HISTORY IN PICTURES: RARE, UNSEEN PICTURES: BE THERE

WAFFEN SS IN ACTION: Rare, Unseen Pictures: Part 2

2011-12-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

"Meine Ehre heißt Treue"("My honour is loyalty")

Waffen SS Motto

Literary it means "My honour is called loyalty" but the meaning is closer to "My honour is loyalty". The Motto comes from Hitler's letter to SS kommendant Kurt Daluegelle in 1931. There was sentence-ending "...SS-man, your loyalty is your honour" and Heinrich Himmler took that sentence from letter and came up with that motto. That motto is forbidden and punishable by law in Germany and Austria even today.
From Military-quotes.com

SS soldiers in action on the western front in 1940

SOME DOPE ON WAFFEN SS

The best Waffen SS Divisions were Liebstandarte and Das Reich, along with Totenkopf. In other words the 3 divisions that made up the II SS Panzer Korps. Up until mid 1944 they could be considered as elite status divisions and were well regarded by German commanders as 'fire brigade' formations. In other words, formations that could be reliably used to plug holes and prevent Soviet breakthroughs.

The Totenkopf were certainly not just fancy concentration camp guards. As part of II SS Panzer Korps they formed the main offensive wedge of 4th Panzerarmee at Kursk, and along with the other two SS divisions achieved the furthest penetration of any German formation. This was mainly due to the tactics of Hausser but make no mistake, Totenkopf in 1943 were as good as any other Panzer Division in the German Army and better than a good many of them.

Many of the other Waffen SS units you mentioned were formed towards the end of the 3rd Reich and were not of the same quality as the big 3. Hitlerjugend for example was formed by transferring a core of veteran NCO's from Liebstandarte to look after largely green troops, most of them Hitler Youth, hence the name. The Hitlerjugend did actually fight very well, but it was no elite formation.

military-quotes.com

Milching a Dutch cow in 1940. Netherlands.

THE SPIRIT OF EQUALITY

The elite esprit de corps so commonly found in the Waffen SS compared to other Wehrmacht units was as much a product of leadership as selection. The relationship between officers and enlisted men in the Waffen SS differed greatly from the class separation found within the German Army. In the Wehrmacht, less than two percent of the officers were of ‘peasant stock', whereas 90% of the Waffen SS commanders had been brought up on the land. Waffen SS officers deliberately fostered a close relationship between themselves and their men. Expected to rise from the ranks, Waffen SS officers earned the respect and loyalty of their men by leading from the front and never asking them to do anything that they would not do themselves. For many, this bond between brothers in arms was the most memorable aspect of serving as part of the Waffen SS. "My most enduring memory of the Waffen-SS", according to SS Veteran Gerd Rommel, "was the spirit with which we were all filled. We were all just around 18 years old, and our officers just 20 to 30 years old. Our Divisional commander, SS-Brigadefuhrer Heinz Harmel was then just 38 years old. The troops never addressed him as ‘Herr General', just as ‘Brigadefuhrer'. It was this spirit of equality which made us all feel so proud."

From Militaryhistoryonline

SS soldiers on a truck on the western front in 1940. They carry the standard Wehrmacht issue, K98k Mauser rifles

THE K98K MAUSER RIFLE

The Karabiner 98 Kurz (often abbreviated Kar98k, K98, or K98k) was a bolt action rifle chambered for the 8x57mm IS/7.92×57mm IS cartridge that was adopted as the standard service rifle in 1935 by the German Wehrmacht. It was one of the final developments in the long line of Mauser military rifles. Although supplemented by semi- and fully automatic rifles during World War II, it remained the primary German service rifle until the end of World War II in 1945.

For example, General Eberhard von Mackensen, commander of the IIIrd panzer Corps, wrote of the Leibstandarte, "Every division wishes it had the Leibstandarte as its neighbor. They are a genuine elite formation that I am happy and proud to have under my command." The Waffen SS divisions had indeed achieved the goals set by their Fuhrer. They had proven themselves in combat and gained the prestige and confidence of the German Army. In view of this, the Leibstandarte, the Totenkopfdivision, Wiking and the Das Reich were reorganized into panzer grenadier divisions, complete with tank battalions. Hitler also authorized the creation of more SS divisions and the SS Panzer Corps. As the tide began to turn against Hitler, with the fall of Stalingrad and the loss of North Africa, he placed a greater demand upon the men of the SS who where, "an extraordinary body of men, devoted to an idea, loyal unto death."

With the German defeat at Kursk, the Soviets gained the strategic initiative for good. The subsequent Soviet offensive during the summer of 1943 proved devastating for the Wehrmacht . During the retreat, the SS formations became the "fire brigades" in the East. As motorized divisions, they were routinely rushed to the critical points on the front to seal a breach in the German lines or slow down the Soviet onslaught long enough for other formations to escape. They had in the words of General Wohler, commander of the 8th Army, "stood like a rock in the Army, while the enemy broke through in neighboring sectors."

A Waffen SS soldier hurries forward with his MG 34 machine gun. 1940

IT WAS SAID OF THE SS TOTENKOPF....

"The SS man's ability to remain calm in the face of disaster, his willingness to fight on against impossible odds, his lust for killing Russians, and most important, his readiness to perish rather than retreat and appear weaker than his racial enemy were all qualities that proved crucial throughout the war in retrieving hopeless situations; they became hallmarks of the Totenkopf divisions's performance wherever it fought."

1944. Karl Ullrich (Center) with Kurt Franke (Right). Men of the 6th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Theodor Eicke

WHO WERE THESE GUYS?

Karl Ullrich was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class for bravery during the Battle of France, then transferred to the Totenkopf on the Eastern Front in 1941. He was awarded the Knight's Cross for his leadership and bravery during the battles of the Demyansk pocket in February 1942 and in October 1944 was given command of the 6th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Theodor Eicke and was awarded the Oakleaves while in command. Promoted to Standartenführer (Colonel) he was given command of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking for the final battles of the war in Hungary. A short time before the end of the war he was promoted to Oberführer and he surrendered to the Russians in May 1945.

Kurt Franke was a Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant) in the Waffen SS during World War II who was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany during World War II. He was also one of only 631 men to be awarded the very rare Close Combat Clasp in Gold

These guys are from the Hitler Youth (HitlerJugend) Division. One of them tends to a comrade.

WAFFEN SS DELAYED THE ALLIED ADVANCE IN THE WEST

The Waffen SS divisions were once again nearly bled white during these terrible battles. They were unable to stop the advancing tide of the Allies overwhelming personnel and materiel superiority. What they did accomplish was to significantly delay the Allied advance. It is doubtful that the German defenses in France would have held as long as they did without the courage, determination, and overall combat power of the Waffen SS divisions. General Eisenhower remarked that, "while the SS elements as usual fought to annihilation, the ordinary German infantry gave themselves up in ever-increasing numbers." This reckless fanaticism in the face of defeat was exactly what Hitler needed from the troops who were to execute his planned counter offensive in the West.

This SS man smilingly poses for the camera.

EVEN FIGHTING SPIRIT GOES ONLY SO FAR....

In describing the Ardennes offensive, one grenadier remarked that, "Three years ago we would probably have stormed forward during the night in order not to allow the enemy any time to recover. But now after nearly five years of savage fighting things move much more slowly . . . The men are all right but tanks and guns need fuel and shells and it does not matter how much fighting spirit there is, without those two things nothing much can be achieved."

Men from the SS Division 'Deutschland'. The sergeant in the front carries a Schmeisser MP 28.II machine gun

FRENCHMEN IN WAFFEN SS: FOUGHT TO THE LAST IN BERLIN
(Source)

Three other members of the Assault Battalion Charlemagne would receive the Knight's Cross, on the evening of April 29. By this time, 108 Soviet tanks had been destroyed in the city's center; 62 of them by Charlemagne soldiers. These French survivors spent April 30 repelling flame-throwing Soviet tanks, which kept lumbering toward the Führer Bunker.

Adolf Hitler may have been surprised to learn that not all of his last personal defenders were Germans. In addition to the Frenchmen, a few Danes, Norwegians, Latvians, Swedes, Spaniards and Balkan ethnic Germans, along with Hitler Youth, policemen and middle aged to elderly Volkssturm (People's Militia) were among those who fatefully joined in the final scenes of bravery and pathos.

To the north of Berlin, SS Battalion 58 and other Charlemagne troopers who had not gone into the city conducted a fighting withdrawal to Schleswig-Holstein. Their objective was to reach Denmark and link up with the remains of Leon Degrelle's 28th SS Division Wallonien. But the British Army got in the way, and on May 2 the last Charlemagne commander, Stubaf. Boudet-Gheusi, attempted to surrender his command.

Under a white flag, Boudet-Gheusi and his adjutant, (2nd Lieutenant) Radici crossed the Allied lines to speak with a British officer. The officer flatly rejected any official surrender, stating that the Frenchmen had to be turned over to the Russians for "punishment." At that point the two French SS junior officers were disarmed and taken into custody. They were then placed on an armored personnel carrier and driven to the Soviet lines. Both managed to jump off en route and escape. Subsequently, Boudet-Gheusi would be forced to serve a long prison sentence in France. Radici was executed by France's postwar government.

Part of the Charlemagne Wildflecken Regiment had been incorporated into the new SS-Panzergrenadier Division "Nibelungen" in Bavaria. This division had been formed late in the war from all sorts of available personnel. There were many French SS officer candidates and other European volunteers in its ranks. These were probably the only French SS troops to fight against the western Allies; in late April and early May, 1945. The Nibelungen Division surrendered to the Americans on May 9, two days after Germany's unconditional surrender at Reims, France. One would think this a much more preferable alternative for Waffen-SS volunteers than capitulation to the Red Army. But such was not necessarily the case. The Nibelungen POWs were severely abused by their captors. Many were beaten and even murdered in captivity. The bulk of the Nibelungen survivors would go into the cruel and infamous "open air" POW camps described in detail in James Bacque's book Other Losses. They definitely were not treated according to the rules of the Geneva Convention.

The soldiers of the Charlemagne Division had marched into history. Of the more than 10,000 French volunteers in the Waffen-SS, more than half had been killed or missing at the front, or would die in captivity. Like tens of thousands of their European SS comrades, the French volunteers were drawn from all walks of life, from laborers to aristocrats. They strongly believed they were fighting for the preservation of European civilization, national integrity and the destruction of Communism. They literally fought to the last bullet, with few survivors having any regret about the course they took.

Waffen SS soldiers in France, 1940 gingerly try and cross the small stream.

THE ALLIED SOLDIERS FEARED AND RESPECTED THE WAFFEN SS...
(Source)

Allied casualties were generally much higher whenever they were thrown into combat opposite seasoned SS troops. Consequently the SS were both feared and admired for their military prowess. The allies feared that the SS would continue to offer armed underground resistance to the occupational authorities, therefore they determined to thoroughly disband and discredit this able military force before the eyes of not only the world, but of the German people as well. Consequently, the members of the SS received the most brutal treatment at the hands of the allied forces. Often accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the allies sought to expunge the very memory of this elite Nazi formation. The truth of the matter is that the Waffen SS was no more criminal than any other fighting unit, allied OR axis, and the treatment it’s members received at the hands of the allies was unjust and often criminal. Since SS members were stationed at concentration camps as guards, the allies took advantage of this fact and used it to condemn the members of the SS as a whole. Of course it should go without saying that simply because someone was a guard at a camp does not mean he or she was a criminal.

Western Front. 1940. Peer cautiously round a corner.

A little chat after fighting

This man is waiting for an order to move

Preparing to fire a Pak 35/36 anti-tank gun. 1940

A rare moment of respite for these fighting men

SS machine gunners take up position

The one on the left is an Unterscharführer SS (in camouflage shirt)

This soldier rushes with a box of ammo

Waffen SS men report on the situation

Machine gunners from the Waffen SS 'Deutschland' Division

1940. Western front. SS soldiers fire away with their MG 34

1940. Western Front. SS men on motorcycles wait for orders.

Sepp Dietrich with his charcoal-painted boys from the Hitler Youth Division

SS soldiera about to cross the river on a rubber dingy. The man second from left carries a range-finder

These men relaxedly sprawled on the tank are from the 12th SS Panzer Hitler
Jugend Division

Conference with maps by officers and men of the Waffen SS

These guys are from the Hitler Youth Division

RELATED.....

WAFFEN SS IN ACTION: Rare, Unseen Pictures: Part 1

WAFFEN SS IN ACTION: Rare, Unseen Pictures: Part 1 (LARGE IMAGES)

2011-12-17T00:13:00.000-08:00

Waffen SS soldiers crouch in a trench. Spring 1944

WHY HAS WAFFEN SS BECOME A CULT?

It was way back in 1945 that the last gun of a Waffen SS soldier fell silent. One wonders why they still live in our collective consciousness.

Some of the things that some of them did was downright evil. Following blindly the dictates of a man possessed with a mad but twisted love for Germany.

But surprisingly in an online poll nearly 48% of the respondents said that Waffen SS soldiers were great warriors. Of the rest only 22% said that they were mere fanatics. 30% said they were something between; an admixture of great fighting men and fanatics.

The question remains, why? Why this fascination for the men of the Waffen SS?

May be the answer lies in the fact that today we live in times bereft of any values and beliefs. Making money. And more money, seems to be only mantra of life. Owing to this a certain weariness, an emptiness has crept in. We are at times sick of this materialistic life.

Waffen SS. Driven men. Strongly bonded together. Led by capable, equally driven capable leaders in a structure that was less rigid, less formal and more comradely than the Wehrmacht. Men who thought nothing of their own lives. To fight. Fight for their country.

This appeal, I think, will remain timeless. It is not the appeal of Nazism. But of these men who fought many, many years ago.

The group of SS men from the 8th Cavalry Division of the Waffen SS "Florian Geyer". Hidden behind a black Soviet T-34/76 tank, the men are watching the progress of the battle. One of them holds an anti-tank mine

THE SS FLORIAN GEYER DIVISION

The 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer was a Waffen-SS cavalry Division during World War II. It was formed in 1942 from a cadre of the SS Cavalry Brigade which was involved in anti partisan operations behind the front line and was responsible for the extermination of tens of thousands of the civilian population. About 40% of the division were Volksdeutsche from Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) and Banat (Serbia). The Training and Replacement Battalion of the 8th SS Cavalry Division was involved in suppressing the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In March 1944, it was named after Florian Geyer (1490–1525), the Franconian nobleman who led the Black Company during the Peasants War. The Division was destroyed during the fighting in Budapest in early 1945.

A soldier from the 8th Cavalry Division of 'Florian Geyer' Waffen SS Division lays a telephone cable

Untersturmfuhrer SS of the SS brigade of "Langemarck". Untersturmfuhrer ( a rank in the Waffen SS) was the equivalent of second lieutenant in other armies.

The 27th SS Volunteer Division Langemarck was a German Waffen-SS volunteer division comprising volunteers of Flemish background. It saw action on the Eastern Front during World War II. The formation started as the 6th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Langemarck and in September 1944 the Sturmbrigade was raised in status to a division, but its strength never reached more than a brigade.

A soldiers from the Waffen SS Nord Division shakes hands witha wounded Finnish soldier.

THE 6TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION NORD

The 6th SS Mountain Division "Nord" was a German unit of the Waffen SS during World War II, formed in February 1941 as SS Kampfgruppe Nord (SS Battle Group North).The Division was the only Waffen SS unit to fight in the Arctic Circle when it was stationed in Finland and northern Russia between June and November 1941. It fought in Karelia until the Finnish armistice in September 1944 when it marched on foot 1,600 km through Finland and Norway. It arrived in Denmark in December and then transferred to western Germany. It fought in the Nordwind offensive in January 1945, where it suffered heavy losses and surrendered to the American forces in Austria at the end of the war.

Motorcyclists from Waffen SS. The goggles hang around his neck

THE WAFFEN SS

Elite Waffen-SS was a formidable opponent on the battlefield. Many a time, they saved the German army from total destruction. Their reputation was formed mainly on the eastern front at the beginning of the war. They also behaved heroically in the west in 1944-1945. However, they were one of the most unpopular regimes in history. The members of the elite Waffen-SS were mostly volunteers and the fanatical Nazi. They firmly believed in the justice of their cause and fought with the fervor usually absent from the Allies. However, this passion existed not only in the elite divisions. In a million (or thereabouts) of people who served in the Waffen-SS, a third died in the fighting. This is - an unprecedented level of loss is not characteristic for any other army (except, of course, the Imperial Japanese Army). However, military professionalism, fighting spirit and zeal of the Waffen-SS units were unable to resist the military superiority of the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States.

War on the Eastern Front was the decisive battle for the Waffen-SS.This elite force of Nazi Germany had the most difficult and most important battles to fight. But the superiority of the enemy was too great, and, finally, the Red Army prevailed. The collapse of the Eastern Front was only a matter of time, conscious of the fact that the Soviet Union produced three times more tanks than Germany. But still, it was not a question of numbers (that is a common explanation of reasons for the defeat of Germany). In addition, Stalin was fortunate to have amazingly talented generals. Some key points were Russian advantage, make the right strategic decisions, such as the operation "Citadel" Kursk meant to challenge for her participation in the armored divisions of the Waffen-SS in Kharkov front before the Soviet summer offensive in August 1943.

During the war in the Eastern Front the Waffen-SS proved itself as a formidable force, caused severe damage to the Allies in Normandy in the summer of 1944 and later - in Arnhem and the Ardennes. Tactics and operations, used on the eastern front, were a real shock to the British and American armies, when they landed in Europe and when they first encountered the tanks of the Waffen-SS. The Western allies were so impressed with the new tank tactics that after the war they used them, and many German tactical decisions become the basis of plans developed by NATO repel the Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Soldiers from the 3rd Armored 'Totenkopf' SS Division fire anti-aircraft gun at enemy airplanes

TOTENKOPF DIVISION

The SS Division Totenkopf ("Death's Head"), also known as 3. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf and 3. SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf, was one of the 38 divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Prior to achieving division status, the formation was known as Kampfgruppe Eicke. The division is infamous due to its insignia and the fact that most of the initial enlisted soldiers were SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS concentration camp guards). The Totenkopf division was numbered with the "Germanic" divisions of the Waffen-SS. These included also the SS-Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, SS-Panzer Division Das Reich, and SS-Panzer Division Wiking.

Men from the 7th Volunteer Mountain Division 'Prinz Eugen' on a mission against partisans

The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen. was formed on March 1942 from Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) volunteers from Vojvodina, Croatia, Hungary and Romania, it was initially called the SS-Freiwilligen-Division Prinz Eugen. (SS-Volunteer Division Prinz Eugen). It was engaged in anti-partisan operations in the Balkans during World War II

SS and Italian soldiers share a smoke in the Balkans. 1943. The SS man has a 9mm MR 28 rifle slung around his shoulder

WAFFEN SS: THE TAINTED FIGHTERS

Soldiers of the Waffen-SS during World War II committed many atrocities, not only on the battlefield. They were the first soldiers of the Third Reich for the purity of race and despised by all those whom Nazi ideology declared to be of an inferior race. Not highly valuing their own lives, they did not consider the value of the lives of their enemies. The outstanding military skill of elite tank divisions of the Waffen-SS is rarely questioned. They really were a formidable fighting force. However, part of the Waffen-SS in the massacres across Europe during the war cast a shadow on honest military victory. Defenders of the Waffen-SS usually portray themselves as separate and isolated military branch of a large organization, the SS, had not participated in the genocide of Jews and other races that were considered by Hitler and his racial ideology of the "subhuman."

Though the Waffen SS were not part of the Nazi killing machine, they knew what was going on.

The war in Russia showed the Waffen-SS in its true light. The armed forces of Hitler's SS were the vanguard of the race war . They showed no mercy to the racial and political opponents of Nazism. Lives of the Jews and the Russian did not have any value, according to Nazi ideology, they could only be used for forced labor for the benefit of Germany. Russian citizens were treated with contempt by the SS, their property, crops and dwellings were seized, even if it led to the death of the owners, given the harsh climate of the country. The Soviet officers and commissioners at the hands of representatives of the Waffen-SS. in accordance with the "commissar order" issued by Fuhrer, simply shot. To the Soviet soldiers captured the Waffen SS, did not apply the Geneva Convention. They were usually left hungry and did not receive medical care. The execution of hundreds of Soviet prisoners of war was commonplace in parts of the Waffen-SS. Once more than 4 thousand prisoners were killed in four days by the Division "Leibstandarte." Killings of thousands of civilians as an act of revenge for the attack guerrillas was also common practice for the Waffen-SS.

Waffen SS soldiers pull a cart with arms

HOW A WAFFEN SS SOLDIER WAS MADE

In preparation of a Waffen-SSsoldier, the emphasis was on physical endurance and moral superiority over the enemy. This was drilled into them. Even before the new recruits set about learning, they had to go through a very serious racial and ideological selection. Hitler insisted that potential soldiers of the divisions of the Waffen-SS were to be aged 17-22 years, had to have a growth of at least 1.8 meters and were in good physical shape. Each recruit had to be proportional in their constitution, without any kind of imbalance between the tibia and femur, or between the legs and torso, which should enable them to carry heavy loads over long distances. Also, the recruits were to have true Aryan appearance. Himmler said: "The main thing is that in their attitude to the discipline of a person not acting like a wimp. His gait, his hands - all must conform to the ideal that we have set ourselves." Aryan recruits should not have in no case a drop of Jewish or other subhuman blood. Verification led to ancestors since 1800 - for the soldiers and up to 1750 - for the officers. Those who were found to have "junk" blood, were refused. And if the lack of racial purity was detected after the start of the service, the man was fired. Potential brides for these men had similar requirements to make sure future offspring were pure Aryans. With the number of Waffen-SS was limited to the army to join the armed forces of the Nazi party as a result it was very difficult to find recruits in large numbers. But so appealing was a kind of mystical aura created around the Waffen-SS, it was not difficult to convince young people to serve in this elite formation. In contrast to the army conscripts, soldiers of the Waffen-SS recruits were to serve at least 4 years, non-commissioned officers - 12 years, and officers - for 25 years.

SS men on the march. The soldier behind is a "Unterscharführer" SS. A rank in the SS equivalent to corporal or sergeant in other armies

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WEHRMACHT AND WAFFEN SS

The relationship between the SS and German Army wAS complex and often antagonistic. In the course of the war, when Germany was forced onto the defensive there began an increasing split between senior officers of the Waffen-SS Himmler and the highest levels Allgemeine-SS (SS-arms) - the main administrative and political branch of the SS.

By the beginning of 1944 the Waffen-SS veterans - military generals, such as Paul Hausser, "Sepp" Dietrich, Willy Bittrih and Felix Steiner, had already lost their illusions about Hitler's military strategy. They lost thousands of men in bloody battles on the Eastern Front, and realized that Hitler's strategy of "no retreat" and "fight to the last" was leading to the defeat of Germany. Hausser's retreat from Kharkov in early 1943 was the first sign of Waffen SS leaders getting rid of illusions. It seemed obvious that the creator of the Waffen-SS did not want to sacrifice his best people in the senseless struggle for a city that had no strategic importance.

Heavy fighting in winter 1943/44, when tens of thousands of German soldiers, including SS men, escaped death just because Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, organized breakouts and did not obey the orders of Hitler, also opened the eyes of many. The senior commanders of the Waffen-SS gradually began to see clearly. They were convinced that they had more in common with the officers of the Wehrmacht, such as Manstein than to toadies who surrounded Hitler, or the SS bureaucracy, which worked for Himmler.

Army and Waffen-SS were fierce rivals in the 1930s, but by the middle of war, their relations had lost their tension. This particularly applies to commanders of tank units. Field commanders of tank units of the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht fought shoulder to shoulder in the bloodiest battles on the Eastern front - it was there was born and was strengthened their mutual respect. Hitler for a time very graciously looked at the favorite commanders of the Waffen-SS Dietrich and others, but by 1944, and they too were treated with a high degree of suspicion. Himmler, too, was delighted with the views of Dietrich and Hausser. In political debate he openly sided with the army commanders.

An Officer and a rider from the SS prepare to transport a prisoner of the Red Army to headquarters for questioning. Interestingly, the number is either lost on the motorcycle, or specifically removed, in order not to give out the presence of the Waffen SS units in the area

'A small band of the best and most determined is far more valuable than a large mass of camp followers.'
Adolf Hitler in 1926

'First, there is loyalty, God be praised, we have never had a single case of treason in our ranks.'

'Every man who joins the SS must know, that at any moment, he may be mortally wounded.'
Heinrich Himmler, speaking to SS generals at Poznan 4 October 1943

'Men like Steiner and later Eicke . . . These were the people I most identified with and we often discussed how we could organize a soldierly force, an army along very different lines who would be superbly trained in a new way.'
Sepp Dietrich post-war

It is true. When the German soldiers entered the USSR in 1941, in many parts they were hailed as liberators and welcomed. In the image a Russian peasant woman gives the SS soldiers milk to drink.

WAFFEN SS WERE NOT CRIMINALS: THEY WERE SOLDIERS

At the post-war Nuremberg Trials the Waffen-SS was condemned as a criminal organization over its essential connection to the Nazi Party and involvement in war crimes. Waffen-SS veterans were denied many of the rights afforded to veterans who had served in the Heer, Luftwaffe (air force) or Kriegsmarine (navy). The exception made was for Waffen-SS conscripts sworn in after 1943, who were exempted because of their involuntary servitude. In the 1950s and 1960s, Waffen-SS veteran groups successfully fought numerous legal battles in West Germany to overturn the Nuremberg ruling and win pension rights for their members.

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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish insurgency that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto from 19 April to 16 May, an effort to prevent the transportation of the remaining population of the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. The only units involved from the Waffen-SS were 821 Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers from five reserve and training battalions and one cavalry reserve and training battalion

THE MOTIVATED FIGHTERS

Events during the Invasion of Poland raised doubts over the combat effectiveness of the SS-VT. Their willingness to fight was never in any doubt; at times they were almost too eager. The OKW reported that the SS-VT had unnecessarily exposed themselves to risks and acted recklessly, incurring heavier losses than Army troops.

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The Leibstandarte had now crossed into Greece, and on 10 April, 1940, engaged the 6th Australian Division in the Battle of the Klidi Pass. For 48 hours they fought for control of the heights, often engaging in hand-to-hand combat, eventually gaining control with the capture of Height 997, which opened the pass, allowing the German Army to advance into the Greek interior. This victory finally gained praise from the OKW: in the order of the day they were commended for their "Unshakable offensive spirit" and told that "The present victory signifies for the Leibstandarte a new and imperishable page of honour in its history."

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The war in the Soviet Union proceeded well at first, but the cost to the Waffen-SS was extreme: the Leibstandarte by late October was at half strength due to enemy action and dysentery that swept through the ranks. Das Reich had lost 60% of its strength and was still to take part in the Battle of Moscow, and was decimated in the following Soviet offensive. The Der Führer Regiment was reduced to 35 men out of the 2,000 that had started the campaign in June. Altogether, the Waffen-SS had suffered 43,000 casualties.

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The Hungarian Third Army had been besieged in Budapest along with the IX Waffen Mountain Corps of the SS (Croatian) (8 SS Florian Geyer and 22 SS Maria Theresia). The siege lasted from 29 December 1944 until the city surrendered unconditionally on 13 February 1945. Some idea of the intensity of the fighting can be had by the fact that only 170 men of the 22 SS Maria Theresia made it back to the German lines.

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BERLIN 1945: Under pressure from the most intense shelling, the SS troops put up stiff resistance as the Red Army raced to take the Reichstag and Reich Chancellery. This condemned the SS troops to bitter and bloody street fighting. By 26 April, the Nordland defenders in the centre government quarter were pushed back into the Reichstag and Reich Chancellery. There over the next few days, the survivors (mainly French SS troops from the former 33 SS Charlemagne) held out against overwhelming odds.

Waffen SS men heavily camouflaged

WHY WERE (ARE?) WAFFEN SS SOLDIERS THE BEST IN HISTORY?

The Waffen SS were fierce fighters because of tough training, and racial beliefs. They were ideologically motivated unlike any other soldier during the war. They were also extremely loyal to Hitler and would die for him without a second hesitation. Besides training and motivation which made them deadly cold blooded efficient killers, they were also driven by Hitlers racial beliefs and laws. Every SS soldier was a die hard believer of the whole "Aryan being superior to all other races" thing. Their ideology and racial views fueled the holocaust in which the SS were in charge. This forever linked SS with racial hatred and hideous war crimes. Training and racial ideology practice made the SS devoted to Hitler in battle which made retreat or defeat not an option. They were the most feared para-military organization in history. What made them so good was the environment in which they trained. Waffen SS training was the hardest in the world at that time. They were the elite at that time. SS training was harder than modern USMC. What was hardest was Himmlers tough racial purity laws. Recruits have to be 5'10", no defective teeth, you couldn't wear spectacles, and had to trace your arian purity back to 1700. One third of canidates would fail physical inspections. All the training both physical and ideological turned men into the ruthless, skilled soldiers that were the Waffen SS. Intense physical and mental training, racial beliefs, and a brutal, fearless reputation that they earned themselves are what made the Waffen SS such a successful fighting force.

Wikianswers

A GERMAN VIDEO

3rd SS Armored Division of the Totenkopf. A soldier signals to the motorcycle rider that an ambulance is needed for the injured.

The curtain of silence fell on the Waffen SS after the war but now more and more young people somehow know of its existence, of its achievements. The fame is growing and the young demand to know more. In one hundred years almost everything will be forgotten but the greatness and the heroism of the Waffen SS will be remembered. It is the reward of an epic.

LEON DEGRELLE, FORMER BELGIAN WAFFEN SS OFFICER

Source: ihr.org

Soldiers of the 7th Mountain Division of the Waffen SS "Prinz Eugen" wave to a Luftwaffe plane flying above

Normandy 1944. Soldiers of the 12th Armored Division of the Waffen SS "Hitler Youth" closely watch the sky, swarming with enemy aircraft.

THE HITLERJUGEND WAFFEN SS DIVISION

The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend ("Hitler Youth") was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern Front. The division, with 20,540 personnel, first saw action on 7 June 1944 as part of the German defense of the Caen area during the Normandy campaign. The battle for Normandy took its toll on the division and it came out of the Falaise pocket with a divisional strength of 12,000 men. Following the invasion battles, the division was sent to Germany for refitting. On 16 December 1944, the division was committed against the US Army in the Battle of the Bulge. After the failure of the Ardennes offensive the division was sent east to fight the Red Army near Budapest. The 12th SS eventually withdrew into Austria; on 8 May 1945, the surviving 10,000 men surrendered to the US Army at Enns.

The SS soldiers are in a trench while their radio-man is trying to communicate

A SS officer gives instructions to his men

A picture that would have had Stalin fuming. A Russian peasant woman offers to darn the sock of a Waffen SS soldier

SS soldiers calculate and aim their mortar

The men cross the river on a boat

A SS soldier plays the piano after the fight. The men belong to the 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler". Kharkov, 1943

Machine-gun crew from the 3rd Armored Division of the SS "Totenkopf"

Soldiers of 3rd Armored Division of the SS "Totenkopf" in the trenches.

SS men fire away with a MG 42 machine gun

Firing a 8cm GrW 34 mortar

The 8 cm Granatwerfer 34 (8 cm GrW 34) was the standard German medium mortar throughout World War II. It gained a reputation for extreme accuracy and rapid rate of fire, although much of the credit should go to the training of the crews.

A Waffen SS soldier in Russia during winter in a M42 pullover.

Waffen-SS winter combat clothing was developed independently for the army and resulted in a pullover fur-lined anorak.Improvements to this garment were made during the war, leading to several variants. The most common type was the M42 pullover type with its large hood to accommodate the steel helmet. Included with this anorak was a white removable shell. Although the fur-lined anorak was used until the end of the war, the Waffen-SS found the army reversible insulated winter suit to be superior in many aspects and copied its design. However they produced the printed camouflaged side in Waffen-SS patterns. In the winter of 1942-43, to supplement the shortage of fur-lined anoraks, Waffen-SS troops were also supplied with the new army field gray/white reversible insulated winter suit

From White Hell - The German Army Faces the Russian Winter by Gordon Rottman, Stephen Andrew

Soldiers from the 3rd SS Division 'Totenkopf' at the start of the war

The men take a break. One of them holds a Soviet TT pistol

A SS orderly gives a wounded soldier a drink of water

This SS soldier darts to a forward position with a MG 42 machine gun

Firing at the enemy with a MG 42 machine gun

SS men about to fire a MG 34 machine gun

Two Waffen SS soldiers

Carrying the wounded comrades. Men of the 7th Volunteer Mountian 'Prinz Eugen' Division

SS soldiers stuck in the mud. They are riding a BMW R75 motorcycle

Riding the Horch 901

The famous soldier from the SS Hitlerjugend Division Otto Funk. He was 15 when he destroyed a Churchill tank with a MG 42 machine gun. He was awarded the Iron Cross class 2 for that.He was wounded on June 26, 1944 but continued fighting till May 8, 1945

Waffen SS soldiers in action in the Soviet Union

SEE ALSO....
WAFFEN SS IN ACTION: Rare, Unseen Pictures: Part 2

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2011-03-09T00:12:00.000-08:00

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Stuka Dive Bomber (JU 87) In Action

2011-02-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

The video below shows a Stuka in action. Perhaps the best Stuka video on the web.

The sound that the Stuka made when it dived was frightening. Hear it

This one shows Stuka attacking Russian columns in September 1943

In the early days of the opening of the Eastern Front, Stukas attack defensive positions near Moscow

Color video. Stukas bombing a Russian village. 1944

Fake Pictures Of German Brutality In Russia

2011-01-14T22:48:00.000-08:00

The Germans acted brutally in Russia during WW2. No doubt about that. But some of the pictures of Germans shown as totally inhuman and as monsters were fakes manufactured by the Soviet propaganda machine. Given below are a few such images.

The fake

The real picture

This one is a big fake. The couple seem to be Soviet actors.

The fake

The real picture

One of our readers, who preferred to remain anonymous, writes....

Dear Sirs,

On the page of alleged "German Brutality" the photo of Dora-Mittelbau shows 1700 bodies KILLED BY US AIR ATTACKS the day before the US troops arrived. Other photos on that page show hanged partisans they do not mention the brutality of the Partisans...how partisans captured a German Hospital and impaled all the captured nurses through their vaginas on wooden paling fences. Or the captured soldiers the Partisans put meathooks through their jaws and hanged them , alive, in a tree, or the captured German soldiers they roasted alive like pigs over a fire....How do I know ? MY FATHER was in an SS Div on that front. He also told me how, after he was captured, how the Russians filmed & photographed one FAKE horror scene after the other using the German POWs as actors...they had no other choice
mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Soldat

Nazi Germany's Toughest Fighters: SS Totenkopf Division

2011-01-13T04:39:00.000-08:00

SS. The name sends shivers down one's spine. The term is associated with brutality and mass killings. This is a mistaken presumption. There were killers in the SS (Allgemeine SS), but the Waffen SS men were warriors. Though some of the SS divisions did commit massacres, there were some divisions like the Nord, Nordland which were clean.

Not so clean was the Totenkopf Division. It was initially made up of men who were guards at concentration camps (SS Totenkpfverbande). The men were some of the most dedicated and fierce soldiers of the Third Reich. When things got desperate, the SS men were called in to do near impossible tasks. The fact that Germany survived for so many years after the hiding its armies got in Russia was because of the tough men of the Waffen SS. SS Totenkopf topped the list. We will talk about the other elite SS Divisions later. We start with the Totenkopf.

Totenkopf soldiers fire a 88mm mortar shell

TOTENKOPF: THE BAD BOYS

Having missed the Polish campaign, Totenkopf was initially held in reserve during the assault into France and the Low Countries in May 1940. They were committed on 16 May to the Front in Belgium. The Totenkopf soldiers fought fanatically, suffering heavy losses.

Within a week of this initial commitment the division's first war crime had already been committed. At Le Paradis 4th Kompanie, I Abteilung, commanded by SS-Obersturmführer Fritz Knöchlein, machine-gunned 97 out of 99 British officers and members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment after they had surrendered to them; two survived. After the war, Knöchlein was tried by a British Court and convicted for war crimes in 1948. He was sentenced to death and hanged.

VIDEO

The division moves in the Soviet Union in 1941

TOUGH FIGHTERS

During Autumn and Winter of 1941, the Soviets launched a number of operations against the German lines in the Northern sector of the Front. During one of these operations, the Division was encircled for several months near Demjansk in what would come to be known as the Demjansk Pocket. During these kessel battles, Totenkopf suffered so greatly that, due to its reduced size, it was re-designated Kampfgruppe Eicke. The division was involved in ferocious fighting to hold the pocket. SS-Hauptsturmführer Erwin Meierdress of the Sturmgeschütze-Batterie (Assault Gun) Totenkopf formed a Kampfgruppe of about 120 soldiers and held the strategic town of Bjakowo despite repeated determined enemy attempts to capture the town. During these battles, Meierdress personally destroyed several enemy tanks in his StuG III. He was awarded the Iron Cross for his actions during this period. In April 1942, the division broke out of the pocket and managed to reach friendly lines.

In action in France. 1940

In Early February 1943 Totenkopf was transferred back to the Eastern Front as part of Erich von Manstein's Army Group South. The division, as a part of SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser's SS-Panzerkorps, took part in the Third Battle of Kharkov, blunting the Soviet General Konev's offensive. During this campaign, Theodor Eicke was killed when his Fieseler Storch spotter aircraft was shot down while on final approach to a front line unit. The division mounted an assault to secure the crash site and recover their commander's body, and thereafter Eicke's body was buried with full military honours. Hermann Priess succeeded Eicke as commander.

Soldiers of the SS Division Totenkopf with their commander Theodor Eicke during the advance on Demjansk (23 September 1941)

VIDEO: DIE TOTENKOPF: PART 1

SAD END OF THE SS TOTENKOPF

By the end of 1942 the division had experienced virtually a complete turnover in personnel. The high casualty rates meant by late 1943 virtually none of the original cadre were left. However, while the division's record in the brutal Eastern Front fighting to follow is quite clean, its reputation lingered. The Totenkopf division didn't want to be captured by the Soviets, so they attacked the American 11th Armored Division. The Americans, who suffered heavy losses, were angered by this. When the Totenkopf surrendered (to the Americans) they were turned over to the Soviets Linz in 1945. Those who were wounded or simply too exhausted to make it to Pregarten were executed by the Americans along the way (some 80 in all suffered this fate). Another story in the aforementioned book states, "A convoy of ambulances drove by and picked up the dead and wounded behind the last tank of the long caterpiller. Apparently, the wounded comrades weren't handed over to the Russians. The ambulances turned around and headed back to Linz at high speed,' . The senior officers were executed by the NKVD, others were also executed as they were shipped to Siberia. Only a few of them survived captivity to return to Germany.

In a huddle in Kursk

VIDEO: PART 2

Directing traffic in Paris, Totenkopf style

VIDEO: PART 3

Taking a breather

Himmler inspects in Russia

A junior officer in the Totenkopf

In Russia

VIDEO: PART 4

The men during Kursk atop a tank

VIDEO: PART 5

SS Totenkopf men move in Poland past a burning T-34 tank. (Picture by Grenart. Taken on Aug. 18, 1944)

Anti-tank unit of the Totenkopf. Russia. September 1941

Soldiers of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf break for a meal beside the wreck of a Soviet T-34 somewhere in Romania, 1944.

Grenadiers of the 3rd SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf take cover from incoming artillery. Hungary, March 1945.

Motorcyclists (German: Kradschützen) from the SS Division Totenkopf during the invasion of Russia in September 1941.

Prisoners from the Totenkopf in France in 1944

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(CLICK ON IMAGE TO KNOW MORE AND BUY BOOK)

To date, no one else has done an exhaustive photographic record of the 3rd SS until this book came along. There are other books on the Totenkopf which provide lots of history on the division, but for any historian, this book is outstanding. I've never seen a better collection of 3rd SS photos gathered in one place before, and better yet, almost all of these are not seen in other books on the Waffen SS.

For the money you can't beat it, and I've spent hours looking over the photos picking out a lot of details you're just not going to find anywhere else.
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History Bestsellers: 'BLOODLANDS: Europe Between Hitler And Stalin'

2011-01-05T23:38:00.000-08:00

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO BUY BOOK)

“For over a decade in the middle of twentieth century, the lands between Russia and Germany were the killing fields of Europe. Tens of millions of civilians from Poland to Ukraine, Lithuania to Belarus were starved, beaten, shot and gassed to death by the authorities and armies of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

Bloodlands – impeccably researched and appropriately sensitive to its volatile material – is the most important book to appear on this subject for decades and will surely become the reference in its field.”

“Nearly seventy years after VE-Day, World War Two continues to be perceived through a narrow Western perspective, and many basic problems about the war of 1939-45 remain unresolved. In Bloodlands – which refers to the huge belt of territory between Germany and Russia – Timothy Snyder examines the little known tract of the European continent that was scourged by Stalin as well as Hitler, and reaches some disturbing conclusions.

“A chillingly systematic study of the mass murder mutually perpetrated by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany…. A significant work of staggering figures and scholarship.”

Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin forces a dramatic shift in these perceptions…. Among his other goals in Bloodlands, Mr. Snyder attempts to put the Holocaust in context—to restore it, in a sense, to the history of the wider European conflict. This is a task that no historian can attempt without risking controversy. Yet far from minimizing Jewish suffering, Bloodlands gives a fuller picture of the Nazi killing machine.”

Russian Brutality: Massacres By Russian Soldiers During WW2

2011-01-04T00:12:00.000-08:00

The eastern front was a hard place to be in. If the SS and gestapo did evil things in Russia, the Russian soldiers were no angels too. Here are some instances where German soldiers were massacred by the Russians. The Russians killed soldiers of other nations too. And we do not mention here the mass rapes in Berlin which started in April 1945.

VIDEO: RUSSIAN ATROCITIES IN SILESIA, FEB. 1945

KATYN FOREST (Smolensk, 1939-40)

In 1939, during the Russian invasion of Poland, some 14,500 Polish officers were captured and interned in three P.O.W. camps in the Soviet Union. The next time the world heard of these prisoners was a news broadcast on April 13, 1943, from Radio Berlin. It stated that the German Army had discovered mass graves at Katyn, 18 kilometres north-west of Smolensk, near the village of Gneizdovo and containing the bodies of Polish officers. Eight graves were opened and 4,253 bodies exhumed.

VIDEO: KATYN: PART 1

KATYN: PART 2

All were dressed in Polish uniforms, with badges of rank and medals intact. No watches or rings were found on the corpses. It was established that the bodies were of Polish officers from the camp at Kozielsk, situated in the grounds of a former Monastery, near Orel. Two other camps, at Starobielsk (3,891 men) and at Ostashkov (6,311 men) were wound up and closed in the first days of April, 1940. Whatever happened to these 10,000 odd officers has never been established. They were never seen alive again. From evidence obtained after the war, all prisoners of Kozielsk camp were shot by Stalin's NKVD.

On April 13, 1990, fifty years after the massacre, the USSR for the first time admitted its responsibility for the murders. The whole controversy was finally laid to rest when Boris Yeltsin, handed over the secret files on Katyn to the Polish president, Lech Walesa, on October 14, 1992. In May 1992, in a wood near Kharkov, a Russian private investigation team discovered a mass grave containing 3,891 bodies of Polish officers from the camp at Starobielsk in the Ukraine. In June of that year, Soviet authorities discovered 30 mass graves at Miednoje, one hundred miles north-west of Moscow. They contained the remains of 6,287 Polish prisoners from the Ostashkov island camp on Lake Seliguer. Before the massacre, 245 officers from Kozielsk, 79 from Starobielsk and 124 from the camp at Ostashkor , were transferred, for no apparent reason, to a camp at Pavlishchev Bor, a hundred miles north-west of the Kozielsk camp. These 448 officers proved to be the only survivors of the Katyn massacre. KGB files state that 21,857 Poles were shot as a result of Stalin's order. In other parts of the Katyn Forest, other graves were discovered containing the bodies of Russian political prisoners who were executed in pre-war days by the NKVD. It seems that the Katyn Forest was the main execution site for Stalin’s secret police. (Not to be confused with the Khatyn murder site near Minsk) All mention of the Katyn atrocity has been removed from Soviet history textbooks.

VIDEO

MURDER AT BRONIKI, UKRAINE

On July 1st 1941, around 180 German soldiers of the 2nd and 6th Infantry Regiments and the 5th Artillery Regiment were taken prisoner by the Red Army in the town of Broniki. Most were suffering from battle wounds. Next day, the 2nd of July, advancing Wehrmacht troops discovered 153 bodies in a clover field near the town. All had been brutally murdered. According to the twelve survivors of the massacre, they were taken to the field just off the main road and forced to undress. All valuables such as money, rings, watches as well as their uniforms, shirts and shoes were stolen. Standing there naked, the prisoners were then fired upon by machine guns and automatic rifles. A few managed to escape by fleeing to the nearby woods. Similar reports from other regiments gave rise to the suspicion that the Soviets, in the early stages of the war, were not taking any prisoners. There was a division order, according to which every Russian soldier who shoots twenty German soldiers, received a three day leave pass to go home. He also was decorated and raised in rank.

VIDEO

THE GRISCHINO MASSACRE (February 18, 1943)

The area of Grischino lies to the north-west of Stalino (now Donets) an important industrial region in the Ukraine. Occupied by German forces, it was recaptured by a Soviet armored division and again recaptured by the German 7th Armored Division during a counteroffensive in February, 1943. What they found was the bodies of 406 German soldiers, (POWs) 58 were members of the Todt Organization, 89 Italian soldiers, 9 Romanian soldiers, 4 Hungarian soldiers and some civilian workers, Ukrainian volunteers and German nurses. A total of 596 souls had been killed. Most were shot after being dragged from their hiding places in cellars. Many of the bodies were horribly mutilated, ears and noses cut off and genital organs amputated and stuffed into their mouths. Breasts of some of the nurses were cut off, the women being brutally raped. In the cellar of the main train station around 120 Germans were herded into a large storage room and then mowed down with machine guns. It was realized that the Russians had killed every single German they had found there. As with most massacres, there were survivors and in this case, civilian witnesses.

During the week of 22/29 June, 1941, thousands of Ukrainian and Polish political prisoners were murdered in their cells by the Soviet NKVD (KGB). The Soviets' hurried retreat had tragic consequences for all political prisoners in the jails of Western Ukraine. Soon after the German attack on the Soviet Union, the retreating Soviets had no time to care for their prisoners locked up in prisons in the Ukraine, so they were simply killed. In some cities the whole prison was set on fire and the helpless prisoners burned to death. In Lutsk, 2,800 out of the 4000 inmates in the NKVD prison, were murdered. When the German 49th Army Corps occupied the Polish-Ukrainian city of Lvov, (now Limberg) around 2,400 dead bodies were found by German troops in the NKVD prison. Some were killed by hand-grenades thrown into their cells, most were killed by a shot in the neck. In the cellars of the Brygidky Prison on Palczymska Street, 423 bodies were recovered. Hundreds more were piled up in the courtyard. In the military prison at Samarstinov, which had been set on fire, 460 charred bodies were found, many showing signs of brutal torture. In the cellars, bodies were piled up layer upon layer almost to the ceiling. Owing to the stench of the decomposing corpses, the German commander of Lvov ordered all doors to the cellars bricked up after the bodies were covered with lime. On June 26-27, 1941, some 520 Ukrainians were shot at Sambor, and at Zlochev, another 700, including the entire local intelligentsia, were arrested and shot on July 16, 1941. At Kremenets, between 100 and 150 were killed and when the bodies were recovered some bodies were without skin, having been thrown into boiling water.

Altogether, in the Ukraine, around 10,000 Ukrainian and Polish political prisoners were killed in their prisons. It is a sad fact that many members of the NKVD execution squads in the Ukraine, were Jewish collaborators. These collaborators were hated by other Jews more than the German SS. (A memorial plaque at the former headquarters of the NKVD/KGB in Simferpol, Ukraine, is engraved with the names of thirty NKVD agents who gave their lives in the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet name for World War II). The amazing thing is that all thirty names are Jewish! About half a million Jews served in the Red Army and approximately 200,000 were killed. A total of 160,000 Jewish soldiers were decorated with Soviet awards, 145 receiving the highest Soviet award, 'Hero of the Soviet Union'. Two Jewish women were also awarded this honour. (Many Soviet soldiers, after capture, joined the Waffen SS. The 30th SS Division was composed of such troops)

ATROCITY AT FEODOSIA (December 29, 1941)

On the shores of the Black Sea, on the Crimean Peninsula, stands the port city of Feodosia. On the 3rd of November the city was captured by the German 46th and 170th Infantry Divisions. As the attack on Sevastopol was about to take place, most of the German forces were withdrawn to concentrate on the forthcoming battle. Left behind in the city were a small detachment of troops and all the wounded soldiers convalescing in the city's hospitals. On the afternoon of December 29, the city was bombarded by the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and a landing was made by Soviet marines followed by infantry. On the 18th of January, 1942, after their failure to capture Sevastopol, the German Wehrmacht was able to return and recapture Feodosia. They found that most of the German military personnel had been murdered. Wounded soldiers had been thrown out of the windows of the hospital to make room for Russian wounded. Water was then poured on the near dead bodies and then left to freeze. On the beach, piles of bodies were found where they were thrown from a wall several metres high after being beaten and mutilated, their bodies left in the surf so that the sea water froze and covered them with a sheet of ice. There were some twelve survivors who had hidden in cellars when the Russian troops arrived. Their testimony before a German court of inquiry confirmed that some 160 wounded soldiers were liquidated this way.

THE KORSUN SLAUGHTER (February 16-17, 1944)

During the freezing cold night of February 16, five divisions of General Hube's 1st SS Panzer Army, (54,000 men) including the 5th SS Division Viking and the Belgian Volunteer Brigade Wallonie, made a last desperate bid to break out of the Russian encirclement around the towns of Korsun and Shandrerovka in the lower Dnieper south-west of Kiev (Kyiv). At 4am, elements of the 8th Army formed up into two marching columns of around 14,000 men each and flocked into two parallel ravines in the surrounding countryside, and where the two ravines met, the troops, now in complete disorder, then emerged into open country and headed out towards the town of Lysyanka.

There, disaster struck as troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, under General Konev, were waiting. Soon after 6am, the slaughter began. Soviet tanks drove into the two German columns crushing hundreds under their tracks. Fleeing in panic, the troops were then bombed and shelled before being confronted by units of Cossack cavalry who started hacking them to pieces with their sabres, There was no time to take prisoners and in the short space of three hours around 20,000 German soldiers lay dead, their bodies later dumped in holes dug in the ground. The hundreds of wounded and medical personnel left behind were butchered by the Cossacks. Only a few officers survived, most had fled the scene by plane some days before. (Russian sources put the number of dead during the two weeks of fighting at over 70,000) To reach Lysyanka the troops had first to cross the raging Gniloy-Tikich river. Reaching the opposite side many were transformed into blocks of ice their uniforms frozen to their bodies. About eight thousand others, who had fled the scene and were hiding in the woods, were rounded up during the next few days and taken prisoner. For this great victory, General Konev was awarded the title 'Marshal of the Soviet Union'.

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During the fighting in Norway and Finland, the SS Gebirgsdivision 'Nord', was opposing the Russian forces. Very few SS men were taken prisoners by the Red Army, most were shot immediately. A report on Operation No 11 from the Soviet 26th Division states: 'The enemy left approximately 400 dead on the battlefield. Some 80 Germans had surrendered and were executed'.

In the notes found on a Soviet doctor after he was captured, he had written: 'All POWs who belonged to the German Army were executed during the operations near Odessa'.

Soviet archives reveal the following: 'July 7, 1943, the enemy suffered great losses...we did not take any prisoners, they were all liquidated'.

-------------------------------

This photo shows one of 34 german soldiers of 9th SS-Panzer-Division "Hohenstaufen" that were captured by the Red Army in April 1944 in the ukrainian village of Kalasantovka. The mutilated bodies were found by their comrades during the german counter attack on the near-by town of Ternopil. A german eyewitness: "That's not the way soldiers are supposed to act. The hands and the feet of the dead were bound with the ropes of their own tentpieces. Partially the trousers were pulled down and genitals severed. With some the eyes were stabbed, ears and tongue cut off. Furthermore their own bayonet was rammed into the stomach from the downside. Dogtags and other ID's were removed to avoid an identification of the dead. Fortunately most of them had their last names sewn on the inside of their uniform pieces so that a list of the victims could be compiled. However this list was lost later on so that these 34 soldiers are considered officially as "Missing in Action".

Source: ww2incolor

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RUSSIAN BRUTALITY IN KOENIGSBURG 1945

During the last months of the war, the ancient German city of Königsberg in East Prussia held out as a strongly defended urban fortress. After repeated attack and siege by the Red Army, it finally surrendered in early April 1945. Soviet troops then ravished the civilian population. The people were beaten, robbed, killed and, if female, raped. The rape victims included nuns. Even hospital patients were robbed of their possessions. Bunkers and shelters, packed with terrified people huddling inside, were torched with flame-throwers. About 40,000 of the city’s population were killed, or took their own lives to escape the horrors, and the remaining 73,000 Germans were brutally deported.

IHR.ORG

------------------------------

In October 1945, a New York Daily News report from occupied Berlin told readers:

“In the windswept courtyard of the Stettiner Bahnof [rail station], a cohort of German refugees, part of 12 million to 19 million dispossessed in East Prussia and Silesia, sat in groups under a driving rain and told the story of their miserable pilgrimage, during which more than 25 percent died by the roadside, and the remainder were so starved they scarcely had strength to walk …

“A nurse from Stettin, a young, good-looking blond, told how her father had been stabbed to death by Russian soldiers who, after raping her mother and sister, tried to break into her own room. She escaped and hid in a haystack with four other women for four days …

“On the train to Berlin she was pillaged once by Russian troops and twice by Poles. Women who resisted were shot dead, she said, and on one occasion she saw a guard take an infant by the legs and crush its skull against a post because the child cried while the guard was raping its mother.

“An old peasant from Silesia said ... victims were robbed of everything they had, even their shoes. Infants were robbed of their swaddling clothes so that they froze to death. All the healthy girls and women, even those 65 years of age, were raped in the train and then robbed, the peasant said.”

When Americans And British (And Other Allies) Went 'Bad' During WW2

2011-01-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

If you believe that the Allied soldiers, American and British soldiers were angels compared to the evil German and Russian soldiers; you are mistaken. (I do not talk of the cruel nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nor of the terror bombing of Dresden in 1944)) World War Two did weird things to all the fighters of all nations. They too had the blood lust. Even the American and British soldiers. Below are instances when the 'good' Allied soldiers went bad. One hardly hears of them. But to be a impartial student of history one has to be single-minded in the devotion to fairness. Other wise it would not be history, but mere western propaganda.

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From cwporter

American author Marguerite Higgins visited Germany during the time in question and later wrote of her experiences. In her book, "News in an singular thing" she described a visit to a GI "Interrogation Center"

"The GI led us to the main door of the camp...Behind the bars of the cell we saw 3 uniformed Germans. Two of them, beaten and covered with blood, were lying unconscious on the floor. A third German was lifted up by the hair on his head, and I shall never forget, he had red hair like a carrot. A GI turned his body over and struck him in the face. When the victim groaned, the GI roared, "Shut your mouth, damned Kraut!" ....It turned out that for almost a quarter of an hour, the doubled rows of 20 to 30 GI’s stood aligned taking turns methodically beating the six captured Germans...It came out later that the worked-up GI’s had captured six young German boys, who had never even been members of the SS. The youngsters had only recently been inducted into a government work battalion. The boy with the red hair was 14 years old. The other 5 German boys in the cell blocks were between 14 and 17 years old."

WAFFEN SS POW MISTREATED BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS

(Source)

January 1945
Two members of the Waffen SS were pulled out of their camouflage holes , led to a hollow and shot. Both of their hands were raised at the time.

A Waffen SS member, K., who was convalescing in a hospital due to a bullet in his lungs, was shot to death by an American soldier as he was being transferred to another hospital in the company of a Red Cross Nurse.

April 1945

Paderborn. An SS officer is ordered by his interrogators to take off his shirt and undershirt. He is then beaten about the face and back with a whip. An MP extinguishes his lit cigarette on the man’s back. He is then ordered to stand with his face against a wall, while his interrogators press the muzzle of a gun against his neck. A chain is placed around his wrist and twisted until the man collapses from the pain.

Bavaria. A Police General is taken prisoner and led to a cell, where an American soldier holds a pistol to his head and then urinates all over his body.

At a special camp run by the Americans for captured SS and Nazi Party members, a sadistic American Sergeant, Paul Doyle, brutally torments the men under his charge. Daily he beats men into unconsciousness, often breaking their ribs. The men are beaten so frequently and so badly that they have to be hospitalized. One night he enters a cell and beats a man for an exceptionally long period of time. When the victim becomes unconscious, water is thrown into his face to revive him. He is then beaten again. Finally, he is dragged from his cell unconscious. The man is later hospitalized for severe injuries, internal and external. Another SS officer is so badly beaten by Doyle that he later dies of his injuries. Another victim has his head pushed under water for long periods of time and his buttocks so severely whipped that the skin is torn and hanging.

An SS man is beaten repeatedly on the soles of his naked feet.

Two SS men are forced to smear each other’s face with human vomit.

Two SS men are shot to death after they surrender their arms to Americans.

Schesslitz. A deputy Ortsgruppenleiter is beaten bloody by Americans with rubber truncheons and fists about the head. He is then compelled to eat lit cigarettes. In a garden the form of a grave is measured out, then the man is bound hand and foot and is left lying on the floor all night long in a room lit by candle light. The next day the man is ordered to dig a grave and then stand in it, while an American soldier has his picture taken defecating and urinating in the pit.

Two SS men are spat at by an American Sergeant and then kicked in the genitalia until they collapse.

May 1945

An SS member is burned repeatedly with cigarette butts all over his body.

An SS man is chained by his legs and hung up over a latrine with his head in the toilet.

Altenburg. SS members are forced to completely disrobe. Americans then whip them so badly that they lose consciousness. In that condition they are left lying on the floor.

Herford. A severely wounded SS officer is compelled by the Americans to carry heavy rolls of barbed wire on his naked shoulders, running at double time. The man soon collapses when the skin from his back is ripped from his body.

June 1945

A group of SS leaders are laden down with heavy stones and then commanded to exercise barefoot over broken stones and gravel, until they collapse and have to be carried away.
Two amputees are bound together with cords and forced to remain standing without any nourishment for 48 hours. Whereupon the "interrogator" Sergeant Wertheim quips: "Now you have two legs."

Cage 22: Prisoners are forced to clean the latrines night after night-with their bare hands.

Cage 23: The American camp Sergeant whiles away the hours by sticking needles into the stomachs of helpless prisoners. Note: The above occurred in camps in France.

July 1945 Stuttgart. A man was dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night by American soldiers because he was accused of being a member of the Allegemeine SS.

He was dragged into the street and cudgeled. One half hour later, he was again dragged out of his bed by 2 Americans and driven to an open field and ordered to get out. The man refused, fearing he would be shot in the back. Consequently he was beaten with rifle butts and fists until he was unconscious. Water was thrown on his face and he regained consciousness, whereby he was again beaten unconscious for a second time. As a result of the attack he suffered broken ribs, gaping head wounds, brain damage, and loss of teeth.

In the vicinity of Munich, Waffen SS members were forced to eat their uniform insignias.
August 1945

In the POW camp Wolfhagen, a severely wounded SS corporal is tortured by Americans in order to extract a confession. He is kicked in the genitals and burned over and over again with lighted cigarettes. The young man is 20 years old.

Weiden. POW camp. Two SS men are handcuffed to each other while interrogators beat them. They are repeatedly struck in the kidneys.

Special mention should be made for the Ziegenhain camp, where we have the identities of the American inquisitors. The methods of torture used were even worse than the above mentioned cases. The chief interrogators at this camp were Inspector Simon, Watson, and Lieutenant Goodman. One of their favorite games was to play "Autobahn", whereby a victim had the hair of his eyebrows and eyelashes cut or ripped out. Later the hair was shoved into the victims mouth or nostrils for long periods of time.

Here are a few more examples of "special treatment":

A machine technician had his head banged into a wall so many times that blood spurted out of his nostrils.

A man was brought in for "interrogation". He was beaten extensively on the hands, face, neck and ears with a rubber truncheon festooned with barbed wire. Afterwards he was struck in the face repeatedly with bare fists. He was forced to stare in blinding lights for hours on end and threatened with hanging or shooting. He had swastikas painted on his neck and forehead.

A victim is forced to swallow a postcard with Hitler’s photo, along with a burning cigarette.

A man is led into one of the torture chambers. There he is compelled to undress and lie in vomit, urine, and filth. He is then compelled to perform acts so disgusting that they shall not be recited here.

MASSACRES BY BRITISH SOLDIERS

NAHRENDORF (Near Hamburg, 1945)

A week after the discovery of the Belsen Concentration Camp, a rumour reached the British Army's 'Desert Rats' that the 18th SS Training Regiment of the Hitler Jugend Division, had shot their prisoners at the nearby village of Rather. The 'Rats' were engaged in a fierce battle with the SS defenders in the village of Nahrendorf. Slowly, and in groups, the SS began to surrender. As the noise of battle died away the villagers emerged from their cellars and found the bodies of 42 SS soldiers lying in a shallow grave. The bodies were then interned on a hilltop cemetery near the village. Each year, hundreds of SS veterans visit the cemetery to pay tribute to their fallen comrades whom, they say, were shot in cold blood on the orders of a ‘crazed blood-thirsty British NCO’. (Perpetrators are honoured, victims are forgotten)

The "London Cage", a MI19 prisoner of war facility in the UK during and immediately after the war, was subject to allegations of torture.

MASSACRE BY AMERICANS

* The Dachau massacre: killing of German prisoners of war and surrendering SS soldiers at the Dachau concentration camp.
* In the Biscari massacre, which consist of two instances of mass murders, U.S. troops of the 45th Infantry Division killed roughly 75 prisoners of war, mostly Italian.
* Operation Teardrop: Eight of the surviving, captured crewmen from the sunk German submarine U-546 are tortured by US military personnel. Historian Philip K. Lundeberg has written that the beating and torture of U-546's survivors was a singular atrocity motivated by the interrogators' need to quickly get information on what the US believed were potential missile attacks on the continental US by German submarines.

American soldiers killing SS guards at Dachau

In the aftermath of the Malmedy massacre a written order from the HQ of the 328th US Army Infantry Regiment, dated December 21, 1944, stated: No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight. Major-General Raymond Hufft (U.S. Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'" Stephen Ambrose related: "I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up."

DACHAU MASSACRE: Closeup of the bodies of SS personnel lying at the base of the tower. Their uniforms are camouflage patterned.

DACHAU MASSACRE: The photograph shows the bodies of six of the guards at the base of Tower B

DACHAU MASSACRE: SS men confer with Gen. Henning Linden during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. Pictured from left to right: SS aide, camp leader Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker (mostly hidden by the aide), Paul Lévy, a Belgian journalist (person with helmet looking to the left), Dr. Victor Maurer (back), General Henning Linden (person with helmet, looking right) and some U.S. soldiers.

---------------------------
AN INQUIRY INTO A MASSACRE (From Dachau: The Hour of the Avenger : An Eyewitness Account by HOWARD A. BUECHNER)

Date: 5 May 1945. By: Lt. Col. Joseph M. Whitaker, IGD,

Asst. Inspector General, Seventh Army.

The witness was sworn.

363 Q Please state your name, rank, serial number and organization.

A Howard E. Buchner, 1st Lieutenant, MC, 0-435481, 3rd Bn., 157th Infantry.

(The witness was advised of his rights under the 24th Article of War.)

364 Q Do you remember the taking of the Dachau Concentration Camp?

A Yes, sir.

365 Q Were you the surgeon of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry, at that time?

A Yes, sir.

366 Q Did you see or visit a yard by the power plant where some German soldiers had been shot?

A I did, sir.

367 Q Can you fix the hour at which you saw this?

A Not with certainty, but I would judge about 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon.

368 Q Of what day?

A I can't give the exact date.

369 Q Describe to me what you saw when you visited this yard.

A We learned that one of our companies had gone through the camp and that it was something to see out there. So, we got on one of the peeps to visit there and we were detained for some time by the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry, because he didn't know whether the place had been cleared. When we got there we saw a quadrangular enclosure, there was a cement wall about ten feet high and inside this enclosure I saw 15 or 16 dead and wounded German soldiers lying along the wall.

370 Q Did you determine which were dead and which were wounded?

A I did not examine any of them, sir, but I saw several of them moving very slightly.

371 Q Did you make any examination to determine whether or not those who were not dead could be saved?

A I did not.

372 Q Was there any guard there?

A There was a soldier standing at the entrance of this yard whom I assumed to be a guard.

373 Q Do you know the soldier or what company he was from?

A No, sir.

374 Q Do you know whether or not any medical attention was called for these wounded German soldiers?

A I do not.

Dachau: The Hour of the Avenger (An Eyewitness Account)

BY COL. HOWARD A. BUECHNER

------------------------

Near the French village of Audouville-la-Hubert 30 German Wehrmacht prisoners were massacred by U.S. paratroopers.

VIDEO: AMERICAN SOLDIERS KILL GERMAN POW

Historian Peter Lieb has found that many US and Canadian units were ordered to not take prisoners during the D-Day landings in Normandy. If this view is correct it may explain the fate of 64 German prisoners (out of 130 captured) who did not make it to the POW collecting point on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

According to an article in Der Spiegel by Klaus Wiegrefe, many personal memoirs of Allied soldiers have been willfully ignored by historians until now because they were at odds with the "Greatest Generation" mythology surrounding WWII, but this has recently started to change with books such as "The Day of Battle" by Rick Atkinson where he describes Allied war crimes in Italy, and "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy," by Anthony Beevor. Beevor's latest work is currently discussed by scholars, and should some of them be proven right that means that Allied war crimes in Normandy were much more extensive "than was previously realized".

A SURVIVOR OF THE DACHAU MASSACRE RECOLLECTS (Source)

A survivor of the Dachau Massacre was Hans Linberger, who was one of the German soldiers that were forced out of the SS hospital and lined up against a wall to be shot. In the photograph below, which shows the scene of the shooting, the hospital building is on the right.

The following article about Hans Linberger was written by T. Pauli for Berkenkruis in October 1988.

Berkenkruis is the magazine of the veterans of the Flemish SS volunteers in World War II; T. Pauli was the chairman of the group in 1988 when this article was published. Pauli quoted from the testimony given to the German Red Cross by Hans Linberger.

Begin quote from article in Berkenkruis, October 1988, by T. Pauli:

Hans LINBERGER was wounded east of Kiev when an AT-gun blew away his left arm and covered his body with shrapnel. It was his fourth wound. After a long stay in the hospital he was posted to the Reserve-Kompanie at Dachau, on the 9th of March 1945.

On the 9th of April, 1945, the heavily wounded laid down their weapons; they were no longer suited to be put into action. They reported themselves to the head of the hospital, Dr. SCHRÖDER, who sent them to the barracks. Evacuated women and children were present in barrack right next to it. Preparations to be evacuated were made, doctors, staff and caretaking personnel all wore white coats and the German Red Cross-armband.

Occasional battle noise was heard from SCHLEISSHEIM that day (April 29, 1945), but around 4:30 PM things got quiet again. When suddenly single gunshots were to be heard, LINBERGER went, holding a small Red Cross-flag, to the entrance (of the hospital). (This occurred around noon.) As could be seen from his empty left sleeve, he was badly injured. To the Americans, who were pushing forward in battle-like style, he declared that this was an unarmed hospital.

One Ami (sic) placed his MP against his chest and hit him in the face. Another one said "You fight Ruski, you no good". The Ami (sic) who placed the MP (Machine Pistol) against his chest went into the hospital and immediately shot a wounded man, who fell down to the ground motionless. When SCHRÖDER wanted to surrender, he was beaten so hard that he received a skull fracture. (Ami was German slang for an American.)
The Americans drove everyone out to the main place and sorted out anyone who looked like SS. All of the SS men were then taken to the back of the central heating building and placed against the wall. A MG (Machine gun) was posted and war correspondents came to film and photograph the lined up men.
Here begins SS-Oberscharführer Hans Linberger's testimony, under oath to the DRK (German Red Cross), about the following events:

The comrade who was standing right beside me fell on top of me with a last cry - "Aww, the pigs are shooting at my stomach" - as I let myself fall immediately. To me it didn't matter if they would hit me standing or lying down. As such I only got the blood of the dead one, who was bleeding badly from the stomach, across my head and face, so I looked badly wounded. During the pause in the shooting, which can only be explained by the arrival of drunken KZ-prisoners, who, armed with spades, came looking for a man named WEISS. Several of them (the wounded soldiers) crawled forward to the Americans and tried to tell them that they were foreigners, others tried to say that they never had anything to do with the camps. Yet this man WEISS said: "Stay calm, we die for Germany". Oscha. (Oberscharführer) JÄGER asked me, while lying down, if I had been hit, which I had to deny. He was shot through the lower right arm. I quickly gave him a piece of chocolate, as we were awaiting a shot in the neck. A man wearing a Red Cross armband came to us, threw us some razor blades and said "There, finish it yourself". JÄGER cut the wrist of his shot arm, I cut the left one, and when he wanted to use the blade on me, an American officer arrived with Dr. SCHRÖDER, who could barely keep himself standing, and the shooting was stopped. This allowed us to drag away the wounded. I remember a comrade with a shot in the stomach, who came to us at Dachau, in a room of café Hörhammer, where all possible troops were mixed together. On the road, we were spit upon and cursed at by looters from the troop barracks who wished we would all be hung. During this action (sic) 12 dead were left nameless. As I later found out, documents and name tags had been removed on American orders, and a commando (work party) of German soldiers were supposed to have buried these dead in an unknown location. During the shooting, the wife of a Dr. MÜLLER, with whom I had been in correspondencer years before, had poisoned herself and her two children. I was able to find the grave of these persons. In this grave supposedly are buried 8 more SS-members, including an Oscha. MAIER. MAIER had an amputated leg and was shot in another area of the hospital terrain adjacent to the hospital wall. He lay there with a shot in his stomach and asked Miss STEINMANN to kill him, since he could not bear the pain any longer. His dying relieved Miss STEINMANN from completing the last wish of this comrade. In the proximity of the hospital/mortuary were probably other comrades executed at the walls, as I later found traces of gunfire there.

Later, as a prisoner of war, I was pointed to a grave in the same hospital terrain, by the wife of a former KZ-prisoner, who on All Saints Day in 1946 (November 1st) came near the fence and, while crying, remembered some children buried in the grave. The children must have died after the collapse (Zusammenbruch) when the Americans took over the camp. Further, comrades from the Waffen-SS are buried in the same grave, as could be concluded from a message of the Suchdienst (the German MIA tracing service).

AMERICAN BRUTALITY IN THE PACIFIC

American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered. According to Richard Aldrich, who has published a study of the diaries kept by United States and Australian soldiers, they sometimes massacred prisoners of war. Dower states that in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds." According to Aldrich it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners. This analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson, who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U. S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."

Ferguson states such practices played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. That same year, efforts were taken by Allied high commanders to suppress "take no prisoners" attitudes, among their own personnel (as these were affecting intelligence gathering) and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. Ferguson adds that measures by Allied commanders to improve the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead, resulted in it reaching 1:7, by mid-1945. Nevertheless, taking no prisoners was still standard practice among U. S. troops at the Battle of Okinawa, in April–June 1945.

Ulrich Straus, a U.S. Japanologist, suggests that frontline troops intensely hated Japanese military personnel and were "not easily persuaded" to take or protect prisoners, as they believed that Allied personnel who surrendered, got "no mercy" from the Japanese. Allied soldiers believed that Japanese soldiers were inclined to feign surrender, in order to make surprise attacks. Therefore, according to Straus, "[s]enior officers opposed the taking of prisoners[,] on the grounds that it needlessly exposed American troops to risks..." When prisoners nevertheless were taken at Gualdacanal, interrogator Army Captain Burden noted that many times these were shot during transport because "it was too much bother to take him in".

Ferguson suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on."

U. S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. POW compounds to two important factors, a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were "animals" or "subhuman'" and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs. The latter reason is supported by Ferguson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians—as Untermenschen."

Source

AMERICAN SOLDIERS: STARVATION AT REMADEN

After the capture of the Remagen Bridge, the US Army hastily erected around 19 Prisoner of War cages around the bridge-head to hold an estimated one million prisoners. The camps were simply open fields surrounded by concertina wire. Those at the Rhine Meadows were situated at Remagen, Bad Kreuznach, Andernach, Buderich, Rheinbach and Sinzig. The German prisoners were hopeful of good treatment from the GIs but in this they were sadly disappointed. Herded into the open spaces like cattle, some were beaten and mistreated. No tents or toilets were supplied. The camps became huge latrines, a sea of urine from one end to the other. They had to sleep in holes in the ground which they dug with their bare hands. In the Bad Kreuznach cage, 560,000 men were interned in an area that could only comfortably hold 45,000. Denied enough food and water, they were forced to eat the grass under their feet and the camps soon became a sea of mud. After the concentration camps were discovered, their treatment became worse as the GIs vented their rage on the hapless prisoners.

In the five camps around Bretzenheim, prisoners had to survive on 600-850 calories per day. With bloated bellies and teeth falling out, they died by the thousands. During the two and a half months (April-May, 1945) when the camps were under American control, a total of 18,100 prisoners died from malnutrition, disease and exposure. This extremely harsh treatment at the hands of the Americans resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 German prisoners-of-war in the Rhine Meadows camps alone in the months just before and after the war ended.

Source

VIDEO: GERMAN POW SHOT BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS

'SICK' BEHAVIOUR OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS

Some Allied soldiers collected Japanese body parts. The incidence of this by American personnel occurred on "a scale large enough to concern the Allied military authorities throughout the conflict and was widely reported and commented on in the American and Japanese wartime press."

The collection of Japanese body parts began quite early in the war, prompting a September 1942 order for disciplinary action against such souvenir taking. Harrison concludes that, since this was the first real opportunity to take such items (the Battle of Guadalcanal), "[c]learly, the collection of body parts on a scale large enough to concern the military authorities had started as soon as the first living or dead Japanese bodies were encountered."

When Japanese remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands after the war, roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls.

In a memorandum dated June 13, 1944, the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) asserted that "such atrocious and brutal policies," in addition to being repugnant, were violations of the laws of war, and recommended the distribution to all commanders of a directive pointing out that "the maltreatment of enemy war dead was a blatant violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention on the sick and wounded, which provided that: After every engagement, the belligerent who remains in possession of the field shall take measures to search for wounded and the dead and to protect them from robbery and ill treatment."

American sailor with a Japanese skull

These practises were in addition also in violation of the unwritten customary rules of land warfare and could lead to the death penalty. The U.S. Navy JAG mirrored that opinion one week later, and also added that "the atrocious conduct of which some US personnel were guilty could lead to retaliation by the Japanese which would be justified under international law".

THE DACHAU KILLINGS (April, 1945)

The Dachau Concentration Camp, near Munich, was liberated by US forces on the 29th. of April, 1945. First to enter the camp and confront the horror within was Private First Class John Degro, the lead scout of Company 1, 3rd Battalion, 157 Infantry Regiment, 45th Division of the US 7th Army. Prior to entering the camp, the troops had come upon a train of thirty nine cattle trucks parked just outside the camp. The train had come from Auschwitz in Poland after a journey of thirty days. The trucks were filled with the corpses of 2,310 Hungarian and Polish Jews who had died from hunger and thirst. Enraged, the Americans rounded up most of the SS guard complement of 560 men, hundreds of whom had already deserted. Included in the round-up was a detachment from the 5th SS Panzer 'Viking' Division sent to Dachau earlier to maintain security and replace those who had deserted. Guarded by angry GIs, one group of guards were lined up against a wall to await the appearance of their commander, SS Obersturmfüher Heindrich Skodzensky.

When he appeared, dressed immaculately with polished boots, and giving the military salute, which was ignored by the US company commander, Lt. William Jackson, who ordered "Line this piece of shit up with the rest of 'em over there". The GIs lost control and began shouting 'Kill em, kill em'. Filled with murderous rage and with tears streaming down his face, one GI of the 15th Infantry Regiment, opened fire with his machine-gun. After three bursts of raking fire, a total of 122 SS men lay dead or dying along the base of the wall. A few of the camp inmates, dressed in the familiar striped clothing and armed with .45 caliber pistols, then walked along the line of dead and dying guards and administrated the coup de grace to those still alive. Forty other guards were killed by revengeful inmates, some having their arms and legs torn apart. At another site near the SS hospital, hundreds of German guards were machine gunned to death on the orders of the executive officer of Company 1, 3rd Battalion. Altogether, a total of 520 persons, acting as camp and tower guards, including many Hungarians in German uniforms and recently returned from the Eastern Front, were killed that day. The sad fact is that many of these guards were new arrivals at the camp and were not the real culprits, the truly guilty had already fled. (Controversy rages to this day over just how many camp guards were killed at Dachau and different units of the US Army are still claiming the title 'First Liberators')

THE WEBLING ATROCITY (April, 1945)

On the same day that the Dachau Concentration Camp was discovered, a massacre took place in the little hamlet of Webling about ten kilometres from the camp. A Waffen-SS unit had arrived at the hamlet, which consisted of about half a dozen farm houses, barns and the Chapel of St. Leonhard, to take up defensive positions in trenches dug around the farms by French P.O.W. workers. Their orders were to delay the advance of American tanks of the 20th Armoured Division and infantry units of the 7th US Army which was approaching Dachau.

The farms, mostly run by women (whose husbands were either dead, prisoners of war or still fighting) with the help of French POWs, came under fire on the morning of 29th April causing all inhabitants to rush for the cellars. One soldier of Company F of the US 222nd Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Rainbow Division, was killed as they entered the hamlet under fire from the Waffen-SS unit. The first German to emerge from the cellar was the owner of the farm, Herr Furtmayer. Informed by the French POWs that only civilians, not SS, were in hiding in the cellers, the GIs proceeded to round up the men of the SS unit.

First to surrender was an officer, Freiherr von Truchsess, heading a detachment of seventeen men. The officer was immediately struck with a trenching tool splitting his head open. The other seventeen were lined up in the farmyard and shot. On a slight rise behind the hamlet, another group of eight SS were shot. Their bodies were found lying in a straight line with their weapons and ammunition belts neatly laid on the ground. This would suggest that the men were shot after they surrendered. Altogether, one SS officer and forty one men lay dead as the infantry regiment proceeded on their way towards Dachau. Next day the local people, with the help of the French POWs, buried the bodies in a field to be later exhumed by the German War Graves Commission and returned to their families.

DRESDEN (February 13/14, 1945)

This city of culture is situated on both sides of the Elbe river. Of no tactical or strategic value to the German war effort it was considered 'safe' from destruction by air attacks. By 1945 it became a shelter for some 350,000 refugees fleeing from the approaching Red Army. At the Yalta conference Stalin requested more action against cities such as Berlin, Leipzig and Chemnitz. No mention was made of Dresden. The fact that Dresden was chosen was because the Russians at that time were only fifty kilometres away from the city, much nearer to Dresden than than they were to Berlin, Leipzig or Chemnitz. No doubt Churchill was eager to impress the Soviet leader, Stalin. RAF and USAAF bombers devastated the city in the most concentrated incendiary attack of the war in Europe (Operation Thunderclap) In all, 733 British bombers dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs and 311 US Flying Fortresses dropped 771 tons of bombs on the city. Around 35,000 persons were reported as 'missing' after the fire-storm which engulfed the city and destroyed eleven square miles of its center including 14,000 houses, 22 hospitals, 72 schools and 31 department stores. By the 10th of March, 18,375 dead and 2,212 seriously injured were accounted for. The final death toll was expected to reach 25,000.

In one of the city squares 6,865 bodies were cremated. Thousands of British and American prisoners-of-war were on work detail in the city from the large POW camp Stalag IVb at nearby Muehlberg. Casualties among the prisoners were fewer than a hundred. Around 200,000 refugees from the east were camped in the city's 'Grosser Garten'. It was estimated that about 1,300,000 people were in the city as the raid started. The toll would have been much higher had not some bomber crews, knowing that thousands of refugees were in the city, deliberately jettisoned their bomb loads wide of the mark. It is doubtful that the air attack on Dresden shortened the war by even one day. At this point of the war, Germany was on the brink of collapse so why give the still twitching corpse this one final brutal kick? Churchill was later to say "The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing". In 1956, Dresden in Germany and Coventry in England, (1,236 deaths) entered a twin-town relationship. (In 1956, the German Statistical Office estimated that German civilian dead, due to air raids throughout the war, to be around 410,000)

VIDEO

THE EXPULSION TRAGEDY

The merciless revenge perpetrated on the entire German civilian population of Eastern Europe during the closing stages of the war, and for many months after, took the lives of over 2,100,000 ethnic German men, women and children. For generations these Germans had lived and toiled in areas that today are part of central and Eastern Europe. Around fifteen million of these Volksdeutsche were driven from their homes and ancestral lands in Poland, East Prussia, Silesia, Ukraine, Belarus and Serbia and forced back into the Allied occupied zones of Germany.

This was the greatest forcible evacuation of people in European history. It is estimated that of the eight million Germans expelled from Poland around 1,600,000 died in the process. In Czechoslovakia, memories of the Lidice massacre inspired acts of revenge against German soldiers and civilians. Soldiers were disarmed, tied to stakes, doused with petrol and set alight. Wounded German soldiers in hospital were shot in their beds, others were hung up on lamposts in Wenzell Square and fires were lit beneath them so that they died the gruesome death of being roasted alive. These ethnic Germans lived in fear of the Russians but no one thought that the dreadful fate which awaited them would not even emanate from the Soviets at all but from their own neighbours, the Czechs!

Thousands of innocent German residents were murdered in their homes by the Czechs, others were forced into interment camps where they were beaten and maltreated before being expelled. Bishop Beranek of Prague declared: 'If a Czech comes to me and confesses to having killed a German, I absolve him immediately'. The Americans, utterly blind to the political consequences of allowing the Soviets to liberate Czechoslovakia, halted at the Karlsbad-Pilsen-Budweis line. The Sudeten Germans now had no protection from the torrent of bestiality vented on them by the Czechs. In Brno, 25,000 German civilians were forced marched at gun-point to the Austrian border. There, the Austrian guards refused them entry, the Czech guards refused to re-admit them. Herded into an open field they died by the hundreds from hunger and cold before being rescued by the US 16th Tank Division on May 8th 1945. In the Russian occupied zones of Eastern Europe and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of civilian men and women, Poles, Czechs, Romanians and Germans, were transported to the Urals in the Soviet Union and used as slave labourers until released in the late 40s. Mostly ignored by the world's press, the unimaginable suffering experienced by the expellees is largely unknown outside Germany, yet it was systematically carried out in a brutal fashion as official Allied policy in accordance with the decisions formulated at Yalta and Potsdam.

RAMPAGE ON MONTE CASSINO

Monte Cassino fell to the Allies on May 18, 1944. After a four month struggle and the abbey bombed into ruins by the US Air Force, Polish troops of the 12th Lancers, 3rd Carpathian Division, raised their regimental flag over the ruins of the 6th century Benedictine Monastery situated high in the Apennines of central Italy. The next night thousands of French Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Senegalese troops, attached to the French Expeditionary Corps, swarmed over the slopes of the hills surrounding Monte Cassino and in the villages of Ciociaria and Esperia, which is in the region of Lazio, raped every woman and girl that came within their sight. Over 2,000 women, ranging in age from 11 years to 86 years suffered at the hands of these gang-raping soldiers as village after village was entered. Menfolk who tried to protect their wives and daughters were murdered without mercy, around 800 of them died. Two sisters aged 15 and 18 were raped by dozens of soldiers each. One died from the abuse, the other was still in a mental hospital in 1997, 53 years after the event. Most of the dwellings in the villages were destroyed and everything of value was stolen.

Later in the war, these same troops raped around 500 women in the Black Forrest town of Freudenstadt, on April 17, 1945, after its capture. In Stuttgart, colonial French troops, mostly African, but under the command of General Eisenhower, rounded up around 2,000 women and herded them into the underground subways to be raped. In one week more women were raped in Stuttgart than in the whole of France during the four year German occupation.

ALLIED ATROCITIES

Allied troops, as well as Axis troops, committed terrible atrocities during the war. Some years after the war a mass grave was discovered just west of the city of Nuremberg. In it were the bodies of some 200 SS soldiers. It was not until 1976 that one of the bodies was positively identified. It was the body of SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Kukula, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 38th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Autopsies on the other bodies showed that most had been shot at close range, the others beaten to death by the rifle butts of the US Seventh Army GIs. In the village of Eberstetten, 17 German soldiers of the 'Gotz von Berlichingen' Division were shot after they surrendered to US troops.

On April 8, 1945, fourteen members of the 116th Panzer Division were marched through the streets of Budberg to the command post of the US 95th Infantry Division. There, they were lined up and shot. Three were wounded but managed to escape.

On April 13, 1945, tanks of the US 97th or 78th Infantry Division were approaching the village of Spitze about fifteen miles east of Cologne. They came under fire from a 8.8 anti-tank gun which disabled one of the tanks. That night, the village was pounded by tank and artillery fire and at daybreak the US forces entered the village. All the inhabitants, about eighty, were gathered together in front of the church. Included in the eighty were twenty German soldiers, members of an anti-aircraft unit stationed in the village. They were separated from the civilians and marched several hundred yards to a field just outside the village. There, they were lined up and mowed down by machine-gun fire. Next day the US Army ordered the civilians to dig graves and bury the dead. On April 14, 1995, a memorial for the twenty victims was built near the spot.

------------------------

At the village of Chenogne in Belgium a group of twenty-one German soldiers emerged from a burning building carrying a Red Cross flag. Their intention was to surrender to the US forces but as they exited the doorway they were shot down by machine-gun and small arms fire. This happened soon after the Malmedy Massacre on December 17, 1944.

-----------------------------

During the Allied assault on Sicily, the largest of the Mediterranean islands, (July, 1943) a dozen unarmed civilians, including some children, were apprehended by US troops after the town of Canicatti surrendered. The civilians were reported to be looting after they had entered a bombed out soap and food factory and were filling buckets with liquid soap that had spilled on the ground. At around 6pm, when an American officer, a lieutenant-colonel, and a group Military Police, accompanied by three interpreters, entered the factory the officer fired a series of shots from his automatic Colt-45 point blank into the crowd. He reloaded and fired again. Eight of the civilians, including an eleven year old girl, died. The officer and soldiers then drove off. Fearing reprisals from the residents of the town, the incident was hushed up for over sixty years. Due to the efforts of Dr. Joseph S. Salemi of New York University, this atrocity was brought to light. The perpetrator of this crime, Lieutenant Colonel McCaffery, died in 1954.

CANADIANS

During the fighting at Leonforte in July 1943, according to Mitcham and von Stauffenberg in the book The Battle of Sicily, The Loyal Edmonton Regiment killed captured German prisoners.

Kurt Meyer, of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, accused Canadian forces of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division during the 1944 Normandy campaign of breaching the Hague Conventions. He claims that on 7 June notes were found that ordered no prisoners to be taken, information confirmed by Canadian infantry under interrogation; that prisoners were not to be taken if they hindered operations. Hubert Meyer also confirms this story; he states that on 8 June a Canadian notebook was found that contained orders to not take prisoners if they impeded the attacking force. Kurt Meyer also calls upon evidence from Bernhard Siebken’s war crimes trial during which the allegation was made that Canadian infantry shot, on at least one occasion, German soldiers who had surrendered during the campaign.

C.P. Stacey, the Canadian official campaign historian, reports that on 14 April 1945 rumours had been spread that the commanding officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada had been killed by a civilian sniper; this resulted in the highlanders setting fire to civilian property within the town of Friesoythe in a case of reprisal. Stacey later wrote that the highlanders first removed German civilians from their property before setting the houses on fire, he commented that he was "glad to say that [he] never heard of another such case".

Wikipedia

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AMERICANS KILLED MEN OF SS TOTENKOPF IN 1945

When the Totenkopf surrendered (to the Americans) they were turned over to the Soviets Linz in 1945. Those who were wounded or simply too exhausted to make it to Pregarten were executed by the Americans along the way (some 80 in all suffered this fate).

MORE ON THE DACHAU MASSACRE, APRIL 29, 1945

(Source)

The incident was investigated by Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker, the Seventh Army's Assistant Inspector General. A report on the "Investigation of Alleged Mistreatment of German Guards at Dachau" was filed on June 8, 1945. It was marked secret, but the contents were later revealed to the public in 1991. A copy of the report is included in Col. John H. Linden's book "The Surrender of Dachau 29 April 1945." The paragraphs below, from the Secret Report, pertain to the Execution of German soldiers by members of the 45th Division.

Dan Dougherty was a 19-year-old soldier with C Company, which was ordered to relieve I Company after the SS soldiers were killed. In an interview in April 2005 with Jennifer Upshaw, Assistant City Editor of the Marin Independent Journal in Marin County, California, Dougherty said that the men of I company had "gone berserk" under the strain.

"They became very emotional, crying," Dougherty said. "We went in to relieve them. They'd walked along that same train of boxcars. We came to the coal yard. It was a strange sight because here are about 10 reporters standing in this courtyard around corpses of SS officers." An estimated 200 to 300 SS guards were rounded up - two to three dozen were "killed unnecessarily," Dougherty said. "I Company, we now know they got there about noon and at 2 p.m. arrived at the southwest corner and worked over to the east side where the prison was. They were holding the prisoners of war in the coal yard. We know there something happened. About 17 (guards) were shot." Dougherty said he has learned through his research a U.S. Army private insisted the group had fired at the guards in self defense, although the company's commanding officer said the group was not provoked. "I think it haunted some of them," he said. No one was ever charged with a crime, he said.

---------------------------------

In a previous interview with Ronnie Cohen of the Jewish Weekly News of Northern California in April 2001, Dougherty said that, soon after he arrived at Dachau, he had seen about 10 reporters staring at a pile of corpses. The following is a quote from Dougherty in this article:

"This mound of corpses was about 2 or 3 feet high and 15 feet across. And they were SS. One of the corporals in my company whips out a hunting knife and cuts a finger off one of the bodies. He wanted an SS ring for a souvenir."

Herbert Stolpmann was a German POW who worked for the US military at Dachau after the liberation. In an e-mail letter to me, Stolpmann wrote:
When American Troops "liberated" Camp Dachau proper, they forced all the SS-families, including women and children, out of the so-called villas, put their fathers against the wall and shot them. Most of the mothers had cyanide capsules; they gave them to their children and told them, put them into their mouths, bite onto them as soon as Daddy is shot. The American "Liberators" stopped the shooting after about 24 children were dead.

The American soldiers who were involved in the Dachau massacre were court-martialled, but the papers were torn up and then burned by General George S. Patton, Commander of the US Third Army. The Dachau massacre was kept secret until 1991 when information was finally released.

Source

------------------------------------------------

KILLINGS BY BRITISH SOLDIERS: NAHRENDORF

(Near Hamburg. 1945) A week after the discovery of the Belsen Concentration Camp, the news reached the British Army's 'Desert Rats' that the 18th SS Training Regiment of the Hitler Jugend Division, had shot their prisoners at nearby Rethem. The 'Rats' were engaged in a fierce battle with the SS defenders in the village of Nahrendorf. Slowly, and in groups, the SS began to surrender. As the noise of battle died away the villagers emerged from their cellars and found the bodies of 42 SS soldiers lying in a shallow grave. The bodies were then interned on a hilltop cemetery near the village. Each year, hundreds of SS veterans visit the cemetery to pay tribute to their fallen comrades whom, they say, were shot in cold blood on the orders of a ‘crazed blood-thirsty British NCO’.
Source: Compunews

German Brutality During WW2: Part 2: Russia

2011-01-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

A word of caution. This article has a few images that may seem distressing. But we still carry them as we feel shrinking from our past hardly seems sensible.

Killing had become a science in Nazi Germany with German chemists, architects and toxicologists, mechanics and doctors. putting their joint effort for 'best' results.....

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SOME FIGURES (Number of soviet people killed by Germans during WW2)

* The Cambridge History of Russia by Dominic C. B. Lieven, Maureen Perrie, Ronald Grigor Suny, p.226
o Premature deaths under German occupation: 13.7M, including
+ "killed in hot or cold blood": 7.4M, incl.
+ "taken to Germany and worked to death": 2.2M
+ "died of overwork, hunger and disease": 4.1M

Source

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Nazi killers were taught in schools and giving training on how to efficiently kill millions....

THE UKRAINIAN MASSACRES (September 2, 1942)

Due to partisan activity around the village Kortelisy in Ukraine, its entire population of 2,892 men, women and children were put to death by SS and SD execution squads helped by local pro-German Ukrainian police. The village was then razed and burned to the ground, the fires of which blazed for four days. All over Ukraine around 459 villages were destroyed with all or part of their population massacred. In the Volhynia province, villages suffered the same fate and in the Zhitomir province 32 villages were destroyed. There were at least 27 villages, in which every man, woman and child was killed and their houses completely destroyed. Most of the SS and SD units operating in the Ukraine consisted of locally recruited pro-German Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians and White Russians. In all of central Russia there were only two regiments of German security police. The village of Bajki, in Belarus, whose inhabitants had originally welcomed the German troops as liberators from communist oppression, was burned to the ground when the Nazis retreated on January 22, 1944. Of the 1,011 inhabitants of the village, 987 were shot and the 120 houses of the village set on fire. (About one and a quarter million Jews perished in Ukraine during the Nazi occupation)

Janowski camp commandant, Obersturmfiihrer Vilgauz, for sport and the pleasure of his wife and daughter fired a machine gun from the balcony of the Office of the camp on inmates who worked in shops, then handed the machine gun to his wife, and she also fired. Sometimes, to please his nine-year daughter Vilgauz had two - four year olds thrown up into the air and shot at them. The daughter applauded and shouted: "Daddy, more!" - And he fired......

THE BALTIC EXECUTIONS

Within two weeks of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on August 1, 1940, almost the entire intelligentsia of these countries had been liquidated. The German attack on these provinces forced the withdrawal of the Soviet troops and paved the way for Hitler's Einsatzgruppen to start their roundup of all resident Jews. About 3,000 had already fled with the retreating Red Army but the 57,000 left behind in Vilna, faced a terrifying future. Einsatzgruppen 'A' operated in the Baltic Provinces under the command of SS Major General Stahlecker who, after five months, reported to Himmler (Document 2273-PS) that 229,052 Jews had been shot. Thousands more were housed in ghettos as they were urgently needed for slave labour. In Duenaburg, on November 9, 1941, a total of 11,034 Jews were executed. At Libau, two weeks later, another 2,350 fell victim to SS bullets. In Lithuania, under the Nazi's, 136,421 Jews were put to death in numerous single actions by Lithuanian mercenaries with the help of the German police squads. In this total were 55,556 women and 34,464 children all shot to death in a deep moat surrounding the 19th century Tsarist Ninth Fort outside Kovno. In the White Russian Settlement Area, around 41,000 executions had taken place. In Vilna, around 32,000 Jews were murdered during the first six months of German occupation. When Vilna was liberated by the Red Army on July 13, 1944, a few hundred Jews who had been hiding in the surrounding forests suddenly appeared in the city square. Altogether, between three and four thousand Jews out of the original 57,000, survived in the concentration camps in Germany. (The Einsatzgruppen, which followed behind the four German armies, consisted of 3,000 men. Their orders were to hunt down and kill Russia's five million Jews. The Wehrmacht could not intervene as these murderers were under the control of Himmler. By the end of the 1941-42 winter the SS had reported that 481,887 Jews had been liquidated in Russia) Pre-war Vilnius had 105 Synagogues and houses of prayer. Today, only one survives, it was used by the SS as a medical store. Ninety percent of Vilnuis Jews were murdered, only 24,000 survived.

Witnesses at a Soviet Inquiry held after the war said children were torn apart in front of their mothers....

BABI YAR (September 29-31, 1941)

A picturesque ravine situated in the Syrets suburb of the city of Kiev (Kyiv). It was about three kilometres long, over fifty metres deep and separated from the residential area by the local Jewish cemetery and a civilian prison. Soon after the German takeover a series of horrific explosions rocked the city demolishing a number of buildings that housed the German administration and the army hierarchy. On September 26, the military governor, Major General Friedrich Georg Eberhardt, decided that in retaliation for the atrocity all the Jews in Kiev were to be put to death. There, on September 29, the SS Einsatzgruppe C, with the help of the Ukrainian police, herded the whole Jewish population of Kiev and the surrounding area into the ravine and systematically began to slaughter the entire 33,771 souls. The killings took two whole days and nights the victims being machine-gunned and their bodies hurled into the ravine. A layer of sand then covered the corpses before the next batch of naked victims were brought in.

In the months that followed, thousands of Gypsies and Russian POWs were slaughtered here. In August, 1943, as the Soviet Army began its march westwards the decision was taken to erase all evidence of the mass killings, in fact to efface it from history. Russian prisoners and 327 men, including 100 Jews, from the nearby slave camp at Syretsk began the task of digging up the bodies and cremating them. The remains were then burned in pyres, built on slab gravestones taken from the Jewish cemetery, each pyre containing around 2,000 corpses. This gruesome task ended on September 19, 1943. Only fourteen of the 327 slave labourers survived by escaping from Babi Yar. Later, the SS brought in excavators and bulldozers and the ravine was again filled in. In early October, Moscow informed the outside world of the discovery of the mass graves. The West, mistrustful of the Russians, dismissed the news as 'products of the Slavic imagination'. During the 778 days of the German occupation of Kiev, many thousands of Russian POWs, Ukrainians, Gypsies and other nationalities, were murdered at Babi Yar. Of a total population of around 900,000, only 180,000 were living in Kiev at the end of the German occupation. Nobody was ever brought to trial specifically for this atrocity. In 1976, a 15 metre high bronze memorial 'To the victims of Fascism' was unveiled on the site to commemorate the Russian POWs and the 'People of Kiev' who were killed there. However, no reference is made to the Jews or number of Jewish dead.

Source

At Babi Yar hundreds of thousands of Russians were killed and buried

At Kerch in 1942, the Russians Army discovered a kilometer in length, 4 meters wide, 2 meters deep, which was filled with the corpses of women, children, elderly and adolescents. Near the moat were frozen puddles of blood. They were also littered with children's hats, toys, ribbons, cut off the buttons, gloves, bottle nipples, boots, galoshes with stumps of arms and legs and other body parts. All this was spattered with blood and brains. The killers shot a defenseless population with explosive bullets.

A WITNESS AT BABI YAR

When we were brought to the antitank ditch and lined up, we still thought that we were brought here in order to get to sleep there or for digging new trenches. We did not believe that we were brought to be executed. . But when the first shot came at us from the automatic rifles, I realized that they were going to shoot us. I immediately rushed into the pit and crouched between the two corpses. . Unscathed I lay faint and dizzy almost until the evening. Lying in a pit, I heard some of the wounded screaming and the Germans shooting them: . Then, when the Germans went for lunch, one of our fellow villager from the pit shouted: "Get up, who are alive." I got up, and we both began to spread the dead, pull out survivors. I was covered in blood. Above the moat was a light mist and steam from the cooling pile of bodies, blood, and the last breath of dying. We pulled Naumenko Theodore and my father, but his father had been killed instantly by an explosive bullet in the heart. Late at night I got to my friends in the village Bagerovo and there waited for the arrival of the Red Army.

Russian children were poisoned by carbon monoxide in German cars - "gas chambers".

In December 1942 on the orders of the Gestapo chief of Mikoyan-Shahar lieutenant Otto Weber was organized the killing of patients with bone tuberculosis; Soviet children who were undergoing treatment in sanatorium at Teberda. Witnesses said: "On December 22, 1942 the first squad drove a German car into the resort. German soldiers pulled out of the sanatorium critically ill children aged three years, put them in piles into the car - these were kids who could not move, so they were not forced into the car, but stacked in tiers, then the door was shut and the gas (carbon monoxide) released into it, and left the resort.All of the children died, they were killed by the Germans and thrown into the gorge near Teberdskoe Gunachgira".

A doctor from the city of Vilnius, testified: "In early 1943, from the camp at Birkenau were selected 164 boys and taken to a hospital, where with carbolic acid injections into the heart, all of them were killed."

In Bikernekskom woods on the outskirts of Riga, the Germans shot 46 500 civilians.

Eyewitness Stabulnek M., who lives near the forest, said: "On Friday and Saturday before Easter in 1942 buses with people carried all day and night people from the city to the woods. I counted 41 buses on Friday morning before noon near my house. Many residents, including myself, went into the woods to the place of executions. We saw there a large open pit, where women and children were shot. Some were naked some in underwear. The corpses of women and children had signs of torture and abuse - blood stains on their faces, bruises on their heads, some severed hands, fingers, eyes knocked out ... "

Many people were buried alive.......

MASSACRE AT KUPYANSKA

"November 3, 1943.18,400 people WERE MURDERED IN THE CAMP. From the camp 8,400 people were taken and 10,000 people were driven from the city and from other camps ... The shooting began in the morning and ended late at night. The people were stripped naked. The SS men made groups of 50 and 100 people, took them to the trenches, laid them on the bottom of the ditch, face down and shot them with automatic weapons. More were shot on the corpses And this went on till the trenches were not filled ... "

Said the witness Matthew F. Seidel - we were forced to dig up and burn the corpses. Thus, at each fire, we laid about 3 thousands of corpses, sprinkled them with oil, put firebombs and torched them. Burning of corpses continued from late 1943 until June 1944. During this period 100,000 dead people were burned.

At the Danzig Anatomical Institute trials were done of semi-industrial scale experiments for making soap from human bodies and how the tanning industry could use human skin

RUSSIAN P.O.W. MASSACRES

Second only to the extermination of the Jews, the massacre of Russian prisoners of war must rank as the greatest of tragedies of World War II. During the first seven months of the Russian campaign, over three million Soviet soldiers were captured. By February, 1942, only 1,020,531 were still alive.

Some two million had died of starvation and cold during their forced march to the rear (up to 400 kilometres). Out in the open, day and night, they fell by the wayside in their thousands. When finally they reached their POW enclosures and given their first real meal, they 'simply collapsed and lay dead on the floor'. Starved to death in their POW cages, they died in the open, having eaten the last blade of grass. Many were reduced to a state of cannibalism after begging for a scrap of food or a cigarette. In one camp a German guard was killed and eaten and a dead dog, thrown over the wire fence, was pounced upon and torn to shreds with their bare hands, so desperate were the prisoners for food.

Thousands were tortured and then shot in concentration camps, or, as slave labourers, worked till they dropped in quarries and in factories. Of the 9,000 prisoners sent to the Buchenwald camp only 800 were alive when US troops liberated the camp in 1945. In the notorious Dachau camp, of the 10,000 Russian POWs who arrived there in 1941, only 150 were alive by mid-1942. By 1944, it is estimated that around 3,299,000 Russian prisoners of war were disposed of in this way. At the end of May, 1944, there were a total of 5,160,000 Soviet soldiers in German custody. Of these, only 1,053,000 survived the war.

Some of the pictures in which the Germans appear totally inhuman were in fact fakes fabricated by the Russians. This is one such picture.

This is the real picture

RELATED.....

Brutal Germans During WW2 :Part 1

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - A History of Nazi Germany by WILLIAM L. SHIRER

2010-12-20T06:23:00.000-08:00

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
by WILLIAM L. SHIRER

An indispensable book for those interested in Nazi Germany and WW2. Simple, gripping style of writing. Not like a history textbook. Wealth of information and facts.

What They say About The Book

Hugh Trevor-Roper The New York Times Book Review
A splendid work of scholarship, objective in method, sound in judgment, inescapable in its conclusions.

John Gunther
One of the most spectacular stories ever told.

Theodore H. White
A monumental work, a grisly and thrilling story.

Orville Prescott The New York Times
One of the most important works of history of our time.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

Best War Movies: 'LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA"

2010-12-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Clint Eastwood directs the untold story of Japanese soldiers defending their homeland against invading American forces during World War II. With little defense beyond sheer will and the terrain of Iwo Jima itself, the tactics of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe of The Last Samurai) and his men transform what might have been swift defeat into nearly 40 days of heroic combat. Their sacrifices, struggles, courage and compassion live on in the taut, gripping film Rolling Stone calls “unique and unforgettable” and which won – among 4 Academy Award nominations* including Best Picture – the Oscar for Best Sound Editing (2006).

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Best War Films: "HURT LOCKER"

2010-12-17T01:05:00.000-08:00

War is a drug. Nobody knows that better than Staff Sergeant James, head of an elite squad of soldiers tasked with disarming bombs in the heat of combat. To do this nerve-shredding job, it’s not enough to be the best: you have to thrive in a zone where the margin of error is zero, think as diabolically as a bomb-maker, and somehow survive with your body and soul intact. Powerfully realistic, action-packed, unrelenting and intense, The Hurt Locker has been hailed by critics as “an adrenaline-soaked tour de force” (A.O. Scott, The New York Times) and “one of the great war movies.” (Richard Corliss, Time)

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Best War Films: BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI"

2010-12-17T00:22:00.000-08:00

Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre.

The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum.

Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.

Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves its original aspect ratio.

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Best War Films: "BRAVEHEART"

2010-12-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

Mel Gibson fights for the independence of Scotland form English rule

A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson.

He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed.

There is such enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was 1993's Man Without a Face.)

The film is nearly three hours long and includes several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its powerful story.

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Best War Films: "GLORY"

2010-12-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

One of the very best films about the Civil War, this instant classic from 1989 is also one of the few films to depict the participation of African American soldiers in Civil War combat.

Based in part on the books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard, the film also draws from the letters of Robert Gould Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick), the 25-year-old son of Boston abolitionists who volunteered to command the all-black 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Their training and battle experience leads them to their final assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina, where their heroic bravery turned bitter defeat into a symbolic victory that brought recognition to black soldiers and turned the tide of the war.

With painstaking attention to historical detail and richness of character, the film boasts superior performances by Denzel Washington (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, and Andre Braugher. Directed by Edward Zwick (cocreator of the TV series thirtysomething), this unforgettable drama is as important as Schindler's List in its treatment of a noble yet little-known episode of history.

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Best War Films: "FULL METAL JACKET"

2010-12-16T22:49:00.001-08:00

Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London), Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best.

Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way, Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of 2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death), Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence.

Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line.

In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point.

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Best War Films: 'SAVING PRIVATE RYAN'

2010-12-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

Steven Spielberg's new picture, one of his best, is a sandwich. The meat of the tale concerns a bunch of U.S. Army Rangers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), who are sent into Normandy to rescue Ryan (Matt Damon), the sole survivor of four brothers. On either side of this bold endeavor you get half an hour of unyielding combat: first, the D Day landings on Omaha Beach and, later, a consummate last stand in which too few Americans try to hold an inland bridge against too many Germans and too many tanks. Most viewers will be impressed but unsurprised by the central section; it feels wrought, and finely scripted (by Robert Rodat), and nudged by sentimentality.

The reason that they will carry the movie lodged in their minds is the infernal, brain-shaking quality of the battle scenes; Spielberg obviously decided that blood and guts meant just that, and so he arranged his violence into a semblance of pure disorder. The illusion holds, complete with severed limbs and wellsprings of blood, and it feels honorable; Spielberg's preachy movies can be an awful grind, but, apart from a disposable coda, this new work is too swift (and often too inaudible) to weigh you down. It feels like an atonement for the sins of "Amistad."

NEW YORKER

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Best War Films: 'ENEMY AT THE GATES'

2010-12-15T22:52:00.000-08:00

Like Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates opens with a pivotal event of World War II--the German invasion of Stalingrad--re-created in epic scale, as ill-trained Russian soldiers face German attack or punitive execution if they flee from the enemy's advance. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud captures this madness with urgent authenticity, creating a massive context for a more intimate battle waged amid the city's ruins. Embellished from its basis in fact, the story shifts to an intense cat-and-mouse game between a Russian shepherd raised to iconic fame and a German marksman whose skill is unmatched in its lethal precision. Vassily Zaitzev (Jude Law) has been sniping Nazis one bullet at a time, while the German Major Konig (Ed Harris) has been assigned to kill Vassily and spare Hitler from further embarrassment.

There's love in war as Vassily connects with a woman soldier (Rachel Weisz), but she is also loved by Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), the Soviet officer who promotes his friend Vassily as Russia's much-needed hero. This romantic rivalry lends marginal interest to the central plot, but it's not enough to make this a classic war film. Instead it's a taut, well-made suspense thriller isolated within an epic battle, and although Annaud and cowriter Alain Godard (drawing from William Craig's book and David L. Robbins's novel The War of the Rats) fail to connect the parallel plots with any lasting impact, the production is never less than impressive. Highly conventional but handled with intelligence and superior craftsmanship, this is warfare as strategic entertainment, without compromising warfare as a manmade hell on Earth.

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Best War Films: 'BLACK HAWK DOWN'

2010-12-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down conveys the raw, chaotic urgency of ground-force battle in a worst-case scenario. With exacting detail, the film re-creates the American siege of the Somalian city of Mogadishu in October 1993, when a 45-minute mission turned into a 16-hour ordeal of bloody urban warfare. Helicopter-borne U.S. Rangers were assigned to capture key lieutenants of Somali warlord Muhammad Farrah Aidid, but when two Black Hawk choppers were felled by rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. soldiers were forced to fend for themselves in the battle-torn streets of Mogadishu, attacked from all sides by armed Aidid supporters.

Based on author Mark Bowden's bestselling account of the battle, Scott's riveting, action-packed film follows a sharp ensemble cast in some of the most authentic battle sequences ever filmed. The loss of 18 soldiers turned American opinion against further involvement in Somalia, but Black Hawk Down makes it clear that the men involved were undeniably heroic.

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Best War Films: DEFIANCE

2010-12-15T22:10:00.000-08:00

Daniel Craig (James Bond: Quantum of Solace) stars as Tuvia Bielski, an ordinary citizen turned hero, in this action-packed epic of family, honor, vengeance and salvation. Defiance is a riveting adventure that showcases the extraordinary true story of the Bielski brothers, simple farmers –outnumbered and outgunned- who turned a group of war refugees into powerful freedom fighters. Tuvia, along with his unyielding brother, Zus (Liev Schreiber, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), motivate hundreds of civilians to join their ranks against the Nazi regime. Their “Inspirational story”* is a true testament to the human spirit. - David Densby, The New Yorker

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Best War Movies: 'VALKYRIE

2010-12-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

Tom Cruise plays von Stauffenberg, the Wehrmacht officer who almost assassinated Hitler

Unpretentious and dramatically straightforward, Valkyrie is a suspenseful yet ennobling story about the last attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler prior to the end of World War II. Tom Cruise is effective if a little opaque as hero Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who channels his anger at Hitler's atrocities and mismanagement of the war by joining a secret organization bent on killing the Führer. When the outspoken Stauffenberg hits on the idea of linking Hitler's death with an official policy to safeguard Berlin during a government crisis--a contingency plan called "Valkyrie"--the group realizes a post-assassination coup could be covered by rapidly implementing the plan. History tells us the plot failed, of course, and Hitler killed himself months later. But that doesn't stop Cruise or director Bryan Singer from approaching the film as a thinking person's thriller, told from inside the conspirators' camp, where the outcome of their deeds were uncertain for several tense hours.

In the tradition of The Great Escape, Valkyrie is a war movie full of famous faces, including Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard. (The lesser-known David Bamber is very good as Hitler, hunched and cracking under pressure.) The film's gravity is offset a bit by the fun of seeing all these actors in a factually-based slice of history, and by a few, interesting stylistic flourishes on Singer's part, including the peculiarly unsettling image of a mosquito sizzled to death in close-up.

As a history buff, I was compelled to see this film from the get go. The fact that critics were particularly brutal led me to believe this was indeed an excellent film. I was very pleased to see it stuck to the facts even if some of the details are rather mundane. The cinematography does an excellent job at placing you in the era as if you were a bystander to the events before you.

The acting was simply top notch. Tom Cruise elevated himself with his performance. He was quite believable and true to the accounts of Colonel Stauffenberg. I reject the accounts by critics that this was a Gerry McGuire performance in uniform. The supporting cast is award worthy. it is rare to find a cast that works so seamlessly together. I believe the director deserves particular credit for this achievement.

Bottom line, Valkyrie is a top quality film worthy of your time. Forget what all those bitter, envious critics says, see it for yourself and then judge the film in it's merits.

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Best War Movies: THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS

2010-12-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

The innocence of childhood savagely collides with the Holocaust in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) knows that his father is a soldier and that they have to move to a new house in the country... a house near what he thinks is a farm. But his father isn't just a soldier; he's a high-ranking officer in Hitler's elite SS troops who's just been placed in command of Auschwitz. As Bruno explores the woods around the house, he discovers the concentration camp's perimeter fence. On the other side sits a boy his own age, with whom Bruno strikes up a friendship--a friendship that will have tragic consequences.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is most powerful in the details: The casual brutality of a Nazi lieutenant; the uncomfortable juxtaposition of the family's domestic life with glimpses of the treatment of the imprisoned Jews; a ghastly propaganda film suggesting that life at Auschwitz was like a holiday. But more than anything else, Butterfield's performance makes this film compelling. The young actor perfectly conveys Bruno's limited perspective even as the film carefully unveils the larger, darker reality. The movie's ending will undoubtedly spark arguments, but only because of the emotional complexity of what happens--The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is made with great skill and compassion. Also featuring David Thewlis (Naked) and Vera Farmiga (The Departed) as Bruno's parents.

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Most Popular War Movies: SCHINDLER'S LIST

2010-12-12T23:42:00.000-08:00

Although he will forever be identified with pop culture classics such as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg has never made a film greater than this searing drama about a Nazi industrialist who saved more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps during World War II. Broadly based on the book by Australian writer Thomas Keneally, Schindler's List gets underway in 1939 after Hitler's army conquers Poland. Nazi supporter Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson, delivering the standout performance of his career) arranges to staff a major company with unpaid Jews ultimately destined for extermination, among them accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), who becomes his right-hand man. The initially mercenary Schindler gradually becomes attuned to the plight of his workers and arranges to employ nearly 1,000 Jews in his crockery plant -- an effort that requires his careful handling of ghastly Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), who runs the forced-labor camp housing the doomed people.

For this film Spielberg eschews his customary storytelling techniques, using black-and-white film for a gritty look and shooting much of the footage with handheld cameras, documentary style. Period detail is replicated with astonishing accuracy, and you'll get the sense of being right there alongside the characters.

The film is extremely long -- well over three hours -- but it unfolds with such urgency that you're never conscious of its length. Neeson is absolutely sensational as the towering industrialist whose innate humanity eventually comes to the fore, and Fiennes, then a virtual newcomer, is sublimely odious as the amoral labor-camp commander. Crafted to perfection and absolutely seamless in its presentation, Schindler's List is a truly unforgettable movie, and the crowning achievement of this generation's most successful filmmaker.

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BEST SELLING WW2 DVDS: 'NAZIS: Warning From History'

2010-12-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

How could a political party as fundamentally evil and overtly racist as the Nazis come to power? This remains one of the most enigmatic questions of the last century. Acclaimed historian Laurence Rees examines what led a cultured nation at the heart of Europe to commit the atrocities it did. In so doing, he exposes popular myths and encourages understanding of the real forces that led to one of the darkest chapters in modern history. Was it simply the hypnotic power of Hitler's rhetoric? Did the Gestapo really impose themselves by terror on an unwilling population? Through interviews with witnesses and perpetrators, along with archive film and records, this six-part series unveils a more chilling reality.

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