|
Kenneth Berry (British Free Corps)
Kenneth Edward Jordan Berry (17 November 1925 – 22 November 1992) was a British seaman who was taken as a prisoner of war in 1940 when his ship was sunk. While in prison camp he was persuaded to join the ''British Free Corps'' of the Waffen-SS as an ''SS-Mann'' during the Second World War. He was associated with the unit until 29 April 1945, when he could not be found when the Corps were leaving Neustrelitz, and was left behind. He received a nine-month sentence after the war, 'the lightest sentence passed on any traitor'. Early life Kenneth Berry was born in November 1925 at Devonport, Plymouth, Devonport in Devon the son of Samuel Jordan Berry, an Admiralty police constable and Beatrice Amy (née Collins). He went to school in Penryn, Cornwall, Penryn and Falmouth, Cornwall, Falmouth but ran away from home aged 13 after a conviction for stealing from a vehicle and one for stealing a golf ball. He worked for some months as a kitchen boy at the Pontargen Hotel in Falmouth.Mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devonport, Plymouth
Devonport ( ), formerly named Plymouth Dock or just Dock, is a district of Plymouth in the English county of Devon, although it was, at one time, the more important settlement. It became a county borough in 1889. Devonport was originally one of the "Three Towns" (along with Plymouth and East Stonehouse); these merged in 1914 to form what would become in 1928 the City of Plymouth. It is represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom as part of the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport constituency. Its elected Member of Parliament (MP) is Luke Pollard, who is a member of the Labour Party. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 14,788. History Plymouth Dock In 1690 the Admiralty gave a contract to Robert Waters from Portsmouth to build a stone dock at Point Froward on the east bank of the Hamoaze at the mouth of the River Tamar. Plymouth Dock, as Devonport was originally called, began around 1700 as a small settlement to house workers employed on the new naval base tha ... [...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] |
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven. Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
River Oder
The Oder ( , ; Czech, Lower Sorbian and ; ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river in total length and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany as part of the Oder–Neisse line. The river ultimately flows into the Szczecin Lagoon north of Szczecin and then into three branches (the Dziwna, Świna and Peene) that empty into the Bay of Pomerania of the Baltic Sea. Names The Oder is known by several names in different languages, but the modern ones are very similar: English and ; Czech, Polish, and , ; (); Medieval Latin: ''Od(d)era''; Renaissance Latin: ''Viadrus'' (invented in 1534). Ptolemy knew the modern Oder as the Συήβος (''Suebos''; Latin ''Suevus''), a name apparently derived from the Suebi, a Germanic people. While he also refers to an outlet in the area as the Οὐιαδούα ''Ouiad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bombing Of Dresden In World War II
The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.*The number of bombers and tonnage of bombs are taken from a USAF document written in 1953 and classified secret until 1978 . *Taylor (2005), front flap, which gives the figures 1,100 heavy bombers and 4,500 tons. *Webster and Frankland (1961) give 805 Bomber Command aircraft 13 February 1945 and 1,646 US bombers 16 January – 17 April 1945. "Mission accomplished", ''The Guardian'', 7 February 2004. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than of the city centre. An estimated 22,700 to 25,000 people were killed. Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth largest by area (after Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne), and the third most populous city in the area of former East Germany, after Berlin and Leipzig. Dresden's urban area comprises the towns of Freital, Pirna, Radebeul, Meissen, Coswig, Radeberg and Heidenau and has around 790,000 inhabitants. The Dresden metropolitan area has approximately 1.34 million inhabitants. Dresden is the second largest city on the River Elbe after Hamburg. Most of the city's population lives in the Elbe Valley, but a large, albeit very sparsely populated area of the city east of the Elbe lies in the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands (the westernmost part of the Sudetes) and thus in Lusatia. Many boroughs west of the Elbe lie in the foreland of the Ore Mounta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westertimke
Westertimke is a municipality in the district of Rotenburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Westertimke belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, established in 1180. In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen, which was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish Crown - interrupted by a Danish occupation (1712–1715) - and from 1715 on by the Hanoverian Crown. In 1807 the ephemeral Kingdom of Westphalia annexed the Duchy, before France annexed it in 1810. In 1813 the Duchy was restored to the Electorate of Hanover, which - after its upgrade to the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814 - incorporated the Duchy in a real union Real union is a union of two or more states, which share some state institutions in contrast to personal unions; however, they are not as unified as states in a political union. It is a development from personal union and has historically bee ... and the Ducal territory, including Westertimke, became part of the new Stade Regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hildesheim
Hildesheim (; nds, Hilmessen, Hilmssen; la, Hildesia) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the Leine River. The Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious founded the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 815 and created the first settlement with a chapel on the so called ''Domhügel''. Hildesheim is situated on autobahn route 7, and hence is at the connection point of the North (Hamburg and beyond) with the South of Europe. With the Hildesheim Cathedral and the St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. In 2015 the city and the diocese celebrated their 1200th anniversary. History Early years According to tradition, the city was named after its notorious founder ''Hildwin.'' The city is one of the oldest cities in Northern Germany, became the seat of the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 815 and may have been f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank McLardy
George Frank McLardy MPS (17 November 1915 – 16 December 1981) was a member of the British Union of Fascists, a British Nazi collaborator and an Unterscharführer in the Waffen-SS ''British Free Corps'' during the Second World War. Early life McLardy was born at 8 Sweden Grove in Waterloo, Lancashire in November 1915, the eldest son of a draper, George McLardy, and his wife Mary (née Wood) McLardy. He had two younger brothers. He attended St Edmund's School, Waterloo and St Mary's College, Crosby, where he was a member of the First XV rugby and First XI cricket teams. Academically bright, McLardy progressed into St Mary's College Sixth Form. Upon leaving school in 1934 he studied pharmacy at the Liverpool School of Pharmacy. McLardy subsequently moved with his family to live in nearby Formby, where he was articled to a chemist. He qualified as a ''Member of the Pharmaceutical Society'' in October 1939. That same year he joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF), be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Brittain (British Free Corps)
William Charles Brittain (known as 'Carl') was a lance-corporal of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment who was serving in No. 4 Commando at the time of his capture in Suda Bay, Crete, in June 1941. During the Second World War he became a member of the "staff" at the PoW "holiday camp" in Genshagen, Berlin in mid-1943 and later a Rottenführer in the Waffen-SS ''British Free Corps''. In February 1945 while in Dresden, he said he "had long since lost his enthusiasm for the unit and was planning to escape". During a conversation with his girlfriend, a Norwegian nurse, he boasted of his plans and also claimed that he had foreknowledge of the bombing raids. Shocked by this, she denounced him almost immediately to the Gestapo and the BFC were arrested en masse. "[His] court-martial ... took place at Colchester in June 1946 and he received a ten-year sentence. Two months later he was found to be suffering from an incurable form of Crohn's disease and he was released.Weale, Adrian (2014-11-12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Courlander
Roy Nicolas Courlander, (6 December 1914 – 1 June 1979), nicknamed 'Reg', was a British-born New Zealand soldier who became an Unterscharführer in the German Waffen-SS British Free Corps during the Second World War. Early life Born out of wedlock in December 1914, Courlander was adopted by Lithuanian Jewish businessman Leonard Henry Courlander (1878–1970) and Edith Cater (1898–1970), who sent him to boarding school. When he was 19, his parents divorced and he was sent to live and work on a coconut plantation owned by his father in the New Hebrides in the South Pacific. His mother married Frederick Bohne in 1933 and eventually moved to New Zealand in the 1950s where she died in 1970. His father remarried Gwendoline Elmes and moved to Sydney, Australia. In November 1938, Courlander arrived in New Zealand and found work as a clerk with the Land and Income Tax Department in Wellington. On 10 April 1939 he was arrested and convicted and sentenced to 9 months imprisonment for b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
