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Jägerstab
The ''Jägerstab'' (Fighter Staff) was a Nazi German governmental task force whose aim was to increase production of fighter aircraft during World War II. Established in March 1944, it was composed of government and SS personnel, as well as representatives of the aircraft manufacturers. The task force played a key role in the Emergency Fighter Program, including the "people's fighter" Heinkel He 162. The ''Jägerstab'' increased the exploitation of slave labour for the benefit of Germany's industry and its air force, the Luftwaffe. It was one of the impetuses for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, so that the able-bodied Jews could be used for aircraft production. Background and formation In early 1944, the Allies focused on the destruction of the Luftwaffe in preparation for the invasion of Normandy. Plans for the Big Week, intended to destroy Germany's capacity to produce fighter aircraft through targeted airstrikes on final assembly factories, were already unde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rüstungsstab
''Rüstungsstab'' (Armament Staff) was a Nazi German governmental task force whose aim was to increase production of military equipment and munitions during the final year of World War II. Established in August 1944 on the basis of the ''Jägerstab'' (Fighter Staff), it was composed of government and SS personnel, as well as representatives of the armament manufacturers. ''Jägerstab'' played a key role in the exploitation of Forced labour under German rule during World War II, slave labour for the benefit of Germany's industry and its armed forces, the Wehrmacht. The task force supported the Luftwaffe's Emergency Fighter Program, including the development of the "people's jet", Heinkel He 162. Background and formation The ''Jägerstab'' (Fighter Staff) was established on 1 March 1944 by the order of Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and War Production in the Hitler Cabinet, with support from Erhard Milch of the Reich Aviation Ministry. Its goal was to increase the producti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weingut I
In 1944 the Third Reich began work on the construction of a partially underground bunker factory codenamed Weingut I (English: Vineyard I) in the forest known as the , slightly to the west of Mühldorf am Inn in Upper Bavaria. Plans for the bunker called for a massive reinforced concrete barrel vault composed of 12 arch sections under which Messerschmitt Me 262 jet engines would be manufactured in a nine-storey factory. Upon completion these were to be sent to a similar installation in the area of Landsberg am Lech (codename Weingut II), where the final assembly of the aircraft was to take place. This network of underground factories was intended to ensure the production of the Me 262 at a time when the Allies had already gained control of the German airspace.Peter Müller: ''Das Bunkergelände im Mühldorfer Hart : Rüstungswahn und menschliches Leid''. 4. Auflage. Heimatbund; Mühldorf a. Inn: Kreismuseum, Mühldorf a. Inn 2006, P. 11f. Despite it being increasingly clear to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison. An architect by training, Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. His architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the Party, and he became a member of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler commissioned him to design and construct structures including the Reich Chancellery and the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for Berlin. In this capacity he was responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement that evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in Berlin. In February 1942, Speer was appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Using misleading statistics, he promoted himsel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erhard Milch
Erhard Milch (30 March 1892 – 25 January 1972) was a German general field marshal (''Generalfeldmarschall'') of Jewish heritage who oversaw the development of the German air force (''Luftwaffe'') as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany following World War I. He was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation and Inspector General of the Air force. During most of World War II, he was in charge of all aircraft production and supply. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Milch Trial, which was held before a U.S. military court in 1947, and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Milch's sentence was commuted to 15 years in 1951. He was paroled in 1954, and died in 1972. Descendance and Jewish heritage Milch was born in Wilhelmshaven, the son of Anton Milch, a Jewish pharmacist who served in the Imperial German Navy, and Clara, née Vetter. The Gestapo would later investigate Milch due to his Jewish heritage. Under the Nuremberg Laws, Mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Saur
Karl-Otto Saur (February 16, 1902 in Düsseldorf – July 28, 1966 in Pullach) was a high ranking official in the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany and was named as ''Reichsminister'' of Munitions in Adolf Hitler’s will. Life Saur was an engineer by profession. After graduation, he joined Thyssen AG, where he became the director of the August Thyssen-Hütte. He was a member of the Nazi Party from 1931. He joined the National Socialist Guild of German Engineers and the Organisation Todt where he rose to be the right-hand man to Fritz Todt. When Todt became the first Minister of Armaments and Munitions in March 1940, Saur joined him in the new ministry. Following Todt's death in a 1942 plane crash, Saur became the Head of the Technical Department and reported directly to the new armaments minister Albert Speer. From 1 March 1944, he was Chief of Staff of the newly established ''Jägerstab'' (Fighter Staff), despite having no knowledge or experien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabteilung'' of the Imperial Navy, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which banned Germany from having any air force. During the interwar period, German pilots were trained secretly in violation of the treaty at Lipetsk Air Base in the Soviet Union. With the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty, the ''Luftwaffe''s existence was publicly acknowledged on 26 February 1935, just over two weeks before open defiance of the Versailles Treaty through German rearmament and conscription would be announced on 16 March. The Condor Legion, a ''Luftwaffe'' detachment sent to aid Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, provided the force with a valuable testing grou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaufering Concentration Camp
Kaufering was the common name of a system of eleven subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp which operated between 18 June 1944 and 27 April 1945 and which were located around the towns of Landsberg am Lech and Kaufering in Bavaria. Previously, Nazi Germany had deported all Jews from the Reich, but having exhausted other sources of labor, Jews were deported to Kaufering to create three massive underground bunkers, Weingut II, Diana II, and Walnuss II, which would not be vulnerable to the Allied bombing which had devastated German aircraft factories. The bunkers were intended for the production of Messerschmitt Me 262 aircraft, but none were produced at the camps before the United States Army captured the area. Kaufering was the largest of the Dachau subcamps and also the one with the worst conditions; about half of the 30,000 prisoners died from hunger, disease, executions, or during the death marches. Most of the sites were not preserved and have been repurposed for other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birkenau Women Pronounced Fit For Labor From The Tet Ghetto Standing On The Platform After A Selection
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of #Auschwitz I, Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; #Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; #Auschwitz III, Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a Arbeitslager, labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and List of subcamps of Auschwitz, dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish Question, final solution to the Jewish question. After Germany Causes of World War II#Invasion of Poland, sparked World War II by Invasion of Poland, invading Poland in September 1939, the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hitler Cabinet
The Hitler cabinet was the government of Nazi Germany between 30 January 1933 and 30 April 1945 upon the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich by president Paul von Hindenburg. It was originally contrived by the national conservative politician Franz von Papen, who reserved the office of the Vice-Chancellor for himself. Originally, Hitler's first cabinet was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation, which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). History In brokering the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor, Papen had sought to control Hitler by limiting the number of Nazi ministers in the cabinet; initially Hermann Göring (without portfolio) and Wilhelm Frick (Interior) were the only Nazi ministers. Further, Alfred Hugenberg, the head of the DNVP, was enticed into joining the cabinet by being given the Economic and Agricultural portfolios for both the Reich and Prussia, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allied Bombing Of Germany
World War II (1939–1945) involved sustained strategic bombing of railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory. Strategic bombing as a military strategy is distinct both from close air support of ground forces and from tactical air power. During World War II, many military strategists of air power believed that air forces could win major victories by attacking industrial and political infrastructure, rather than purely military targets. Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians, and some campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in order to terrorize them and disrupt their usual activities. International law at the outset of World War II did not specifically forbid the aerial bombardment of cities – despite the prior occurrence of such bombing during World War I (1914–1918), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Höss
The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the Hungarian Jews, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. At the time of the German invasion, Hungary had a Jewish population of 825,000, the largest remaining in Europe, further swollen by Jews escaping from elsewhere to the relative safety of that country. The Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay had been reluctant to deport them. Fearing Hungary was trying to pursue peace with the Allies, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion. New restrictions against Jews were imposed soon after Germany occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944. The invading troops included a '' Sonderkommando'' led by SS officer Adolf Eichmann, who arrived in Budapest to supervise the deportation of the country's Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland. Between 15 May and 9 July 1944, over 434,000 Jews were deported on 147 trains, most of them to Auschwitz, where ... [...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] |
