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The Holocaust
The holocaust was, before the 1940's, a term assigned to sacrificial offerings that were burnt at an altar. After the war, the term was assigned to the genocide of the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other undesirables at the hands of the Germans. Undesirables were rounded up and placed into ghettos, where they were later transported to camps such as Dachau and Auschwitz. These camps were designed to force them into slave labor, starve them, or just exterminate them. The holocaust happened -
The Holocaust cont.
because Hitler managed to convince the Germans that the reason why they lost the war, and why they had been humiliated so terribly, was because of the Jews. Having a scapegoat, the people hopped on the bandwagon, and discriminated against the Jews whenever and wherever possible. After the war, when the undesirables were liberated from the camps, many preferred to leave Germany, Poland, and the other places where some of the worst times in their lives were had to go to "greener pastures," Jews in -
The Holocaust cont. 2
Jews in particular fought to establish Israel as a country, leaving a road of irony that I certainly find funny in the process. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust -
The Blitzkrieg
In the early years of the war, the German forces introduced a new strategy to the battlefield. The Germans called it "Bewegungskrieg" but the American and English radio stations gave it the term "Blitzkrieg." Blitzkrieg relied upon movement and momentum in order to rapidly overcome foes, attacking before the defenders had a chance to react, and was designed to stop the trench warfare that dominated World War One before it could happen again. In the Polish invasion, most of the German -
German Invasion of Poland
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland in order to achieve Lebensraum, or "living room" for the German people. Germany's casus belli was that a radio station in a border town had been attacked by Polish soldiers. In reality, the corpses at the radio were undesirables dressed up as Polish soldiers that had been planted there to give Germany a reason to attack. Germany used an attack strategy which would later become the blitzkrieg that Germany would become known for. Planes would bomb important -
German Invasion of Poland cont.
positions and locations, which would be followed by ground forces and tank support. Britain and France threatened to declare war on Germany if they didn't cease their attack on Poland, and due to Germany's continued aggression, declared war six months later after the defeat of Poland. After the war, the Soviet Union assumed control of Poland, saying that they would set up elections shortly. They lied. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/newsid_3506000/3506335.stm -
The Blitzkrieg cont. 2
Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxemborg, and France. The blitzkrieg was so successful that many other countries took notes and used it to their own advantage in future wars, such as certain operations in Desert Storm and other conflicts.
http://olive-drab.com/od_history_ww2_ops_battles_1940blitzkrieg.php
http://survincity.com/2012/05/the-tank-which-is-one-hundred-percent-fit-the-idea/ -
The Blitzkrieg cont.
military performing blitzkrieg wasn't mechanized, and ground forces consisting of sturmtruppen and horse-reliant infantry would overwhelm a position after the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, shook them up. Later in the war, the storming of a position would be largely dominated by tanks and other terrain vehicles rather than horses, but the principle of using rapid movement to overwhelm enemies was still the heart of the strategy. The blitzkrieg between 1939 and 1940 consisted of taking Poland, -
Auschwitz cont.
the prisoners here, of which many did not survive. Auschwitz was put into play in order to exterminate those deemed undesirable, and when the allies were approaching, the prisoners were forced on "death marches" to other camps, where even more of the prisoners died from simply not being able to keep up.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/auschwitz
http://www.vice.com/read/witold-pilecki-the-auschwitz-volunteer-interview -
Auschwitz
Auschwitz was a nazi extermination and death camp built in Southern Poland. It was originally used for political enemies, but eventually it was repurposed for Jews and other people viewed as enemies to the nazi ideology. Auschwitz was used primarily to exterminate undesirables and is believed to have been the site of the deaths of over one million people deemed unfit for Germany's survival. Alongside the gas chambers and diseases, the doctor Josef Mengele performed many inhumane experiments on -
The Fall of Paris
On June 14th, 1940 Parisian citizens awoke to the sound of a German accented voice announcing curfew would be at 8 P.M. That same evening, German troops entered and occupied Paris. Winston Churchill had to convince french government to hold on and not sue for peace and that america would enter the war. America provided material aid but wouldn't publish it as it would be considered a declaration of war to Hitler. By the time the Germans had tanks in Paris, two million citizens had fled. -
The Fall of Paris cont.
Shortly after the tanks arrived, the gestapo went in and the arrests, interrogations, and spying had started. A Swastika flew under the Arc de Triomphe. Canadian troops rolled through Paris later, giving citizens hope for a free Paris. America at the time didn't remain completely silent, but froze all the American assets of the Axis powers, Germany and Italy.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-enter-paris -
The USSR in World War Two cont. 2
ushering in an era of starvation, communism, and degenerate filth.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005156
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_in_World_War_II -
The USSR in World War Two
The USSR's role in World War Two was significant, and without the manpower, there is a chance that World War Two would have ended differently. Beginning on the 23rd of August during the year 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact allied Germany and the Soviet Union, and also detailed the dividing of smaller countries including Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia into spheres of influence controlled by the two countries. During the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the USSR also occupied and annexed East -
The USSR in World War Two cont.
Poland. In 1941, however, Germany decided to try and dunk on Uncle Joe, which only ended up getting an angry bear who had no empathy for the lives of his people to throw everything he had at Germany. Through piling body upon body and using the winter to their advantage, the Russians eventually gained superiority and enacted retribution upon their former dominators. After the war, the USSR controlled many smaller countries including Poland, not allowing them to make large improvements and largely -
The Wannsee Conference cont.
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The Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting between fifteen of the top nazi bureaucrats to try and coordinate the Final Solution. Convened by Reinhard Heydrich, the Wannsee Conference outlined how the Jews of Europe would be exterminated, combing from the Wast to the East. The Jews would be sent to Poland, where they would later be executed. The reasons behind this conference were that Hitler wanted every single Jew exterminated, and as a result, the Jewish population in nazi-occupied countries was -
The Bataan Death March
After the U.S surrendered the Bataan Peninsula to the Japanese in World War 2,approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops in Bataan were forced to make a 65-mile march to prison camps. They had to march in intense heat and were treated very poorly by the Japanese. The march took around five days to coonplete and only around a hundred survived. The numbers are unknown but it is believed that thousands were killed by the brutality of their captors. The Japanese would starve the men -
The Bataan Death March cont.
beat them, and bayonet the ones who were too weak to walk. After the march they were taken by train to the POW camps, where thousands more men died from mistreatment, starvation, and disease. After the death march America avenged its defeat and the men they lost by invading the island of Leyte and U.S Douglas MacArthur kept his promise of returning to the Philippines and in February of 1945 U.S and Filipino forces recaptured the Peninsula.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death -
The Battle of Midway
Six months after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, America defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of the war. Thanks to advances in code breaking, the U.S was able to understand and counter Japan's ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting massive damage on the Japanese navy. This was a huge turning point in the Pacific for America, and allowed it and its' allies to go on the offensive. -
The Battle of Midway cont.
The U.S sent aircraft carriers to surprise the Japanese and their torpedo bombers were slaughtered by the Japanese, but the dive bombers caught them off guard when they were refueling and rearming their planes. The American dive bombers found the Japanese on pure luck and sank four fleet carriers, the entire strength of the Japanese. This then allowed America to go straight to Tokyo.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-midway -
The Battle of Stalingrad
On September 3rd, 1942, the German sixth army was at the outskirts of Stalingrad. Expecting to take the city in short order. But the Russians had build up their defenses and continued to bring reinforcements while their general planned a counterattack. In the following days the Germans fought their way into Stalingrad, and the stench of rotting flesh began to flourish as hot winds picked up the smell and spread it through the city. Later in September the Germans were able to put their -
The Battle of Stalingrad cont.
flag up over top the Univermag department store but couldn't advance into the city anymore. Mid November general Zhukov launched his counteroffensive surrounding the Germans, who could've fought out of there but Hitler wanted them to hold position. The Germans were promised resupply from the air but didn't receive any as winter set in. A German rescue mission was deployed, but wasn't successful. The Germans in Stalingrad surrendered on February 2nd, 1942 which was a total of around 91,000 -
D-Day
D-Day was the nickname given to June 6, 1944, where allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy. 160,000 soldiers ran across the beaches in an attempt to take out the bunkers and machine gun encampments situated along the cliffs overlooking them, in order to provide a location to allow the allies to gain a foothold in Central Europe. Over nine thousand allied troops died, but successfully managed to eliminate the enemy's presence from the bunkers and encampments. This allowed the allies to -
D-Day cont.
break into Europe from the West. and ultimately, win the war.
http://www.army.mil/d-day/ -
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a German counteroffensive to try and split the allied forces in half. It was a desperate fight, with American soldiers caught off-guard and struggling to hold the line, which after being pushed back, started to gain the appearance of its namesake. Thanks to Lieutenant General Patton, the American Third Army was able to turn ninety degrees from Lorraine to Bastogne to provide much-needed manpower for the allied defense. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
April 29, 1945, the U.S seventh Army's 45th infantry division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by the Nazi regime. This camp was made 5 weeks after Hitler took power in Germany. The camp was about 10 miles northwest of Munich. In its first year the camp held approximately 5,000 political prisoners consisting of German communists and social democrats. In the following years the number of prisoners grew dramatically with the introduction of other groups of people such -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
gypsies, homosexuals, and repeat criminals. In 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees. The camp was the first camp to use humans as guinea pigs for medical experiments. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled due to these experiments. Thousands of inmates were executed or died at the work camp Dachau and thousands more were transferred to a death camp near Linz, Austria, when they could no longer work on April 27, just two days before the liberation the Germans made -
Liberation of Concentration Camps cont. 2
7,000 Jews do a death march to Tegernsee, and the day after most SS guards fled. The day of liberation the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with corpses of dead prisoners, and in their camp there was more corpses and 30,000 survivors. The Americans were so appalled by the camp they executed 30 SS guards by firing line. Citizens of dachau were forced to bury the 9,000 corpses.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/dachau -
Atomic Bombs dropped on Japan cont.
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 but still did not relent. It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to convince that they were going to lose, and they surrendered. The bombings made the USSR become interested in nuclear armaments, and would eventually lead to the cold wars.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/atomic-bomb-dropped-on-hiroshima -
Atomic Bombs Dropped on Japan
On August 6, 1945, America dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. The Japanese, despite having overall weaker weapons and a smaller population, had fought on with their diehard loyalty to the emperor and their tightly dug-in defenses. When President Truman was given the opportunity to end the war without causing as many casualties as what was originally estimated, after much care, he gave the "go ahead" to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb on -
The Battle of Stalingrad cont. 2
Germans surrendered and a total of 150,000 Germans that were killed in the battle. This loss was a huge humiliation to Hitler, and only made the red army carry out even more retribution later in the war.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad -
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Many of the WWII veterans with PTSD haven't talked about any of the things they saw, because talking meant remembering, and that's exactly what they didn't want to do. 38% of older veterans being treated for depression showed significant symptoms of PTSD. World War II vets come from a generation where expressing psychological symptoms was stigmatized, so many of the cases of PTSD in WWII vets went untreated and were somehow able to suppress their symptoms and function. Until now a WWII vet -
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder cont.
talked about some of the things he saw and he has moments where he can't speak anymore, the thoughts are just buried with silence. His most vivid memory is when his lieutenant's head got blown off. 24,145 WWII vets are receiving compensation for PTSD from the Veterans Benefits Administration. The Vet that talked about his experience at the Gunskirchen Lager death camp remembered where the prisoners looked like skeletons crawling to their rescue, dying in the arms of U.S soldiers. -
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder cont. 2
Carnabuci now has trouble sleeping more than two hours a day because he can't stop thinking the concentration camps.
http://Blog.cleveland.com
