The period of German history from 1933 - 1945, specifically regarding the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party
25
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1answer
730 views
Why does German money from the 1940s not bear Nazi symbols?
I have a 5-mark German banknote (I think from 1941 or 1942), looking exactly like this:
I am curious why the banknote not only does not bear a portrait of Hitler, but doesn't include any German state ...
20
votes
5answers
913 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 ...
17
votes
6answers
1k views
Why wasn't the Republic of Ireland invaded (by either side) in WW2?
Ireland was neutral in WW2, however it was never invaded (by either side). How come? Why wasn't Ireland invaded by the UK to prevent the Germans invading? Why didn't germany invade ireland? It would ...
17
votes
4answers
1k views
Is the claim that Hitler came to power democratically justified?
I often encounter a claim that the Hitler came to power democratically, exploiting democratic procedures, was "elected" etc. Such claims are usually made by right Liberals who use this argument to ...
16
votes
3answers
2k views
How did Nazi Germany finance itself during WW2?
How did Nazi Germany finance itself during the war? They produced a large amount of war material during 1939-1945, but how was this production financed? What were Germany's revenue streams that ...
15
votes
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?
13
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5answers
783 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 ...
12
votes
2answers
582 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 ...
12
votes
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 ...
11
votes
8answers
1k views
What was the ratio of German to Soviet losses on eastern front during different stages of the war?
I've read somewhere that the ratio of Soviet to German casualties on the eastern front was 1.4 for the whole war. But what about data for different stages of the war? (this ratio wasn't constant after ...
11
votes
2answers
266 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 ...
10
votes
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 ...
10
votes
2answers
381 views
Hitler's Death: Fact or Fiction
Is there any consensus among modern day historians of how Hitler was killed or if he was killed, and is there any significant proof that he did die so as to disprove the conspiracy theorists?
10
votes
2answers
276 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 ...
10
votes
2answers
212 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. ...
10
votes
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.
...
9
votes
2answers
271 views
Did Churchill and Roosevelt know about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the following secret pacts between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany prior to, and during WWII. It seems that the actions of the two countries after the invasion of Poland ...
9
votes
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 ...
9
votes
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 ...
9
votes
1answer
908 views
German Government branches during World War 2
During World War 2, what government branches, if any, existed in Germany? I've always heard about the Third Reich and Hitler, but I never heard about the rest of the government.
9
votes
2answers
147 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 ...
9
votes
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?
9
votes
2answers
494 views
What happened to the S.A. (Sturmabteilung; “Stormtroopers”) after The Night of the Long Knives?
I'm reading The Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany by Warren B. Marris, Jr. (Nelson-Hall, Chicago), 1982 for an eassay. It outlines the power that the Sturmabteilung (abbreviated S.A., trans ...
8
votes
4answers
282 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 ...
8
votes
4answers
408 views
At the end of WWII, were nazis working on any other super weapon besides V-2?
At the end of WWII, were nazis working on anything else besides V-2? If so, what was it, how close was it to completion, and could it potentially turn the events around for them?
8
votes
3answers
183 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 ...
7
votes
4answers
369 views
Did Stalin want to restore the Russian Empire's borders?
On one hand, it seems so because the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact defined the border between the two spheres of influence to be the border of the Russian Empire before WWI. On the other hand, the USSR ...
7
votes
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?
7
votes
3answers
234 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.
7
votes
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
...
7
votes
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 ...
6
votes
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. ...
6
votes
2answers
196 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 ...
6
votes
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 ...
6
votes
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?
6
votes
1answer
292 views
Is there any footage and/or photos of Germans surrendering towns and cities in the Western Front?
I heard that unlike the surrender ceremonies in the Eastern front, those on the western front were arranged to be solemn, festive and pompous, especially when the cities were conceded without ...
6
votes
0answers
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 ...
6
votes
0answers
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 ...
5
votes
6answers
497 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? ...
5
votes
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 ...
5
votes
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.
5
votes
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?
5
votes
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)
...
5
votes
0answers
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 ...
4
votes
2answers
332 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 ...
4
votes
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 ...
4
votes
1answer
187 views
Why the USSR insisted on ban of the 1943 German film Munchhausen in Nuremberg?
After the war, many German films were shown in the USSR, popularly known as "trophy films", this included the 1944 "The Woman of My Dreams" which was shown until mid-1950s.
At the same time the ...
4
votes
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 ...
3
votes
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
68 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. ...
