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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] |
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] |
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had a population of 1,898,533. Alsatian culture is characterized by a blend of Germanic and French influences. Until 1871, Alsace included the area now known as the Territoire de Belfort, which formed its southernmost part. From 1982 to 2016, Alsace was the smallest administrative ''région'' in metropolitan France, consisting of the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments. Territorial reform passed by the French Parliament in 2014 resulted in the merger of the Alsace administrative region with Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine to form Grand Est. On 1 January 2021, the departments of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin merged into the new European Collectivity of Alsace but remained part of the region Grand Est. Alsatian is an Alemannic dialect closely related ... [...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] |
Night Of The Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called ''Röhm Putsch''. The primary instruments of Hitler's action, which carried out most of the killings, were the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary force under Himmler and its Security Service (SD), and Gestapo (secret police) under Reinhard Heydrich. Göring's personal po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History After Adol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Nebe
Arthur Nebe (; 13 November 1894 – 21 March 1945) was a German Schutzstaffel, SS functionary who was key in the security and police apparatus of Nazi Germany and from 1941, a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. Nebe rose through the ranks of the Prussian police force to become head of Nazi Germany's Criminal Police (Kriminalpolizei (Nazi Germany), ''Kriminalpolizei''; Kripo) in 1936, which was amalgamated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939. Before the Operation Barbarossa, 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, Nebe volunteered to serve as the commanding officer of Einsatzgruppen, ''Einsatzgruppe B'', one of the four mobile death squads of the SS. The unit was deployed in the Army Group Centre Rear Area, in modern-day Belarus; it reported over 45,000 victims by November 1941. In late 1941, Nebe was posted back to Berlin and resumed his career with the RSHA. Nebe commanded the Kripo until he was denounced and executed after the failed attempt to kill Adolf Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Bernd Gisevius
Hans Bernd Gisevius (14 July 1904 – 23 February 1974) was a German diplomat and intelligence officer during the Second World War. A covert opponent of the Nazi regime, he served as a liaison in Zürich between Allen Dulles, station chief for the American OSS, and the German Resistance forces in Germany. Pre Second World War Gisevius was born in Arnsberg in the Prussian Province of Westphalia. After law school, he joined the Prussian Interior Ministry in 1933 and was assigned to the newly formed ''Geheime Staatspolizei'', or Gestapo. After joining the Gestapo, he immediately had disagreements with his senior, Rudolf Diels, and was discharged. He continued with police work in the Interior Ministry. When Heinrich Himmler took over Police functions in 1936 in the German Reich, he removed Gisevius from office. Throughout his time working for the Gestapo, Gisevius described himself as living in constant fear, entering and exiting through the back door, clutching a pistol at his s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and ''de jure'' by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, Prussian Minister-President Otto von Bismarck united most German principalities into the German Empire under his leadership, although this was considered to be a "Lesser Germany" because Austria and Switzerland were not included. In November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. A veteran World War I fighter pilot ace, Göring was a recipient of the ("The Blue Max"). He was the last commander of ''Jagdgeschwader'' 1 (Jasta 1), the fighter wing once led by Manfred von Richthofen. An early member of the Nazi Party, Göring was among those wounded in Adolf Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. While receiving treatment for his injuries, he developed an addiction to morphine which persisted until the last year of his life. After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Göring was named as minister without portfolio in the new government. One of his first acts as a cabinet minister was to oversee the creation of the Gestapo, which he ceded to Heinrich Himmler in 1934. Following the establishment of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands refers (physically speaking) to a loosely defined region embracing the land on the banks of the Rhine in Central Europe, which were settled by Ripuarian and Salian Franks and became part of Frankish Austrasia. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the former stem duchy of Lotharingia, without developing any common political or cultural identity. A "Rhineland" conceptualization can be traced to the period of the Holy Roman Empire from the sixteenth until the eighteenth centuries when the Empire's Imperial Estates (territories) were grouped into regional districts in charge of defence and judicial execution, known as Imperial Circles. Three of the ten circles through which the Rhine flowed referr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treaty Of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial was: "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichswehr
''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshaped into a peacetime army. From it a provisional Reichswehr was formed in March 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the rebuilt German army was subject to severe limitations in size and armament. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921 after the limitations had been met. The German armed forces kept the name 'Reichswehr' until Adolf Hitler's 1935 proclamation of the "restoration of military sovereignty", at which point it became part of the new . Although ostensibly apolitical, the Reichswehr acted as a state within a state, and its leadership was an important political power factor in the Weimar Republic. The Reichswehr sometimes supported the democratic government, as it did in the Ebert-G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
