SS-Oberabschnitt Donau
The Austrian SS was that portion of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) membership from Austria. The term and title was used unofficially. They were never officially recognized as a separate branch of the SS. Austrian SS members were seen as regular personnel and they served in every branch of the SS. History The term "Austrian SS" is often used to describe that portion of the SS membership from Austria, but it was never a recognized branch of the SS. In contrast to SS members from other countries, who were grouped into either the Germanic-SS or the Foreign Legions of the Waffen-SS, Austrian SS members were regular SS personnel. It was technically under the command of the SS in Germany, but often acted independently concerning Austrian affairs. The Austrian SS was founded in 1930 and, by 1934, was acting as a covert force to bring about the ''Anschluss'' with Germany, which occurred in March 1938. Early Austrian SS leaders were Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Austrian SS men ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Hotel Metropole, Vienna
Hotel Metropole was a hotel in Vienna, Austria that was constructed in 1871–73. It was destroyed during World War II after serving as the Vienna headquarters of the Gestapo from 1938. The address was Morzinplatz, in the I. District Innere Stadt. History The hotel was built for the Vienna World Exhibition and was designed by Carl Schumann and Ludwig Tischler. The four-story building was richly decorated with Corinthian columns, caryatids and atlases. The inner court was glassed over and had a richly decorated dining hall. After the ''Anschluss'' of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938, the hotel was confiscated by the Gestapo who made it their headquarters. With a staff of 900 (80 per cent of whom were recruited from the Austrian police), it was the largest Gestapo office outside of Berlin. Many people, especially Jews, were interrogated or tortured there. During the war the building was hit by a bomb and burned down and ultimately the ruins were demolished to eliminate a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has received various accolades including a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and an Emmy Award. He made his film debut playing Heathcliff in ''Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights'' (1992). His portrayal of Nazi war criminal Amon Göth in the Steven Spielberg drama ''Schindler's List'' (1993) earned him nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, and he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His performance as Count Almásy in ''The English Patient'' (1996) garnered him a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actor, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Fiennes has appeared in a number o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Schindler's List
''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel ''Schindler's Ark'' by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film follows Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern. Ideas for a film about the ''Schindlerjuden'' (Schindler Jews) were proposed as early as 1963. Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the ''Schindlerjuden'', made it his life's mission to tell Schindler's story. Spielberg became interested when executive Sidney Sheinberg sent him a book review of ''Schindler's Ark''. Universal Pictures bought the rights to the novel, but Spielberg, unsure if he was ready to make a film about the Holoca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Płaszów
Płaszów is a suburb of Kraków, Poland, now part of Podgórze district. Formerly a separate village, it became a part of the Greater Kraków in 1911 under the Austrian Partition of Poland as the 21st cadastral district of the city. During World War II, it was the location of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp for Jews deported from the Kraków Ghetto, as well as other prisoners from across occupied Poland.Plaszow Concentration Camp hosted by Krakow-Poland.com retrieved from the , 16 November 2013. See also *[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kraków-Płaszów Concentration Camp
, known for = , location = , coordinates = , built by = , operated by = Nazi Germany , commandant = Amon Göth (until September 1944)Arnold Büscher (September 1944 – January 1945) , original use = , construction = , in operation = 28 October 1942 – January 1945 , gas chambers = , prisoner type = , inmates = , killed = , liberated by = Red Army, 20 January 1945 , notable inmates = , notable books = , website = Płaszów () or Kraków-Płaszów was a Nazi concentration camp operated by the SS in Płaszów, a southern suburb of Kraków, in the General Governorate of German-occupied Poland. Most of the prisoners were Polish Jews who were targeted for destruction by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Many prisoners died because of executions, forced labor, and the poor conditions in the camp. The camp was evacuated in J ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Amon Göth
Amon Leopold Göth (; alternative spelling ''Goeth''; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II. Göth was tried after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people. He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial, for "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified number of people." Göth was executed by hanging not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp. The 1993 film ''Schindler's List'', in which Göth is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, depicts his running of the Płaszów concentration camp. Early life and career Amon Göth, an only child named afte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933. After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March, which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began isolating Je ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. Tufts remained a small New England liberal arts college until the 1970s, when it transformed into a large research university offering several doctorates;Its corporate name is still "The Trustees of Tufts College" it is classified as a "Research I university", denoting the highest level of research activity. Tufts is a member of the Association of American Universities, a selective group of 64 leading research universities in North America. The university is known for its internationalism, study abroad programs, and promoting active citizenship and public service across all disciplines. Tufts offers over 90 undergraduate and 160 graduate programs across ten schools in the greater Boston area and Talloires, France. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Nazi Concentration Camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concentration camps operated by Germany's allies. on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the 1934 purge of the SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "asocials", and Jews. After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. Following Allied military victories, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alois Brunner
Alois Brunner (8 April 1912 – December 2001) was an Austrian (SS) SS-Hauptsturmführer who played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, Macedonia, France, and finally Slovakia during the Second World War. He was known as Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man. Brunner was responsible for sending over 100,000 European Jews from Austria, Greece, France and Slovakia to ghettos and concentration camps in eastern Europe. At the start of the war, he oversaw the deportation of 47,000 Austrian Jews to the death camps. In Greece, 43,000 Jews were deported in two months while he was stationed in Thessaloniki. He then became commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, during which nearly 24,000 men, women and children were sent to the gas chambers. His last assignment involved the destruction of the Jewish community of Slovakia. After some narrow escapes from the A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |