Massacre
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The St. Valentine’s Day massacre—the most spectacular gangland slaying in mob history—was actually somewhat of a failure. Al Capone had arranged for Chicago mobster George “Bugs” Moran and most of his North Side Gang to be eliminated on February 14, 1929. The plan, probably devised by Capone’s henchman “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, was simple and…
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On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched their last great offensive against the Western Allies through the Ardennes Forest of eastern Belgium. It would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. Three German Armies attacked a long a 50-mile front. American troops manning the line were thrown into confusion. Even the high command was…
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I know what you are thinking—another forgotten atrocity committed by the Nazi regime though you would be wrong. This massacre was carried out by the ‘good’ guys. It is an often-neglected fact that the majority of General De Gaulle’s Free French Forces were not white Frenchmen but were predominantly troops from its colonies in Africa…
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Roger Godfrin is the only survivor of a massacre during which Nazi troops locked 643 citizens (including 500 women and children) inside a church and set fire to it on 10 June 1944 in Oradour sur Glane, France. About 20 people decided to make themselves scarce when the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich arrived.…
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The Budy Massacre of October 5–6, 1942, remains one of the lesser-known atrocities of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. Within the women’s penal company (Frauenstrafkompanie) at the Budy subcamp, approximately ninety French-Jewish women were beaten to death by SS guards and prisoner functionaries. This essay reconstructs the event, examines its causes and aftermath, and situates…
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Karl Schümers (17 October 1905 – 18 August 1944) was a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS and Ordnungspolizei (police) of Nazi Germany during World War II. He commanded the SS Polizei Division in July – August 1944. He was directly or indirectly involved in many of the major atrocities committed in Greece during 1944. Killed…
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On March 29, 1945, approximately 60 Jewish slave laborers were executed in Deutsch Schützen, a town in what is now the Austrian province of Burgenland. One of the primary suspects in this war crime was former SS Junior Squad Leader Adolf Storms. Despite his identity being known as early as 1946—he was even listed in…
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I am amazed, and equally appalled, that so little is known about this awful event, which took place only a few days before Hitler’s suicide, and less than a month before the end of World War II in Europe. Perhaps that is why it is only a footnote in history. The prisoners: 2,862 Ukrainian, Russian,…
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No one can deny that the Nazis committed unspeakable atrocities during World War 2,against civilians. But the Nazis were not the only ones. On October 21, 1944, the Soviet Red Army was steamrolling the German army on the Eastern Front, reaching the town of Nemmersdorf, at the time it was a German rural town in…
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The Netherlands has for most of its history quite a prosperous country. I wish I could say that all this wealth was always begotten in a fair way, but that would be a lie. The Dutch were ruthless in their quest for the things they desired. From the arrival of the first Dutch ships in…
History of Sorts 
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