Schutzmannschaft Battalion 2
The ''Schutzmannschaft'' or Auxiliary Police ( "protective, or guard units"; plural: ''Schutzmannschaften'', abbreviated as ''Schuma'') was the collaborationist auxiliary police of native policemen serving in those areas of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, established the ''Schutzmannschaft'' on 25 July 1941, and subordinated it to the Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei''; Orpo). By the end of 1941, some 45,000 men served in ''Schutzmannschaft'' units, about half of them in the battalions. During 1942, ''Schutzmannschaften'' expanded to an estimated 300,000 men, with battalions accounting for about a third, or less than one half of the local force. Everywhere, local police far outnumbered the equivalent German personnel several times; in most places, the ratio of Germans to natives was about 1-to-10. The auxiliary police battalions (''Schutzmannschaft-Bataillonen'') were created to provide secu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ordnungspolizei
The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government ("Reich-ification", ''Verreichlichung'', of the police). The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry, but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the '' SS'' until the end of World War II. Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as ''Grüne Polizei'' (green police). The force was first established as a centralised organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis. The ''Ordnungspolizei'' encompassed virtually all of Nazi Germany's law-enforcement and emergency response organisations, including fire brigades, coast guard, and civil defence. In the prewar period, Heinrich Himm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Latvian Auxiliary Police
Latvian Auxiliary Police was a paramilitary force created from Latvian volunteers by the Nazi German authorities who occupied the country in June 1941. It was part of the ''Schutzmannschaft'' (Shuma), native police forces organized by the Germans in occupied territories and subordinated to the Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei''; Orpo). Some units of the Latvian auxiliary police were involved in the Holocaust. One of its units, the Arajs Kommando, was notorious for killing 26,000 civilians during the war, mostly Jews, but also Communists and Romas. In addition to regular stationary police (patrolmen in cities and towns), 30 Police Battalions were formed. These mobile groups carried out guard duties of strategic objects or building fortifications, participated in anti-partisan operations and fought on the Eastern Front. Formation of units The auxiliary police force consisted primarily of those who had served in Latvian police, army, and militia organization which had been di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prisoner Of War
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from the enemy combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labour, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs. Ancient times For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy fighters on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as prisoners of war could expect to be either slaughtered or enslaved. Ear ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nazi Security Warfare
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism (german: Hitlerfaschismus). The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War. Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist '' Völkisch'' movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the paramilitary groups that emerged afte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mir, Belarus
Mir ( be, Мір; russian: Мир; ) is a town in the Karelichy District (Карэліцкі раён) of Grodno Region, Belarus on the banks of Miranka River, about 85 kilometers southwest of the national capital, Minsk. History Mir village was founded sometime prior to 1345. It is home to Mir Castle Complex, a late medieval castle, which made the town the target of many attacks over the centuries. The town belonged to the Illinič family (Korczak coat of arms) first and then to the Radziwiłł family. It was destroyed by the Swedish forces in 1655 (Deluge (history), Deluge) and again by the Swedes during the Great Northern War in 1706. In 1792, the Lithuanian division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army under Józef Judycki was routed by the invading Imperial Russian army corps under Boris Mellin (see Battle of Mir (1792), Battle of Mir). During the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812, Russian Imperial cavalry, artillery and cossack regiments ambushed and defeated the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Forced Labour Under German Rule During World War II
The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany (german: Zwangsarbeit) and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe.Part1 an Part 2 . Many workers died as a result of their living conditionsextreme mi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Greater Germanic Reich
The Greater Germanic Reich (german: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (german: Großgermanisches Reich deutscher Nation), was the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany tried to establish in Europe during World War II.Elvert 1999, p. 325. The territorial claims for the Greater Germanic Reich fluctuated over time. As early as the autumn of 1933, Hitler envisioned annexing such territories as Bohemia, Western Poland and Austria to Germany and creation of satellite or puppet states without economies or policies of their own. This pan-Germanic Empire was expected to assimilate practically all of Germanic Europe into an enormously expanded Reich. Territorially speaking, this encompassed the already-enlarged German Reich itself (consisting of pre-1938 Germany proper, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia, Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmedy, Memel, Lower Styria, Upper Carniola, Southern Carinthia, Danzig, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Provisional Government Of Lithuania
The Provisional Government of Lithuania ( lt, Laikinoji Vyriausybė) was a temporary government aiming for independent Lithuania during the last days of the first Soviet occupation and the first months of German Nazi occupation in 1941. It was secretly formed on 22 April 1941, announced on 23 June 1941, and dissolved on 5 August 1941. It was formed from the members of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in Kaunas and Vilnius. History The provisional government was confirmed on 22 June, 1941 at the start of the June uprising. However, the leader of the LAF, Kazys Škirpa, who was supposed to become the prime minister, was in Germany at the time, hoping to obtain recognition for Lithuania (he was also former Lithuanian envoy to Germany and therefore continued to reside there). Since the Nazi regime saw Lithuania as a future part of Greater Germany, it was not much interested in Lithuanian independence, but allowed the Provisional Government to operate while it was useful. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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German 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 fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reichskommissariat Ukraine
During World War II, (abbreviated as RKU) was the civilian occupation regime () of much of Nazi German-occupied Ukraine (which included adjacent areas of modern-day Belarus and pre-war Second Polish Republic). It was governed by the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories headed by Alfred Rosenberg. Between September 1941 and August 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Erich Koch as the . The administration's tasks included the pacification of the region and the exploitation, for German benefit, of its resources and people. Adolf Hitler issued a Decree defining the administration of the newly occupied Eastern territories on 17 July 1941. Before the German invasion, Ukraine was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, inhabited by Ukrainians, Russians, Jewish, Belarusian, Romanian, Polish and Roma/Gypsy minorities. It was a key subject of Nazi planning for the post-war expansion of the German state. The Nazi extermination policy in Ukraine, with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reichskommissariat Ostland
The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initially referred to an equivalent ''Reichskommissariat Baltenland''. The political organization for this territory – after an initial period of military administration before its establishment – involved a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories led by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, but actually controlled by the Nazi official Hinrich Lohse, its appointed ''Reichskommissar''. Germany's main political objectives for the ''Reichskommissariat'', as laid out by the Ministry within the framework of Nazism's policies for the east established by Adolf Hitler, included the genocide of the Jewish population, as well as the ''Lebensraum'' settlement of ethnic Germa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a Theater (warfare), theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Polish Armed Forces in the East, Poland and other Allies of World War II, Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltic states, Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union – and still is in some of its successor states, while almost everywhere else it has been called the ''Eastern Front''. In present-day German and Ukrainian historiography the name German-Soviet War is typically used. The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterised by unprecedented ferocity and brutality, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, expos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |