Germany
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After the liberation of Germany in May 1945 the Allied Powers initiated a comprehensive denazification program. Its purpose was to eradicate National Socialist thought from political, economic as well as intellectual and cultural life. As a first step the NSDAP and its subdivisions were prohibited, Nazi laws were abolished and the external signs and symbols…
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A question people often ask me is “Why did so many Germans believe Hitler and the NSDAP?” Hitler did not keep his hate for Jews and other groups he deemed unworthy a secret. In fact he wrote about it in Mein Kampf and other political publications.So why did so many Germans endorse him and his…
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On October, 1 1944, the first of two sets of medical experiments involving castration were performed on homosexuals at the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany. Buchenwald was one of the first concentration camps established by the Nazi regime. Constructed in 1937, it was a complement to camps north (Sachsenhausen) and south (Dachau), and was…
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The image above is from Episode 6 of Masters of the Air. In this scene, captured USAAF airmen are marched through the burning streets of a bombed German town. A furious mob of civilians, spurred on by a local party official, overpowers the guards and attacks the Terrorflieger (“terror flyers”). Most of the airmen are…
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The Nazi regime, targeted numerous groups during its reign from 1933 to 1945. Among those persecuted were Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination whose beliefs and practices placed them in direct opposition to Nazi ideology. Unlike many other victims of the regime, Jehovah’s Witnesses were not targeted based on race or ethnicity, but because of their…
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The Holocaust did not start at the start of World War II, although this is what many people believe. The foundation for the Holocaust, was laid out long before that. There had been Anti-Semitism in Europe and other parts of the world for centuries. However, during the Weimar Republic in Germany, the seeds were planted…
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One of the sources I use for my blog, concerning the Holocaust, is JoodsMonument.nl (Jewish Monument). I often see the name Tröblitz mentioned as the place of death. When I looked into it I noticed that the majority of people who died there, did so after April 23, 1945, shortly before the end of the…
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Edward R. Murrow was born on 25 April 1908. Although he is in uniform in the picture above, he was a journalist and broadcaster. I am not going to do a piece on his life as such. I will only go into one report. He was one of the first reporters to go into Buchenwald…
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Below, you will find part of the testimony of Hans Friedrich, a 1st SS Infantry Brigade member. His words are shocking. “Try to imagine there is a ditch, with people on one side, and behind them soldiers. That was us, and we were shooting. And those who were hit fell down into the ditch. They…
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