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Posts Tagged ‘Gestapo’

The Red Orchestra

18 Jun

The Little Known Impact of the Red Orchestra

The Red Orchestra, or Die Rote Kapelle, was the name given by the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, to different espionage groups existing in Germany, Switzerland, and the Soviet Union during WWII. These groups were opposed to the ideals which the Nazi party stood for and therefore attempted to sway the German public to counteract the Nazi party and rise up against them. While they never fully succeeded in gaining a heavy following, the different groups did serve to get out information of the atrocities going on within the cities.

The three major groups to take part in this larger organization were the Trepper Group, the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack Group, and The Red Three. While the majority of the individuals in these groups numbered about 100, they still participated in one of the most daring attempts to counter the Third Reich in the most terrifying years, and many gave their lives to their beliefs. There were such few citizens who questioned the authority of Hitler during WWII, and the few who did paid for it with their life. These citizens did more than simply go against his principles, but additionally attempted to get news out of the country and to the Allies. Libertas Schulze-Boysen even succeeded in taking photographs of the Nazi atrocities in an attempt to one day prove Germany’s war crimes, although both her and her husband were caught and sentenced to death before the war ended.

Many of these groups attempted to contact the British and American forces but were met with a myopic lack of interest by both parties at the time which in hindsight was a grave error for the Allies. If many of these documents had been intercepted earlier, the war would have been over much sooner and the Holocaust would not have been as awful as it was. These different groups additionally created an Underground Railroad of sorts and assisted many people who were targeted by Nazis to get away to safety before they were sent away to the many camps. However, even after the war ended, many of the Allied countries still did not openly welcome the members of these groups because of their name (Red Orchestra was misconstrued with Communist leanings) and their ties with the Soviets to begin with. It wasn’t until the fall of the Berlin Wall that these individuals were recognized for everything they did to combat the Nazi regime and how they stood up in the face of Totalitarianism.

This post was contributed by Meredith Walker, who writes about the bachelors degree. She welcomes your feedback at MeredithWalker1983 at gmail.com

Claire Jaspar-Legrand
Claire Jaspar-Legrand (pictured) aged 65 who had been arrested with her husband Jules Jaspar in Marseilles on 30th November 1942 by the Gestapo. They were suspected members of the “Red Orchestra” spy group .

 

World War II History for February 10

10 Feb

Today in WWII History

World War II History for February 10

10 FEB 1936 - The German Gestapo was placed above the law.

10 FEB 1942 - The “Normandie,” the former French liner, capsized in New York Harbor. The day before the ship had caught fire while it was being fitted for the U.S. Navy.

10 FEB 1942 - Japanese sub bombards Midway

On this day, a Japanese submarine launches a brutal attack on Midway, a coral atoll used as a U.S. Navy base. It was the fourth bombing of the atoll by Japanese ships since December 7.

The capture of Midway was an important part of the broader Japanese strategy of trying to create a defensive line that would stretch from the western Aleutian Islands in the north to the Midway, Wake, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands in the south, then west to the Dutch West Indies. Occupying Midway would also mean depriving the United States of a submarine base and would provide the perfect launching pad for an all-out assault on Hawaii.

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack and commander in chief of the Japanese combined fleet, knew that only the utter destruction of U.S. naval capacity would ensure Japanese free reign in the Pacific. Japanese bombing of the atoll by ship and submarine failed to break through the extraordinary defense put up by Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, who used every resource available to protect Midway and, by extension, Hawaii. Yamamoto persevered with an elaborate warship operation, called Mi, launched in June, but the Battle of Midway was a disaster for Japan, and was the turning point for ultimate American victory in the Pacific.[1]

Isoroku Yamamoto

Isoroku Yamamoto

“Japanese sub bombards Midway,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6708 (accessed Feb 10, 2009).

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World War II History for September 25

25 Sep

Today in WW II History

World War II History for September 25

1942 - British bombers attempted to destroy the local headquarters of the German Gestapo in Norway. The plan failed.

Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, in a stunning blitzkrieg campaign, a response to Britain’s laying of mines in Norwegian waters–which was itself a response to Norway’s iron-ore trade with the Axis power. But in one short month, the British and French troops that had landed in Norway to aid in its defense were chased out, as well as Norway’s royal family, who set up a government-in-exile in London. The Germans immediately established a Reich commissioner to rule the occupied territory. The commissioner outlawed all political parties but one–the pro-Nazi National Unity Party. It was led by Vidkun Quisling, the former Norwegian minister of war. His name would become synonymous with acquiescence and collaboration. Quisling, now a German puppet, ruled as a Nazi wannabe, an overlord who would brook no dissent, even sending thousands of his own countrymen to German concentration camps. A majority of Norwegians despised both Quisling and his German masters. Teachers and clergy resigned their positions in the state-sponsored church in order not to be implicated in the new fascist regime.

One means of keeping defiant locals of newly occupied countries under control was the use of the Gestapo. An office was typically set up in conquered nations to terrorize the populace. On September 25, during a Nazi Party rally in Oslo, British aircraft, aiming to destroy the records of the Norwegian Resistance (kept in Gestapo headquarters, but not as yet acted upon), bombed the building. The bombs missed their target, but surrounding buildings were hit, and four people were killed. The Brits did put a scare into the Nazis, though, who ran from the city, leaving their Party’s rally in ruins.

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World War II History for August 4

04 Aug

Today in WW II History

World War II History for August 4

1944 - Anne Frank and her family arrested by Gestapo

On this day in 1944, a German-born Jewish girl and her family, who had been hiding in German-occupied Holland, are found by the Gestapo and transported to various concentration camps. The young girl’s diary of her time in hiding was found after her death and published. The Diary of Anne Frank remains one of the most moving testimonies to the invincibility of the human spirit in the face of inhuman cruelty.

She was born Annelies Marie Frank, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on June 12, 1929. Her father, Otto Frank, a businessman, moved his wife and two daughters to Holland early in the Hitler regime. After the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands, the Franks were threatened with deportation to a forced-labor camp and so went into hiding. They spend the next two years, from July 9, 1942, until August 4, 1944, in the back of Otto’s food products warehouse, along with four other Jews. Gentile friends and neighbors smuggled in food and other supplies.

Acting on a tip from Dutch informers, the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police), discovered the Franks and arrested them. They then transported them to the Auschwitz concentration camps in Poland in September. Anne and her sister, Margot, were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany a month later. There Anne died of typhus, in March 1945, not long before the camp was liberated by the Allies.

Otto Frank was found, still alive, in Auschwitz by the Russian troops that liberated the camps there (Anne’s mother had died in January). Friends back in Holland who had searched the Franks’ former hiding place found a stash of personal papers; among the collection was Anne’s diary, which described her emotional and intellectual development during the two years spent eluding detection by the Nazis. Otto had it published in 1947 as The Diary of a Young Girl. It has since been translated into more than 50 languages and adapted for stage and screen. The most memorable line remains: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”

The Franks’ hiding place, on the Prinsengracht Canal in Amsterdam, has been turned into a museum.

 

World War II History for May 23

23 May

Today in WWII History

World War II History for May 23

1945 - Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, committed suicide while imprisoned by the Allied forces.

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World War II History for May 9

09 May

Today in WWII History

World War II History for May 9

1936 - Italian forces took Ethiopia.

1941 - The German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by Britain’s Royal navy.

1945 - U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.

1945 - In the U.S., the wartime government ban on horse racing was lifted.

1945 - Herman Goering is captured by the U.S. Seventh Army
Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria.

Goering was an early member of the Nazi Party and was wounded in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. That wound would have long-term effects; Goering became increasingly addicted to painkillers. Not long after Hitler’s accession to power, Goering was instrumental in creating concentration camps for political enemies. Ostentatious and self-indulgent, he changed his uniform five times a day and was notorious for flaunting his decorations, jewelry, and stolen artwork. It was Goering who ordered the purging of German Jews from the economy following the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, initiating an “Aryanization” policy that confiscated Jewish property and businesses.

Goering’s failure to win the Battle of Britain and prevent the Allied bombing of Germany led to his loss of stature within the Party, aggravated by the low esteem with which he was always held by fellow officers because of his egocentrism and position as Hitler’s right-hand man. As the war progressed, he dropped into depressions and battled drug addiction.

When Goering fell into U.S. hands after Germany’s surrender, he had in his possession a rich stash of pills. He was tried at Nuremberg and charged with various crimes against humanity. Despite a vigorous attempt at self acquittal, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but before he could be executed, he committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide tablet he had hidden from his guards.

Herman Goering is captured by the U.S. Seventh Army. (2008). The History Channel website. Retrieved 02:58, May 9, 2008, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6448.

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HMS Ark Royal

24 Mar

HMS Ark Royal (91) was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that served in the Second World War and was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 by the German submarine U-81. She was designed in 1934 to meet the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty, and was built by Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd. at Birkenhead, England. Construction was completed in November 1938, and after Britain’s entry into the war, she served in some of the most active naval theaters of the early stages of the war, seeing a number of notable actions. She survived several near misses in her short career, and had a reputation for being a ‘lucky ship’. The Germans reported her as sunk on a number of occasions.

Career
Name: HMS Ark Royal (91)
Builder: Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd.
Laid down: 16 September 1935
Launched: 13 April 1937
Commissioned: 16 December 1938
Fate: Sunk 14 November 1941 after being torpedoed by U-81 on 13 November 1941

General characteristics
Displacement: 22,000 tons
Length: 800 feet (240 m) overall, 721.5 ft (220 m) waterline
Beam: 94.8 ft (28.9 m)
Draught: 28 ft (8.5 m)
Propulsion: 6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers, 3 Parsons geared turbines
Speed: 31 knots (57 km/h)
Range: 7,600 nautical miles (14,100 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h)
Complement: 1,600 officers and men
Armament: 16 x 4.5 in (114 mm)s (8 × 2), 48 x 2 pounder (1.5 in) Pom-poms (6 × 8), 32 x .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns (8 × 4)
Armour: 4.5 inches (110 mm) belt, 3.5 in (89 mm) deck over boiler rooms and magazines
Aircraft carried: 60 to 72

* 1939-40: 26 Fairey Swordfish, 24 Blackburn Skuas
* 1940-41: 30 Fairey Swordfish, 12 Blackburn Skuas, 12 Fairey Fulmars
* 1941: 36 Fairey Swordfish, 18 Fairey Fulmars

Motto: Desire n’a pas Repos – “Zeal Does Not Rest”

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World War II History for March 24

24 Mar

Today in WWII History

World War II History for March 24

1938 - The U.S. asked that all powers help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.

1944 - The Gestapo rounded up innocent Italians in Rome and shot them to death in response to a bomb attack that killed 32 German policemen. Over 300 civilians were executed.

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