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Hauptsturmführer
__NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a captain ('' Hauptmann'') in the German Army and also the equivalency of captain in foreign armies. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' evolved from the older rank of '' Sturmhauptführer'', created as a rank of the '' Sturmabteilung'' (SA). The SS used the rank of ''Sturmhauptführer'' from 1930 to 1934 at which time, following the Night of the Long Knives, the name of the rank was changed to ''Hauptsturmführer'' although the insignia remained the same. ''Sturmhauptführer'' remained an SA rank until 1945. Some of the most infamous SS members are known to have held the rank of ''Hauptsturmführer''. Among them are Josef Mengele, the infamous doctor assigned to Auschwitz; Klaus Barbie, ''Gestapo'' Chief of Lyon; Joseph Kramer, commandan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sturmhauptführer
(; ; short: Stuhaf), renamed to ''Hauptsturmführer'' (; short: Hstuf), was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank designation used by both the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The rank was the equivalent of a ''Hauptmann'' or ''Rittmeister'' in the German Army, which is the equivalent of ''captain'' ( OF-2) in western militaries. The rank was first created in 1928 as an SA rank, named ''SA-Sturmhauptführer'' until 1939/40, and was bestowed upon those SA officers who were company commanders of SA units. The rank translates as "head storm leader" and can trace its origins to the German shock troops of the First World War, who were typically organized into storm trooper companies under an officer ranked lieutenant or captain. ''SA-Hauptsturmführer'' was initially considered as more of a senior lieutenant, but after 1932 the rank was rated above that of ''SA-Obersturmführer'' and became the equivalent of a captain. The insignia for the rank was also modified to d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Kramer
Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was Hauptsturmführer and the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944) and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (from December 1944 to its liberation on 15 April 1945). Dubbed the Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British Army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes, and hanged on the gallows in the prison at Hamelin by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. Early life Josef Kramer, an only child, was born and raised in Munich in a middle-class family. His parents, Theodore and Maria Kramer, brought him up as a "strict Roman Catholic". In 1915, the family moved from Munich to Augsburg, where Josef Kramer attended school. He began an apprenticeship as an electrician in 1920. From 1925 to 1933, except for working in a department store and as an accountant, he was mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Klaus Barbie
Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a German operative of the SS and SD who worked in Vichy France during World War II. He became known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners—primarily Jews and members of the French Resistance—as the head of the Gestapo in Lyon. After the war, United States intelligence services, which employed him for his anti-communist efforts, aided his escape to Bolivia, where he advised the regime on how to repress opposition through torture. The United States later offered France a formal apology for aiding Barbie's escape from an outstanding arrest warrant. In Bolivia, West German Intelligence Service recruited him. Barbie is suspected of having had a role in the Bolivian coup d'état orchestrated by Luis García Meza in 1980. After the fall of the dictatorship, Barbie no longer had the protection of the government in La Paz. In 1983, he was extradited to France, where he was convicted of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Obersturmführer
__NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and the need for an additional rank in the officer corps. ''Obersturmführer'' also became an SS rank at that same time. An SA-''Obersturmführer'' was typically a junior company commander in charge of fifty to a hundred men. Within the SS, the rank of ''Obersturmführer'' carried a wider range of occupations including staff aide, Gestapo officer, concentration camp supervisor, and Waffen-SS platoon commander. Within both the SS and SA, the rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was considered the equivalent of an ''Oberleutnant'' in the German ''Wehrmacht''. The insignia for ''Obersturmführer'' was three silver pips and a silver stripe centered on a uniform collar patch. The rank was senior to an ''Untersturmf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Unit Insignia
The uniforms and insignia of the ''Schutzstaffel'' served to distinguish the Nazi Germany paramilitary ranks, Nazi paramilitary ranks of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between 1925 and 1945 from the ranks of the ''Wehrmacht'' (the regular German armed forces from 1935), the Nazi Germany, German state, and the Nazi Party. Uniform design and function While different uniforms existed for the SS over time, the all black SS uniform adopted in 1932 is the most well known. The black-white-red colour scheme was characteristic of the German Empire, and was later adopted by the Nazi Party. Further, black was popular with Fascist movement, fascist movements: a black uniform was introduced by the blackshirts in Kingdom of Italy, Italy before the creation of the SS. There was a traditional reason, as well: just as the Prussian kings' and emperors' life-guard cavalry (''Leibhusaren'') had worn Totenkopf#Prussia, black uniforms with skull-and-crossbones badges, so would the ''Führer''s bodyguard u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sturmbannführer
__NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War. The SA title of ''Sturmbannführer'' was first established in 1921. In 1928, the title became an actual rank and was also one of the first established SS ranks. The insignia of a ''Sturmbannführer'' was four silver pips centered on a collar patch. The rank rated below ''Standartenführer'' until 1932, when ''Sturmbannführer'' became subordinate to the new rank of ''Obersturmbannführer''. In the Waffen-SS, ''Sturmbannführer'' was considered equivalent to a major in the German ''Wehrmacht''. Various Waffen-SS units composed of foreign recruits were considered distinct from the German SS, and thus they were not permitted to wear SS runes on their collar tabs but had their divisional insignia instead. Their ranks were also prepended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Mengele
, allegiance = , branch = Schutzstaffel , serviceyears = 1938–1945 , rank = '' SS''-'' Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain) , servicenumber = , battles = , unit = , awards = , commands = , spouse = , children = Rolf Mengele , alma_mater = Josef Rudolf Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (german: Todesengel), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp. Initially this was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. The camp was later expanded to accommodate Jews from other concentration camps. After 1945, the name was applied to the displaced persons camp established nearby, but it is most commonly associated with the concentration camp. From 1941 to 1945, almost 20,000 Soviet prisoners of war and a further 50,000 inmates died there. Overcrowding, lack of food and poor sanitary conditions caused outbreaks of typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and dysentery, leading to the deaths of more than 35,000 people in the first few months of 1945, shortly before and after the liberation. The camp w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Socialist Flyers Corps
The National Socialist Flyers Corps (german: Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps; NSFK) was a paramilitary aviation organization of the Nazi Party. History NSFK was founded 15 April 1937 as a successor to the German Air Sports Association; the latter had been active during the years when a German air force was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. The NSFK organization was based closely on the para-military organization of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA). A similar group was the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK). During the early years of its existence, the NSFK conducted military aviation training in gliders and private airplanes. Leadership Friedrich Christiansen, originally a ''Generalleutnant'' then later a Luftwaffe ''General der Flieger'', was NSFK '' Korpsführer'' from 15 April 1937 until 26 June 1943, followed by ''Generaloberst'' Alfred Keller until 8 May 1945. Ranks, uniforms and other insignia The paramilitary rank system was in use by the NSFK between the year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghettos
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of the ghetto appear across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people. The term was originally used for the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy, as early as 1516, to describe the part of the city where Jewish people were restricted to live and thus segregated from other people. However, early societies may have formed their own versions of the same structure; words resembling ''ghetto'' in meaning appear in Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, Germanic, Old French, and Latin. During the Holocaust, more than 1,000 Nazi ghettos were established to hold Jewish populations, with the goal of exploiting and killing the Jews as part of the Final Solution. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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