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Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp
Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour from many Eastern countries occupied by Germany (including evacuated survivors of eastern extermination camps), for extending the nearby tunnels in the Kohnstein and for manufacturing the V-2 rocket and the V-1 flying bomb. In the summer of 1944, ''Mittelbau'' became an independent concentration camp with numerous subcamps of its own. In 1945, most of the surviving inmates were sent on death marches or crammed in trains of box-cars by the SS. On 11 April 1945, US troops freed the remaining prisoners. The inmates at Dora-Mittelbau were treated in a brutal and inhumane manner, working 14-hour days and being denied access to basic hygiene, beds, and adequate rations. Around one in three of the roughly 60,000 prisoners who were sent to Dora- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raxwerke
Raxwerke or Rax-Werke was a facility of the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik at Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria. During World War II, the company also produced lamps for Panzer tanks and anti-aircraft guns. Two Raxwerke plants employed several thousand forced laborers from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp (on 20 June 1943 Mauthausen delivered ~500 prisoners to the Rax-Werke). Operations Part of the Eastern Works (V-2 facilities in the Vienna-Freidrichshafen area), the 30 meter-high Serbs hall at the Raxwerke was selected for V-2 manufacturing. A few V-2 center sections had been assembled by the Raxwerke when, on 2 November 1943, the US Fifteenth Air Force targeted the nearby Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke (WNF) plant in Operation Crossbow and hit the Raxwerke. Rax test equipment was subsequently moved to the site of the Redl-Zipf brewery in central Austria (code name Schlier) where V-2 test stands were built. Werner Dahm was sent from Peenemünde Army Research C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Kammler
Hans Kammler (26 August 1901 – after October 1945) was an SS-''Obergruppenführer'' responsible for Nazi civil engineering projects and its top secret V-weapons program. He oversaw the construction of various Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, before being put in charge of the V-2 rocket and Emergency Fighter Programs towards the end of World War II. Kammler disappeared in May 1945 during the final days of the war, although conjecture about his capture or death remains. Early life Kammler was born in Stettin, German Empire (now Szczecin, Poland). In 1919, after volunteering for army service, he served in the Rossbach ''Freikorps''. From 1919 to 1923, he studied civil engineering at the Technische Hochschule der Freien Stadt Danzig and Munich and was awarded his doctorate of engineering (Dr. Ing.) in November 1932, following some years of practical work in local building administration. Nazi activist In 1931, Kammler joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP), where he held a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Saur
Karl-Otto Saur (16 February 1902 – 28 July 1966) was a high ranking official in the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany and was named as ''Reichsminister'' of Munitions in Adolf Hitler’s will. Life Saur was an engineer by profession. After graduation, he joined Thyssen AG, where he became the director of the August Thyssen-Hütte. He was a member of the Nazi Party from 1931. He joined the National Socialist Guild of German Engineers and the Organisation Todt where he rose to be the right-hand man to Fritz Todt. When Todt became the first Minister of Armaments and Munitions in March 1940, Saur joined him in the new ministry. Following Todt's death in a 1942 plane crash, Saur became the Head of the Technical Department and reported directly to the new armaments minister Albert Speer. From 1 March 1944, he was Chief of Staff of the newly established ''Jägerstab'' (Fighter Staff), despite having no knowledge or experience with aircraft design or prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close friend and ally of Adolf Hitler, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison. An architect by training, Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. His architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the Party, and he became a member of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler commissioned him to design and construct structures, including the Reich Chancellery and the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, Nazi Party rally grounds in Nuremberg. In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for Berlin. In this capacity he was responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement that Nazi persecution of Jews, evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in Berlin. In February 1942, Speer was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previously used term (''Reich Defence'') and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to German rearmament, rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted. After the Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Nazi rise to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler's most overt and bellicose moves was to establish the ''Wehrmacht'', a modern offensively-capable armed force, fulfilling the Nazi regime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory as well as gaining new territory and dominating its neighbours. This required the reinstatement of conscription and massive investment and Military budget, defence spending on the arms industry. The ''Wehrmacht'' formed the heart of Germany's politico-military po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WIFO (Nazi Company)
Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft mbh (WiFo, ) was a Nazi Germany-owned company "charged with the construction and operation of solid fuel (natural and synthetic) storage depots." Chronology 1935 summer: At the suggestion of IG Farben I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, commonly known as IG Farben, was a German Chemical industry, chemical and Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It was formed on December 2, 1925 from a merger of six chemical co ..., the Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft (Wifo, Economic Research Ltd) investigated the Kohnstein mine to centralize a fuel and chemical depot. References German companies established in 1934 1945 disestablishments in Germany Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1934 Energy companies disestablished in 1945 Defunct energy companies of Germany {{Germany-WWII-stub Wirtschaftliche Forschungsgesellschaft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany. He is primarily known for being one of the main architects of the Holocaust. After serving in a reserve battalion during World War I without seeing combat, Himmler went on to join the Nazi Party in 1923. In 1925, he joined the SS, a small paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party that served as a bodyguard unit for Adolf Hitler. Subsequently, Himmler rose steadily through the SS's ranks to become by 1929. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS grew from a 290-man battalion into one of the most powerful institutions within Nazi Germany. Over the course of his career, Himmler acquired a reputation for good organisational skills as well as for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich. From 1943 onwards, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming Chancellor of Germany#Nazi Germany (1933–1945), the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of in 1934. His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the start of the Second World War. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of Holocaust victims, about six million Jews and millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and moved to German Empire, Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919 he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921 was app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Hydra (1943)
Operation Hydra was an attack by RAF Bomber Command on a German scientific research centre at Peenemünde on the night of 17/18 August 1943. Group Captain John Searby, commanding officer of No. 83 Squadron RAF, commanded the operation, the first time that Bomber Command used a master bomber to direct the attack of the main force. Hydra was the first operation against the German V-weapon programme, a campaign later known as "Crossbow". The British lost 40 bombers and 215 aircrew, and several hundred enslaved workers in the nearby Trassenheide forced labour camp were killed. The ''Luftwaffe'' lost twelve night-fighters and about 170 German civilian personnel were killed, including two V-2 rocket scientists. Assessments of the raids effectiveness vary; the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1945) called the raid "not effective", while in 2006 the historian Adam Tooze judged that it had been highly successful. Background German rocket research To evade the restriction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allies of World War I, Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has played History of the Royal Air Force, a significant role in Military history of the United Kingdom, British military history. In particular, during the Second World War, the RAF established Air supremacy, air superiority over Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, and led the Allied strategic bombing effort. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities nee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Constance
Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These waterbodies lie within the Lake Constance Basin () in the Alpine Foreland through which the Rhine flows. The nearby '' Mindelsee'' is not considered part of Lake Constance. The lake is situated where Germany, Switzerland, and Austria meet. Its shorelines lie in the German states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria; the Swiss cantons of St. Gallen, Thurgau, and Schaffhausen; and the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. The actual locations of the country borders within the lake are disputed. The Alpine Rhine forms, in its original course ( Alter Rhein), the Austro-Swiss border and flows into the lake from the south. The High Rhine flows westbound out of the lake and forms (with the exception of the Canton of Schaffhausen, Rafzerfeld and Bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
