3df24df5 1518 4014 85c8 9b451f458445.jpg.pagespeed.ce.3smlzu6iwd

GERMAN INVASION OF WESTERN EUROPE, MAY 1940

By angelina.malgiero

  • Hitler rehearsing his speech making 1927

    Hitler rehearsing his speech making 1927
    Hitler carefully cultivated his image as the Nazi Party leader as he came to see the propagandistic value of photographic publicity. Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer, created the images central to the growing "Führer cult." In 1927, Hoffmann snapped action shots such as this one of Hitler rehearsing his oratory.

  • Adolf Hitler on the day he was appointed German chancellor

    Adolf Hitler on the day he was appointed German chancellor
    On the day of his appointment as German chancellor, Adolf Hitler greets a crowd of enthusiastic Germans from a window in the Chancellery building. Berlin, Germany, January 30, 1933.

  • April 1, 1933

    April 1, 1933
    Members of the Storm Troopers (SA), with boycott signs, block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. One of the signs exhorts: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!" Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933.

  • 1935

    1935
    April 1
    The German government bans Jehovah's Witness organizations. The ban is due to Jehovah's Witnesses refusal to swear allegiance to the state; their religious convictions forbid an oath of allegiance to and service in the armed forces of any temporal power.
    May 21
    The German government issues the Wehrgesetz, which stipulates that only “Aryans” could serve in the armed forces, and that persons serving in the armed forces could only marry “Aryan” spouses.

  • GERMAN INVASION OF WESTERN EUROPE, MAY 1940

    GERMAN INVASION OF WESTERN EUROPE, MAY 1940
    German troops overran Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France in six weeks starting in May 1940. France signed an armistice in late June 1940, leaving Great Britain as the only country fighting Nazi Germany. Germany and collaborating authorities soon initiated anti-Jewish policies and laws in occupied western Europe.

  • 1931 studio portrait of Abraham Moshe Muhlbaum

    1931 studio portrait of Abraham Moshe Muhlbaum
    Abraham and his family fled from Berlin to Amsterdam in October 1938. They found refuge in the Netherlands until January 28, 1943, when all the members of the Muhlbaum family, except Abraham, were deported to Westerbork. Abraham escaped over the rooftops during the round-up. He gradually established a new life as a member of a Dutch resistance group that included Joop Westerweel. In 1944, Abraham was arrested as a member of the resistance (his Jewish identity remained hidden).

  • 1933–1945

    1933–1945
    The Holocaust (1933–1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The Holocaust era began in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. It ended in May 1945, when the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II.
    The Holocaust was a German initiative that took place throughout German- and Axis-controlled Europe.

  • Passengers on the Refugee ship exodus 1947

    Passengers on the Refugee ship exodus 1947
    Passengers on the deck of the refugee ship Exodus 1947 in Haifa. British forces returned them to displaced persons camps in Germany, dramatizing the plight of Holocaust survivors attempting to enter Palestine. Haifa, Palestine, July 18, 1947.