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Auschwitz Resistance Movement
The organization of underground resistance movements in Auschwitz concentration camp began in the second half of 1940, shortly after the camp became operational in May that year. In September 1940 Witold Pilecki, a Polish army captain, arrived in the camp. Using the name Tomasz Serafiński (prisoner number 4859), Pilecki had allowed himself to be captured by Germans in a street round up ('' łapanka'') with the goal of having himself sent to Auschwitz to gather information and organize resistance inside. Under Pilecki's direction the Związek Organizacji Wojskowej (Union of Military Organization), ZOW, was formed. Background After the western part of the country was annexed by Nazi Germany during the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, Oświęcim (Auschwitz) was located administratively in the German Province of Upper Silesia, ''Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz''. Auschwitz was first suggested as the location of a concentration camp for Polish nationals by '' SS-Oberführer'' Arpa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conspiratorial Reportage About Auschwitz Death Camp 01
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence. A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy with specific characteristics, such as an opposition to the mainstream consensus among those people (such as scientists or historians) who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy. Conspiracy theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth, whereby the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than something that can be proven or disproven. Studies have linked belief in conspiracy theories to distr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erich Von Dem Bach-Zelewski
Erich Julius Eberhard von dem Bach-Zelewski (born Erich Julius Eberhard von Zelewski; 1 March 1899 – 8 March 1972) was a high-ranking SS commander of Nazi Germany. During World War II, he was in charge of the Nazi security warfare against those designated by the regime as ideological enemies and any other persons deemed to present danger to the Nazi rule or ''Wehrmacht''s rear security in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. It mostly involved atrocities against the civilian population. In 1944 he led the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. At the end of 1941 the forces under von dem Bach numbered 14,953 Germans, mostly officers and ''unteroffiziere'', and 238,105 local "volunteers" (most war crime victims were murdered by local collaborators under Nazi command.) Despite his responsibility for numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, Bach-Zelewski did not stand trial in the Nuremberg trials, and instead appeared as a witness for the prosecution. He was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Province Of East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's Free State of Prussia, until 1945. Its capital city was Königsberg (present-day Kaliningrad). East Prussia was the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast. The bulk of the ancestral lands of the Baltic Old Prussians were enclosed within East Prussia. During the 13th century, the native Prussians were conquered by the crusading Teutonic Knights. After the conquest the indigenous Balts were gradually converted to Christianity. Because of Germanization and colonisation over the following centuries, Germans became the dominant ethnic group, while Masurians and Lithuanians formed minorities. From the 13th century, East Prussia was part of the monas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soldau Concentration Camp
The Soldau concentration camp established by Nazi Germany during World War II was a concentration camp for Polish and Jewish prisoners. It was located in Działdowo (german: Soldau), a town in north-eastern Poland, which after the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 was annexed into the Province of East Prussia. The camp was founded in the former Polish Army barracks by ''SS-Brigadeführer'' Otto Rasch with the approval of Reinhard Heydrich. The first prisoners were brought by the end of September 1939. They were the Polish Army defenders of the Modlin Fortress who were forced to capitulate due to lack of ammunition and food. The camp served different purposes throughout its existence. The Polish intelligentsia, priests and political prisoners were secretly executed there,Henry Friedlander (1995). ''The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution'', p. 139. The University of North Carolina Press. . in addition to 1,558 patients from all the psychiat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Kramer
Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was Hauptsturmführer and the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944) and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (from December 1944 to its liberation on 15 April 1945). Dubbed the Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British Army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes, and hanged on the gallows in the prison at Hamelin by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. Early life Josef Kramer, an only child, was born and raised in Munich in a middle-class family. His parents, Theodore and Maria Kramer, brought him up as a "strict Roman Catholic". In 1915, the family moved from Munich to Augsburg, where Josef Kramer attended school. He began an apprenticeship as an electrician in 1920. From 1925 to 1933, except for working in a department store and as an accountant, he was mostl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obersturmführer
__NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and the need for an additional rank in the officer corps. ''Obersturmführer'' also became an SS rank at that same time. An SA-''Obersturmführer'' was typically a junior company commander in charge of fifty to a hundred men. Within the SS, the rank of ''Obersturmführer'' carried a wider range of occupations including staff aide, Gestapo officer, concentration camp supervisor, and Waffen-SS platoon commander. Within both the SS and SA, the rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was considered the equivalent of an ''Oberleutnant'' in the German ''Wehrmacht''. The insignia for ''Obersturmführer'' was three silver pips and a silver stripe centered on a uniform collar patch. The rank was senior to an ''Untersturm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolf Höss
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß, or Hoess; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a German SS officer during the Nazi era who, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, was convicted for war crimes. Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp (from 4 May 1940 to November 1943, and again from 8 May 1944 to 18 January 1945). He tested and implemented means to accelerate Hitler's order to systematically exterminate the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe, known as the Final Solution. On the initiative of one of his subordinates, Karl Fritzsch, Höss introduced the pesticide Zyklon B to be used in gas chambers, where more than a million people were killed.Piper, Franciszek & Meyer, Fritjof"Overall analysis of the original sources and findings on deportation to Auschwitz" Review of the article "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkentnisse durch neue Archivfunde", ''Osteuropa'', 52, Jg., 5/2002, pp. 631–641. Hö ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obersturmbannführer
__NOTOC__ ''Obersturmbannführer'' (Senior Assault-unit Leader; ; short: ''Ostubaf'') was a paramilitary rank in the German Nazi Party (NSDAP) which was used by the SA (''Sturmabteilung'') and the SS (''Schutzstaffel''). The rank of ''Obersturmbannführer'' was junior to the rank of '' Standartenführer'', and was equivalent to the military rank of ''Oberstleutnant'' (lieutenant colonel) in the German Army. As the SA expanded, the rank of ''Ostubaf'' was created in May 1933 to provide a rank above ''Sturmbannführer''; likewise, the ''Ostubaf'' was an SS rank. The ''Obersturmbannführer'' rank insignia was composed of four silver pips and a black stripe on a silver background, all elements are centered in the left wing of the collar of the tunic of an SS or of an SA uniform. The rank also was worn on the shoulder boards of an ''Oberstleutnant'' and was the highest rank in the SS and the SA to display SS unit insignia on the collar wing opposite the rank insignia. Various Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the '' Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and ''Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). The ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. As a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service, and did not fight. He studied agriculture in university, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed by Adolf Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a 290-man battalion into a million-strong paramilitary group, and set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichsführer-SS
(, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-serving and most noteworthy office holder was Heinrich Himmler. Definition was both a title and a rank. The title of was first created in 1926 by the second commander of the SS, Joseph Berchtold. Julius Schreck, founder of the SS and Berchtold's predecessor, never referred to himself as . Yet, the title was retroactively applied to him in later years. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank of . This set the precedent for the commander of the SS to be called . Prior to the Night of the Long Knives, the SS was an elite corps of the (SA or storm troopers), and the was subordinate to the SA's operating head, the . On 20 July 1934, as part of the purge of the SA, the SS was made an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Eisfeld
Walter Eisfeld (born 11 July 1905 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt – died 3 April 1940 in Dachau) was a German SS functionary and concentration camp commandant during the Nazi era. Eisfeld had been a member of the Artamanen-Gesellschaft, a völkisch back-to-the-land movement, before becoming involved with the Nazi Party and its organisations. Whilst ''Schutzhaftlagerführer'' at Sachsenhausen in January 1940 he was sent to Silesia to examine the possibility of establishing new camps. Against Eisfeld's advice, a site at Auschwitz was chosen. Having risen to the rank of Sturmbannführer, Eisfeld succeeded Hermann Baranowski as commandant at Sachsenhausen concentration camp before being replaced by Hans Loritz. Heinrich Himmler visited Sachsenhausen in early 1940 and, seeing disciplinary problems amongst the guards, ordered Eisfeld to be replaced as camp commandant. He was sent to command the new Neuengamme concentration camp, at the time a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen. Eisfeld died sud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
