It may sound strange, but when Clara Petacci was shot by the firing squad on April 28, 1945, and hung up in the center of Milan along with Benito Mussolini and 14 other Fascists, she got what she had wanted. You see, from a young age, Clara Petacci wanted two things – to be famous …
Upon the liberation of concentration camps following World War II, the Allied forces discovered the nightmarish aftermath of the Holocaust. The camps in Nazi-occupied territories were rife with scenes of mass murder, suffering, and depravity. One of the most disturbing discoveries was at Bergen-Belsen, which the British Army liberated on April 15th, 1945. Again, the …
Johanna Bormann: The life of “The Weasel of Auschwitz” Read More »
The Holocaust was one of the darkest periods in human history, characterized by unspeakable atrocities committed by the Nazi regime against Jews and other marginalized groups. The core of this brutal campaign was the Nazis’ infamous concentration and extermination camps, where prisoners were subjected to unimaginable horrors in the name of racial purity and ideological …
Josef Mengele: Who was Auschwitz’s Angel of Death? Read More »
Germany was the birthplace of the automobile. In 1889, Karl Benz invented the Motorwagen, the first practical gasoline-powered car. Well, practical is a bit of an overstatement. It had a top speed of only ten mph, was a tricycle, and had a steering system more like that of a boat than what we would today …
The Autobahn: Unraveling the Story of the World’s First Superhighway Read More »
In 1945, World War II was still raging in the Pacific. Though Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8 and the Italians on April 29, Japan still fought in the Pacific Theater. It was a brutal effort that tested the mettle of ordinary soldiers. The Americans wanted a quick end to the war, and …
The Tragedy of the USS Indianapolis: The Worst Shark Attack in History Read More »
Inside the Third Reich’s concentration camps were scores of evil guards capable of committing horrible and sadistic acts. When the Allies tried the perpetrators of the Holocaust after the end of the war, the public was surprised by the beastly behavior of female guards like Irma Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath, who often committed worse acts …
Jenny Barkmann: The “Beautiful Spectre” of Stutthof Read More »
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the bloody trauma of World War I was still lingering in Europe’s collective memory. It should be no surprise, then, that many countries wanted nothing to do with another conflict. Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands declared their neutrality to keep the war …
Over 55,000 prisoners of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp never made it out alive. Buchenwald was one of the Third Reich’s largest camps, with over 280,000 prisoners serving time there. Death lurked around every corner, and many killings were never recorded in the camp’s books. Walter Gerhard Mart Sommer, who earned the title “The Hangman of …
Martin Sommer: The guard too cruel for even the Nazis Read More »
Following the Second World War, war crimes trials were held to bring the architects of WW2 and the Holocaust to justice. Inside a courtroom in Luneburg, the Belsen Trials took place that sought to deal with the SS men and women of the Belsen concentration camp. Many of these guards had committed horrendous crimes, but …
The military histories of Germany and China before the Second World War were inextricably linked. One interesting testament to their close ties was when in March 1938, the German Wehrmacht crossed the border into Austria. This invasion was known as the Anschluss but is sometimes called the Blumenkrieg, or the war of flowers because it …
Chiang Wei-Kuo: The Chinese Soldier Who Fought For The Wehrmacht Read More »
