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Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS
''Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS'' (“Command Staff Reichsführer-SS”) was a paramilitary organisation within the SS of Nazi Germany under the personal control of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. Established in 1941, prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, it consisted of the Waffen-SS security forces deployed in the occupied territories. The units perpetrated mass murder against Jews and other civilians. Function The organisation was formed on 7 April 1941 out of Waffen-SS troops as “special staff” (''Einsatzstab''), reporting directly to ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler. It was officially designated as ''Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS'' on 6 May. To head the organisation, Himmler appointed a career army officer Kurt Knoblauch who acted as chief of staff for the units. The purpose of the formation was to conduct so-called “pacification operations” in the Army Group Rear Areas and civilian-administered territories (''Reichskommissariats''). Prior t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carry out duties that a country's military or police forces are unable or unwilling to handle. Other organizations may be considered paramilitaries by structure alone, despite being unarmed or lacking a combat role. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definition, not a military, it is usually equivalent to a light infantry force in terms of strength, firepower, and organizational structure. Paramilitaries use "military" equipment (such as long guns and armored personnel carriers; usually military surplus resources), skills (such as battlefield medicine and bomb disposal), and tactics (such as urban warfare and close-quarters combat) that are compatible with their purpose, often combining them with skills from other relevant fields such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1941 Establishments In Germany
Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Euthanasia Centre in Germany, in the first phase of mass killings under the Action T4 program here. * January 1 – Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram decrees January 1 as the official start of the Thai solar calendar new year (thus the previous year that began April 1 had only 9 months). * January 3 – A decree (''Normalschrifterlass'') promulgated in Germany by Martin Bormann, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, requires replacement of blackletter typefaces by Antiqua. * January 4 – The short subject ''Elmer's Pet Rabbit'' is released, marking the second appearance of Bugs Bunny, and also the first to have his name on a title card. * January 5 – WWII: Battle of Bardia in Libya: Australian and British troops defeat I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jürgen Matthäus
Jürgen Matthäus (born 1959) is a German historian and head of the research department of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is an author and editor of multiple works on the history of World War II and the Holocaust. Matthäus was a contributor to Christopher Browning's 2004 work ''The Origins of the Final Solution''. Education and career Matthäus studied history and philosophy at the University of Bochum (Germany) where he earned his PhD in 1992. His first book on nation building in Australia before the First World War came out in 1993. Afterwards, he was senior historian at the Australian Department of Justice in Sydney. Since 1994, he has worked at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where he currently serves as director of the research department at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. He has held several guest professorships in the USA, Australia and Germany. He is a member of the Internation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Police Regiment Centre
The Police Regiment Centre (''Polizei-Regiment Mitte'') was a formation of the Order Police (uniformed police) during the Nazi era. During Operation Barbarossa, it was subordinated to the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and deployed in German-occupied areas, specifically the Army Group Centre Rear Area, of the Soviet Union. In mid-1942, its three constituent battalions were reassigned and the unit was re-designated as the 13th Police Regiment. Alongside detachments from the '' Einsatzgruppen'' and the SS Cavalry Brigade, it perpetrated mass murders and was responsible for large-scale crimes against humanity targeting civilian populations in the course of the Nazi security warfare. The scope of the regiment's operations was known to British intelligence since July 1941 but, for reasons of national security, information pertaining to their activities was not released until 1993. Background and formation The German Order Police (uniformed police) was a key instrument of the security ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death Squads
A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are formed by an insurgency, domestic or foreign governments actively participate in, support, or ignore the death squad's activities. Death squads are distinct from assassination from their permanent organization and the larger number of victims (typically thousands or more) who may not be prominent individuals. Other violence, such as rape, torture, arson, or bombings may be carried out alongside murders. They may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary militia groups, government soldiers, policemen, or combinations thereof. They may also be organized as vigilantes, bounty hunters, mercenaries, or contract killers. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces or organized crime, such as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Invasion Of The Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichsführer-SS
(, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-serving and most noteworthy office holder was Heinrich Himmler. Definition was both a title and a rank. The title of was first created in 1926 by the second commander of the SS, Joseph Berchtold. Julius Schreck, founder of the SS and Berchtold's predecessor, never referred to himself as . Yet, the title was retroactively applied to him in later years. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank of . This set the precedent for the commander of the SS to be called . Prior to the Night of the Long Knives, the SS was an elite corps of the (SA or storm troopers), and the was subordinate to the SA's operating head, the . On 20 July 1934, as part of the purge of the SA, the SS was made an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Cavalry Brigade
The SS Cavalry Brigade (''SS-Kavallerie-Brigade'') was a unit of the German Waffen-SS during World War II. Operating under the control of the ''Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS'', it initially performed rear security duties in General Government, German-occupied Poland. During the Invasion of the Soviet Union, the brigade operated in the rear of the German forces, in the Army Group Rear Area Command (Wehrmacht), Army Group Rear Area Command. It engaged bypassed Red Army units and murdered Jews, Communists, and so-called partisans. In 1942, the brigade was disbanded and its personnel was transferred to the newly formed SS Division Florian Geyer. Formation The SS Cavalry Brigade was based on the SS ''Totenkopf'' Horse Regiment, which was raised in September 1939, for police and security duties in Poland, under the command of Hermann Fegelein. By April 1940, it consisted of 8 Saber Squadrons, 9th Replacement, 10th Heavy and 11th Technical Squadrons and a 12th Horse Battery of four 80mm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German-occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during and shortly before World War II, generally administered by the Nazi regime, under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.Encyclopædia Britannica German occupied Europe.World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the Internet Archive. The German Wehrmacht occupied European territory: * as far east as the town of Mozdok in the North Caucasus in the Soviet Union (1942–1943) * as far north as the settlement of Barentsburg in Svalbard in the Kingdom of Norway * as far south as the island of Gavdos in the Kingdom of Greece * as far west as the island of Ushant in the French Republic Outside of Europe proper, German forces effectively controlled areas of North Africa in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia at times between 1941 and 1943. G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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