Germany
At the Arnhem Bridge
RAF aerial reconnaissance photo of the Arnhem road bridge on 19 September, showing signs of the British defence on the northern ramp and the wrecked German vehicles from the previous day’s fighting. The composition of the force at the bridge did not change at all after most of the 2nd Battalion’s B Company and the other men who had been…
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Operation Bagration – Nazi Germany’s Greatest Defeat!
Operation Bagration began on June 22, 1944—three years to the day after the German invasion. The Red Army struck in the initial phase alone with 1.25 million men, more than 4,000 tanks and assault guns, more than 23,000 guns, mortars, and Katyushas, and almost 6,500 aircraft. Army Group Center simply…
Growing up in Nazi Germany…
Melita Maschmann was a member of the BDM (League of German Girls). Her autobiography, Fazit: Kein Rechtfertigungsversuch (1963), is a controversial account of her Nazi past. This article shows how, through frameworks of racialised and gendered victimhood, concepts of nationhood are embroiled not only within persistent, competing Nazi ideologies but…
Film: Cadets (1939)
“Cadets” is a German film made during World War Two, so of course it advances the propaganda of the Reich. But this is actually a well-made and entertaining movie, in spite of its political agenda. The Nazis devoted a substantial amount of resources (often including slave labour) to well-made, elaborate…
The mystery of Hitler’s ‘spyclists’
By Sanchia BergToday programme Summer 1937. What could be more fitting in the cool afternoon of an English country lane than a group of cycling tourists steadily pedalling their way from one historic site to another, stopping to camp overnight in fields along the way. The only problem was, that…
Hitler’s Boy Soldiers in Normandy Part I
In the summer of 1944, the mostly teenage soldiers of the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Division threw itself against the mighty Allied onslaught to retake Europe. By Jon Latimer The pivotal and terrifying battle for Normandy’s beaches lay only hours ahead. Experienced soldiers, what few the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment…
Hitler’s Boy Soldiers in Normandy Part II
The Germans were now forced to commit their last reserves to stem the tide, but on June 27, the British advance resumed. The Commonwealth soldiers managed to capture Hill 112 the next day. The Germans clung on for a while but then withdrew, and by the 29th the British had…