Adolf Eichmann Captured in Buenos Aires
In May 1960 Israeli soldiers captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. Eichmann was taken to Israel where he was tried, found guilty and hung in 1962. Source: Wikipedia
West Germany joins North Atlantic Treaty Organization
https://youtu.be/0rICHFt7Gg4 In 1949, the Americans, British, and French combined their zones of occupation in West Germany to establish the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany). The Soviets responded by forming the Deutsche Demokratische Republik...
Riots in East Germany
In June 1953 a strike by construction workers in East Berlin against Soviet-inspired work standards, evolved into a series of demonstrations against declining living standards and unpopular Sovietization policies across the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)....
Cold War ~ Polish Movie
Cold War is a Polish film directed by Pawel Pawlikowski that stars Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot. The plot follows the passionate and fateful romance of a couple from the ruins of post-war Poland through Cold War East Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris. Shaped by politics,...
USSR Repatriates German POWs
https://youtu.be/5Skoh6n2SB4 In 1950, while releasing 17,538 German soldiers, the Soviet Union claimed it had completed repatriation of all WWII German POWs numbering 1,939,063. Since the Russian TASS news agency had reported 3.5 million German POWs held in the USSR...
D-Day
https://youtu.be/WNzPvxmYG1A 75 years ago today on June 6, 1944 U.S., British, and Canadian forces invaded Normandy France on five separate beachheads. By the end of August northern France was liberated, and the Allies were advancing into Germany. ...
Volkswagen in America
https://youtu.be/VUPCl1WUF-E VW Beetle In 1933 Adolf Hitler demanded the production of an inexpensive automobile capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/hr. After WWII British occupation forces in Germany ordered 20,000 Type I VW beetles...
Berlin Airlift
In June 1948, in response to Allied currency change in West Berlin, the Soviet Union closed vehicular and railroad entry routes through East Germany into the Western sectors of Berlin. The Western allies responded with daily flights to transport goods to West...
Every Man Dies Alone
In 1947 the highly-controversial East German author Hans Fallada published Jeder Stirbt für sich Allein (Every Man Dies Alone), a novel about an ordinary married couple who, after their son was killed in action in 1942, distributed dissident postcards and leaflets in...
WWII U-Boat Ace Dies at 105
U-Boat ace Reinhard Hardegen died this week at age 105. Although America's WWII enemy, Hardegen appears to have been an honorable warrior, revered by many today who are fascinated by the mystique of U-Boat warfare. ____________________ Captain of the infamous...
Wolves at the Doorstep 1942
Somewhere between the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Bataan death march and the fierce fighting on Guadalcanal, many of us seem to have forgotten one of the most important American theaters in early WWII - The Battle of the Western Atlantic. In 1942, German...
Man’s Search for Meaning
In 1946 the neuro-psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) chronicled his experience in Nazi concentration camps in his best-selling memoir Man's Search for Meaning. In this book, Frankl described how finding personal meaning allowed him to survive internment in Nazi...
Germany Divided
At the 1945 Potsdam conference, the four great Allied powers agreed to divide Germany into four administrative occupation zones. ...
Q Ship vs U-Boat
U-Boat ace Reinhard Hardegen (white hat) tells of U-123 ENCOUNTER WITH A Q SHIP in March 1942 Q-ships were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks that gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink...
Hitler’s Normal Voice
Adolf Hitler speaking with Carl Gustaf Mannerheim on a private train in Finland in 1942. So accustomed to the usual ranting nature of Adolf Hitler's speeches, we find it difficult to imagine his normal conversational tone. This is purported to be the only known...
Marshall Plan
Named after United States Secretary of State George Marshall (U.S. Army Chief of Staff during WWII), the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program) had bipartisan support in Washington. An American initiative to assist Western Europe with recovery after WWII, the...
Nuremberg Trials
From 1945-46, judges from Great Britain, France, USSR and USA presided over the Nuremberg trials of 24 prominent Nazis charged with war crimes. Charges included: crimes against peace—defined as participation in the planning and waging of a war of aggression in...
After the War
September 1945 - the war is over! ...You'll never know how many dreams I've dreamed about you Or how empty they all seem without you So kiss me once...and kiss me twice And kiss me once again It's been a long...long time It's been a mighty, mighty long time ...
Allies Occupy Germany
Your Job In Germany was a short film shown to US soldiers embarking on post-war occupation duty in Germany. Produced by the United States War Department in 1945, the film was made by a military film unit directed by Frank Capra and was written...
German POWS
Unlike the treatment of German POWs in the USA, the Allied treatment of German military prisoners in Europe at the end of the war is quite controversial. With titles like Eisenhower's Death Camps, The Real Holocaust, The Last Dirty Secret of WWII and Eisenhower...
Potsdam Conference
https://youtu.be/xQuQ38XgdI0 In July 1945, USSR Premier Joseph Stalin, the new American president Harry S. Truman, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain met in Potsdam Germany in the last Big Three meeting of WWII . At Potsdam, the Big Three leaders...
Under the Sand
From 1940-1943, the Danish government pursued a course of cautious cooperation with the occupying forces of Nazi Germany. However, in 1943, with increased turbulence and sabotage by the underground resistance movement, the Germans imposed a state of emergency and...
Post-War Germany
https://vimeo.com/126267047 23 May, 1945 — President of Germany Karl Dönitz and Chancellor of Germany Count Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by British forces at Flensburg. They are respectively the last German Head of state and Head of government until...
V-2 to Apollo – Wernher von Braun
https://youtu.be/4wIxsYk9UdI The German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was a complex character. Fascinated by astronomy since childhood, he studied at the Technische Hochschule Berlin and the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, receiving a bachelor's...
Nazi Germany Surrenders
https://youtu.be/DsIs9GRgQgs Grössadmiral Karl Dönitz Wikimedia On 20 April 1945, as the Nazi regime collapsed around him, Hitler appointed Grössadmiral Karl Dönitz as his successor, President of the Reich, Minister of War and Supreme Commander of the armed forces....