The period of German history from 1933 - 1945, specifically regarding the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party
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66 views
Resistance in 1938 Czechoslovakia
I wonder if someone might help me. I'm writing a novel. My protagonist is a dual national (English born, German parents) bio chemist contracted to work for Freiburg University 1938. At the time ...
6
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2answers
98 views
Why was Johannes Blaskowitz indicted at the Nuremberg High Command Trial
Johannes Blaskowitz was a German General during WW2. He committed suicide in 1948 while being tried as a war criminal.
His action during the polish offensive seem rather counter to this, to quote ...
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57 views
How successful were Einsatzkommando Tunis and how much was Rommel complicit?
This Einsatzkommando was headed by SS officer Walter Rauff and according to his wikipedia article it had great effect on the local Jewish population. An example is given, a quote from a German TV ...
3
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1answer
66 views
Did the Germans lose the U-Boat war in World war II because of a shortage of quality, rather than quantity?
In the "Battle of the Atlantic," the Germans lost almost 800 of their 1200 submarines (nearly two-thirds) sinking 3,500 Allied merchant ships and 175 warships. ...
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1answer
180 views
Was Hitler's genocide of the Jews “different” from other mass killings?
Hitler allegedly killed six million Jews during the "Holocaust." Stalin allegedly killed millions of Ukrainians during the 1933 "Harvest of Sorrow" (Conquest). Mao allegedly killed tens of millions of ...
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3answers
179 views
Did Heisenberg undermine the German atomic bomb by deliberately hiding his expertise from the Nazis?
Source.
In his massive book Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, Thomas Powers says that Heisenberg, who never became a Nazi and balked at the immorality of building a bomb for ...
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21 views
Skis for water were tried in the German troops as sort of ski-yaks, is there more information?
During WW2 the German Army experimented with a sort of floating set of skis for water. In essence a kayak for each foot and a pole with a paddle on either end for balance and propulsion. (I have tried ...
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2answers
76 views
Total budget of Nuremberg trial
I am trying to estimate the total budget of the Nuremberg War Criminal trial. Any help with reference, please?
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2answers
67 views
What were the German “general” ranks in World War II?
The Anglo-American armies share ranks up to "full" (or four star) general. (The German army has ranks equivalent to those armies for non-general officers). The American army deviated from the English ...
7
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2answers
126 views
Did the poor performance of the Red Army in the Winter War significantly contribute to German underestimation of the USSR's military capacity?
Wikipedia says in the article on the Winter War:
Perhaps more importantly, the very poor performance of the Red Army
encouraged Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be
...
10
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2answers
275 views
Why were there no Internment camps for German-American Citizens in USA during WW2?
I am certainly aware of Japanese-americans being detained in Internment camps , after the attack on Pearl Harbor , and subsequent declaration of war on United States , by the empire of Japan.
About ...
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0answers
25 views
Was Ley ever married to Rudolf Hess's sister?
A book I am reading claims that Robert Ley was married to a Margarita Hess, Rudolf's sister. But I am finding it surprisingly hard to find an independent confirmation of this fact - or even to find ...
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2answers
150 views
Plans to depose, disgrace, or assassinate Hitler
Have there come to light any plans either by the allied forces or those within the Third Reich to depose/disgrace/assassinate Hitler himself, rather than just plans to crush his forces?
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4answers
276 views
Why did the Germans fall behind the Americans in the development of the atomic bomb after an initial lead?
I actually know certain facts about this matter, but am seeking guidance in interpreting these facts into "theories."
1) Theory 1, Economic: The Americans spent something like $2 billion (in money of ...
4
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2answers
104 views
Organized and intentional suicide attacks during military conflicts
First of all I want to make it clear that we're not speaking about terrorist attacks here. This question is strictly dedicated to war operations, in a dictionary meaning.
Also this question is about ...
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2answers
115 views
Clear picture of casaulties of jewish people under third reich
I know this is pretty sensitive question, I would like to get an objective answer. It is widely known that jewish people were persecuted by Hitler's regime, and many of them died in concentration ...
5
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1answer
68 views
Which floating-point representation did Konrad Zuse's Z1 use?
Wikipedia notes: "The Z1 was a 22-bit floating point value adder and subtracter".
But the specific format used is nowhere to be seen.
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2answers
194 views
Freedom of speech in Germany since WW2
I remember as a child I heard about some people who spoke on behalf of the German government before and during WW2, and that those people were being sent to prison just for saying those things.
I ...
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2answers
328 views
Did Bismarck have any influence on Hitler?
There were some similarities between the two brilliant statesmen. Both Bismarck and Hitler were against popular forms of governments such as democracy. Bismarck and Hitler both had similar disdain for ...
1
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1answer
68 views
Was it impossible for the Germans to arrange a plane to East Asia for Subhas Bose?
Bose's journey from Germany to Singapore by submarine was a well-remarked incident of World War II history. But what was the need for the Germans or the Italians to use a submarine to transfer a ...
7
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1answer
110 views
Were there any German operations to destroy supply routes in the Persian corridor in WWII?
Germany used its naval fleet to stop allied arctic supply route to the USSR. Were there any German operations, in Iran and Iraq (who were pro-German) to throttle allied supply routes through the ...
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2answers
265 views
How do functionalists explain the fact that Holocaust continued until the very end of the war?
While I haven't read Goldhagen or scholars with a similar viewpoint directly, I frequently encounter the following argument that seems very Goldhagenite to me: "The Germans tried to murder Jews up ...
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2answers
210 views
Aside from the Jews, did Hitler had a final solution plan for other ethnicities / races in the Third Reich?
We know that the Nazi ideology explicitly singled out Jews as the main reason to all Germany's problems. An thus there were exterminated. Nazis also persecuted gypsies, polish people, and many POW. ...
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2answers
118 views
What factors led some South American governments to be sympathetic to Nazi war criminals?
What were some of the factors that contributed to some South American governments being so sympathetic to Nazi war criminals that they harbored them?
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2answers
146 views
How did Hitler behave towards all those whom he knew in his childhood and youth after he rose to power?
What do we know of Hitler acts and attitudes towards those people he knew in his childhood and youth after he rose to power? For example, his world war one comrades? Did they receive and attention or ...
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2answers
265 views
What was the role of the Soviet Navy during WWII?
Most books of WWII speak of the naval battles of allied and axis powers during the war, but none about the Soviet navy. The soviets had an active fleet at the time, why did it not engage the Germans ...
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2answers
195 views
What other war crimes trials besides Nuremberg were held after WWII?
Why were the Nuremberg trials after WWII for the Germans only? The same charges used against the the Germans could be easily extended to the Japanese or possibly Italians. They have committed as much ...
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2answers
183 views
Why was nude male art so acceptable, popular and officially supported in Germany?
The origin of today's question is cracked.com.
In the article, 2 independent examples of naked male art (sculpture) is present:
Sculptures in the "Third Reich Art" exhibition (plus this and this)
...
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2answers
94 views
What was the civil weapons legislation under Hitler?
Was possession of weapons prohibited, encouraged, allowed to members of some organizations, or what?
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3answers
202 views
Stalingrad - the German perspective?
I'm quite interested in Stalingrad and have started reading a bit regarding the battle itself and have seen that weather had played quite a significant factor in halting the German advance. (Reading ...
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1answer
98 views
What was the reason for the Nazis to support various ethnic minorities over the majority populations? [closed]
What was the reason for the Nazis to support certain ethnic minorities over the majority populations in the conquered territories?
For example, they supported Crimean Tatars against the majority of ...
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3answers
179 views
What are the safeguards in the German constitution of 1949 against dictatorship?
In the constitution of 1949 Germany ensured that chancellors could not endow themselves with additional powers, eliminating the chance of a repeat of Hitler's 1933 episode.
What were these steps?
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2answers
203 views
Did Hitler receive any honours outside Germany?
From this article in The Telegraph:
In a move designed to remove an embarrassing link to Germany's past Dulmen town council voted to revoke the honour its predecessor once bestowed upon Hitler.
...
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1answer
316 views
Military brothels in WW2
Did any of the other belligerents of WW2 besides Japan and Germany provide their troops with authorised military brothels?
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2answers
306 views
Did the Nazis regard chemical warfare as inhumane and “Jewish”?
I sometimes encounter accounts that the main reason why chemical weapons were not used in WWII was because initially they were invented by a Jew Fritz Haber, and as such Hitler expressed opinion that ...
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111 views
Were the Nazis the first to use phenol as a means of execution?
Phenol was discovered in 1834 by Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge.... Injections of phenol were used as a means of individual execution by the Nazis during the Second World War. It was originally used by ...
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3answers
233 views
Which city was attacked by Nazi-German war flights in India during WW2?
Nazi-Germany ran a bombing raid over India, in WW2. Which city was bombed, and what effect did it have? i.e how many casualties, or was transport closed down.
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2answers
207 views
Was “Blitzkrieg” at least partly intended for trapping the Jews?
I encountered a point of view that the German tactic of "Blitzkrieg", besides purely military purpose to achieve victory as quick as possible, was in fact designed to trap the Jews so that they could ...
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2answers
578 views
What were the Nazi racial views on Hungarians and the Japanese?
Hungary and Japan were Nazi Germany's allies during WWII, yet it could not possibly be argued that the Japanese belong to the "Aryan race", and Hungarians speak a non-Indo-European language, which ...
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1answer
80 views
Is it true that Mussolini agreed to implement anti-Jewish laws in exchange for expulsion of Germans from Northern Italy?
Once I have read that Mussolini was reluctant to implement anti-Jewish legislation despite German pressure but agreed to do so in exchange for expulsion of Germans from Northern Italy (including South ...
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2answers
161 views
Was residual animism partially responsible for Hitler's rise?
Although Miller had never bothered to think about it, it was once out of these and other oceans of pine and beech that the old Germanic tribes had swarmed to be checked by Caesar at the Rhine. ...
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6answers
2k views
Why did Nazi soldiers do Hitler's bidding?
The atrocities committed by Nazi soldiers during World War II are well known. I'd like to know what motivated these soldiers to do Hitler's bidding? Were they brain-washed? Did they believe they were ...
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5answers
1k views
What was wrong with Hitler's left hand?
So I was watching Downfall last night (good movie by the way) and I noticed that whenever Hitler walked around, the movie always showed him with his left hand behind his back and it was always kind of ...
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6answers
496 views
If the nazi is a far-right party, why is it socialist? [closed]
The Nazi party stands for National Socialist German Workers' Party ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party), which sounds like a name for a communist party, why is it considered a far-right party? ...
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1answer
60 views
Fanons 'Concerning Violence' makes the point that Nazism was the culminating point of the project of European Colonialism, how true is that?
He writes 'Not long ago Nazism transformed the whole of Europe into a veritable colony', meaning that the techniques pioneered in the colonies of Europe were turned upon Europe itself, culminating in ...
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5answers
912 views
What was the purpose of Nazi extermination camps?
Why did they spend money and effort to build the infrastructure and organization, collect, transport and house the prisoners while execution on the spot would presumably be easier and less costly? I'm ...
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2answers
218 views
Did Hitler make the right decision for Germany when he called off Operation Zitadelle (during the Battle of Kursk)?
On the night of 9/10 July, the Western Allies mounted an amphibious
invasion of Sicily. Three days later, Hitler summoned Günther von
Kluge and Erich von Manstein to his Wolfsschanze ...
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1answer
209 views
Did the Germans have a team equivalent to the one from Bletchey Park in the UK during WWII?
There is a lot of information about the British code breakers at Bletchey Park and the work they did for cryptography, computing and the war effort.
Still, I haven't heard a lot about a German ...
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5answers
782 views
Why did Hitler not concentrate more on North Africa?
The Germans knew that oil would be crucial to the war and that they would likely need to capture new sources for the war effort.
The main oil-producing regions at the time that might be captured were ...
4
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1answer
110 views
Was the “Mot Pulk” formation simply a propaganda ploy?
The "Mot Pulk" was a motorized formation used by the Germans during World War II.
Based on when it was introduced (after heavy defeats in the USSR) and the vague descriptions that I've found, it ...
