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Georg Preuß
Georg Preuß (24 April 1920 – 3 February 1991) was a mid-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was a convicted war criminal. SS service Preuß was born in Danzig. At the age of 13 he joined the ''Hitlerjugend'' and in 1937, while he was still attending school, he joined the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). After his graduation he applied for full-time service in the SS. In April 1939 he was accepted into the ''Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler'' (LSSAH). From August 1940 he attended the '' Junkerschule'' (SS officer training school) in Brunswick and became an ''Untersturmführer'' the following year. From 1941 to 1943 Preuß fought with the LSSAH in the German war against the Soviet Union. He became a protégé of Jochen Peiper, who appreciated Preuß' obedience. But Preuß was unpopular among his comrades and had a reputation for sacrificing his men in combat. With the rank of ''Obersturmführer'' Preuß became commander of the 12th company in Peiper's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser. In 2016, it had a population of 250,704. A powerful and influential centre of commerce in medieval Germany, Brunswick was a member of the Hanseatic League from the 13th until the 17th century. It was the capital city of three successive states: the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1269–1432, 1754–1807, and 1813–1814), the Duchy of Brunswick (1814–1918), and the Free State of Brunswick (1918–1946). Today, Brunswick is the second-largest city in Lower Saxony and a major centre of scientific research and development. History Foundation and early history The date and circumstances of the town's foundation are unknown. Tradition maintains that Brunswick was created through the merge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malmedy Massacre Trial
The Malmedy massacre trial (''U.S. vs. Valentin Bersin, et al.'') was held in May–July 1946 in the former Dachau concentration camp to try the German Waffen-SS soldiers accused of the Malmedy massacre of 17 December 1944. The highest-ranking defendant was the former Waffen-SS general Sepp Dietrich. Malmedy massacre The Malmedy massacre (17 December 1944) was a series of war crimes committed by the Waffen-SS ''Kampfgruppe Peiper'' against American prisoners of war and Belgian civilians during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). The Waffen-SS massacre of 84 U.S. Army POWs near Baugnez was the primary subject of the war-crime trial, which was one of a series of war crimes that the Waffen-SS ''Kampfgruppe Peiper'' committed between mid-December 1944 and mid-January 1945.Malmedy mas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liège
Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from borders with the Netherlands (Maastricht is about to the north) and with Germany (Aachen is about north-east). In Liège, the Meuse meets the river Ourthe. The city is part of the '' sillon industriel'', the former industrial backbone of Wallonia. It still is the principal economic and cultural centre of the region. The municipality consists of the following districts: Angleur, , Chênée, , Grivegnée, Jupille-sur-Meuse, Liège, Rocourt, and Wandre. In November 2012, Liège had 198,280 inhabitants. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 1,879 km2 (725 sq mi) and had a total population of 749,110 on 1 January 2008. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malmedy Massacre
The Malmedy massacre was a German war crime committed by soldiers of the on 17 December 1944, at the Baugnez crossroads near the city of Malmedy, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). Soldiers of summarily killed eighty-four U.S. Army prisoners of war (POWs) who had surrendered after a brief battle. The soldiers had grouped the U.S. POWs in a farmer's field, where they used machine guns to shoot and kill the grouped POWs; the prisoners of war who survived the gunfire of the massacre then were killed with a ''coup de grâce'' gun-shot to the head. Besides the summary execution of the eighty-four U.S. POWs at the farmer’s field, the term "Malmedy massacre" also includes other massacres of civilians and POWs in Belgian villages and towns in the time after their first massacre of U.S. POWs at Malmedy; these war crimes were the subjects of the Malmedy massacre trial (May–July 1946), which was a part of the Dachau trials (1945–194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jens Westemeier
Jens Westemeier (born 1966) is a German historian and author who specialises in military history and the history of the Nazi era. He has published several books on topics relating to the Waffen-SS and its personnel and commanders. In 2014, Westemeier researched the Waffen-SS past of the German romanist and academic Hans Robert Jauß leading to the re-evaluation of the latter's past. Westemeir's research also includes the representation of the German war effort in popular culture. Education and career Westemeier was born in 1966 in Bad Berleburg, West Germany. After graduating from high school (''Gymnasium''), he served in the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the German Special Forces. Westemeier served as a United Nations Military Observer, including in Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Afghanistan in the 1990s and 2000s. Westemeier studied history and political sciences at the University of Regensburg, graduating in 1997. He then worked at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in Europe. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The primary military objectives were to deny further use of the Belgian port of Antwerp to the Allies and to split the Allied lines, which potentially could have allowed the Germans to encirclement, encircle and destroy the four Allied forces. Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, who since December 1941 had assumed direct command of the German army, believed that achieving these objectives would compel the Western Allies to accept a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor. By this time, it was palpable to virtually the entire German leadership including Hitler himself that they had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drancy Internment Camp
Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German occupation of France during World War II. Originally conceived and built as a modernist urban community under the name ''La Cité de la Muette'', it was located in Drancy, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France. Between 22 June 1942 and 31 July 1944, during its use as an internment camp, 67,400 French, Polish, and German Jews were deported from the camp in 64 rail transports, The 61,000 deported to Auschwitz and remaining number to Sobibor were murdered. which included 6,000 children. Only 1,542 prisoners remained alive at the camp when the German authorities in Drancy fled as Allied forces advanced and the Swedish Consul-General Raoul Nordling took control of the camp on 17 August 1944, before handing it over to the French Red Cross to care for the survivors. Drancy was under the control of the French police until 1943 when admini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp. The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles for whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish for the first two years. In May 1940, German criminals brought to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borgo San Dalmazzo
Borgo San Dalmazzo ( oc, Lo Borg Sant Dalmatz) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about south of Turin and about southwest of Cuneo. Borgo San Dalmazzo takes its name from Saint Dalmatius of Pavia. Sights include the parish church of San Dalmazzo (11th century). Borgo San Dalmazzo borders the following municipalities: Boves, Cuneo, Gaiola, Moiola, Roccasparvera, Roccavione, Valdieri, and Vignolo. The Nazi and Italian Social Republic regimes established and operated the Borgo San Dalmazzo concentration camp during the Second World War. At Borgo, approximately 375 Jewish Italians (from Cuneo, Saluzzo, Mondovì and other nearby communes) and 349 Jewish refugees from other countries were imprisoned and eventually deported to Auschwitz and other Nazi extermination camps. Twin towns — sister cities Borgo San Dalmazzo is twinned with: * Breil-sur-Roya Breil-sur-Roya (, literally ''Breil on Roya''; it, Breglio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home ... [...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] |
