By 1953, Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party, had been ruling the country for almost 30 years. Under his tyrannical rule, his paranoia led to him ordering the deaths of 1.2 million people in what was called The Great Purge, with a further 1.7 million dying in work camps called Gulags. It was a fearful time to be a Soviet citizen and no-one was safe from the almost nightly raids of Stalin’s Secret Police, the NKVD, who would arrest anyone even lightly suspected of having anti-Communist sentiment. However, this paranoia lead to stress and this stress soon got to Stalin.
Stalin applauding at a parade
On February 28th, members of Stalin’s Inner circle gathered for a night of drinking at one of his Dachas. The party consisted of Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria, Former Head of the NKVD, Nikita Khrushchev, Moscow Party Head, Georgy Malenkov, Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, and Vyacheslav Molotov, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs. Once the party was over, Stalin retired to his quarters at 4am and the other 4 went home. Stalin requested to not be disturbed. By 11pm, not a sound had been heard from Stalin’s room. His housekeeper went inside, only to find Stalin unconscious on the floor in a puddle of his own urine.
Immediately, members of the Politburo, the leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party were called to assess the damage and to see what could be done. Whilst calling a doctor was recommended, they encountered a slight problem. The previous year, Stalin had begun to believe that Jewish doctors were plotting to poison him, which they obviously weren’t. However, he began imprisoning and executing hundreds of Jewish Doctors, which came back around to bite him. The majority of actually good and competent doctors in the Soviet Union were Jewish, meaning that only the bad ones were left. If they managed to call upon a good doctor and Stalin got better, they thought he may see the act as treasonous, so they intentionally called upon the bad doctors that Stalin hadn’t imprisoned.
They gave him a diagnosis. Stalin had suffered a stroke. Ultimately, Stalin died on March 5th of 1953, leaving the Politburo without Stalin’s guidance, while Malenkov assumed the role of acting General Secretary. Whilst many were distraught by this, some saw an opportunity. Out of those, 3 members of the Politburo emerged from the power struggle, all vying for the top job.
Georgy Malenkov – Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union
A photo of Malenkov
Malenkov was the natural choice, as he was next in the line of succession due to his position in the party. While he assumed an acting role, this ultimately meant nothing without other party members. Malenkov’s position was fragile, and only needed a little brute force to bring it crashing down.
Lavrentiy Beria – Former Head of the NKVD
A photo of Beria
During Stalin’s purges, Beria was the man largely responsible for most of the killings, overseeing many of the names on the lists. Many, including Stalin himself, say that Beria was to Stalin as Himmler was to Hitler. He was an unfiltered psychopath, who would use his old position to sexually assault and rape young women, including teenagers and young girls. He knew that in order to gain power, he must ally himself with Malenkov.
Nikita Khrushchev – Moscow Party Head
A photo of Khrushchev
Khrushchev was seen as very unambitious by many others in the party, who all believed that Stalin only kept him around because he had a good sense of humour. However, Khrushchev knew his reputation and knew that if he kept his head down, he could stay in Stalin’s good books. But, with Stalin gone, he made a quick grasp for power, fearing that he could end up dead if Beria, a long time rival of his, assumed office.
Whilst the preparations were going ahead for Stalin’s funeral, Beria began making moves. He requested of Malenkov that he become Minister of Internal Affairs, which he merged with the Ministry of State Security, an organisation that would become the KGB in 1954. He then replaced the Red Army soldiers in Moscow with his secret police he just created. Many in the committee feared that Beria was attempting to organise a coup. Beria then began releasing millions of political prisoners, reduced lengthy prison sentences and halted mass arrests. Many believe this was done as an attempt to distance himself the Stalin and increase his popularity with the Soviet people.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was an uprising in East Germany. After the uprising, Beria believed that Germany should be reunited, for American compensation. Khrushchev saw this as highly anti-communist so hatched a plot to remove Beria. He began by seeking help from the army and, at a great personal risk, began talks with Georgy Zhukov, head of the Ministry of Defence and a key figure in the Soviet victory at Stalingrad during the war. Eventually, Zhukov joined the plot, and many others in the party began to follow suit, including Malenkov.
A photo of Khrushchev (left) and Zhukov (centre)
On June 26th, 1953, 3 months after Stalin’s death, a Politburo meeting was held. At the meeting, Khrushchev proposed that Beria be dismissed from the party, due to him being anti-communist and a spy for the British. Things escalated very quickly, with Beria yelling, asking what was going on, and, before a vote could be counted, Malenkov pressed a button underneath his desk, whereupon a group of Red Army soldiers stormed the room and arrested Beria. Due to Beria’s men guarding the building, he had to be smuggled out of the Kremlin at nightfall in a truck.
On December 23rd, Beria was brought before a tribunal, where he could not defend himself. He was accused of treason, terrorism and counter-revolutionary activity. Beria, as well as his associates, were sentenced to death that same day. Beria began begging on his knees pleading for mercy, before he was shot and killed by a Red Army General. His remains were cremated and buried in the woods.
Now practically unopposed, Khrushchev ousted Malenkov as General Secretary of the Communist Party and became leader of the Soviet Union by 1956. One of the first things he did as Leader was denounce Stalin in “The Secret Speech”
A photo of Khrushchev at the Secret Speech
The negative characteristics of Stalin [which Lenin noted on] transformed themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our party.
Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint, and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation.
[…]
Stalin [unlike Lenin] used extreme methods and mass repressions at a time when the revolution was already victorious.
[…]
It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilising the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party and the Soviet Government.
An excerpt from Khrushchev’s speech
Despite his speech exposing the crimes Stalin committed against his own people and the tens of millions killed under his orders, Khrushchev knew that the process of De-Stalinisation would be a long and arduous one but would ultimately be a better path for the Soviet Union than the three decades prior.
In the aftermath of World War 2, many of the war torn countries, such as France and Poland, began to turn to Communism in order to rebuild. Wanting to expand their influence, the Communist USSR, lead by Joseph Stalin, wanted to expand Communism all across Europe. Meanwhile, the United States opposed this, wanting more countries to embrace free market economies, capitalism and democracy. This lead to tensions rising between the two factions who were once allies against the Nazis. This divide between Western Capitalism and Eastern Communism was no clearer than in Greece.
A photo of Greek Nationalist troops
From 1946-1949, Greece was in a civil war, between the Nationalists, backed by the United States, and the Communists. Whilst Harry Truman, President of the United States, feared that the Soviets may back the Greek Communists, Stalin’s focus was more on Turkey, and seeing if they would become a Communist nation, due to their oil production in Iran needing to pass through Turkish waters, requesting a military base in the country and transit rights through the Dardanelles Strait and the Sea of Marmara. Due to the economic impacts of having the water being Soviet Occupied, the United States sought a democracy in Turkey.
Many people feared that the Soviet Union would have a monopoly over the Mediterranean if Greece and Turkey fell to Communism. Truman chose to take action and addressed Congress with his plan on March 12th, 1947
Truman addressing Congress
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.
An excerpt from Truman’s speech to Congress
Truman was very careful to not explicitly name Communism or the USSR, but everyone knew what he was talking about. In order to truly combat communism, Truman, with the advise from Senator Arthur Vandenburg, over exaggerated the crisis, to such a degree where it would scare the American people and get them to side against Communism. Many modern historians cite the Truman Doctrine as the declaration of the Cold War.
During a briefing at Blockhouse 34 of the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex in 1962, three of the most important men in the history of American space exploration were photographed sitting in the front row, President John F. Kennedy, who had promised that man would land on the moon by the end of the 1960s, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later serve as President during some of the most important missions to outer space, and Kurt Debus, the first ever Director of the Kennedy Space Centre, who previously served as an Staffelrottenführer in the SS and a key architect in the Nazi V2 Rocket Project, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.
A photo of the three men, Johnson, Debus and Kennedy (left to right)
By May 1945, the Third Reich was in pieces. With the Führer dead, many high ranking Nazis and military officers, fearing Allied capture for their part in war crimes, including the Holocaust, either committed suicide or fled to South America. Most notably, Martin Bormann, Nazi Party Minister, Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Chancellor, and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler all committed suicide in the final days of the war or in the weeks following, whilst Josef Mengele, a physician and anthropologist, specialising in human experimentation at Auschwitz, and Adolf Eichmann, a high ranking Party Member and Government Official, fled to Argentina, with the latter of the two being captured and executed in 1961 for his role in designing the Holocaust.
However, SS Sturmbannführer Wernher von Braun was less worried than most. In fact, he was bordering on confident, having approached the United States directly with his location, patiently and calmly waiting for their arrival. As a key architect behind the V2 Rocket, Braun was confident that his knowledge would be useful to the United States Government. As predicted, his captors gave him a warm welcome.
Braun (centre, civilian clothes) photographed with Wehrmacht Generals, such as Walter Dornberger, Friedrich Olbricht and Heinz Brandt in March 1941
What was more surprising, however, that this was occurring all across the collapsing Third Reich and during the years of occupation by the Allies. Whilst the Second World War had concluded, the Cold War was beginning to brew, and the Americans were determined on getting the upper hand against the Soviet Union. In all, over 1,500 Nazi Scientists were extracted from Germany between 1945 and 1962, in order to work on the American Space Programme, including Braun and the aforementioned Debus. Whilst Braun had handed himself over to the Americans, other scientists had to be found and extracted. These missing scientists were compiled in a list that, in an unsuccessful effort to dispose of evidence, was flushed down the toilet.
The operation, Operation Paperclip, was named after the paperclips that they would attach to the files, indicating they contained classified information such as Nazi affiliation or suspected war crimes and that all these should be overlooked in the name of advancing American science. For instance, Braun had overseen an SS Operation that involved forced labour at concentration camps.
A group of Rocket Scientists at Fort Bliss, Texas
The United States was not the only one involved in this practice. Whilst the British and French did not have the resources to exfiltrate German scientists without kidnapping or stealing patents, the Soviets used other more brutal methods in order to get the information they needed, such as bribery and forced relocation. The US method was the most controversial, however, offering a clean slate, the willing relocation of entire families and US citizenship.
Naturally, this massive influx of Germans into the United States raised a lot of eyebrows in the media. In response, the government did what every politician learns not to do on day 1 and told the truth. Immediately, there was mass public outcry, from influential figures such as Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The first page of a transcription of a protest telegram about Operation Paperclip sent to Harry S. Truman by the Council Against Intolerance In America
Many criticised that the victims of these mens atrocities in the Holocaust struggled greatly to get US Citizenship, ultimately to often get denied whilst the men who perpetrated the Holocaust got a fast track. In addition, there were also those who criticised the fact that former Nazis were now in Government positions, from an aspect of national security. However, as Cold War tensions grew, the argument that these scientists were necessary to combat the Soviet threat grew increasingly stronger.
Braun’s work at NASA involved getting the first American Satellite into orbit after the Soviet Sputnik, as well as the creation of the Saturn V rocket, which helped man land on the Moon. The work of other scientists involved in Paperclip ended up creating the jet engine and advanced pharmaceuticals research, but also developed chemical weapons such as Agent Orange, well known for its use in the Vietnam War.
Braun and Debus in front of Saturn 500F
Whilst these advances in science allowed the US Government to brand paperclip as success, hindsight casts doubt on this judgement. Whilst many minds taken to America in Paperclip were seen as geniuses, such as Braun, many were just your average Joe, who, upon contract completion, either returned to Germany or went to normal civilian life, assimilating amongst the populous. The ethical questions about bringing in scientists from such an evil regime to work on projects of national security still do not have full conclusive answers. However, it is undeniable that these men, no matter how abhorrent and evil their past was, changed our understanding of the universe at large.
April 20th, 1945. On the Führer’s birthday, Nazi Germany is on its last legs. As the Soviet Artillery begins to hammer the city from the east and the Allied forces closing in on the Rhine from the west, it may have just dawned on Adolf Hitler, who had ruled Germany with an iron fist for the last twelve years, that his thousand year Reich may never come to pass.
Soviet Artillery on the outskirts of Berlin
1944 had been a disaster for the German war effort. Italy had become embroiled in Civil War in the aftermath of the deposition of Mussolini the year prior, with the fascist faction being a puppet of Hitler. The war had turned sour and the Fascist only controlled the North by the end of 1944. In the west, the Allies had made a great achievement with the Normandy Landings on D-Day, and had been liberating France all throughout the year. With mass army encirclements across the Eastern Front, the Red Army was breezily pushing across Eastern Europe, uncovering Nazi war crimes along the way.
Bulgaria and Romania had fallen under Soviet control, with Hungary holding out in Budapest as the last bastion of Fascism in Eastern Europe. Hitler, hoping to secure Hungarian oil fields, had focused the last of his armoured reserves onto relieving the defenders of Budapest. However, this had fallen right into Soviet hands. Considering that Hitler had pushed the armoured corps down to the increasingly pressurised Hungarian front, this meant that the Polish front would, hopefully, be a breeze. In just 11 weeks, the Soviet Army captured Warsaw and arrived on the outskirts of Berlin.
Throughout January of 1945, the outgunned Germans were forced into desperate retreat. General Heinz Guderian insisted to Hitler on the need for more armour in Poland. Whilst Hitler claimed that he would send two SS Panzer Divisions, these only ended up on the Hungarian front, leading to mass surrenders on the Polish Front. Meanwhile, propaganda echoed over the radio, implying the incoming apocalypse, comparing the advancing Soviets to the Mongol horde intent on bringing about the death of civilisation, encouraging thousands of Germans to flee west.
However, the problem with the Soviets speedy advance was that it had left Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s flank exposed. He decided not to advance any further onto the capital of the Reich until it was covered. Managing to trap German forces in a northern pocket in Prussia, the new Front line extended from Stettin in the north all the way down to the Czech border.
A map of the front by April 1945
Despite assurance from the Allies that Berlin would fall into Soviet hands after the war, Stalin was quick to rush the capital, devising an encirclement around the city and a force to push towards the Elba river to meet up with the Allies. The 1st Belorussian Front would be the centre of the thrust towards Berlin, whilst the 1st Ukrainian Front would push from the south towards Potsdam and Dresden and the 2nd Belorussian Front would push from the north in order to prevent reinforcement. Used to open fighting in massive spaces, veterans of the Battle of Stalingrad handed out leaflets regarding the ins and outs of urban combat.
Whilst the German Defence force seemed decent enough, totalling around 760,000 men, with additional tanks, artillery and aircraft, it was nothing compared to the sheer numbers of the Red Army, who had a force of 2.3 million men attacking Berlin. In addition, much of the German defences were made of the Volkssturm, a mass conscripted force of any man between 16 and 60. Much of the army was also comprised of Hitler Youth boys, some even as young as 12. Furthermore, having lost the Hungarian oil fields, they could not rely on their Panzer Divisions or the Luftwaffe for much support.
The battle began on April 16th near Seelow Heights, beginning with barrages from Katyusha Rocket launchers, which lit up the night. One Soviet Soldier described it as being as bright as daylight, with them having to cover their ears to stop them from going deaf. However, due to this mass bombardment, the terrain was significantly more difficult to traverse for the Red Army, not just because of the holes in the ground but also the spotlights, intended to blind the enemy, ended up reflecting in all the smoke, confusing the advancing forces.
A photo of the Berlin Defence force with Panzerfausts at Seelow Heights
The Oder River was becoming another problem in the Soviet Advance, as many who tried to cross it were cut down by the desperate defence forces. Attempting to force a crossing, Zhukov ordered that both tank armies attack simultaneously, causing enormous traffic jams behind the front lines. Upon reaching the heights, the attackers were once more pushed back by concealed artillery divisions and Panzerfausts. Despite these setbacks, the South had eventually broken, and Soviet forces finally had unlocked the gates to the capital city.
As the initial footmen attacked Berlin, Hitler, a shadow of his former self, cowered in the Führerbunker, a secret underground complex buried deep underneath the Old Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Down underneath the city, he was accompanied by Martin Bormann, Personal Secretary to the Führer and Chief of the Party Chancellery, Joseph Goebbels, Gauleiter of Berlin and Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, with his family and Eva Braun, the long time lover of Hitler. His last visit to the surface was on his birthday of April 20th, awarding an Iron Cross to a young boy in the Hitler Youth. He was noticeably withered and older, having developed an undiagnosed tick in his right hand.
One of the last photos ever taken of Hitler on April 20th, 1945
Despite this, Bormann and Goebbels remained loyal to the end. Over the next week, he distanced himself from Hermann Göring, former Head of the Luftwaffe, Speaker of the Reichstag and Minister of Prussia, who, upon learning that Hitler had plans of taking his own life, had telegrammed to the Führer requesting leadership of the Third Reich. Viewing this as an act of treason, he expelled him from the party, fired him from all government positions and ordered his arrest. A similar scenario befell Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, Reichminister of the Interior and Chief of the German Police, who had began peace talks with the Allies in an attempt to focus all effort onto the Eastern Front. Learning of this on April 28th, Hitler reacted to this the same way he did with Göring. Hitler’s paranoia and delusion was slowly catching up to him.
On the front, many soldiers, who had considered deserting, were hanged in the streets. By now, all the remaining forces could do was simply delay the inevitable, as forces cut in from the northeast and southwest. However, Hitler was still hopeful of a mass counter attack by General Felix Steiner, an Obergruppenführer in the SS, which would hopefully encircle the Soviet forces in the city, in a similar vein to what the Soviets had done to them at Stalingrad two years prior.
However, this attack never came, due to the lack of manpower and supplies in Steiner’s army. Upon learning this news on April 22nd, Hitler flew into a “tearful rage”. His delusions of a Thousand Year Reich shattered into a thousand pieces as he officially declared that the war was lost, saying that he would remain in Berlin until the end, whereupon he would commit suicide. It was not long after this that he heard of Mussolini’s execution by the Italian Partisans, whereupon his body was hanged upside down from the roof of a service station where it was spat on by the people he oppressed throughout his rule.
A photo of Mussolini’s hanging body along side other fascists
Soon after this, the encirclement was completed, leaving Berlin with around 85,000 men, 40,000 of whom were in the Volkssturm, defending the city. As the Soviets tightened their grip, the last bits of defence were just around the governmental district. Many high ranking Nazis were making plans of escape out of the city before it was too late. In the early morning of April 30th, the Soviet forces managed to capture the Reichstag, the symbolic heart of the German Reich, defended largely by foreign SS legions.
The Soviet flag billowing over the Reichstag
The previous day, Hitler was observed signing his final will and testament by Goebbels and Bormann. It detailed that Hitler would marry Braun as well as all “[he possesses] belongs – in so far as it has any value – to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State; should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of [his would be] necessary” except for portraits that he had purchased, which would be given to a gallery in Linz, his home town. It also detailed that he and Braun would soon commit suicide in order to avoid capture.
He detailed that the role of Führer be split into three bodies, the President, which would go to Karl Dönitz, Chief of German Naval High Command, the Chancellor, which would go to Goebbels, and Party Minister of the Nazi Party, which would go to Bormann. He gave an official order, allowing General Helmuth Weidling, who had largely led the defence of the city, to escape Berlin. Hitler then married Braun in a small ceremony, before both were found dead in his study in the Führerbunker in the afternoon of April 30th, Hitler having shot himself with his Walther PPK handgun, and Braun having taken a hydrogen cyanide capsule. Their ashes were cremated in a bomb crater with petrol as the Red Army’s artillery echoed through the streets
Despite this massive loss in morale for the Third Reich, Goebbels rejected Stalins offer for unconditional surrender, reducing the defence to isolated pockets around government buildings. However, eventually seeing the direness of the situation, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, fed cyanide to their six children before they too committed suicide on May 1st just outside the Führerbunker. His body was attempted to be cremated with the petrol left over from Hitler’s cremation, though it only did half a job, leaving the heavily charred body of Goebbels outside the bunker. His body was later taken into Soviet possession. In 1970, the remains were burned, crushed and scattered in the Biederitz River.
A photo of Goebbels
Weilding eventually began peace talks, ordering all the men to lay down their arms. The city fell and the German Reich was divided down the middle. By the time that Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, signed the unconditional surrender of Germany, only fragments of pre-Nazi German land remained a part of the Reich. Due to the new government never repudiating Nazism, Dönitz was never officially recognised as the President of Germany. Keitel was hanged in a botched execution for war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy on October 16th, 1946. His head hit the trap door rim and it took him 24 minutes to die.
I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons – all for Germany.
The last words of Wilhelm Keitel
Many senior Nazis went into hiding, committed suicide or went on trial for their war crimes. Most notably, Bormann made a bid for freedom on May 2nd, eventually giving up and committing suicide on the grounds of Lehrte Station in Berlin. Unaware of this, the International Military Tribunal tried him in absentia at Nuremberg. His remains were not discovered until 1972 and were conclusively proven as his in 1998. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Baltic Sea by his surviving family, in order to prevent a potential grave from becoming a neo-Nazi rallying site. His eldest son, Martin Adolf Bormann, openly denounced his father’s Nazi beliefs and Hitler, his godfather, and became a priest and a theology teacher, working on a mission in the Congo and meeting Holocaust survivors in Israel. He passed away in 2013.
A photo of Bormann
Heinrich Himmler was captured by allied forces. After interrogation, he was subjected to a medical exam on May 23rd, including an oral one. Upon declining to open his mouth, he bit into a potassium cyanide capsule concealed in his mouth and died despite efforts to expel the poison from his system. He was buried in an unmarked grave, the location of which remains unknown to this day. His daughter, Gudrun Berwitz, openly associated with neo-Nazi circles and married an official of the neo-Nazi Homeland Party. She passed away in 2018.
A photo of Himmler
Whilst Göring did end up at the Nuremberg trials for the role he played in the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, he was not given the punishment assigned to him by the tribunal. Before his execution by hanging, he too ingested cyanide and died. His body was displayed on the execution grounds for witnesses before being cremated and his ashes thrown into the Isar River. Edda, his only child, hardly spoke publicly about her father aside from one interview in 1986, where she recalled him fondly. She passed away in 2018
A photo of Göring on trial (central)
Dönitz was also put on trial at Nuremberg, being found guilty for his crimes against peace. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. Whilst never repenting for his role in Nazi Germany, saying that he “acted at all times out of duty to his nation”, he actively avoided contact with neo-Nazis, even when approached by Manfred Roeder, who still believed him to be the legal leader of Germany, something that Dönitz called ridiculous. Roeder, taking this as a declaration of resignation, declared himself President of Germany and became an active terrorist.
Dönitz died on Christmas Eve 1980 at his home in Aumühle. He was buried without any military honours during a service where no-one was allowed to wear military uniform. Despite this, over 100 people in attendance had earned the Knights Cross in battle during the Second World War. Only Dönitz’s daughter, Ursula, survived the war, who remained very private about her family’s history until her death in 1990.
A photo of Dönitz
Weilding was taken into Soviet Custody, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes perpetrated during the German occupation of the East. He died of an apparent heart attack in Vladimir whilst in the custody by the KGB in 1955. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery of Vladimir Central Prison. It is unknown if he had any children
A photo of Weilding
Other high ranking Nazis, not directly involved in the Battle of Berlin also befell similar fates. Albert Speer, Reichminister of Armaments and Munitions and a chief Nazi Architect, was sentenced to 20 years at Nuremberg, attempting to portray his role in Nazi Germany as less significant than his peers, claims that were disproven after his death in 1981, being revealed that he was involved in multiple slave labour programmes across Nazi Occupied Europe. Adolf Eichmann, an SS Obersturmbannführer and key architect of the Holocaust, and Josef Mengele, an SS Hauptsturmführer and head of human experimentation at Auschwitz, both escaped to South America after the war. Whilst Eichmann was captured by Mossad, the Israeli Intelligence Service, and executed in 1961, Mengele lived out his life in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, until drowning after suffering a stroke in 1979.
In their vengeful advance across eastern Europe, thousands of civilian Germans were murdered by the Red Army, including thousands of sexual assaults of women. In all, 40 million people were killed by the Nazis under their regime, 17 million of whom were killed systematically as a part of the Holocaust. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany strictly outlines laws that will prevent a Nazi-like party from ever rising again.
Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing, and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons, and in the right to personal honor.
Art and scholarship, research, and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.
Article 5 of the German Constitution
Whoever allows content (section 11 (3)) suited to violating the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning or defaming a group defined by its national, racial, religious or ethnic origin, ideology, disability or sexual orientation or individuals on account of their belonging to one of these groups to come to the attention of another person who belongs to one of the aforementioned groups without having been requested to do so by that person incurs a penalty of a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine.
Section 192a of the German Criminal Code
One of the first meetings of the democratic Bundestag in West Germany, 1949
When we went to Nohra, […] we took a day trip into Buchenwald. […]It was just unbelievable to see. You couldn’t—there was so much of it, you couldn’t grasp at all. We just see these people standing, you see the bodies. You see the ashes. You see the ditches. It’s just—I can’t really describe it to tell you, you know, how horrendous it was to see these people treated like animals. You might see even worse than that.
Andrew Kiniry, 45th Evacuation Hospital, describing when the 3rd Army liberated Buchenwald
As the allies advanced from the West and the Soviets from the east, many expected to see the remnants of training camps or POW camps. What they found was beyond their wildest nightmares.
What they found were thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, all on the brink of starving to death, who had been left abandoned in fences like cattle. Not only were these people but specific groups of people. Some were disabled, some were gay, some were slavs. But the most notable among these groups of people were the Jews. The soldiers thought they had seen the worst of it but they were very wrong.
A group of child prisoners at Auschwitz
They found large gas chambers, in which the prisoners would be put inside, under the pretence of having a shower to cleanse themselves. Then, Zyklon B, a pesticide, would be poured in through the showers. Deaths could take anywhere between 3 minutes to 30. The bodies were then dragged out and burnt in ovens nearby. The specific targeting of Jews was called Germany’s “Final Solution”, which involved the eradication of the Jewish population from Europe. This was known as the Holocaust, but many Jews today prefer to call it the Shoah.
Over 5.7 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Others killed included 2-3million Soviet POWs, 1.9 million Poles, 1.5 million Romani, 250,000 disabled people, 170,000 Freemasons, 25,000 Slovenes, 15,000 homosexuals, 5,000 Jehovahs witnesses, 7,000 Spanish Republicans as well as countless others. Around half of the Jewish deaths were attributed to the gas chambers, whilst the rest were due to forced labour in the camps, starvation in the camps and ghettos as well as mass shootings, most notably by the Einsatzgruppen, a death squad that tailed the Wehrmacht in their march east.
Upon discovery of the concentration camps, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, told his men to film the horrors they encountered. The film reels were then compiled into a 1 hour long documentary, shown as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials and the Trial of Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, after his capture in 1961
Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened
Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to his men about the Concentration Camps
Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton and American forces at Ohrdruf concentration camp, a part of the Buchenwald network
The survivors were liberated, many only to find that their homes had been repossessed. Many Jews sought shelter in Palestine whilst others stayed in Europe, where persecution still occurs to this day. To this day, people still deny these events happened, either that the statistics are overestimates or that such things never occurred and is simply a victim complex made by Jews, despite the countless amount of evidence recorded not just by the Allies and Soviets but by the Germans themselves. Many cite the Holocaust as the greatest humanitarian tragedy in history.
By Februrary, 1943, the Wehrmacht had just suffered a great loss at the Battle of Stalingrad, in which German forces had just suffered 800,000 casualties and the hands of the Red Army. With German Morale low, Dr Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, took to the stage of the Berlin Sportpalast to deliver a speech that would change the German attitude to the war.
A photo of the rally on February 18th, the banner reading “Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg” or “Total War – Shortest War” in English.
The German nation is fighting for everything it has. We know that the German people are defending their holiest possessions: their families, women and children, the beautiful and untouched countryside, their cities and villages, their two thousand year old culture, everything indeed that makes life worth living. […] Total war is the demand of the hour. […] The danger facing us is enormous. The efforts we take to meet it must be just as enormous. […] I ask you: Do you want total war? […] I ask you: Is your confidence in the Führer greater, more faithful and more unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow him wherever he goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end? […] Now, people rise up and let the storm break loose!
The applause that ruptured from the hall after this was enormous, with chorus’ of Sieg Heil and chants of “Führer command, we follow!” Nazi banners are raised high. Little do they know, the German people just signed their own death sentence.
As winter set in on the Western Front, the war was not looking great for Germany. With almost all of France liberated, the Italians firmly losing and the Soviets at the gates of Warsaw, Hitler needed a miracle in order to win the war. His miracle would come in the same plan he conducted four years prior.
Map of the war by December 1944
The largely undefended and heavily wooded Ardennes region of Belgium and France began to look promising for Hitler once again. Having initially invading France in 1940 using the same area as a breakthrough point, Hitler planned to push a surprise attack through the area, cutting off most of the Commonwealth forces in the Netherlands, forcing them into another Dunkirk style evacuation. Many questioned the validity of the plan. Whilst Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, was in fully support of the plan, many others, such as Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt and Walter Model as well as General Siegfried Westphal, were much more hesitant, fearing that the attack might not even reach the Meuse River. Despite their concerns, they kept silent for fear of being accused of defeatism, which, by this point, had become a crime in Nazi Germany.
Nicknamed Operation Wacht Am Rhine, after a famous Prussian patriotic anthem, every member of high command involved in the offensive was sworn to secrecy at the threat of death, with regimental commanders only being told a day before the attack. In order to not alert American Forces, soldiers used the cover of night in order to advance from town to town, covering up their vehicles when daybreak came. Complete radio silence was enforced during the whole operation. This secrecy had clearly worked, as the Allies were not expecting an attack in any capacity, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of the 21st Army Group confident that the Germans would not counter attack. Whilst the Germans were vastly disadvantaged, in terms of manpower and resources, they weren’t exactly fighting the cream of America’s crop. The defence force in the Ardennes was only seven divisions, most of whom were either new to combat or had been redeployed as an in-work vacation.
American Troops on deployment in the Ardennes
Despite the lack of fuel that was desperately needed in an operation through the terrain of the Ardennes, the 6th Panzer Army, commanded by Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich, the 5th Panzer Army, lead by General Hasso von Manteuffel, and Erich Brandenberger’s 7th Army, began the assault on December 16th, attacking the North, Centre and South respectively, with the Panzer forces set to capture Antwerp and the 7th protecting the flank from American General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. Dietrich’s main objective was to capture the key bridges over the Meuse within the first 24 hours of the assault, before an advance onto Antwerp, whilst Manteuffel was to capture Brussels. Before these objectives could be reached, however, St. Vint and Bastogne had to be secured first, as it was crucial for maintaining supplies.
The 1st SS Panzer Division of the 6th Panzer Army was given special care by Hitler, as it contained the most elite troops of the Waffen-SS, including the Peiper Unit, consisting of nearly 5,000 Waffen-SS troops with 800 of their vehicles commanded by SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel) Joachim Peiper. The full assault was preceded by Operation Grief, in which a brigade commanded by SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Otto Skorzeny adopted American customs, dressed in American uniforms and infiltrated American territory in order to capture bridges, by tampering with road signs, cutting telephone wires and minor acts of sabotage. American forces became so paranoid of encountering one of Skorzeny’s men that they distrusted everyone in an American Uniform, even holding General Omar Bradley, commander of Twelfth Army Group, captive for a short period.
Whilst Dietrich’s Army began with an artillery barrage of American positions, Manteuffel’s fighting force did not go in guns blazing, instead opting for the element of surprise. Despite this disobeying Hitler’s orders of the artillery barrage, the tactic worked well across the board, with many American forces retreating out of fear, with one officer recounting his men wetting themselves and vomiting. The heavy snow also meant that the Allies could not use their superior air power on the battlefield.
A German machine gunner in the Ardennes, December 1944
Despite the vast and quick progress, this was not consistent across the whole German front. Lieutenant Lyle Bouck of the American 99th Division, for instance, valiantly fended off German forces for the whole day with only 18 men, killing or wounding 400 Germans whilst losing only one man. This vexed Peiper so much that he ordered his unit to advance hard on the enemy position, including into a minefield, losing 5 tanks in the process. Meanwhile, the 326th Volks Grenadier Division advanced north, attempting to cut off American reinforcements but were sabotaged by their own artificial moonlight made out of bouncing spotlights off clouds, which silhouetted them in the horizon, where they were picked off like sitting ducks. In addition, the weather also meant decreased visibility and movement ofr their vehicles, slowing the advance significantly.
Despite these setbacks, German High command was satisfied with initial progress on the first day. However, due to the slower advance, Eisenhower was given ample time to move reinforcements to the front, including the famous 101st Airborne Division, to defend the town of Bastogne and block the German Advance. Meanwhile, Peiper’s unit ignored the orders of Hitler due to muddy paths, instead capturing different towns, where they would massacre POWs and civilians during the Maldemy Massacre, wherein 84 civilians and POWS were executed.
A photo of dead US Soldiers in the aftermath of Maldemy
As casualties mounted on the front, especially in the besieged town of Bastogne, an emergency meeting was called between Patton, Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, who ordered that the 7th Army cover for Patton’s position in the south, whilst his 3rd Army moved north to relieve the 101st Airborne and the 28th Infantry Divisions. Even with continuous artillery fire that prevented the Germans from capturing the city, they managed to encircle the 101st and 28th. The Germans were incredibly confident with a potential victory at Bastogne. Despite not having the strength to destroy the defenders of Bastogne, General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz of the XLVII Panzer Corps sent a demand for surrender to General Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the Bastogne Garrison and Artillery Commander of the 101st, simply responded with the following.
To the German Commander.
NUTS!
The American Commander.
McAuliffe’s response to Lüttwitz’s demand for surrender
Eventually, the snow began to ease up, allowing for Allied air superiority to make a comeback, conducting a massive supply drop onto the besieged troops at Bastogne, whilst fighter bombers proved extremely effective at breaking up German attacks. Despite this, Patton strill struggled to breach the German encirclement, repeatedly vexed by blown bridges, activities done by American engineers in order to slow the Germans earlier in the battle.
German Chief of the General Staff, Heinz Guderian, urged Hitler to withdraw forces from the Ardennes, citing it as a massive failure and to put more supplies into the East. However, German forces had just captured Celles, the furthest west of the advance, which buoyed Hitler’s spirits, and so the struggle went on.
Despite this achievement, supplies were running low, to the point where not even a full withdrawal was feasible. When American forces recaptured Celles, they found starved and exhausted Panzer troops greeting them. Runstedt now had to inform Hitler that the plan was a mass failure, to which Hitler, in a fit of rage, dismissed him. Eventually, Patton relieved Bastogne in the most Patton way possible, via a reckless charge from the north, accompanied by storms of napalm.
In a moment of delirium, Hitler commanded that no effort be spared in crushing Bastogne, having forgotten the objective of Antwerp entirely. In attack after attack, more and more lives were lost to Allied Air Superiority and artillery fire, with the Germans eventually giving up and retreating by January 11th of 1945. The Battle of the Bulge, which it was later dubbed, served as the last major offensive operation by the Third Reich, which only delayed the inevitable and now it was a desperate retreat back to Berlin.
American forces marching with an M1 Sherman in the Battle of the Bulge
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
Edmund Burke
Oskar Schindler was a German speaking man living in the Sudetenland before war broke out. He was very well known in his youth for being a Casanova, before settling and marrying Emilie Pelzl in 1928. However, their marriage was fraught with strife, as Emilie believed that Schindler only married her when he needed someone to come home to.
By 1938, Schindler managed to land himself as a spy for the Germans, infiltrating Czechoslovakian society. Eventually, he was found out and sentenced to death. However, with days, perhaps even hours of his life left, Hitler annexed the Sudetenland and, in accordance with the Munich Agreement, Schindler was let go. He eventually ended up joining the Nazi party just before the outbreak of World War 2. Him and his wife were moved to the industrial town of Ostrava near the Polish Border, where he would bribe Nazi Officials in order to curry favour. Once Poland was invaded in 1939, Schindler saw this as a new business opportunity.
He set up shop in a Jewish Ghetto set up by the Nazis in Krakow, Poland. He made enamel in the city and hired a Jewish man who used to work in the factory he took over, Abraham Bankier, as floor manager and made him hire the employees. This assistant made it so that as many Jews could be considered essential workers so wouldn’t be taken to concentration camps and killed. He justified this to Schindler by saying that, due to Nazi laws, Jews were payed less so would cost him less money than hiring Poles to do the same work. Schindler agreed whilst enjoying the company of the Nazi party officials due to his new stature as an industrialist. He had landed himself a large contract supplying the army with kitchenware in their new war against France and Britain.
By 1941, a new law was passed stating that Jews could now earn zero money, and all money that would usually be payed to Jews would now be paid to the SS. However, this now meant that the survival of the Jews working in the factory was now Schindler’s choice. Schindler decided to use his connections with the black market to supply his workers with food out of his own pocket. This is the beginning of Schindler’s arc to redemption.
By 1942, the Death Camps had begun to open. Many of the Jews in Krakow were sent to Belzec Death Camp. However, because they were employed by Schindler, the now hundreds of Jews under his employ were saved from the gas chambers. However, things soon began to change.
Amon Göth, a second Lieutenant in the SS, ordered a new camp to be constructed in Plaszow, only 4km from Krakow. Every morning and every night, Jews from Krakow would work on building the new camp and then working inside. Göth was ruthless, he would use Jews at target practice and train dogs to attack them on command. Schindler began becoming friendly with the tyrant of Plaszow, by sending him lavish gifts he found on the black market, taking him to lavish parties and charming him relentlessly.
A photo of Amon Göth
In March 1943, Göth ordered Krakow Ghetto to be liquidated and all the Jews to be moved to Plaszow. 2,000 Jews are moved while another 2,000 are killed during the liquidation. Schindler allegedly hid his employees inside the factory to keep them from harm.
The Liquidation of Krakow Ghetto
After having witnessed the liquidation, Schindler was said to be appalled. Sol Urbach claimed that:
[Schindler] changed his mind about the Nazis. He decided to get out and to save as many Jews as he could
Sol Urbach, Schindlerjude
Schindler moved his operation to Plaszow and bribed Amon Göth to do so and build a sub camp around the factory, whilst still maintaining a relationship with him. Göth allowed Schindler to do whatever he wanted inside the sub camp in Plaszow, which Schindler took to his advantage. The Jews who worked for Schindler inside his camp were given adequate food and living quarters, banning the SS from entering the camp.
As Germany realised it was on a track to losing the war, Göth ordered all Jews to be moved to Auschwitz to be killed. Schindler managed to, at a large personal expense, to get Amon to allow him to take all his workers to Brunnlitz to set up another factory there.
Amon asked him to make a list of every name he needed for his new factory. This list included 1,100 Jewish names. However, Schindler was unable to write it in person, as the SS had arrested Göth for his black market dealings via Schindler. Schindler was ratted out by Göth and also arrested. He assigned Marcel Goldberg to prepare the list.
One page of Schindler’s List. The list ended up being almost 20 pages long
Every man on the list was successfully sent to Brunnlitz. However, a train carrying the women was sent to Auschwitz by mistake. Whilst in prison, Schindler scrambled to save the women from death, sending a representative down to stop the extermination. Despite a very close call with death, all the women were moved safely to Brunnlitz. By now, Schindler had spent a lot of money on bribes, black market dealings and saving the lives of the Jews. He spent the last of his money on decent clothes for his workers. His workers spent the last days of the war intentionally making faulty guns in order to hinder the Nazi war effort as much as possible.
Once the war was over, Schindler was penniless but had saved 1,100 lives from the hands of the Nazis. However, because he was a member of the Nazi Party, a war profiteer and a profiteer of slave labour, he had to go into hiding in Argentina. He left his wife in 1957 and sailed back to West Germany. He died, poor, with a collapsed business and a failed marriage in 1974. However, for those few years, he would recieve small donations from the thousand lives he had saved from the clutches of evil. Amon Göth was hanged for crimes against humanity. The people he saved named themselves the Schindlerjuden, in his honour. Schindler’s name was added to the Avenue of the Righteous in Israel, a place were those who saved Jews during the Holocaust and risked their lives doing so. He was buried upon Mount Zion in Israel. Over 8,500 people are alive because of Schindler’s actions that wouldn’t have been otherwise.
Oskar Schindler’s grave covered in stones, a sign of respect for the dead in Judaism
Schindler’s story was turned into a book, Schindler’s Ark, by Thomas Keneally which was inspired by Poldek Pfefferberg, a Schindlerjude. The book was later adapted into the 1993 film Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley. It was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won 7, including Best Picture. It is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.
Liam Neeson (left) and Ben Kinglsey (right) portraying Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern respectively in Schindler’s List
By July, 1944, the war was turning sour for Germany.
A map of the Front Lines by July 15th, 1944 (Allies – red, Axis – white, neutral – grey)
After a disastrous loss of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, the German army was on the run from the Soviets, who had begun to enter Poland. On the Western front, the Allies had made an incredible landing at Normandy, whilst an allied invasion was coming up from the south through Italy, where the Germans were assisting their allies. Germany was now fighting a war on three fronts and losing. Many Nazis began to blame Hitler’s mismanagement. Some of these men wanted Hitler gone. One of these men was Claus von Stauffenberg.
A photo of Stauffenberg before the accident
Claus von Stauffenberg was a general in the German Army. He had been severely wounded in North Africa, losing his right hand, two fingers on his left hand and his left eye. While agreeing with many of Hitler’s nationalist policies, he believed that the war would do nothing but run Germany into the ground. During his time in Russia before the accident, he was appalled by the treatment of the citizens there, especially the Jewish ones, by the SS. He believed that the only way to stop the war was to stop Hitler, and the only way to stop Hitler was by killing him. And by 1943, he had met the right man to do it.
Henning von Tresckow was a major general and the leader of a small conspiracy group inside the Nazi high command. Tresckow used to be a staunch Hitler supporter until the Invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Not only that but he knew about the Holocaust and felt he had a moral responsibility to stop this mad tyrant.
A photo of Tresckow
Tresckow had previously made attempts himself to kill Hitler. One famous one was in March of 1943, where he had given Heinz Brandt, a lieutenant colonel who was travelling with Hitler, a box containing two bottles of Cointreau. However, the box instead contained a bomb which would be detonated by a crushed capsule of acid, with the intent that the bomb would explode during the flight from Smolensk to Prussia. However, the bomb was stored in the cold cargo hold, whereupon the acid detonator had frozen over and Hitler landed in Prussia unscathed. Thankfully, Tresckow had managed to take a flight to Prussia, swap out the bomb with two bottles and disarm the bomb.
Stauffenberg joined the conspiracy and had eventually rose the ranks to become one of its leaders along side Tresckow. They came up with a new plan, wherein Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche would detonate a British hand grenade at a meeting he would have with Hitler, showing the new Wermacht Uniforms. However, an allied bombing raid on a train shipment delayed their plans, as the train contained the new uniforms. Not only that but during this time, Bussche was seriously wounded and had to have his leg amputated. They now had to find a new man to kill Hitler. This man would be Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, who was only 21 at the time. However, Hitler cancelled on short notice and, once again, the plot could not go through. Eventually, the meeting finally took place on July 7th, 1944, with Hellmuth Stieff as the new assassin. However, Stieff backed out, most likely because he did not want to end his life. The bomb did not detonate and Hitler walked free.
However, the conspiracy went on and this time Stauffenberg wanted to take matters into his own hands. Not only did he want to kill Hitler but also take out the entire Nazi Regime.
On July 20th, Stauffenberg and his aide, Werner von Haeften flew to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Headquarters in Prussia. They find out that the meeting had been pushed forward by half an hour due to a visit from Benito Mussolini. Stauffenberg and Haeften rushed into a room, planning on activating two bombs and placing them in Stauffenberg’s briefcase, which would then be placed under the table in the room where the meting was held. Stauffenberg would then leave the room and the bombs would detonate. The meeting was intended to be held in an undergound bunker in the Wolf’s Lair, which would mean that the pressure of the explosion would certainly kill Hitler. Stauffenberg managed to arm one bomb, before they are interrupted, being informed that the meeting was starting. He handed the unarmed bomb to Haeften before entering the meeting.
A diagram of the room where the bomb went off. Survivors are marked in green, casualties in red, the bomb in yellow and Hitler in blue
The plan had now reached a second hiccup. Due to the weather, the conference was being held upstairs in a ventialted room with open windows. The pressure plan would not work. Stauffenberg decided to place the bomb on the left side of the table leg on the right end of the table. Hitler and the bomb were only separated by 1.3 metres. Stauffenberg then gives his briefing on the Eastern front before quickly leaving the room to take an important phone call. Once he leaves, the briefcase was moved to the other side of the table leg. At 12:42, Hitler then leaned over the table to discuss more in depth plans. At this exact moment, the bomb went off.
Stauffenberg watched the explosion 20 metres back from the building. He was very confident that Hitler was dead. He then drove out of the lair with Haeften, tossing the unarmed bomb into the forest. The next step of the plan was about to commence, Operation Valkyrie.
Operation Valkyrie was originally intended to deal with domestic disturbances inside the German Reich and orders to commence the operation would be issued to the reserves. It would implement in the event of a general breakdown in national civil order. It was made by General Friedrich Olbricht, who later became a member of the conspiracy. However, he, Tresckow and Stauffenberg modified the plan to detail that in the event of Hitler’s death, the Nazi Regime would be abolished. However, General Friedrich Fromm was the only one allowed to authorise the plan. Fromm was confronted and decided to remain silent on the matter but declined to be directly involved.
Olbricht was recieving two conflicting messages. From one line, he was being told Hitler was still alive and on the other Stauffenberg was insisting Hitler was dead. Eventually, he gave the go ahead and the reserves began to mobilise, with the orders to arrest High Ranking officials, including SS officers, framing them for a coup. The conspirators would then form a government which would appeal more to the allies and attempt to negotiate peace from there.
Eventually, a group of reserves commanded by Otto Ernst Remer began surrounding the Ministry of Propaganda, with the intent of arresting Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. However, Goebbels handed Remer the telephone in his office.
Do you recognise my voice?
Hitler on the other end of the line
Hitler had survived the explosion, meaning that Operation Valkyrie could not go through. Remer was ordered to crush the plot as fast as possible. Eventually, the Bendlerblock, the headquarters of the conspiracy, was laid under siege by the Wermacht. Fromm, betraying the conspirators in order to not be caught, rounded up the conspirators. 4 of them were executed in the courtyard of the building, including Olbricht, Haeften, another conspirator called Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg’s final words were:
Long live sacred Germany!
Stauffenberg’s last words
Many of the other conspirators who were not arrested either committed suicide or went into hiding in the following weeks. Many families of the conspirators were also arrested. over 5,000 people were executed for, indirectly or not, being a part of the conspiracy. Erwin Rommel, the famous North African Tank commander, was rumoured to be a part of the conspiracy. Many movies have been made about the sacrifice of these brave men, most notably in 2008, where Mission Impossible Star, Tom Cruise, portrayed Stauffenberg. It was filmed on location in the Bendlerblock, where director Bryan Singer lead the crew in a minute of silence to honour the dead before filming began. In 1980, a memorial museum was opened in honour of these men who, in the face of evil, risked their lives to try and stop that evil from spreading.
The street sign for Stauffenbergstaße in Berlin, named after Stauffenberg. Upon this road is the Bendlerblock
By July of 1942, Operation Barbarossa had been raging for over a year. The United States had entered the war and with no signs of Britain surrendering despite the U-Boat warfare and bombing campaign, Hitler decided to turn his back on his old ally and invade the Soviet Union. For the last 13 months, the operation had raged on and they were beginning to fall short of key objectives. One important thing that the Germans were lacking was oil. They were now over 1,000 miles into foreign territory and, with the Russian scorched earth tactic, supply lines were running thin.
Hitler and his generals in a war room
In one last ditch effort to find some more oil. Hitler set his eyes on the Caucuses, an oil rich area of the Soviet Union in modern day Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, Hitler added a new objective to the plan. He believed that in order to secure the Caucuses, they would need to capture the key city of Stalingrad.
Stalingrad, named after General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was a massive supply hub, due to its bountiful number of factories and a massive transport hub. Despite this, German High Command did not believe that Stalingrad was a very important objective, who thought that Army Group South should flank the Caucuses by pushing through to Astrakhan and then the armies would go down from there. However, Hitler believed that they should split Army Group South in half from the onset, and assigning Friedrich Paulus and his 6th Army to capture Stalingrad.
A photo of a building in Stalingrad before the war
The advance was swift and forceful, and the city was very close to being surrounded. However, due to the advance the supply line was even thinner. Some in the 6th Army resorted to eating their own horses to prevent themselves from starvation. 1/4 of the casualties from the 6th thus far had been due to disease rather than bullets.
Meanwhile, Stalin had prepped for a change of plans. Wanting to keep the city named after himself, he had built a large number of tanks, placing all his reserves in the city. On the 28th of July, Stalin issued his infamous order 227.
Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters!
An excerpt from Order 227
Any officer or soldier who did not comply with the order would, most likely, be shot on sight. After a large Luftwaffe attack, the 6th Army pushed into Stalingrad, managing to seize much of the suburbs. The Soviet Divisions were now split in two, with the 62nd and 64th armies shipping supplies and reinforcements across the Volga River, whilst under heavy bombardment from the Luftwaffe.
A map of Stalingrad’s frontlines
The Russians are ordered to stay close to German lines, in order to stop air support out of fear that Hitler would bomb his own men. The unique urban combat of Stalingrad had begun, with most gunfights engaging within spitting distance of the enemy. The German advance slowed but pushes into the city were still made. The Soviet Divisions in Stalingrad were on their last legs, until the Russian secret weapon eventually came.
The winter soon began to set in. The already hungry Germans were also beginning to feel the effects of the cold. The German advance either halted or slowed to a crawl, allowing Soviet High Command to recuperate and form a plan of counter assault. Whilst the plan is being formed, Paulus, orders another assault. The Germans manage to push back the Soviet forces to a small sliver of land against the Volga. However, having suffered 60,000 casualties, the battered and hungry German army cannot advance. A stalemate began to set in
Barmaley Fountain in the middle of the war torn city
Eventually, Georgy Zhukov, one of the key Russian Generals in the defence of the city, unleashes his master stroke. Operation Neptune goes ahead on November 19th, with 10 entire armies, totalling 1 million men, push through the German line, managing to encircle the German 6th and 4th armies, taking out the Romanian 5th corps, inside the city in only 3 days.
With supply lines cut off, Hitler decided to airlift supplies into Stalingrad. However, for reasons unknown, only army supplies, such as ammunition, was dropped and not food and clean water, a dire resource in the war torn city. Not only that but he also ordered 500 tons of said supplies to be dropped into the city, despite Paulus claiming that they needed 700 and the Luftwaffe saying they could only manage 300. Many Germans starved whilst the wounded succumbed to the elements, dying of hypothermia as winter truly began.
Around Christmas, Erich von Manstein, head of the Wehrmacht, ordered a push through the soviet line in order to relieve the 6th and 4th Army. However, due to orders from the Fuhrer, and dwindling numbers, Paulus did not attempt to meet up with Manstein’s men. Thousands more die in this attempted breakthrough. With no ammunition or food, the Germans are offered 2 surrenders by Zhukov, both of which Hitler orders Paulus to deny. by this time only 40,000 men of the 300,000 who initially marched on Stalingrad are still alive, whilst there are 18,000 men who are injured and yet untreated due to the lack of medical supplies. The situation became even more dire once the Soviets capture the last airfield that could be used for airdrops into Stalingrad. Despite his failure, and the German force in Stalingrad being split in two, Paulus received a promotion to Field Marshal, from Hitler himself. However, Hitler knew that there has never been a single Field Marshal ever who has been taken alive. Hitler had just signed Paulus’ death warrant.
Eventually, the Russians found his base of operations in a worn out department store basement, with the southern part of the army falling not long after that. The Soviets took mercy on Paulus, who lived out the rest of his life in East Germany until 1957. He is the only Field Marshal to ever be taken prisoner. The commander of the northern pocket also subtly requested that his men surrender. 11,000 German insurgents did not surrender and it would not be until March of 1943 before Stalingrad was clear of a German presence.
Many historians cite Stalingrad as a key turning point in the war. If Stalingrad had been captured, it would’ve been a catastrophic loss of life and morale for the Red Army. Thankfully, Hitler’s forces were pushed all the way back to Berlin thanks to the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, leading to the death of Hitler in April, 1945, and the end of the war in Europe. However, it came at a heavy cost. The Battle of Stalingrad was and still is the single deadliest battle in human history.
Within Hitler’s Third Reich, the name Reinhard Heydrich was always whispered with much more than just a hint of fear. Appointed to Director of the Nazi Secret Police, named the Gestapo, Heydrich was as loyal to the Führer as he was ruthless and brutal with his enemies. He also was Director of the Reich Security Main Office and the Deputy to the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, who viewed Heydrich as his loyal protege and right hand man. As one of the main architects behind the Holocaust, he created the system that would lead to 6 million Jews being murdered simply for their ethnicity, most of whom were killed in the gas chambers. Hitler nicknamed him “The Man with the Iron Heart”.
A photo of Reinhard Heydrich
After a large resistance movement had built up in the Protectorate of Bohemia in Moravia, a Nazi Protectorate created out of the modern day Czech Republic, Hitler fired Konstantin von Neurath as Protector and Heydrich was appointed as Protector in September of 1941. Here, Heydrich ruled with an iron fist. Within his first week, he ordered to public hanging of 142 people.
Meanwhile, the exiled Czechoslovak Government in London were becoming increasingly unpopular. Whilst resistance in other Nazi conquered territories, such as Poland and France, were seen as brave heroes, the Czech resistance were merely content with sabotaging a couple factories. Destined to prove themselves, they informed British Intelligence that they would assassinate Heydrich. The name of the mission would be Operation Anthropoid.
Two men were assigned to the mission, Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík, two former Captains in the Czech Army. The pair, along with some half a dozen commandos, parachuted into a wooded area just outside Prague.
A photo of Gabčík (right) and Kubiš (left)
By now, Heydrich’s mission to pacify the protectorate was complete, not just employing brutality but kindness where necessary, in an effort to distract the population from his crimes. In fact, he felt so confident in achieving his mission that he felt comfortable driving around in an open top car, armed with only handgun, with his driver also equipped with just a handgun.
Having been in Prague for five months and making little progress, Kubiš and Gabčík became increasingly frustrated. However, a plan was soon devised. On his morning route to work, Heydrich would go around a hairpin corner near Bulovka Hospital. Due to the slow speed that the car would take at this time, they decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to strike.
An image of the corner where Heydrich was killed
On the morning of May 27th, 1942, Gabčík and Kubiš stood at a tram stop, with a Sten gun and an anti-tank grenade respectively hidden on their persons. As Heydrich’s car turned the corner, Gabčík revealed himself and his gun from underneath his raincoat. Attempting to open fire, his gun had jammed, allowing Heydrich to order the driver to stop so he could shoot back with his Luger. This allowed Kubiš to roll the grenade underneath the car, where it exploded, sending shrapnel flying which wounded Heydrich fatally in his diaphragm, spleen and lungs. Kubiš grabbed a bicycle and tore off, whilst Gabčík escaped on foot. Heydrich also followed on foot, having ordered his driver to go after Kubiš. However, Heydrich, a well known sportsman, ran out of breath after a short pursuit. He looked down to find that he was bleeding from the side.
Despite hospital treatment, his wound became infected with sepsis and he collapsed on June 3rd, 1942, being declared dead the next day. Some suspected that horse hair from the lining of his car and been forced into his body during the explosion. Others suspect it was a pulmonary embolism whilst others believe that the grenade had been laced with botulism as a biological weapon, which potentially ended up in his body during the explosion. However, this last theory is possibly eronious as both Kubiš and a bystander were injured by the blast, neither of whom died. No matter how, the Butcher of Prague was dead.
His state funeral was held on June 7th 1942. Whilst Goebbels weaponised the assassination as pro-German propaganda, Hitler privately blamed Heydrich for his own demise.
Since it is opportunity which makes not only the thief but also the assassin, such heroic gestures as driving in an open, unarmoured vehicle or walking about the streets unguarded are just damned stupidity, which serves the Fatherland not one whit. That a man as irreplaceable as Heydrich should expose himself to unnecessary danger, I can only condemn as stupid and idiotic.
Hitler speaking on Heydrich
A photo of Hitler and Heydrich’s funeral
However, he was still angered with the Czechs. He immediately ordered the massacre of 10,000 randomly selected Czech civillians, in what would become known as the Lidice Massacre. Every male in the village was shot on sight, whilst the females were sent to concentration camps. The village was then set alight whilst all the animals in the village were rounded up and shot. A similar massacre was then carried out in the village of Ležáky. The SS filmed the massacre that they perpetrated, intending it as a message to the world.
A photo of SS Soldiers standing over the bodies of the villagers of Lidice
An informant ratted out the location of Gabčík and Kubiš, who were located in the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. They held off a group of nearly 800 SS Soldiers for quite some time, before the two committed suicide. In his “honour” the Operation to build Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibór extermination camps was called Operation Reinhard. In the twilight of the war, Heydrich’s grave was destroyed by the Soviet Army.
