1.
Rudolf Hess
–
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, was a prominent politician in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, he served in this position until 1941 and he was taken prisoner and eventually was convicted of crimes against peace, serving a life sentence, until his death by suicide. Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment as an infantryman at the outbreak of World War I and he was wounded several times over the course of the war, and won the Iron Cross, 2nd class, in 1915. Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator and he left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. Hess joined the NSDAP on 1 July 1920, and was at Hitlers side on 8 November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. Whilst serving time in jail for this coup, Hess helped Hitler write his book, Mein Kampf. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the NSDAP and he was the third most powerful man in Germany, behind only Hitler and Hermann Göring. Hess continued to be interested in aviation, learning to fly the advanced aircraft that were coming into development at the start of World War II. On 10 May 1941 he undertook a flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton. During much of the trial, he claimed to be suffering from amnesia, Hess was convicted of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes and was transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947, where he served a life sentence. Repeated attempts by members and prominent politicians to win him early release were blocked by the Soviet Union. Still in custody in Spandau, he died by suicide in 1987 at the age of 93, after his death the prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. Hess, the oldest of three children, was born on 26 April 1894 in Alexandria, Egypt, into the ethnic German family of Fritz Hess, a merchant from Bavaria. His brother, Alfred, was born in 1897 and his sister, the family lived in a villa on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often from 1900, staying at their summer home in Reicholdsgrün in the Fichtel Mountains. Hess attended a German language Protestant school in Alexandria from 1900 to 1908, after a year there, Hess took an apprenticeship at a trading company in Hamburg. Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I, Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment and his initial posting was against the British on the Somme, he was present at the First Battle of Ypres. On 9 November 1914 Hess transferred to the 1st Infantry Regiment and he was awarded the Iron Cross, second class, and promoted to Gefreiter in April 1915. After additional training at the Munster Training Area, he was promoted to Vizefeldwebel, returning to the front lines in November, he fought in Artois, participating in the battle for the town of Neuville-Saint-Vaast
2.
Auschwitz concentration camp
–
Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It consisted of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II–Birkenau, Auschwitz III–Monowitz, Auschwitz I was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940. The first extermination of prisoners took place in September 1941, from early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camps gas chambers from all over German-occupied Europe, where they were killed with the pesticide Zyklon B. An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the camp, around 90 percent of those killed were Jewish, approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp. Many of those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, infectious diseases, individual executions, and medical experiments. In the course of the war, the camp was staffed by 7,000 members of the German Schutzstaffel, some, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss, were executed. The Allied Powers refused to believe reports of the atrocities at the camp. As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz in January 1945, most of its population was sent west on a death march, the prisoners remaining at the camp were liberated on 27 January 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the following decades, survivors, such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel, wrote memoirs of their experiences in Auschwitz, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, immediately after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, acts of violence perpetrated against Jews became ubiquitous. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933 excluded most Jews from the legal profession, similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of the right to practise. Harassment and economic pressure were used by the regime to encourage Jews to leave the country voluntarily and their businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of government contracts. German Jews were subjected to violent attacks and boycotts, in September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were enacted. The Reich Citizenship Law stated that only those of Germanic or related blood were defined as citizens, thus Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship. The laws were expanded on 26 November 1935 to include Romani people and this supplementary decree defined Gypsies as enemies of the race-based state, the same category as Jews. By the start of World War II in 1939, around 250,000 of Germanys 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Palestine, the United Kingdom, Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered that the Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed, approximately 65,000 civilians, who were viewed as being inferior to the Aryan master race, were killed by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, the Nazis killed Jews, prostitutes, Romani, sS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, then head of the Gestapo, ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links
3.
Baden-Baden
–
Baden-Baden is a spa town, located in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. The springs at Baden-Baden were known to the Romans as Aquae, in modern German, Baden is a gerund meaning bathing but Baden, the original name of the town, derives from an earlier plural form of Bad. As with the English placename Bath, there are various other Badens at hot springs throughout Central Europe, the current doubled name arose to distinguish it from the others, particularly Baden near Vienna in Austria and Baden near Zürich in Switzerland. It is a reference to the Margraviate of Baden-Baden, a subdivision of the Margraviate of Baden, Baden-Baden became its formal name in 1931. Baden-Baden lies in a valley of the Northern Black Forest in southwestern Germany, the western districts lie within the Upper Rhine Plain. The highest mountain of Baden-Baden is the Badener Höhe, which is part of the Black Forest National Park, the old town lies on the side of a hill on the right bank of the Oos. Since the 19th century, the resorts have been located on the other side of the river. There are 29 natural springs in the area, varying in temperature from 46 to 67 °C. The water is rich in salt and flows from artesian wells 1,800 m under Florentine Hill at a rate of 341 litre per minute and is conveyed through pipes to the towns baths. Roman settlement at Baden-Baden has been dated as far back as the emperor Hadrian, the known ruins of the Roman bath were rediscovered just below the New Castle in 1847 and date to the reign of Caracalla, who visited the area to relieve his arthritic aches. The facilities were used by the Roman garrison in Strasbourg, the town fell into ruin but its church was first constructed in the 7th century. By 1112, it was the seat of the Margraviate of Baden, the Lichtenthal Convent was founded in 1254. The margraves initially used Hohenbaden Castle, whose ruins still occupy the summit above the town, Baden suffered severely during the Thirty Years War, particularly at the hands of the French, who plundered it in 1643. They returned to occupy the city in 1688 at the onset of the Nine Years War, the margravine Sibylla rebuilt the New Castle in 1697, but the margrave Louis William removed his seat to Rastatt in 1706. The Stiftskirche was rebuilt in 1753 and houses the tombs of several of the margraves, the town began its recovery in the late 18th century, serving as a refuge for émigrés from the French Revolution. The town was frequented during the Second Congress of Rastatt in 1797–99 and she came for medicinal reasons, as the waters were recommended for gout, rheumatism, paralysis, neuralgia, skin disorders, and stones. The Ducal government subsequently subsidized the resorts development, guests included Queen Victoria, Wilhelm I, and Berlioz. The pumproom was completed in 1842, the Grand Duchys railways mainline reached Baden in 1845
4.
Grand Duchy of Baden
–
The Grand Duchy of Baden was a state in the southwest of Germany on the east bank of the Rhine. It existed between 1806 and 1918 and it came into existence in the 12th century as the Margraviate of Baden and subsequently split into different lines, which were unified in 1771. After World War II, the French military government in 1945 created the state of Baden out of the half of the former Baden. This portion of the former Baden was declared in its 1947 constitution to be the successor of the old Baden. The northern half of the old Baden was combined with northern Württemberg, becoming part of the American military zone, both Baden and Württemberg-Baden became states of West Germany upon its formation in 1949. In 1952 Baden merged with Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern to form Baden-Württemberg and this is the only merger of states that has taken place in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. The unofficial anthem of Baden is called Badnerlied and consists of four or five traditional verses, however, over the years, many more verses have been added – there are collections with up to 591 verses of the anthem. Baden came into existence in the 12th century as the Margraviate of Baden, in 1803 Baden was raised to Electoral dignity within the Holy Roman Empire. Upon the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Baden became the much-enlarged Grand Duchy of Baden, in 1815 it joined the German Confederation. During the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, Baden was a centre of revolutionist activities, in 1849, in the course of the Baden Revolution, it was the only German state that became a republic for a short while, under the leadership of Lorenzo Brentano. The revolution in Baden was suppressed mainly by Prussian troops, the Grand Duchy of Baden remained a sovereign country until it joined the German Empire in 1871. After the revolution of 1918, Baden became part of the Weimar Republic as the Republic of Baden, when the French Revolution threatened to overflow into the rest of Europe in 1792, Baden joined forces against France, and its countryside was devastated once more. In 1796, the margrave Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden, was compelled to pay an indemnity, fortune, however, soon returned to his side. Changing sides in 1805, he fought for Napoleon, with the result that, by the peace of Pressburg in that year, he obtained the Breisgau and other territories at the expense of the Habsburgs. In 1806, he joined the Confederation of the Rhine, declared himself a prince, became a grand duke. The Baden contingent continued to assist France, and by the Peace of Vienna in 1809, Charles fought for his father-in-law until after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, when he joined the Allies. In 1815 Baden became a member of the German Confederation established by the Act of 8 June, however, in the haste of winding up the Congress, the question of the succession to the grand duchy did not get settled, a matter that would soon become acute. A controversy between Bavaria and Baden ensued, which was decided in favour of the Höchberg claims by a treaty signed by Baden
5.
German Empire
–
The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
6.
Polish People's Republic
–
The Polish Peoples Republic covers the history of Poland under Communist control between 1952 and 1990. The name was defined by the Constitution of 1952 which was based on the 1936 Soviet Constitution, between 1947 and 1952, the name of the Polish state was the Republic of Poland, in accordance with the temporary Constitution of 1947. The Soviet Union had much influence over internal and external affairs, and Red Army forces were stationed in Poland. In 1945, Soviet generals and advisors formed 80% of the cadre of the Polish Armed Forces. The Polish United Workers Party became the dominant political party, officially making the country a Communist state, at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin was able to present his western allies, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, with a fait accompli in Poland. His armed forces were in occupation of the country, and his agents, the USSR was in the process of incorporating the lands in eastern Poland which it had occupied between 1939 and 1941. In compensation, the USSR awarded Poland German territories in Pomerania, Silesia and these awards were confirmed at the Tripartite Conference of Berlin, otherwise known as the Potsdam Conference in August 1945 after the end of the war in Europe. Stalin was determined that Polands new government would become his tool towards making Poland a Soviet puppet state controlled by the communists. He had severed relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London in 1943, the communists held a majority of key posts in this new government, and with Soviet support they soon gained almost total control of the country, rigging all elections. This important victory would be their last, however, as the communists, tightening their grip on power, many of their opponents decided to leave the country, and others were put on staged trials and sentenced to many years of imprisonment or execution. In June 1946 the Three Times Yes referendum was held on a number of issues—abolition of the Senate of Poland, land reform, the communist-controlled Interior Ministry issued results showing that all three questions passed overwhelmingly. Years later, however, evidence was uncovered showing that the referendum had been tainted by massive fraud, Gomułka then took advantage of a split in the Polish Socialist Party. One faction, which included Prime Minister Edward Osóbka-Morawski, wanted to join forces with the Peasant Party, another faction, led by Józef Cyrankiewicz, argued that the Socialists should support the Communists in carrying through a socialist program, while opposing the imposition of one-party rule. Pre-war political hostilities continued to influence events, and Mikołajczyk would not agree to form a front with the Socialists. The Communists played on these divisions by dismissing Osóbka-Morawski and making Cyrankiewicz Prime Minister, between the referendum and the January 1947 general elections, the opposition was subjected to persecution. Only the candidates of the pro-government Democratic Bloc were allowed to campaign completely unmolested, meanwhile, several opposition candidates were prevented from campaigning at all. Mikołajczyks Polish Peoples Party in particular suffered persecution, it had opposed the abolition of the Senate as a test of strength against the government, although it supported the other two questions, the Communist-dominated government branded the PSL traitors. This massive oppression was overseen by Gomułka and the provisional president, the official results of the election showed the Democratic Bloc with 80.1 percent of the vote
7.
Nazi Germany
–
Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
8.
Schutzstaffel
–
The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party in Nazi Germany. It began with a guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed, under his direction, it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From 1929 until the collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance. The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS and Waffen-SS, the Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units of troops within Nazi Germanys military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände, ran the concentration camps, additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst organizations. The SS was the organization most responsible for the killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II, the SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germanys defeat, the SS and the NSDAP were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS officer at the time, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946. By 1923, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler had created a volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz to provide security at their meetings in Munich. The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the mass of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung. The new formation was designated the Stabswache, originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold, and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp in May 1923, the Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by the NSDAP to seize power in Munich. In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organize a new bodyguard unit and it was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at NSDAP functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to an organization and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel. Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925, the new SS was to provide protection for NSDAP leaders throughout Germany. Hitlers personal SS protection unit was enlarged to include combat units
9.
German-occupied Europe
–
Several German occupied countries entered World War II as Allies of the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union. Some were forced to such as Czechoslovakia, others like Poland were conquered in battle. In some cases, the legitimate governments went into exile, in cases the governments-in-exile were formed by their citizens in other Allied countries. Selected countries occupied by Nazi Germany were officially neutral
10.
Final Solution
–
The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a Nazi plan for the extermination of the Jews during World War II. The nature and timing of the decisions that led to the Final Solution is a studied and debated aspect of the Holocaust. The program evolved during the first 25 months of war leading to the attempt at murdering every last Jew in the German grasp, most historians agree, wrote Christopher Browning, that the Final Solution cannot be attributed to a single decision made at one particular point in time. It is generally accepted the process was prolonged and incremental. There were also plans to deport Jews to Palestine and Siberia, the term Final Solution was a euphemism used by the Nazis to refer to their plan for the annihilation of the Jewish people. Historians have shown that the tendency of the German leadership was to be extremely guarded when discussing the Final Solution. Euphemisms were, in Mark Rosemans words, their mode of communicating about murder. According to Nazi Party policy statement, the Jews, and Roma, were the only people in Europe. In 1936 the Bureau of Romani Affairs in Munich was taken over by the Interpol, after the Anschluss with Austria in 1938, special offices were established in Vienna and Berlin to facilitate Jewish emigration without covert plans for their forthcoming annihilation. In the German-occupied zone of Poland, Jews were forced hundreds of makeshift ghettos pending other arrangements. Two years later, with the launch of Operation Barbarossa against the USSR, reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler became the chief architect of a new plan, which came to be called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. On 31 July 1941, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring wrote to Reinhard Heydrich, broadly speaking, the extermination of Jews was carried out in two major operations. His new orders gave the SS and police leaders full authority for the murder behind the front-lines. By August 1941 all Jewish men, women and children were shot, in the second phase of annihilation, the Jewish inhabitants of central, western, and south-eastern Europe were transported by Holocaust trains to camps with newly-built gassing facilities. Raul Hilberg wrote, In essence, the killers of the occupied USSR moved to the victims, whereas outside this arena, the two operations constitute an evolution not only chronologically but also in complexity. The plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe irrespective of geographic borders was formalised at the Wannsee Villa near Berlin on 20 January 1942, the conference was chaired by Heydrich and attended by 15 senior officials of the Nazi Party and the German government. Most of those attending were representatives of the Interior Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, at the conference, Heydrich indicated that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the Final Solution. This figure included not only Jews residing in Axis-controlled Europe, but also the Jewish populations of the United Kingdom, eichmanns biographer David Cesarani wrote that Heydrichs main purpose in convening the conference was to assert his authority over the various agencies dealing with Jewish issues
11.
Karl Fritzsch
–
Karl Fritzsch was born in Bohemia into the family of a stove builder. His father moved constantly on work assignments, and therefore Fritzsch never received formal education, for some years he worked as labourer on river ships along Danube. His marriage in 1928 to Franziska Stich produced three children, but ended in divorce in 1942, Fritzsch joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1930 at the age of 27. He became a career SS man, almost as soon as it opened, he acquired a position at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934. Due to his experience, several months after the German invasion of Poland, in May 1940 he became deputy to Rudolf Höss. Fritzsch quickly obtained a reputation as the Auschwitz horror and he used to select prisoners to die of starvation in reprisal for the escape attempts among prisoners. Together with Höss, he was responsible for the death of victims locked inside standing cells in the basement of the Bunker. On 29 July 1941, a camp count found that three prisoners were missing and Fritzsch sentenced 10 remaining prisoners to immurement, one of the condemned, Franciszek Gajowniczek, was reprieved when a fellow prisoner, the Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe, offered to take his place. After over 2 weeks starvation, only Kolbe remained alive and the priest was killed in the bunker by lethal injection. Kolbe was later canonized by Pope John Paul II, Fritzsch was also fond of psychological torture. Former Auschwitz prisoner Karol Świętorzecki recalled the first Christmas Eve behind the barbed wire. The Nazis set up a Christmas tree, with electric lights, beneath it, they placed the bodies of prisoners who had died while working or frozen to death at roll call. Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch referred to the corpses beneath the tree as “a present” for the living, according to testimony of his superior Rudolf Höss, it was also Fritzsch who first came up with the idea of using poison gas Zyklon B for the purpose of mass murder. Fritzsch ordered the killing of Soviet POWs locked in cells in the basement of the Bunker while Höss went away on a trip in late August 1941. Fritzsch tried out the effect of Zyklon B inside cells which were not air-tight, Fritzsch repeated the test-killing of additional victims using Zyklon B soon thereafter in the presence of Höss. According to Höss the preferred method for the murders in Auschwitz using Zyklon B was devised on site. On 15 January 1942, Fritzsch was transferred to KZ Flossenbürg as Schutzhaftlagerführer, from early August until October 1942 he was temporary substitute commander of the camp. In October 1943, he was arrested as a part of an internal SS investigation into corruption, an SS court charged him with murder
12.
Zyklon B
–
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consisted of hydrogen cyanide, as well as an eye irritant. Hydrogen cyanide, a gas that interferes with cellular respiration, was first used as a pesticide in California in the 1880s. Research at Degesch of Germany led to the development of Zyklon and it was banned after a similar product was used by Germany as a chemical weapon in World War I. The new product was also named Zyklon, but it known as Zyklon B to distinguish it from the earlier version. Uses included delousing clothing and disinfesting ships, warehouses, and trains, in early 1942, Zyklon B emerged as the preferred killing tool of Nazi Germany for use in extermination camps during the Holocaust. Around a million people were killed using this method, mostly at Auschwitz, Tesch was executed in 1946 for knowingly selling the product to the SS for use on humans. Hydrogen cyanide is now used as a pesticide, but still has industrial applications. Firms in several countries continue to produce Zyklon B under alternative names, including Detia-Degesch, the successor to Degesch. Hydrogen cyanide is a gas that interferes with cellular respiration. Cyanide prevents the cell from producing adenosine triphosphate by binding to one of the involved in the electron transport chain. This protein, cytochrome c oxidase, contains several subunits and has ligands containing iron groups, the cyanide component of Zyklon B can bind at one of these iron groups, heme a3, forming a more stabilized compound through metal-to-ligand pi bonding. As a result of the formation of this new iron-cyanide complex, instead, these electrons destabilize the compound, thus, the heme group no longer accept them. Consequently, electron transport is halted, and cells can no longer produce the energy needed to synthesize ATP, in a human weighing 68 kilograms, death occurs within two minutes of inhaling 70 mg of hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide, discovered in the late 18th century, was used in the 1880s for the fumigation of citrus trees in California and its use spread to other countries for the fumigation of silos, goods wagons, ships, and mills. Its light weight and rapid dispersal meant its application had to place under tents or in enclosed areas. Chemists at Degesch added a cautionary eye irritant to a less volatile cyanide compound which reacted with water in the presence of heat to become hydrogen cyanide, the new product was marketed as the pesticide Zyklon. As a similar formula had been used as a weapon by the Germans during World War I, Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt became sole owners of Degesch in 1922
13.
Nazi Party
–
Its precursor, the German Workers Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The party emerged from the German nationalist, racist, and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, the party was created as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Pseudo-scientific racism theories were central to Nazism, the Nazis propagated the idea of a peoples community. Their aim was to unite racially desirable Germans as national comrades, while excluding those deemed either to be political dissidents, to maintain the supposed purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews, Romani, and the physically and mentally handicapped. They imposed exclusionary segregation on homosexuals, Africans, Jehovahs Witnesses, the partys leader since 1921, Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. Hitler rapidly established a regime known as the Third Reich. The term Nazi derives from the name given in German to a party member Nationalsozialist and was coined in response to the German term Sozi, members of the party referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten, rarely as Nazis. The term Parteigenosse was commonly used among Nazis, with the feminine form Parteigenossin used when it was appropriate, the term was in use before the rise of the party as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backward peasant, characterising an awkward and clumsy person. It derived from Ignaz, being a version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria. Opponents seized on this and shortened the name in intentional association to the long-time existing Sozi to the dismissive Nazi. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler assumed power of the German government, usage of the designation Nazi diminished in Germany, the use of Nazi Germany, and Nazi regime, was popularised by anti-Nazis and German exiles abroad. Thereafter, the spread into other languages and eventually was brought back to Germany after the Second World War. The party grew out of political groups with a nationalist orientation that formed in the last years of World War I. In 1918, a called the Freien Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten Frieden was created in Bremen. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler, an avid German nationalist, Drexler saw the situation of political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the new Weimar Republic being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. These were all well-known themes popular with various Weimar paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps, though very small, Drexlers movement did receive attention and support from some influential figures. Supporter Dietrich Eckhart brought military figure Count Felix Graf von Bothmer, later in 1918, Karl Harrer, convinced Drexler and several others to form the Politischer Arbeiterzirkel. The members met periodically for discussions with themes of nationalism and racism directed against the Jews and they became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany at the time
14.
Hanging
–
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck. Hanging has been a method of capital punishment since medieval times. The first account of execution by hanging was in Homers Odyssey, in this specialised meaning of the common word hang, the past and past participle is hanged instead of hung. Hanging is also a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness. There are four ways of performing a judicial hanging, suspension hanging, the drop, the standard drop. A mechanised form of hanging, the upright jerker, was experimented with in the 18th century. Suspension, like the drop, causes death by using the weight of the body to tighten the noose around the trachea. Prisoners are reported to have little or no struggle before they go limp because their jugular vein and carotid arteries are blocked and blood flow to the brain is reduced. The short drop is performed by placing the condemned prisoner on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, the object is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope. A ladder was also used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied. Another method involves using a stool, which the condemned is required to stand on, the executioner stands on a stepped platform approximately 4 feet high beside the condemned, and guides the head downward with his hand simultaneous to the efforts of his assistants. Nazi war criminal Karl Hermann Frank was also executed in this manner in 1946 in Prague and its use rapidly spread to English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems had an English origin. It was considered an improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough to break the persons neck, causing immediate paralysis. This method was used to execute condemned Nazis under United States jurisdiction after the Nuremberg Trials including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that, The hangman botched the execution, a Life magazine report on the execution merely says, The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight and this process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop. The careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose contributed to breaking the neck, between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were taken into account
15.
Heinrich Himmler
–
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel, and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Nazi Germany. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler briefly appointed him a commander and later Commander of the Replacement Army. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, as a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service. He studied agronomy in college, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923, in 1929, he was appointed Reichsführer-SS by Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a mere 290-man battalion into a paramilitary group. He was known to have good skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, on Hitlers behalf, Himmler formed the Einsatzgruppen and built extermination camps. Most of them were Polish and Soviet citizens, realising that the war was lost, he attempted to open peace talks with the western Allies without Hitlers knowledge shortly before the war ended. Hearing of this, Hitler dismissed him all his posts in April 1945. Himmler attempted to go into hiding, but was detained and then arrested by British forces once his identity became known, while in British custody, he committed suicide on 23 May 1945. Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich on 7 October 1900 into a conservative middle-class Roman Catholic family and his father was Gebhard Himmler, a teacher, and his mother was Anna Maria Himmler, a devout Roman Catholic. Heinrich had two brothers, Gebhard Ludwig and Ernst Hermann, Himmlers first name, Heinrich, was that of his godfather, Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, a member of the royal family of Bavaria, who had been tutored by Gebhard Himmler. He attended a school in Landshut, where his father was deputy principal. While he did well in his schoolwork, he struggled in athletics and he had poor health, suffering from lifelong stomach complaints and other ailments. In his youth he trained daily with weights and exercised to become stronger, other boys at the school later remembered him as studious and awkward in social situations. Himmlers diary, which he kept intermittently from the age of ten, shows that he took a keen interest in current events, dueling, in 1915, he began training with the Landshut Cadet Corps. His father used his connections with the family to get Himmler accepted as an officer candidate. His brother, Gebhard, served on the front and saw combat, receiving the Iron Cross
16.
Theodor Eicke
–
Theodor Eicke was a high-ranking commander in the SS of Nazi Germany. He commanded the Dachau concentration camp and the SS Division Totenkopf of the Waffen-SS, Eicke was one of the key figures in the establishment of concentration camps in Germany. Together with his adjutant Michael Lippert, Eicke executed SA Chief Ernst Röhm during the Night of the Long Knives purge in 1934, Eicke, the son of a station master, was born in Hudingen, near Salzburg into a lower-middle-class family. The youngest of 11 children, he did not do well in school and dropped out at the age of 17 before graduation. He joined the 23rd Bavarian Infantry Regiment as a volunteer, later on, in World War I, he took the office of paymaster for the 3rd — and, from 1916 on and he won the Iron Cross, Second Class in 1914. Eicke resigned from his position of army paymaster in 1919 and he began studying in his wifes hometown of Ilmenau. However, he dropped out of again in 1920 intending to pursue a police career. He initially worked as an informer and later as a regular policeman and his career in the police came to an end because of his fervent hatred for the Weimar Republic and his repeated participation in violent political demonstrations. He finally managed to work in 1923 at IG Farben. Eickes views on the Weimar Republic mirrored those of the Nazi Party and he left the SA in August 1930 for the SS, where he quickly rose in rank after recruiting new members and building up the SS organization in the Bavarian palatinate. In 1931, Eicke was promoted to the rank of SS-Standartenführer by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and his political activities caught the attention of his employer and in early 1932 he was laid off by IG Farben. At the same time, he was caught preparing bomb attacks on enemies in Bavaria for which he received a two-year prison sentence in July 1932. However, due to protection received from Franz Gürtner, who would serve as minister of justice under Adolf Hitler. In March 1933, less than three months after Hitlers rise to power, Eicke returned to Germany, Eicke had political quarrels with Gauleiter Joseph Bürckel, who had him arrested and detained for several months in a mental asylum. Also during the month, Himmler set up the first official concentration camp at Dachau. Hitler had stated that he did not want it to be just another prison or detention camp, in June 1933, Himmler obtained the release of Eicke from the asylum and promoted him to SS-Oberführer. Eicke requested a permanent unit and Himmler granted the request, the SS-Wachverbände was formed, promoted on 30 January 1934 to SS-Brigadeführer, Eicke as commander of Dachau reorganized the camp, firing half of the 120 guards who had been billeted there when he arrived. He devised a system that was used as a model for future camps throughout Germany and he established new guarding provisions, which included rigid discipline, total obedience to orders, and tightening disciplinary and punishment regulations for detainees
17.
Romani people
–
The Romani are widely known among English-speaking people by the exonym Gypsies, which some people consider pejorative due to its connotations of illegality and irregularity. Romani are dispersed, with their populations in Europe – especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe including Turkey, Spain. Since the 19th century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas, there are an estimated one million Roma in the United States, and 800,000 in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated in the nineteenth century from eastern Europe. Brazil also includes some Romani descended from people deported by the government of Portugal during the Inquisition in the colonial era, in migrations since the late nineteenth century, Romani have also moved to other countries in South America and to Canada. In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India. The conference ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora, the Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large, many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two, those varieties are sometimes called Para-Romani. French bohème, bohémien, from the Kingdom of Bohemia, whence they came, Rom means man or husband in the Romani, it has the variants dom and lom, related with the Sanskrit words dam-pati, dama, lom, lomaka loman, roman. Another possible origin is from Sanskrit डोम doma, Sanskrit सिनधु is a river or stream of water in general. In particular, it denotes the river Indus and the country around it, in the Romani language, Rom is a masculine noun, meaning man of the Roma ethnic group or man, husband, with the plural Roma. The feminine of Rom in the Romani language is Romni, however, in most cases, in other languages Rom is now used for people of all genders. Romani is the adjective, while Romano is the masculine adjective. Some Romanies use Rom or Roma as a name, while others do not use this term as a self-ascription for the entire ethnic group. Sometimes, rom and romani are spelled with a r, i. e. rrom. In this case rr is used to represent the phoneme /ʀ/, the rr spelling is common in certain institutions, or used in certain countries, e. g. Romania, to distinguish from the endonym/homonym for Romanians. In the English language, Rom is a noun and an adjective, while Romani is also a noun, both Rom and Romani have been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy. Romani was initially spelled Rommany, then Romany, while today the Romani spelling is the most popular spelling, occasionally, the double r spelling mentioned above is also encountered in English texts. The term Roma is increasingly encountered during recent decades, as a term for the Romani people
18.
German East Africa
–
German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included what are now Burundi, Rwanda, and the mainland part of present Tanzania. Its area was 994,996 km2, nearly three times the area of present-day Germany, the colony was organized when the German military was called upon to put down a revolt against the activities of a colonial company during the late 1880s. It ended with Imperial Germanys defeat in World War I, ultimately it was divided between Britain and Belgium and reorganized as a mandate of the League of Nations. Like other powers, the Germans expanded their empire in the Africa Great Lakes region on the basis of fighting slavery, unlike other imperial powers, however, they never actually formally abolished it, preferring instead to curtail the production of new recruits and regulate the extant slaving business. The colony began with Carl Peters, an adventurer who founded the Society for German Colonization, on 3 March 1885, the German government announced it had granted an imperial charter to Peters company and intended to establish a protectorate in the Africa Great Lakes region. Peters then recruited specialists, who began exploring south to the Rufiji River and north to Witu, the British and Germans agreed to divide the mainland between themselves, and the Sultan had no option but to agree. The Abushiri Revolt of 1888 was put down the following year, in 1890, London and Berlin concluded the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, returning Heligoland to Germany and deciding on the borders of German East Africa. Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe tribe, led by Chief Mkwawa and they were defeated because rival tribes supported the Germans. After years of warfare, Mkwawa himself was cornered and committed suicide in 1898. The Maji Maji Rebellion occurred in 1905 and was put down by the governor, but scandal soon followed, with stories of corruption and brutality, and in 1907 Chancellor Bülow appointed Bernhard Dernburg to reform the colonial administration. It became a model of efficiency and commanded extraordinary loyalty among the natives during the First World War. German colonial administrators relied heavily on native chiefs to keep order, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, was a successful general in German East Africa during World War I. Commerce and growth started in earnest under German direction, early on it was realized that economic development would depend on reliable transportation. Over 100,000 acres were under sisal cultivation – the biggest cash crop, two million coffee trees were planted and rubber trees grew on 200,000 acres, along with large cotton plantations. To bring these agricultural products to market, beginning in 1888, the longest line, the Central Railroad covered 775 miles from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, Tabora and Kigoma. The final link to the shore of Lake Tanganyika had been completed in July 1914 and was cause for a huge and festive celebration in the capital with an agricultural fair. Harbor facilities were built or improved with electrical cranes, with rail access, wharves were remodeled at Tanga, Bagamoyo and Lindi. In 1912 Dar es Salaam and Tanga received 356 freighters and passenger steamers and over 1,000 coastal ships and local trading vessels
19.
World War I
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
20.
Sixth Army (Ottoman Empire)
–
The Sixth Army of the Ottoman Empire was one of the field armies of the Ottoman Army. It was formed in the middle 19th century during Ottoman military reforms, in 1877, it was stationed in Baghdad. It was composed of, Infantry, Six line regiments and six rifle battalion, after the Young Turk Revolution and the establishment of the Second Constitutional Era on July 3,1908, new government initiate a major military reform
21.
Baghdad
–
Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is approximately 8,765,000 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, and the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century, within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key institutions, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Centre of Learning. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with a population of 1,200,000 people. The city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, in contemporary times, the city has often faced severe infrastructural damage, most recently due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks. As of 2012, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, the site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name is of Indo-European origin and a Middle Persian compound of Bagh god and dād given by, translating to Bestowed by God or Gods gift. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog god, a similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning gift of Mithra. There are a number of locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan. The name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins, when the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the name on coins, weights, and other official usage. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis, after the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital whence they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762, the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city, mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying, This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward. The citys growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors, it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, the abundance of water in a dry climate
22.
Kut
–
Al-Kūt is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about 160 kilometres south east of Baghdad. As of 2003 the estimated population is about 374,000 people and it is the capital of the province long known as Al Kut, but since the 1960s renamed Wasit. The old town of Kut is within a sharp U bend of the river, almost making it an island, for centuries Kut was a regional center of the carpet trade. The area around Kut is a cereal grain growing region. The Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility, looted following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is located near Kut, the Kut Barrage was constructed in the city in the 1930s to provide irrigation water for the surrounding area. The barrage supports a road and includes a lock for boats passing up and its purpose is to maintain a sufficiently high water level in the Tigris to provide water for the Gharraf irrigation canal. In 1952,26,440 hectares were irrigated from water provided by the Gharraf Canal, of this newly reclaimed land,14,080 hectares was distributed to small farmers as part of a social land reform program. These farmers received 10 hectares per family and were required to live on the land they farmed, in 2005, repairs and maintenance works were carried out at the Kut Barrage and the Gharraf Head Regulator for a total cost of US$3 million. Kut was the scene of a battle during World War I. The British Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, led by General Townshend, marched north from Basra in September 1915 in what known as the Mesopotamian Campaign. They reached Kut on September 26, where three days of fighting they drove the Ottoman forces from the town. After a halt of nearly 9 months, Townshend then headed up river to Ctesiphon, following a battle there, the British forces withdrew back to Kut. On December 7,1915, the Turks, under their commander, the British cavalry under Colonel Gerard Leachman succeeded in breaking out, but Townshend and the bulk of the force remained besieged. Many attempts were made to relieve Townshends forces, but all were defeated, some 23,000 British and Indian soldiers died in the attempts to retake Kut, probably the worst loss of life for the British away from the European theater. Near the end of the siege, T. E. Lawrence, Townshend, with some 8,000 surviving soldiers, finally surrendered Kut on April 29,1916. The British went back on the offensive in December 1916 with a larger and better-supplied force under General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, contingency Operating Base Delta was an American military installation located on the right bank of the Tigris directly across from Kut. Designated as a FOB in the stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Delta was centered on a former Iraqi Air Force base, Kut Al Hayy Air Base. In 2005 Delta was selected to become an enduring FOB, remaining open after other FOBs had closed, sometime after 2009 the FOB was re-designated as a COB
23.
Palestine (region)
–
Palestine is a geographic region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories, the name was used by Ancient Greek writers, and was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. The region comprises most of the claimed for the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel. Historically, it has known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham. The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, today, the region comprises the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories in which the State of Palestine was declared. Modern archaeology has identified 12 ancient inscriptions from Egyptian and Assyrian records recording likely cognates of Hebrew Pelesheth, the term Peleset is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c.1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term, approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition for the region in Meteorology, in which he included the Dead Sea. The term is accepted to be a translation of the Biblical name Peleshet. The term is used in the Septuagint, who used a transliteration Land of Phylistieim different from the contemporary Greek place name Palaistínē. Following the Muslim conquest, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration generally continued to be used in Arabic, Modern archaeologists and historians of the region refer to their field of study as Levantine archaeology. The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities, during the Bronze Age, independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 1550–1400 BCE, the Canaanite cities became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the 1178 BCE Battle of Djahy during the wider Bronze Age collapse. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c.740 BCE, in 539 BCE, the Babylonian empire was replaced by the Achaemenid Empire. In the 330s BCE, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the region and it ultimately fell to the Seleucid Empire between 219–200 BCE. In 116 BCE, a Seleucid civil war resulted in the independence of certain regions including the Hasmonean principality in the Judaean Mountains, from 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of Palestine, creating a Judaean–Samaritan–Idumaean–Ituraean–Galilean alliance. The Judaean control over the region resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea. Between 73–63 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the Third Mithridatic War, conquering Judea in 63 BCE, and splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. The three-year Ministry of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion, is estimated to have occurred from 28–30 CE, in 70 CE, Titus sacked Jerusalem, resulting in the dispersal of the citys Jews and Christians to Yavne and Pella
24.
Turkey
–
Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
25.
Feldwebel
–
Feldwebel, literally field usher, is a non-commissioned officer rank in several countries. The rank originated in Germany, but it is used in Switzerland, Finland, Sweden. The rank has also used in Russia, Austria-Hungary. Feldwebel is a contraction of feld meaning field and weibel, a word meaning usher. Weibel comes from the Old High German weibôn, meaning to go back, there are variations on feldwebel, such as Oberstabsfeldwebel, which is the highest non-commissioned rank in the German army and air force. The rank is used in countries, Swedish fältväbel, Russian фельдфебель, Bulgarian фелдфебел, Finnish vääpeli. In Swiss German the spelling feldweibel is used, the Landsknecht regiments first installed Feldwaibel to keep the men at line at the battlefield. The rank is used in the German Army and German Air Force and it is grouped as OR6 in NATO, equivalent in the US Army to Staff Sergeant, or in British Army / RAF to Sergeant. In army/air force context NCOs of this rank were addressed as Herr Feldwebel. Feldwebel gained its widest usage under the German military beginning from the early 19th century, the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer until 1918, the Feldwebel acted as Company Sergeant Major. By contrast with other countries, the position and duty of Regimental Sergeant Major never existed in Germany. From 1877 veteran NCOs could be promoted to the rank of Feldwebel-Leutnant and this Army Reserve officer ranked with the Commissioned Officers, but was always inferior to the lowest Leutnant. From 1887 the Offizierstellvertreter ranked as a kind of Warrant Officer between Feldwebel and the commissioned officers, there were three further NCO ranks, Vizefeldwebel, Sergeant and Unteroffizier. The Gefreiter was not an NCO as he had no powers of authority, in 1921, the rank of Sergeant was renamed Unterfeldwebel. Unterfeldwebels did duty as squad/section leaders, the appointment of Hauptfeldwebel could be held by Stabsfeldwebels or Oberfeldwebels only. NCOs of a lower rank holding this position were titled Hauptfeldwebeldiensttuer, not all Heer NCOs in this grade were called Unterfeldwebel, Feldwebel, Oberfeldwebel and Stabsfeldwebel which are ranks in the infantry tradition. In some other branches, for example, the equivalent ranks were as follows. Feldwebel was an infantry rank of the k. u. k
26.
Non-commissioned officer
–
A non-commissioned officer or noncommissioned officer is a military officer who has not earned a commission. Such is also called sub-officer in some countries, Non-commissioned officers, in the English-speaking world, usually obtain their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. In contrast, commissioned officers hold higher ranks than NCOs, have more legal responsibilities, are paid more, commissioned officers usually earn their commissions without having risen through the enlisted ranks. Mustang is a term in the United States Armed Forces used to refer to a commissioned officer who began his or her career as an enlisted service member. The NCO corps usually includes all grades of corporal and sergeant, in some countries, the naval equivalent includes some or all grades of petty officer, although not all navies class their petty officers as NCOs. There are different classes of non-commissioned officer, including junior non-commissioned officers, the non-commissioned officer corps is often referred to as the backbone of the armed services, as they are the primary and most visible leaders for most military personnel. Additionally, they are the leaders responsible for executing a military organizations mission. NCO training and education typically includes leadership and management as well as service-specific, senior NCOs are considered the primary link between enlisted personnel and the commissioned officers in a military organization. Their advice and guidance is important for junior officers, who begin their careers in a position of authority. In the Australian Army, Lance corporals and corporals are classified as junior NCOs, while sergeants, in the New South Wales Police Force, NCOs perform supervisory and coordination roles. The ranks of probationary constable through to leading senior constable are referred to as constables, all NCOs within the NSW Police are given a warrant of appointment under the Commissioners hand and seal. All officers within the Australian Defence Force Cadets are non-commissioned, ADFC officers are appointed by the Director-General of their respective branch. In the Canadian Forces, the Queens Regulations and Orders formally defined a non-commissioned officer as A Canadian Forces member holding the rank of Sergeant or Corporal. In the 1990s, the term non-commissioned member was introduced to all ranks in the Canadian Forces from recruit to chief warrant officer. In the Royal Canadian Navy, however, the definition of NCO reflects the international use of the term. Junior Non-commissioned officers mess and billet with privates and seamen, their mess is usually referred to as the junior ranks mess, as a group, NCOs rank above privates and below warrant officers. The term non-commissioned members includes these ranks, in the Finnish Defence Force, NCOs includes all ranks from corporal to sergeant major. Ranks of lance corporal and leading seaman are considered not to be NCO ranks and this ruling applies to all branches of service and also to the troops of the Border Guard
27.
Gallipoli Star
–
The Gallipolli Star is the name of two military decorations, one awarded by the Ottoman Empire, one proposed by the British Commonwealth never awarded but later privately struck. The Ottoman award was known as the Ottoman War Medal or the Iron Crescent and it was instituted by the Sultan Mehmed Reshad V on 1 March 1915 for gallantry in battle. This decoration was awarded for the duration of World War I to Ottoman and other Central Powers troops, the award includes a badge, ribbon and campaign bar. The medal, made of nickel-plated brass, has a vaulted star-shaped badge,56 mm across the span of the arms. The tips of the star are capped by ball finials and enclosed in a silver edge with the field in red lacquer or enamel. A raised crescent, open at the top, encircles the center of the badge, inside the crescent is the tughra or cipher of the decorations creator, Sultan Mehmed Reshad V, over the date 1333 AH. The reverse is flat, unadorned and has a straight pin, along with the badge came a ribbon with red and white stripes. The dimensions of the ribbon for combatants are, red 2.5 mm, for non-combatant awardees, the colors are reversed. The campaign bar is a parabola of white at 56mm in length. Wear of the badge was exclusive, in everyday wear was substituted by the ribbon, the ribbon was worn from the second hole in the tunic button. For Austrian and German awardees, the award took lower precedence to their own Iron Cross 2nd class, the ribbon could also be fashioned into a chest riband for placement on a ribbon bar when in undress. The campaign bar was not worn. The Commonwealth Gallipoli Star, originally to have called the ANZAC Star, was proposed by Lieutenant General Birdwood for Australian. Despite approval by George V, protest at a medal that could not be awarded to all Commonwealth troops was raised by British parliamentarians and media. In 1918, after ribbons, but not medals, had shipped to the two nations, the award was cancelled and instead eligible soldiers were awarded the 1914 –1915 Star. In 1990 the award was privately struck with 200 copies being given to Gallipoli veterans, the medal was designed by R K Peacock. It was a bronze star surrounding a silver disc. On the disc the words Gallipoli 1914-15 surrounded the Kings crown, the ribbon had a blue centre with yellow on the wearers right and silver on the left
28.
Iron Cross
–
The Iron Cross was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire and Nazi Germany. It was established by King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia in March 1813 backdated to the birthday of his late wife Queen Louise on 10 March 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars, Louise was the first person to receive this decoration. The recommissioned Iron Cross was also awarded during the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, the Iron Cross was normally a military decoration only, though there were instances of it being awarded to civilians for performing military functions. The design of the symbol was black with a white or silver outline. It was ultimately derived from the cross pattée occasionally used by the Teutonic Order from the 13th century, the black cross patty was also used as the symbol of the German Army from 1871 to March/April 1918, when it was replaced by the Balkenkreuz. In 1956, it was re-introduced as the symbol of the Bundeswehr, the Black Cross is the emblem used by the Prussian Army, and by the army of Germany from 1871 to present. It was designed on the occasion of the German Campaign of 1813, from this time, the Black Cross also featured on the Prussian war flag alongside the Black Eagle. The design is due to neoclassical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, based on a sketch by Frederick William, the design is ultimately derivative of the black cross used by the Teutonic Order. This heraldic cross took various forms throughout the history, including a simple Latin cross. When the Quadriga of the Goddess of Peace was retrieved from Paris at Napoleons fall, an Iron Cross was inserted into her laurel wreath, making her into a Goddess of Victory. The Black Cross was used on the naval and war flags of the German Empire, the Black Cross was used as the symbol of the German Army until 1915, when it was replaced by a simpler Balkenkreuz. The Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, the traditional design in black is used on armored vehicles and aircraft, while after German reunification, a new design in blue and silver was introduced for use in other contexts. The ribbon for the 1813,1870 and 1914 Iron Cross was black with two white bands, the colors of Prussia. The non-combatant version of this award had the same medal, but the black, the ribbon color for the 1939 EKII was black/white/red/white/black. Since the Iron Cross was issued several different periods of German history. For example, an Iron Cross from World War I bears the year 1914, the reverse of the 1870,1914 and 1939 series of Iron Crosses have the year 1813 appearing on the lower arm, symbolizing the year the award was created. The 1813 decoration also has the initials FW for King Frederick William III, the final version shows a swastika. There was also the 1957 issue, a replacement medal for holders of the 1939 series which substituted an oak-leaf cluster for the banned swastika
29.
Damascus
–
Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
30.
Prisoner of war
–
A prisoner of war is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the prisoner of war dates to 1660. The first Roman gladiators were prisoners of war and were named according to their ethnic roots such as Samnite, Thracian, typically, little distinction was made between enemy combatants and enemy civilians, although women and children were more likely to be spared. Sometimes, the purpose of a battle, if not a war, was to capture women, a known as raptio. Typically women had no rights, and were legally as chattel. For this he was eventually canonized, during Childerics siege and blockade of Paris in 464, the nun Geneviève pleaded with the Frankish king for the welfare of prisoners of war and met with a favourable response. Later, Clovis I liberated captives after Genevieve urged him to do so, many French prisoners of war were killed during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the later Middle Ages, a number of religious wars aimed to not only defeat, in Christian Europe, the extermination of heretics was considered desirable. Examples include the 13th century Albigensian Crusade and the Northern Crusades, likewise, the inhabitants of conquered cities were frequently massacred during the Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th and 12th centuries. Noblemen could hope to be ransomed, their families would have to send to their captors large sums of wealth commensurate with the status of the captive. In feudal Japan there was no custom of ransoming prisoners of war, in Termez, on the Oxus, all the people, both men and women, were driven out onto the plain, and divided in accordance with their usual custom, then they were all slain. The Aztecs were constantly at war with neighbouring tribes and groups, for the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, between 10,000 and 80,400 persons were sacrificed. During the early Muslim conquests, Muslims routinely captured large number of prisoners, aside from those who converted, most were ransomed or enslaved. Christians who were captured during the Crusades, were either killed or sold into slavery if they could not pay a ransom. The freeing of prisoners was highly recommended as a charitable act, there also evolved the right of parole, French for discourse, in which a captured officer surrendered his sword and gave his word as a gentleman in exchange for privileges. If he swore not to escape, he could gain better accommodations, if he swore to cease hostilities against the nation who held him captive, he could be repatriated or exchanged but could not serve against his former captors in a military capacity. Early historical narratives of captured colonial Europeans, including perspectives of literate women captured by the peoples of North America. The writings of Mary Rowlandson, captured in the fighting of King Philips War, are an example
31.
Romania
–
Romania is a sovereign state located in Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and it has an area of 238,391 square kilometres and a temperate-continental climate. With over 19 million inhabitants, the country is the member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city, Bucharest, is the sixth-largest city in the EU, the River Danube, Europes second-longest river, rises in Germany and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romanias Danube Delta. The Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest are marked by one of their tallest peaks, Moldoveanu, modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. Romania lost several territories, of which Northern Transylvania was regained after the war, following the war, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and it has been a member of NATO since 2004, and part of the European Union since 2007. A strong majority of the population identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are speakers of Romanian. The cultural history of Romania is often referred to when dealing with artists, musicians, inventors. For similar reasons, Romania has been the subject of notable tourist attractions, Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning citizen of Rome. The first known use of the appellation was attested in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, after the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân gradually fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a leader of the early 19th century. The use of the name Romania to refer to the homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been officially in use since 11 December 1861, in English, the name of the country was formerly spelt Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975, Romania is also the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. The Neolithic-Age Cucuteni area in northeastern Romania was the region of the earliest European civilization. Evidence from this and other sites indicates that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture extracted salt from salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage
32.
Bavaria
–
Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
33.
Armistice of 11 November 1918
–
It went into effect at 11 a. m. Paris time on 11 November 1918, and marked a victory for the Allies, the Germans were responding to the policies proposed by U. S. President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points of January 1918. Although the armistice ended the fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. In addition, he recommended the acceptance of the demands of US president Woodrow Wilson including putting the Imperial Government on a democratic footing, hoping for more favorable peace terms. As he said to officers of his staff on 1 October, on 3 October, the liberal Prince Maximilian of Baden was appointed Chancellor of Germany, replacing Georg von Hertling in order to negotiate an armistice. In the subsequent two exchanges, Wilsons allusions failed to convey the idea that the Kaisers abdication was a condition for peace. The leading statesmen of the Reich were not yet ready to contemplate such a monstrous possibility, in late October, Ludendorff, in a sudden change of mind, declared the conditions of the Allies unacceptable. He now demanded to resume the war which he himself had declared lost only one month earlier, however the German soldiers were pressing to get home. It was scarcely possible to arouse their readiness for battle anew, the Imperial Government stayed on course and Ludendorff was replaced by Wilhelm Groener. On 5 November, the Allies agreed to take up negotiations for a truce, the latest note from Wilson was received in Berlin on 6 November. That same day, the led by Matthias Erzberger departed for France. For example, they assumed that the de-militarization suggested by Wilson would be limited to the Central Powers, there were also contradictions with their post-War plans that did not include a consistent implementation of the ideal of national self-determination. Also on 9 November, Max von Baden handed over the office of Chancellor to Friedrich Ebert, eberts SPD and Erzbergers Catholic Centre Party had enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the Imperial government since Bismarcks era in the 1870s and 1880s. They were well represented in the Imperial Reichstag, which had power over the government. Their prominence in the negotiations would cause the new Weimar Republic to lack legitimacy in right-wing. The Armistice was the result of a hurried and desperate process and they were then entrained and taken to the secret destination, aboard Ferdinand Fochs private train parked in a railway siding in the forest of Compiègne. Foch appeared only twice in the three days of negotiations, on the first day, to ask the German delegation what they wanted, the Germans were handed the list of Allied demands and given 72 hours to agree. The German delegation discussed the Allied terms not with Foch, but with other French, the Armistice amounted to complete German demilitarization, with few promises made by the Allies in return
34.
Freikorps
–
Freikorps were German volunteer units that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, the members of which effectively fought as mercenaries, regardless of their own nationality. In German-speaking countries the first so-called Freikorps free regiments were formed in the 18th century from native volunteers, enemy renegades and deserters and these sometimes exotically equipped units served as infantry and cavalry or, more rarely, as artillery. Sometimes in just company strength, sometimes in formations up to several thousand strong, the Prussian von Kleist Freikorps included infantry, jäger, dragoons, and hussars. The French Volontaires de Saxe combined uhlans and dragoons and these units roamed the countryside, killing with impunity. They engaged in confrontations with republican loyalists and engineered some of the more notorious assassinations of the Weimar period. An entire series of Freikorps awards also existed, the very first Freikorps were recruited by Frederick the Great during the Seven Years War. On 15 July 1759, Frederick ordered the creation of a squadron of hussars to be attached to the 1st Regiment of Hussars. He entrusted the creation and command of new unit to Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von Kleist. This first squadron was raised in Dresden and consisted mainly of Hungarian deserters and this squadron was placed under the command of Lieutenant Johann Michael von Kovacs. At the end of 1759, the first 4 squadrons of dragoons of the Freikorps were organised and they initially consisted of Prussian volunteers from Berlin, Magdeburg, Mecklenburg and Leipzig but later recruited deserters. The Freikorps were regarded as unreliable by regular armies, so they were used as sentries. Even during the last Kabinettskrieg, the War of the Bavarian Succession, germans, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians and South Slavs, as well as Turks, Tatars and Cossacks, were believed by all warring parties to be inherently good fighters. The nationality of many soldiers can no longer be ascertained with certainty as the origin was often described imprecisely in the regimental lists. Slavs were often referred to as Hungarians or Croats, and Muslim recruits as Turks, for Prussia, the Pandurs, who were made up of Serbs and Croats, were a clear model for the organization of such free troops. They were often used to ward off Maria Theresas Pandurs, in the era of linear tactics, light troops had been seen necessary for outpost, reinforcement and reconnaissance duties. Because, with exceptions, they were seen as undisciplined and less battleworthy, they were used for less onerous guard. In the so-called petty wars, the Freikorps interdicted enemy supply lines with guerrilla warfare, in the case of capture, their members were at risk of being executed as irregular fighters. In Prussia the Freikorps, which Frederick the Great had despised as vermin, were disbanded and their soldiers were given no entitlement to pensions or invalidity payments
35.
Silesia
–
Silesia is a region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is about 40,000 km2, and its population about 8,000,000, Silesia is located along the Oder River. It consists of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia, the region is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesias largest city and historical capital is Wrocław, the biggest metropolitan area is the Upper Silesian metropolitan area, the centre of which is Katowice. Parts of the Czech city of Ostrava fall within the borders of Silesia, Silesias borders and national affiliation have changed over time, both when it was a hereditary possession of noble houses and after the rise of modern nation-states. The first known states to hold there were probably those of Greater Moravia at the end of the 9th century. In the 10th century, Silesia was incorporated into the early Polish state, in the 14th century, it became a constituent part of the Bohemian Crown Lands under the Holy Roman Empire, which passed to the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in 1526. Most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia in 1742, later becoming part of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the varied history with changing aristocratic possessions resulted in an abundance of castles in Silesia, especially in the Jelenia Góra valley. The remaining former Austrian parts of Silesia were partitioned to Czechoslovakia, in 1945, after World War II, the bulk of Silesia was transferred to Polish jurisdiction by the Potsdam Agreement of the victorious Allied Powers and became part of Poland. The small Lusatian strip west of the Oder-Neisse line, which had belonged to Silesia since 1815 and its centres are Görlitz and Bautzen. Most inhabitants of Silesia today speak the languages of their respective countries. The population of Upper Silesia is native, while Lower Silesia was settled by a German-speaking population before 1945, an ongoing debate exists whether Silesian speech should be considered a dialect of Polish or a separate language. Also, a Lower Silesian German dialect is used, although today it is almost extinct and it is used by expellees within Germany, as well as Germans who were left behind. The names all relate to the name of a river and mountain in mid-southern Silesia, the mountain served as a cultic place. Ślęża is listed as one of the numerous Pre-Indo-European topographic names in the region, according to some Polish Slavists, the name Ślęża or Ślęż is directly related to the Old Slavic words ślęg or śląg, which means dampness, moisture, or humidity. They disagree with the hypothesis of an origin for the name Śląsk from the name of the Silings tribe, in the fourth century BC, Celts entered Silesia, settling around Mount Ślęża near modern Wrocław, Oława, and Strzelin. Germanic Lugii tribes were first recorded within Silesia in the 1st century, Slavic peoples arrived in the region around the 7th century, and by the early ninth century, their settlements had stabilized. Local Slavs started to erect boundary structures like the Silesian Przesieka, the eastern border of Silesian settlement was situated to the west of the Bytom, and east from Racibórz and Cieszyn
36.
Ruhr
–
The Ruhr, or the Ruhr district, Ruhr region, Ruhr area or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2, 800/km² and a population of eight and a million, it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. It consists of large, industrial cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west. In the southwest it borders the Bergisches Land and it is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of more than 12 million people, which is among the largest in Europe. The most populous cities are Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg, the Ruhr area has no administrative center, each city in the area has its own administration, although there exists the supracommunal Regionalverband Ruhr institution in Essen. Since the 19th century, these districts have grown together into a complex with a vast industrial landscape. For 2010, the Ruhr region was one of the European Capitals of Culture, the urban landscape of the Ruhr extends from the Lower Rhine Basin east to the Westphalian Plain and south to the hills of the Rhenish Massif. Through the centre of the Ruhr runs a segment of the belt that extends across Germany from west to east. Historically, this belt has underlain some of Germanys richest agricultural regions. Geologically, the region is defined by coal-bearing layers from the upper Carboniferous period, the coal seams reach the surface in a strip along the River Ruhr and dip downward from the river to the north. Beneath the River Lippe, the coal seams lie at a depth of 600 to 800 metres, the thickness of the coal layers ranges from one to three metres. This geological feature played a role in the development of coal mining in the Ruhr. According to the Regionalverband Ruhr,37. 6% of the area is built up. A total of 40. 7% of the land remains in agricultural use. Forests account for 17. 6%, and bodies of water and other types of land use occupy the rest, the inclusion of four mainly rural districts in the otherwise mainly industrial Ruhr helps to explain the large proportion of agricultural and forested land. In addition, the city boroughs of the Ruhr region have outlying districts with a rural character, seen on a map, the Ruhr could be considered a single city, since—at least in the north-south dimension—there are no visible breaks between the individual city boroughs. Thus the Ruhr is described as an urban area, which shares a similar history of urban. Instead, the city boroughs and urban districts of the Ruhr grew independently of one another during the Industrial Revolution
37.
Silesian Uprisings
–
In the latter-day history of Poland after World War II, the insurrections were celebrated as centrepieces of national pride. Much of Silesia had belonged to the Polish Crown in medieval times, frederick the Great of Prussia seized Silesia from Maria Theresa of Austria in 1742 in the War of Austrian Succession, after which it became a part of Prussia and in 1871 the German Empire. Although the province had by now become overwhelmingly German speaking, a large Polish minority remained in Upper Silesia, Upper Silesia was bountiful in mineral resources and heavy industry, with mines and iron and steel mills. The Silesian mines were responsible for almost a quarter of Germanys annual output of coal,81 percent of its zinc and 34 percent of its lead, the area in Upper Silesia east of the Oder was dominated by ethnic Poles, most of whom were working class. Most spoke a dialect of Polish, but many felt they were a Slavic group of their own called Silesians. In contrast, most of the middle and upper classes – the landowners, businessmen, factory owners, local government, police. There was a division along religious lines. The German Silesians were almost all Protestant, while the Polish Silesians were invariably Roman Catholic, in the German census of 1900, 65% of the population of the eastern part of Silesia was recorded as Polish speaking, which decreased to 57% in 1910. This was partly a result of forced Germanization, but was due to the creation of a bilingual category. The Treaty of Versailles had ordered a plebiscite in Upper Silesia to determine whether the territory should be a part of Germany or Poland. Thus the plebiscite took place in all of Upper Silesia, including the predominantly Polish-speaking areas in the east, the Upper Silesian plebiscite was to be conducted on March 20,1921. In the meantime, the German administration and police remained in place, meanwhile, propaganda and strong arm tactics by both sides led to increasing unrest. The German authorities warned that those voting for Poland might forfeit their jobs, pro-Polish activists argued that, under Polish rule, Silesian Poles would no longer be discriminated against. Poland also promised to honour their German state social benefits, such as the old age pensions, however, many German Army veterans joined the Freikorps, a paramilitary organization whose troops fought any pro-Polish activists. The pro-Poland side employed the Polish Military Organisation – a secret military organisation, eventually, the deteriorating situation resulted in Upper Silesian Uprisings conducted by Poles in 1919 and 1920. The right to vote was granted to all aged 20 and older who either had been born in or lived in the plebiscite area, a result was the mass migration of both Germans and Poles. The German newcomers accounted for 179,910, the Polish newcomers numbering over 10,000, without these new voters, the pro-German vote would have had a majority of 58,336 instead of the final 228,246. The plebiscite took place as arranged on March 20, two days after the signing of the Treaty of Riga, which ended the Polish–Soviet War of 1919/1920, a total of 707,605 votes were cast for Germany and 479,359 for Poland
38.
Occupation of the Ruhr
–
The Ruhr region had been occupied by Allied troops in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, during the Occupation of the Rhineland. The total sum of reparations demanded from Germany—around 226 billion gold marks —was decided by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission, in 1921, the amount was reduced to 132 billion. Even with the reduction, the debt was huge, as some of the payments were in industrial raw materials, German factories were unable to function, and the German economy suffered, further damaging the countrys ability to pay. Particularly galling to the French was that the timber quota the Germans defaulted on was based on an assessment of their capacity the Germans made themselves and subsequently lowered. The Allies believed that the government of Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno had defaulted on the timber deliveries deliberately as a way of testing the will of the Allies to enforce the treaty. The entire conflict was exacerbated by a German default on coal deliveries in early January 1923. The French Premier Raymond Poincaré was deeply reluctant to order the Ruhr occupation, frustrated at Germany not paying reparations, Poincaré hoped for joint Anglo-French economic sanctions against Germany in 1922 and opposed military action. However, by December 1922 he was faced with Anglo-American-German opposition and saw coal for French steel production and we are also certain that Germany, as a nation, resigns herself to keep her pledged word only under the impact of necessity. Poincaré decided to occupy the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 to extract the reparations himself, finally, Poincaré argued that once the chains that had bound Germany in Versailles were destroyed, it was inevitable that Germany would plunge the world into another world war. Initiated by French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré, the took place on 11 January 1923. General Alphonse Caron’s 32nd infantry corps under the supervision of General Jean-Marie Degoutte carried out the operation, some theories state that the French aimed to occupy the centre of German coal, iron, and steel production in the Ruhr area valley simply to get the money. Some others state that France did it to ensure that the reparations were paid in goods, France had the iron ore and Germany had the coal. Each state wanted free access to the resource it was short of, following Frances decision to invade the Ruhr, the Inter-Allied Mission for Control of Factories and Mines was set up as a means of ensuring coal repayments from Germany. The occupation was greeted by a campaign of passive resistance, approximately 130 German civilians were killed by the French occupation army during the events, including during civil disobedience protests, e. g. against dismissal of German officials. Some theories assert that to pay for passive resistance in the Ruhr, others state that the road to hyperinflation was well established before with the reparation payments that started on November 1921, see 1920s German inflation. Despite this, civil unrest grew into riots and coup attempts targeted at the government of the Weimar Republic, the Rhenish Republic was proclaimed at Aachen in October 1923. Under the Dawes Plan, Germany paid only 1 billion marks in 1924, the French, with their own economic problems, eventually accepted the Dawes Plan and withdrew from the occupied areas in July and August 1925. The last French troops evacuated Düsseldorf and Duisburg along with the important harbour in Duisburg-Ruhrort
39.
Adolf Hitler
–
Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
Nazi Germany
Media related to Rudolf Höß at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Rudolf Höss at Wikiquote
