews to escape Germany. After the failed 1944 July Plot on Hitler's life, during interrogation, he named Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of ''Abwehr'', as the "spiritual founder of the Resistance Movement". The Gestapo arrested Canaris and eventually found his diaries, in which Oster's anti-Nazi activities were revealed. In April 1945, he was hanged with Canaris and Dietrich Bonhoeffer at Flossenbürg concentration camp. Early career Oster was born in Dresden, Saxony in 1887, the son of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022) was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarded as one of the literary founding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany and wrote more than 70 books, with works translated into 40 languages. He was one of the leading authors in Group 47, and influenced the 1968 West German student movement. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize and the Pour le Mérite, among many others. Life and career Enzensberger was born in 1929 in Kaufbeuren, a small town in Bavaria, as the eldest of four boys. His father, Andreas Enzensberger, worked as a telecommunications technician, and his mother, Leonore (Ledermann) Enzensberger a kindergarten teacher. Enzensberger was part of the last generation of intellectuals whose writing was shaped by first-hand experience of Nazi Germany. The Enzensberger fami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' (German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ''Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. Although the 1919 Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Weimar Republic from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage group in 1920 within the Ministry of Defence, calling it the ''Abwehr''. The initial purpose of the ''Abwehr'' was defence against foreign espionage: an organizational role which later evolved considerably. Under General Kurt von Schleicher (prominent in running the ''Reichswehr'' from 1926 onwards) the individual military services' intelligence units were combined and, in 1929, centralized under Schleicher's ''Ministeramt'' within the Ministry of Defence, forming the foundation for the more commonly understood manifestation of the ''Abwehr''. Each ''Abwehr'' station throughout German ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
