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London Cage
The London Cage was an MI19 prisoner-of-war facility during and after the Second World War to mainly interrogate captured Germans, including SS personnel and members of the Nazi Party. The unit, which was located within numbers 6, 7 and 8 Kensington Palace Gardens in London, was itself investigated following accusations that it often used torture to extract information. It was wound down in early 1948. History The United Kingdom systematically interrogated all of its prisoners of war. A "cage" for interrogation of prisoners was established in 1940 in each command area of the United Kingdom, manned by officers trained by Alexander Scotland, the head of the Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (PWIS) of the Intelligence Corps (Field Security Police). The prisoners were sent to prison camps after their interrogation at the cages. Nine cages were established from southern England to Scotland, with the London Cage also being "an important transit camp". The cages varied in fac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Borough Of Kensington And Chelsea
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (often known by its initialism as RBKC) is an Inner London, Inner London borough with Royal borough, royal status. It is the List of English districts by area, smallest borough in London and the second smallest Districts of England, district in England; it is one of the most densely populated administrative regions in the United Kingdom. It includes affluent areas such as Notting Hill, Kensington, South Kensington, Chelsea, London, Chelsea, and Knightsbridge. The borough is immediately west of the City of Westminster and east of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It contains major museums and universities in Albertopolis, department stores such as Harrods, Peter Jones (department store), Peter Jones and Harvey Nichols, and embassies in Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Kensington Gardens. The borough is home to the Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's largest, and contains many of the most expensive residential properties in the world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Knöchlein
Fritz Knöchlein (27 May 1911 – 21 January 1949) was a Nazi SS commander during WWII. He was tried, convicted and executed in 1949 for committing war crimes during World War II, specifically his responsibility for the Le Paradis massacre which took place on his 29th birthday. Le Paradis Massacre It was in his capacity as an SS company commander that he gained notoriety, being responsible for the 27 May 1940 massacre of British prisoners-of-war at Le Paradis in the Pas-de-Calais. Ninety-nine members of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, who had surrendered to his unit in a cattle shed, were stood in front of the barn wall, and Knöchlein ordered two machine-guns turned on them, followed by bayoneting and shooting any apparent survivors. Two of the prisoners, privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan, managed to escape the massacre, but the remaining 97 were hastily buried along the barn wall. According to the historians Williamson Murray and Allan Millet: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)
Special Branch was a unit in the Metropolitan Police in London, formed as a counter-terrorism unit in 1883 and merged with another unit to form Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) in 2006. It maintained contact with the Security Service (MI5) and had responsibility for, among other things, personal protection of (non-royal) VIPs and performing the role of examining officer at designated ports and airports, as prescribed by the Terrorism Act 2000. History In response to the escalating terror campaign in Britain carried out by the militant Irish Fenians in the 1880s, the Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt established the first counter-terrorism unit ever in 1883, named Special Irish Branch, to combat Irish republican terrorism through infiltration and subversion. It initially formed a section of the Criminal Investigation Department within the London Metropolitan Police. Harcourt envisioned a permanent unit dedicated to the prevention of politically motivated violence throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Office
The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at which point its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from this source, which is available under th Open Government Licence v3.0 © Crown copyright It was equivalent to the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty at that time, which was responsible for the Royal Navy (RN), and (much later) the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'Old War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March 2016 by HM Government for more than British pound, £350 million, on a 250-year lease for conversion int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III (; literally "Main Camp, Air, III"; SL III) was a ''Luftwaffe''-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel. The camp was established in March 1942 near the town of Sagan, Lower Silesia, in what was then Nazi Germany (now Żagań, Poland), south-east of Berlin. The site was selected because its sandy soil made it difficult for POWs to escape by tunnelling. It is best known for two escape plots by Allied POWs. One was in 1943 and became the basis of a fictionalised film, '' The Wooden Horse'' (1950), based on a book by escapee Eric Williams. The second breakout—the so-called Great Escape—of March 1944, was conceived by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was authorised by the senior British officer at Stalag Luft III, Herbert Massey. A fictionalised version of the escape was depicted in the film '' The Great Escape'' (1963), which was based on a book by for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalag Luft III Murders
The Stalag Luft III murders were war crimes perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the " Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 successful escapees, 73 were recaptured, most within several days of the breakout, 50 of whom were executed on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler. These executions were conducted shortly after the prisoners' recapture. Outrage at the killings was expressed immediately, both in the prison camp, among comrades of the escaped prisoners and in the United Kingdom, where Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden rose in the House of Commons to announce in June 1944 that those guilty of what the British government suspected was a war crime would be "brought to exemplary justice." After Nazi Germany's capitulation in May 1945, the Police branch of the Royal Air Force, with whom the 50 airmen had been serving, launched an investigation into the killings, having branded th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sepp Dietrich
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (28 May 1892 – 21 April 1966) was a German politician, general and war criminal in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) during the Nazi era. Despite having no formal staff officer training, Dietrich was, along with Paul Hausser, the highest-ranking officer in the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Prior to 1929, Dietrich was Adolf Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard. Reaching the rank of ''SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer'', he commanded units up to army level during World War II. As commanding officer of the 6th Panzer Army during the Battle of the Bulge, Dietrich bore responsibility for the Malmedy massacre, the murder of U.S. prisoners of war in December 1944. After the war, an American military tribunal convicted Dietrich of war crimes at the Malmedy massacre trial. Upon his release from Landsberg Prison in 1955, Dietrich became active in HIAG, a lobby group esta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indiana University Press
Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes approximately 100 new books annually, in addition to 38 academic journals, and maintains a current catalog comprising some 2,000 titles. Indiana University Press primarily publishes in the following areas: African, African American, Asian, cultural, Jewish, Holocaust, Middle Eastern studies, Russian and Eastern European, and women's and gender studies; anthropology, film studies, folklore, history, bioethics, music, paleontology, philanthropy, philosophy, and religion. IU Press undertakes extensive regional publishing under its Quarry Books imprint. History IU Press began in 1950 as part of Indiana University's post-war growth under President Herman B Wells. Bernard Perry, son of Harvard philosophy professor Ralph Barton Per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jakob Sporrenberg
Jakob Sporrenberg (16 September 1902 – 6 December 1952) was a German Nazi Party politician and member of the SS. He rose to the rank of SS-''Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei'' and held several major commands. During the Second World War, he was the SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in Minsk and in Lublin. He was responsible for overseeing and implementing Operation Harvest Festival, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 40,000 to 43,000 Jews. After the war, Sporrenberg stood trial in Poland, was convicted in 1950 of war crimes and sentenced to death. He was executed in December 1952. Early life Jakob Sporrenberg was born in Düsseldorf, the son of a gardener, and attended the local ''Volksschule'' and vocational school from 1908 to 1919. From April 1916 to November 1918, he was also apprenticed as a mechanic at the Opel automotive company in Düsseldorf. Between 1919 and 1921, he served as a volunteer in a ''Freikorps'' rifle brigade with the (Eastern Bord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS And Police Leader
The title of SS and Police Leader (') designated a senior Nazi Party official who commanded various components of the SS and the German uniformed police (''Ordnungspolizei''), before and during World War II in the German Reich proper and in the occupied territories. Levels Three levels of subordination were established for holders of this title: * SS and Police Leader (''SS- und Polizeiführer'', SSPF) * Higher SS and Police Leader (''Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer'', HSSPF) * Supreme SS and Police Leader (''Höchster SS- und Polizeiführer'', HöSSPF) Establishment The office of ''Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer'' (Higher SS and Police Leader, HSSPF) was authorized by a decree of 13 November 1937, signed by Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick. This decree authorized the creation of HSSPF in each of the 13 German armed forces ''Wehrkreise'' (Military Districts) in the German Reich, but only in the event of mobilization. At that time, the HSSPF would serve as deputies un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ardenne Abbey Massacre
The Ardenne Abbey massacre occurred during the Battle of Normandy at the Ardenne Abbey, a Premonstratensian monastery in Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, near Caen, France. In June 1944, 20 Canadian soldiers were massacred in a garden at the abbey by members of the 12th SS Panzer Division ''Hitlerjugend'' over the course of several days and weeks. This was part of the Normandy Massacres, a series of scattered killings during which up to 156 Canadian prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division during the Battle of Normandy. The perpetrators of the massacre, members of the 12th SS Panzer Division, were known for their fanaticism, the majority having been drawn from the ''Hitlerjugend'' or Hitler Youth. POW killings During the Normandy Campaign, Waffen-SS '' Standartenführer'' Kurt Meyer, commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, used the Abbaye d’Ardenne for his regimental headquarters, as its towers gave a clear view of the batt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer)
Kurt Meyer (23 December 1910 – 23 December 1961) was an SS commander and convicted war criminal of Nazi Germany. He served in the Waffen-SS (the combat branch of the SS) and participated in the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, and other engagements during World War II. Meyer commanded the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend during the Allied invasion of Normandy, and was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. After ordering the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) several times during the conflict, Meyer was convicted of war crimes for his role in the Ardenne Abbey massacre (the murder of Canadian POWs in Normandy). He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Released in 1954, he subsequently became active in HIAG, a lobby group organised by former high-ranking Waffen-SS men. Meyer was a leading Waffen-SS apologist and HIAG's most effective spokesperson, depicting most of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
