Showing posts with label German SS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label German SS. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Sunday, April 29, 1945. Dachau.

U.S. troops liberated Dachau.  In outrage over what they discovered, some SS Guards were executed along with the camp commandant.

Hitler married Eva Braun, his long time mistress.

Braun had been in a relationship with Hitler for a long time.  She was a photographer by picked up trade and relatively young when she met Hitler.  She had already attempted suicide twice in her relationship with the dictator by this point in time.

Braun's family survived the war.  Her mother Franziska, died aged 91 in January 1976.  Her father, Fritz, died in 1964. Her sister Gretl, left a widow by the execution of Fegelein, gave birth to a daughte on May 5 1945 and later married Kurt Beringhoff, a businessman.  She died in 1987.  Braun's elder sister was not part of the Hitler inner cricle and Ilse died in 1979.

Hitler's German Shepard Blondi was given cyanide capsules as a test of their lethality and died.

Germans signed the terms of surrender in Italy and Austria which provided that the fighting would end on May 2.  This effected the surrender of 1,000,000 Axis troops.

The Battle of Collecchio ended in Allied victory.

SS Obergruppenführer Matthias Kleinheisterkamp committed suicide after being captured by Soviet troops.

Italian fascist Achille Starace was killed by Italian partisans.

The Allies began dropping food to the people of the Netherlands:

29 April 1945

Last edition:

Saturday, April 28, 1945. The fate of the fascists.

Monday, April 28, 2025

Saturday, April 28, 1945. The fate of the fascists.

From Uncle Mike:

April 28-30, 1945: The Ends of the Dictators

Mike is covering two fateful days ine one post, April 28, when Mussolini was executed by Italian Partisans, and April 30, when Hitler killed himself.  In both instances they took a "significant other" with them, in Mussolini's case, that being his current mistress, Clara Petacci, age 33.

Mussolini and Petacci had been caught trying to cross into Switzerland by partisans, who executed them the following day.  They were shot, and then their bodies hung upside down.

Mussolini had been the first of the fascist dictators to hold power.  There had always been opposition to the one time socialist turned fascist, but armed Italian opposition only came about after the Allies had landed on Italian territory.  As with France, whose resistance swelled as it became obvious that the Allies would land, Italian opposition was heavily dominated by the far left, but there were other elements in it as well.  Mussolini, as already noted, had once been a member of the far left as well, and it's probable, frankly, that amongst those who watched and cheered his death were those who had once cheered him.

Often missed, Nicola Bombacci, Alessandro Pavolini and Achille Starace were also executed at the same time. Nicola Bombacci was an Italian Marxist revolutionary and later a fascist politician.  The others were prominent fascists.


Like Eva Braun, there's little to note about Petacci, other than that she was loyal, like Braun, to her dictator until death.  In Mussolini's case, that was not true of his spouse, whom he left when he left.

The U.S. Fifth Army took Alessandria and Vicenza.

Hitler ordered Himmler to be arrested, learning of his effort to make a deal in the West.

German and Soviet troops fought on in Berlin, where the Red Army was within a mile of the Fuhrerbunker.

The eccentric Rupprecht Gerngroß lead a military uprising against the Nazis in Munich, which failed.

Teh U-56 was sunk in an RAF raid on Kiel.

Hitler's brother in law, notorious SS figure Hermann Fegelein, was executed.  He was planning on taking off with what he could.

Sunday, April 27, 2025

Friday, April 27, 1945. Mussolini captured by Partisans, Second Austrian Republic comes into being.

Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were captured by partisans while attempting to cross into Switzerland.

The Red Army took Potsdam, Prenzlau, Angemunde and Tempelhof airfield.

US troops liberated Kaufering concentration camp.

The Western Allies rejected Himmler's peace offer for the Germans to lay down their arms in the west and sent a reminder that the German surrender was to be unconditional.

One of the interesting things here is that its not entirely clearly that the Western Allies understood the offer the way it was made.  Theoretically, it might have been possible to accept the offer as a largescale troop surrender which, while it would have ended fighting in the west, it would not have ended the war against Germany.

The U.S. Fifth Army reached Genoa, Italy, which was mostly already liberated by Italian partisans.

SS architect Hans Schleif committed suicide at age 43.  Schleif had been involved in removing cultural material from Poland, but he oddly never really seemed to be fully on board with the worst elements of Nazism.  His death was probably needless, but he probably would have served time after the war.

Former Austrian chancellor Karl Renner set up a provisional government composed of Social Democrats, Christian Socialists, and Communists and proclaimed the reestablishment of Austria as a democratic republic.  This became the Second Austrian Republic, which remains today.

US and Philippine forces commenced the Battle of Davao.  US forces took Baguio.

U.S. troops firing a pack howitzer in the Philippines, April 27, 1945.

Saturday, April 26, 2025

Thursday, April 26, 1945. Petain arrested.

Philippe Pétain was arrested on the border between Switzerland and France as he entered France.

The 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army attacked Tempelhof Airport.

The Battle of Baguio ended in Allied victory and the Battle of Collecchio around the town of Fornovo di Taro, Italy began.

Italian partisans take Genoa and revolt in Milan.

British take Bremen, Germany.

RAF begins Operation Exodus, ferrying 75,000 British POWs home in Lancaster bombers in 469 flights through May 7.

Today In World War Two.

The Germans murdered 300 Polish POWs at Horka, Saxony.

Weird SS doctor Sigmund Rascher was executed at Dachau by the SS for fraud, amongst other things.


The war may have been winding down, but:
As demand for meat rises in liberated Europe, US rations all meats again except mutton and raises point values for most meats.

FWIW, when I was a kid I used to hear all the time "I was raised on mutton".  I've even heard it from people my own age.  It's pretty much baloney, but this may be a partial reason that people say that.

Also, I actually have had mutton, and I don't think it's bad at all.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 25, 1945. Elbe Day.

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Friday, April 13, 1945. Bitter end.


"Bitter end. Downcast German prisoners rounded up in the clean-up of bitterly-resisting Heilbronn, are marched to the rear. Key to Southern Germany, Heilbronn was stubbornly defended by these and other Nazis but finally fell before Seventh Army onslaught after nine days of severe fighting. 13 April, 1945. 100th Infantry Division, VI Corps. Photographer: T/4 Irving Leibowitz, 163rd Signal Photo Co."

The Red Army took Vienna and began the Samland Offensive.

Members of the SS and Luftwaffe German SS and Luftwaffe burned 1,016 slave laborers alive in a large barn at Gardelegen.

New Zealander troops captured Massa Lombarda, southwest of Lake Comacchio, Italy.

American forces land on Fort Drum,"the Concrete Battleship", in Manila Bay. They poured 5,000 gallons of oil fuel into the fortifications and set it on fire, whereupon it burned for five days.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 12, 1945. The death of Franklin Roosevelt

Friday, April 4, 2025

Saturday, April 4, 1925. Recalling Lexington and Concord.


It was Saturday.


Issued on this day in 1925.


Retired Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg agreed to run in the second round of the German presidential election in the place of Karl Jarres, who had won the first round.  He was 77, and would be enfeebled by the time Hitler was ready to push him aside a few years later.

Western Australia rejected prohibition at the polls.

The Nazi Party founded the SS as a bodyguard for Hitler.

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Friday, March 30, 1945. Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie gassed at Ravensbruck. Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose killed in action.


Algerian born Élise Rivet, whose father was a French Naval officer and whose mother was Alsatian, also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie was gassed at Ravensbruck Concentration Camp after volunteering to take the place of a mother who was slated for that fate.  She had been arrested in 1944 for harboring refugees fleeing the Germans and for allowing her convent to be used to store weapons for the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance at the request of Albert Chambonnet.

She was 55 years of age.


Commander of the 3d Armored Division, Maj Gen. Maurice Rose was killed in action near Paderborn, Westphalia, where many of many ancestors immigrated from in the 19th Century.

Rose was cut off in a forested area near the city and his part attempted to escape in their Jeeps, which one Jeep managed to do.  Stopped by a tank, a Waffen SS tank commander emerged from the hatch with a submachinegun and Rose's hand went for his sidearm.  He was machinegunned and left.  The remainder of his party hid in the woods overnight, and recovered his body, which contained operational orders that had not been disturbed, that night.

He was the highest ranking U.S. Army officer to be killed in direct action by enemy forces during World War Two.

Rose was Jewish by descent and grew up in a Jewish household in Denver.  His father was a businessman who later became a rabbi.  Rose himself could speak Yiddish and read Hebrew.  He joined the Colorado National Guard before he was legally old enough to do so, hoping for a military career early on, and hoping to serve in the Punitive Expedition, but was discharged six weeks later when his age was discovered.  He enlisted again during World War One at age 17 with his parents permission, and went to OCS, which says something about how different things were in regard to educational requirements at the time.  He was briefly out of the service in 1919, but returned to the Army as an officer in 1920.

Rose was married for about ten years, from 1920 to 1931, to Venice Hanson of Salt Lake City.  although the marriage ended in divorce.  Their son served as a career Marine Corps officer and also served in World War Two, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  He later married Virginia Barringer in 1934.

While born and raised Jewish, Maurice identified as an Episcopalian as an adult, which has lead to speculation on whether his conversion was real or political, it being difficult at the time to advance in American society, and the Army more particularly, while being outwardly Jewish.  Not that much is known, however, about his personal religious convictions.

He was 45 years of age.

"he rabbi of the Jewish Inf. Brigade visits the aid station and distributes newspapers. 30 March, 1945. Photographer: Levine, 196th Signal Photo Co."

The Battle of Lijevče Field began near Banja Luka between Croatian and Chetnik forces in what would soon be incorporated into communist Yugoslavia.

The Red Army took Danzig.  The Danzig Corridor, of course, had been one of the things the Germans claimed they required that lead to World War Two.

Anyone else make a connection to Greenland today.. . . ?

Eric Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey to 16 year old Patricia Molly Clapton and 25 year old Canadian soldier Edward Walter Fryer.  He was raised by his grandparents, whom he thought to be his parents until he was nine years old.  He thought, at that time, his mother was his older sister.  She'd marry another Canadian soldier later on and his grandparents would continue to raise him.

He was performing the blue professionally by age 17.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 29, 1945. The first Public Passover Sedar in Germany since 1938.

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Tuesday, February 6, 1945. False hopes at Manila.

While the siege of Manila had only just begun, MacArthur announced that the city had been taken.

Yugoslav Partisans, who were well equipped and a (communist) army in their own right, launched the Mostar operation.

SS general Wilhelm Mohnke was put in command of government district, the Zitadelle, of Berlin.

Gee, what a nifty promotion. . . 

He survived the war, surprisingly, and was imprisoned by the Soviets until 1955.  After his release he became a dealer is small trucks and trailers, and died at age 90 in 2001.

35th Division infantrymen in Unterbruch, Germany.  February 6, 1945

The US 4th Corps took Gallicano, Italy.

More bombing raids occurred on Iwo Jima.

Last edition:

Monday, February 5, 1945. French SOE agents Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe, and Violette Szabo were executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Thursday, January 18, 1945. Advances in Poland, losses in Hungary.

The Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front captured Modlin. The 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front approached encircling Lodz and Krakow, and the Germans withdrew from the latter.

The 4th SS Panzer Division nearly destroyed the Soviet 135th Rifle Corps while attempting to relieve Budapest.

The Red Army liberated the Budapest ghetto.

British commandos landed on the Dutch island of Schouwen.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 17, 1945. The Red Army enters a destroyed Warsaw.

Friday, January 17, 2025

Wednesday, January 17, 1945. The Red Army enters a destroyed Warsaw.

The Red Army finally took a destroyed Warsaw.  Hitler reacted by sacking generals Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz and Walter Fries.

Von Lüttwitz, who had seen combat in World War One and Two, went on to be a general in the Bundesherr.  He died in 1975 at age 79.  

Freis was subjected to a trial for his role in the city following in which Hitler requested a death sentence.  Amazingly, the court refused and Fries survived the war as well and died in 1982 at age 88.

The SS marched prisoners out of Auschwitz.

Swedish businessman and humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg disappeared after being detained by the Soviets in Budapeast.  He likely died in a Soviet jail cell two years later.

The German SS Donau was sunk by the Norwegian resistancde in Oslofjord

AP War Correspondent, Olen Clemente, Point Barrow, Alaska, at 3:00 p.m., Christmas Day, 1944. Photograph released January 17, 1945.

Last edition:

Tuesday, January 16, 1945. Der Führerbunker.

    Wednesday, January 1, 2025

    Monday, January 1, 1945. Operation Bodenplatte. Reprisal massacre.

    The Luftwaffe commenced Operation Bodenplatte, which had originally been planned for December 16, in an attempt to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries. The hope was to gain air superiority so that the stalled German advance in Wacht am Rhein could resume.

    A tactical surprise resulting in the destruction of 500 Allied aircraft on the ground, it none the less failed to achieve its goal and actually destroyed the Luftwaffe as an offensive, or even defensive, force due to heavy losses.  Allied losses were replaced within one week.

    Soldiers of the 11th Armored Division murdered about 80 German POWs at Chenogne, Belgium, in reprisal for the Malmedy Massacre.

    Some of the boys had some prisoners line up. I knew they were going to shoot them, and I hated this business.... They marched the prisoners back up the hill to murder them with the rest of the prisoners we had secured that morning.... As we were going up the hill out of town, I know some of our boys were lining up German prisoners in the fields on both sides of the road. There must have been 25 or 30 German boys in each group. Machine guns were being set up. These boys were to be machine gunned and murdered. We were committing the same crimes we were now accusing the Japs and Germans of doing.... Going back down the road into town I looked into the fields where the German boys had been shot. Dark lifeless forms lay in the snow.

    Following the Malmedy Massacre some US units were issued orders not to take SS POWs, a clearly illegal order.  The murdered POWs, however, were members of the Führerbegleitbrigade and 3rd Panzergrenadier Division, German Army units, the latter of which had been associated with atrocities in Italy.

    The killing of SS POWs became routine in some units.

    The event was covered up and only really became known in detail in 2018.  This was not the only such event that occurred, and some units began to routinely kill SS prisoners.

    The UK refused to recognize the Soviet sponsored Polish government.

    Hitler made a radio address which omitted the current German situation to such an extent that it provoked Allied debate on who made it, and when.

    It's worth noting at this point that while October, 1944, was the bloodiest month of the war for the US, in larger terms, the killing and dying ramped up massively starting in January, 1945, as the Allies closed in on Germany.

    Last edition:

    Sunday, December 31, 1944. Unternehmen Nordwind launched Ichi-Go concludes a success.

    Monday, August 5, 2024

    Friday, August 5, 1944. The Wola Massacre.

    German SS, the Azerbaijani Legion and the Russian collaborationist Kaminski Brigade, commenced killing Poles in the Wola district of Warsaw.  The massacre was ordered by Himmler.

    Major Ivan Denisovich Frolov with the officers of the Russian National Liberation Army (RONA) during the Warsaw Uprising.

    Between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles would be murdered.

    The weirdness of this is inescapable. The Russians in RONA were there partially in order to survive German captivity, and partial in an effort to free their homeland from Communist control. The Soviet Union had helped take away Poland's freedom by invading it along with Germany, and the Polish Home Army was attempting to free their homeland and was anti communist.  The Azerbaijanis were fighting for the liberation of their homeland as well.

    The 3d Army took Vannes.

    The Cowra breakout occured in New South Wales in which 1,100 Japanese POWs broke out.  They'd all be captured within ten days, although four Australians and 231 Japanese POWs would be killed.

    The RAF destroyed the German U-boat pens at Brest.

    The Soviet submarine Shch-215 sanke the Turkish motor schooner Mefküre resulting in the death of 300 Jewish refugees.

    Last edition:

    Thursday, August 4, 1944. The Frank's arrested.