Erich Hoepner
Erich Kurt Richard Hoepner (14 September 1886 – 8 August 1944) was a German general during World War II. An early proponent of mechanisation and armoured warfare, he was a Wehrmacht army corps commander at the beginning of the war, leading his troops during the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France. Hoepner commanded the 4th Panzer Group on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Units under his command closely cooperated with the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and implemented the Commissar Order that directed Wehrmacht troops to summarily execute Red Army political commissars immediately upon capture. Hoepner's Panzer group, along with the 3rd Panzer Group, spearheaded the advance on Moscow in Operation Typhoon, the failed attempt to seize the Soviet capital. Dismissed from the Wehrmacht after the failure of the 1941 campaign, Hoepner restored his pension rights through a lawsuit. He was implicated in the failed 20 July plot again ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder), also known as Frankfurt an der Oder (), is a city in the German state of Brandenburg. It has around 57,000 inhabitants, is one of the easternmost cities in Germany, the fourth-largest city in Brandenburg, and the largest German city on the river Oder. Frankfurt sits on the western bank of the river, opposite the Polish town of Słubice, which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945, and called ''Dammvorstadt'' until then. The city is located about east of Berlin, in the south of the historical region Lubusz Land. The large lake Helenesee lies within Frankfurt's city limits. The name of the city makes reference to the Franks, and means ''Ford of the Franks'', and there appears a Gallic rooster in the coat of arms of the city. The official name ''Frankfurt (Oder)'' and the older ''Frankfurt an der Oder'' are used to distinguish it from the larger city of Frankfurt am Main. The city's recorded history began in the 13th century as a West Slavic settlement. During its ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of France
The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Republic, France during the Second World War. On 3 September 1939, France French declaration of war on Germany (1939), declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland. In early September 1939, France began the limited Saar Offensive and by mid-October had withdrawn to their start lines. German armies German invasion of Belgium (1940), invaded Belgium, German invasion of Luxembourg, Luxembourg and German invasion of the Netherlands, the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Fascist Italy (1922-1943), Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an Italian invasion of France, invasion of France. France and the Low Countries were conquered, ending land operations on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front until the Normandy l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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3rd Panzer Group
The 3rd Panzer Army (german: 3. Panzerarmee) was a German armoured formation during World War II, formed from the 3rd Panzer Group on 1 January 1942. 3rd Panzer Group The 3rd Panzer Group (german: Panzergruppe 3) was formed on 16 November 1940. It was a constituent part of Army Group Centre and participated in Operation Barbarossa and fought in the Battle of Moscow in late 1941 and early 1942. Later it served in Operation Typhoon, where it was placed under operational control of the Ninth Army. ''Panzergruppe 3'' was retitled the 3rd Panzer Army on 1 January 1942. Orders of battle At the start of Operation Barbarossa the Group consisted of the XXXIX and LVII Army Corps (mot.). 2 October 1941 Part of Army Group Centre. * Commander: Colonel General Hermann Hoth * Chief of Staff: Colonel Walther von Hünersdorff * XLI Motorized Corps under General of Panzer Troops Georg-Hans Reinhardt ** 1.Panzer-Division under Lieutenant General Friedrich Kirchner ** 36.Infant ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established in January 1918. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations (especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army) of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Starting in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in 1991. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. During operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of casual ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Commissar Order
The Commissar Order (german: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars (''Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare''). It instructed the Wehrmacht that any Soviet Union, Soviet political commissar identified among captured troops be summary execution, summarily executed as a purported enforcer of the so-called Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism ideology in military forces. It is one of a series of Criminal orders (Nazi Germany), criminal orders issued by the leadership. According to the order, all those prisoners who could be identified as "thoroughly Bolshevik, bolshevized or as active representatives of the Bolshevist ideology" should also be killed. History Planning for Operation Barbarossa began in June 1940. In December 1940, Hitler began vague allusions to the operation to senior gen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Einsatzgruppen
(, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" () in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood. Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Romani people, as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe. Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS- Reinhard Heydrich, the operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in Ju ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a Theater (warfare), theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Polish Armed Forces in the East, Poland and other Allies of World War II, Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltic states, Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union – and still is in some of its successor states, while almost everywhere else it has been called the ''Eastern Front''. In present-day German and Ukrainian historiography the name German-Soviet War is typically used. The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterised by unprecedented ferocity and brutality, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, expos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Invasion Of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. The invasion is also known in Poland as the September campaign ( pl, kampania wrześniowa) or 1939 defensive war ( pl, wojna obronna 1939 roku, links=no) and known in Germany as the Poland campaign (german: Überfall auf Polen, Polenfeldzug). German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident. Slovak military forces ad ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Corps
Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies greatly, but from two to five divisions and anywhere from 40,000 to 80,000 are the numbers stated by the US Department of Defense. Within military terminology a corps may be: *an military organization, operational formation, sometimes known as a field corps, which consists of two or more division (military), divisions, such as the I Corps (Grande Armée), , later known as ("First Corps") of Napoleon I's ); *an administrative corps (or Muster (military), mustering) – that is a #Administrative corps, specialized branch of a military service (such as an artillery corps, a medical corps, or a force of military police) or; *in some cases, a distinct service within a national military (such as the United States Marine Corps). These usages often ov ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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German Army (1935–1945)
The German Army (german: Heer, ; ) was the Army, land forces component of the ''Wehrmacht'', the regular German Armed Forces, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946. During World War II, a total of about 13.6 million soldiers served in the German Army. Army personnel were made up of volunteers and conscripts. Only 17 months after Adolf Hitler announced the German rearmament program in 1935, the army reached its projected goal of 36 Division (military), divisions. During the autumn of 1937, two more corps were formed. In 1938 four additional corps were formed with the inclusion of the five divisions of the Austrian Army after the ''Anschluss'' in March. During the period of its expansion under Hitler, the German Army continued to develop concepts pioneered during World War I, combining ground and air assets into combined arms forces. Coupled with operational and tactical methods such as encirclements and "battle of a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |