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Peter Stevens (RAF Officer)
Peter Stevens (born Georg Franz Hein; 15 February 1919 – 16 July 1979) was a German Jew who flew bombers in the British Royal Air Force in World War II. As an enemy alien living in London in the late 1930s, Hein assumed the identity of a dead schoolfriend in order to join the RAF at the outbreak of hostilities. Shot down on a bombing raid, he was captured by the Germans and held a prisoner of war. Aware that if his true identity was discovered he would be regarded as a traitor he made repeated escape attempts, but was always recaptured. Liberated from the POW camp at the end of the war, he finally obtained British citizenship. In 1947 he transferred to MI6's East German section, retaining his RAF commission. After leaving MI6 he emigrated to Canada in 1952, embarking on a business career. Early life Stevens was born Georg Franz Hein, on 15 February 1919 in Hanover, Germany, a member of a wealthy German-Jewish family. In 1934 his widowed mother sent him to school in Englan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany after Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. Hanover's urban area comprises the towns of Garbsen, Langenhagen and Laatzen and has a population of about 791,000 (2018). The Hanover Region has approximately 1.16 million inhabitants (2019). The city lies at the confluence of the River Leine and its tributary the Ihme, in the south of the North German Plain, and is the largest city in the Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region. It is the fifth-largest city in the Low German dialect area after Hamburg, Dortmund, Essen and Bremen. Before it became the capital of Lower Saxony in 1946, Hannover was the capital of the Principality of Calenberg (1636–1692), the Electorate of Hanover (1692–1814), the Kingdom of H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, most populous city, as measured by population within city limits having gained this status after the United Kingdom's, and thus London's, Brexit, departure from the European Union. Simultaneously, the city is one of the states of Germany, and is the List of German states by area, third smallest state in the country in terms of area. Berlin is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and Brandenburg's capital Potsdam is nearby. The urban area of Berlin has a population of over 4.5 million and is therefore the most populous urban area in Germany. The Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan reg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History Af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Buckley
James Brian Buckley, ( – 21 March 1943) was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm pilot who became a notable prisoner of war during the Second World War. He died during an escape attempt on 21 March 1943. Fleet Air Arm Buckley's naval career began in the mid-1920s. He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy with seniority from 15 June 1926. He then spent much of his early career attached to the Royal Air Force (which then controlled the naval aviation requirements of the British Armed Forces), interspersed with periods of other naval duties. He continued to receive regular promotions within the Royal Navy during this period, to lieutenant on 1 December 1928, and lieutenant commander on 1 December 1936. Control of naval aviation returned to the Admiralty in 1939. Buckley assumed command of No. 825 Squadron Fleet Air Arm in January 1940, which was equipped with Fairey Swordfish aircraft. With the squadron, Buckley operated from and from RAF Hal Far on Malta. When the ship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ash (pilot)
William Franklin Ash MBE (30 November 1917 – 26 April 2014) was an American-born British writer, broadcaster and Marxist, who served as a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He was shot down, made a prisoner of war, and was noted as an escaper. Early life Born into a lower-middle-class family in Dallas, Texas, Ash was a migrant worker during the U.S. Great Depression, and graduated from the University of Texas with a BA degree, writing privileged pupils' essays to gain money and also for his personal development as an author. Around this time, the Spanish Civil War broke out, and the largely apolitical Ash, driven by a hatred of bullies and fascism, decided that if the war was still going when he turned 21, being old enough to fight, he would join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. World War II service Ash enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force at Windsor, Ontario, on 22 June 1940. He did his basic training at No.1 Initial Training School from 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Day
Harry Melville Arbuthnot Day, (3 August 1898 – 11 March 1977) was a Royal Marine and later a Royal Air Force pilot during the Second World War. As a prisoner of war, he was senior British officer in a number of camps and a noted escapee. Early life Day was born in Sarawak on Borneo on 3 August 1898, and grew up there. His grandfather had been a major in the 66th Foot before forming a private army for Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah of Sarawak. The army became known as the Sarawak Rangers. Day's father joined the Rajah's service and became a Sarawak resident.'Wings Day' by Sydney Smith page 26 Day's great-uncle was George Fiott Day, who had won the Victoria Cross during the Crimean War. He is also a descendant of George Miller Bligh, who was an officer on during the Battle of Trafalgar. Day was sent to England and was educated at Haileybury College, where he joined the Officers Cadet Corps. While on manoeuvres, he was wounded when shot in the back with a blank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oflag XXI-B
Oflag XXI-B and Stalag XXI-B were World War II German prisoner-of-war camps for officers and enlisted men, located at Szubin a few miles southwest of Bydgoszcz, Poland, which at that time was occupied by Nazi Germany. Timeline * September 1939 – The Germans established a camp for arrested Polish civilians, mostly the intelligentsia, arrested as part of the '' Intelligenzaktion''. * October 1939 – First Polish soldiers captured during the German Invasion of Poland (1939) brought to Szubin, ''Kriegsgefangenenlager Schubin'' prisoner-of-war camp for Poles established. The camp was built around a Polish boys' school by adding barracks. Polish POWs were used for the expansion of the camp. * December 1939 - The Germans formally established the Stalag XXI-B2 POW camp in Szubin, and the Stalag XXI-B1 POW camp in Antoniewo near Skoki, both for Polish POWs. * March-May 1940 - Polish POWs were transferred to other camps, located in Germany. * June 1940 - French officers were bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dominic Bruce
Dominic Bruce, (7 June 1915 – 12 February 2000) was a British Royal Air Force officer, known as the "Medium Sized Man." He has been described as "the most ingenious escaper" of the Second World War. He made seventeen attempts at escaping from POW camps, including several attempts to escape from Colditz Castle, a castle that housed prisoners of war "deemed incorrigible". Famed for his time in Colditz, Bruce also escaped from Spangenberg Castle and the Warburg POW camp. In Spangenberg Castle he escaped with the ''Swiss Red Cross Commission escape'', it is also argued he co-innovated the wooden horse escape technique while serving time inside Spangenberg. In Warburg he escaped dressed as a British orderly in a fake workers party. Inside Colditz Castle, Bruce authored the ''Tea Chest Escape'' and also faced a firing squad for an attempted escape via a sewer tunnel. While held in solitude in Colditz Bruce, along with two other prisoners, became a key witness to the post war Musk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pete Tunstall
Peter David Tunstall (1 December 1918 – 27 July 2013) was a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and a prisoner of war (POW) held at Colditz Castle. He holds the record for the most time spent by an Allied POW in solitary confinement. Early life Tunstall was born in Chadwell St Mary, Essex, in 1918 and moved to the nearby village of Orsett at the age of three. As a schoolboy he took his first flying lesson from a local airfield, paid for by shooting and selling rabbits to his local butcher. He joined the RAF in 1937 and trained at No 61 Squadron at Hemswell in Lincolnshire and eventually became a Hampden pilot. During his RAF training he was told by A.J. Evans – a World War I Royal Flying Corps pilot and double prisoner-of-war escapee – that if he was captured, "Your first duty was to try to escape. Your second duty was to be as big a bloody nuisance as possible to the enemy." Tunstall took the advice to heart. Second World War Tunsta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oflag VI-B
Oflag VI-B was a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp for officers (''Offizerlager''), southwest of the village of Dössel (now part of Warburg) in Germany. Camp history In 1939, before it was a POW camp, the area was originally planned to be an airfield. The POW camp was opened in September 1940. At first French, and then British officers were housed there. The serial escaper Eric Foster in his autobiography explained that upon arrival he chatted to a guard to ask about the conditions of the camp. Foster explained the guard confided, “the camp was a very, very bad camp indeed.” Foster stressed that this guard desperately wanted the prisoners to complain about the conditions, with the guard believing that if they harassed the camp command about the conditions, the camp would be closed down. The guard, who wanted an easier posting also stated to Foster, “We are prisoners as much as you are.” Foster explained the prisoners were housed in huts which held 50 to 60 men. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism (german: Hitlerfaschismus). The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War. Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist ''Völkisch movement, Völkisch'' movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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