Infrared
Infrared radiation, sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation with longer wavelengths than those of visible light, is therefore invisible to the human eye, although IR at wavelengths up to 1050 nanometers s from specially pulsed lasers can be seen by humans under certain conditions. IR wavelengths extend from the nominal red edge of the visible spectrum at 700 nanometers, to 1 millimeter. Most of the thermal radiation emitted by objects near room temperature is infrared; as with all EMR, IR carries radiant energy and behaves both like a wave and like its quantum particle, the photon. Infrared radiation was discovered in 1800 by astronomer Sir William Herschel, who discovered a type of invisible radiation in the spectrum lower in energy than red light, by means of its effect on a thermometer. More than half of the total energy from the Sun was found to arrive on Earth in the form of infrared; the balance between absorbed and emitted infrared radiation has a critical effect on Earth's climate.
Infrared radiation is emitted or absorbed by molecules when they change their rotational-vibrational movements. It excites vibrational modes in a molecule through a change in the dipole moment, making it a useful frequency range for study of these energy states for molecules of the proper symmetry. Infrared spectroscopy examines transmission of photons in the infrared range. Infrared radiation is used in industrial, military, law enforcement, medical applications. Night-vision devices using active near-infrared illumination allow people or animals to be observed without the observer being detected. Infrared astronomy uses sensor-equipped telescopes to penetrate dusty regions of space such as molecular clouds, detect objects such as planets, to view red-shifted objects from the early days of the universe. Infrared thermal-imaging cameras are used to detect heat loss in insulated systems, to observe changing blood flow in the skin, to detect overheating of electrical apparatus. Extensive uses for military and civilian applications include target acquisition, night vision and tracking.
Humans at normal body temperature radiate chiefly at wavelengths around 10 μm. Non-military uses include thermal efficiency analysis, environmental monitoring, industrial facility inspections, detection of grow-ops, remote temperature sensing, short-range wireless communication and weather forecasting. Infrared radiation extends from the nominal red edge of the visible spectrum at 700 nanometers to 1 millimeter; this range of wavelengths corresponds to a frequency range of 430 THz down to 300 GHz. Below infrared is the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Sunlight, at an effective temperature of 5,780 kelvins, is composed of near-thermal-spectrum radiation, more than half infrared. At zenith, sunlight provides an irradiance of just over 1 kilowatt per square meter at sea level. Of this energy, 527 watts is infrared radiation, 445 watts is visible light, 32 watts is ultraviolet radiation. Nearly all the infrared radiation in sunlight is shorter than 4 micrometers. On the surface of Earth, at far lower temperatures than the surface of the Sun, some thermal radiation consists of infrared in the mid-infrared region, much longer than in sunlight.
However, black body or thermal radiation is continuous: it gives off radiation at all wavelengths. Of these natural thermal radiation processes, only lightning and natural fires are hot enough to produce much visible energy, fires produce far more infrared than visible-light energy. In general, objects emit infrared radiation across a spectrum of wavelengths, but sometimes only a limited region of the spectrum is of interest because sensors collect radiation only within a specific bandwidth. Thermal infrared radiation has a maximum emission wavelength, inversely proportional to the absolute temperature of object, in accordance with Wien's displacement law. Therefore, the infrared band is subdivided into smaller sections. A used sub-division scheme is: NIR and SWIR is sometimes called "reflected infrared", whereas MWIR and LWIR is sometimes referred to as "thermal infrared". Due to the nature of the blackbody radiation curves, typical "hot" objects, such as exhaust pipes appear brighter in the MW compared to the same object viewed in the LW.
The International Commission on Illumination recommended the division of infrared radiation into the following three bands: ISO 20473 specifies the following scheme: Astronomers divide the infrared spectrum as follows: These divisions are not precise and can vary depending on the publication. The three regions are used for observation of different temperature ranges, hence different environments in space; the most common photometric system used in astronomy allocates capital letters to different spectral regions according to filters used. These letters are understood in reference to atmospheric windows and appear, for instance, in the titles of many papers. A third scheme divides up the band based on the response of various detectors: Near-infrared: from 0.7 to 1.0 µm. Short-wave infrared: 1.0 to 3 µm. InGaAs covers to about 1.8 µm. Mid-wave infrared: 3 to 5 µm (defined by the atmospheric window and covered by indium antimonide and mercury cadmium telluride and by lead
7.92×57mm Mauser
The 7.92×57mm Mauser is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, was the German service cartridge in both World Wars. In its day, the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was one of the world’s most popular military cartridges. In the 21st century it is still a popular sport and hunting cartridge, factory-produced in Europe and the United States; the parent cartridge, upon which the 7.92×57mm Mauser is based, was adopted by Germany in 1888 as the Patrone 88 or M/88. It was a first-generation smokeless propellant cartridge designed by the German Gewehr-Prüfungskommission, as the new smokeless propellant introduced as Poudre B in the 1886 pattern 8mm Lebel had started a military rifle ammunition revolution; the M/88 cartridge was loaded with 2.75 g of single-base smokeless powder and a heavy, 14.7 grams, round-nosed ball bullet with a diameter of 8.08 mm. The M/88 bore had 7.90 mm lands diameter and 8.10 mm grooves diameter. The M/88 barrel bore specification was changed by 1894–1895 to 7.90 mm lands diameter and 8.20 mm grooves diameter to improve accuracy and reduce barrel wear in M/88 chambered arms.
German government driven efforts to further improve on the performance of the military M/88 ammunition and the service arms in which the M/88 was used after several development steps resulted in the official adoption on 3 April 1903 by the Gewehr-Prüfungskommission of the dimensionally redesigned 7.92×57mm Mauser chambering. Besides the chambering, the bore was dimensionally redesigned; the 1903 pattern 7.92×57mm Mauser S Patrone was loaded with a lighter 9.9 grams, pointed Spitzgeschoß of 8.2 mm diameter and more powerful double-base smokeless powder. With the improved ballistic coefficient of the new bullet, the 1903 pattern cartridge had an improved maximum effective range and a flatter trajectory, was therefore less critical of range estimation compared to the M/88 cartridge. In German military service the Patrone 88 was replaced in 1905 by the S Patrone; as the bolt thrust of the 7.92×57mm Mauser is low compared to many other service rounds used in the early 20th century, many arms chambered for the Patrone 88 could be and were adapted for chambering the S Patrone by reaming out metal from the chamber as it required a wider chamber throat to take the differently shaped and thicker brass of the new S Patrone.
The rimless cartridge cases have been used as parent case for several other necked down and necked up cartridges and a rimmed variant. Due to restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans were not able to develop or sell any military equipment after World War I. In the post-war years, 7.92×57mm Mauser chambered Gewehr 98 pattern rifles were produced in Belgium, Poland, Mexico and China. This, the cartridge's high performance and versatility, led to the 7.92×57mm Mauser being adopted by the armed forces of various governments. These included: Spain, Czechoslovakia, Iran, China, Yugoslavia, former German African colonies; this made the round the most used military rifle cartridge in the world during the inter-war years. During World War II it was one of the few cartridges used by both the Axis and Allied powers, a distinction it shared with the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol round. Apart from being the standard rifle cartridge of the German and Polish armed forces, it was used by the armed forces of Great Britain in the Besa machine gun, mounted in some of their tanks and other armoured vehicles, as well as being extensively used by the Chinese early in the war.
After World War II it was used by the early Bundeswehr of West Germany. When Egypt decided to manufacture the Hakim rifle, a licensed copy of the Swedish Ag m/42, they redesigned the breech to accept the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge rather than use the original 6.5×55mm Ag m/42 cartridge. Its military use continues today in the former Yugoslavia in the Zastava M76 sniper rifle and the license-built copy of the MG 42, the M53 Šarac machine gun. Rifles manufactured for the Wehrmacht, captured by the Allies and acquired by Israel were important in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Israel did not have a domestic arms industry and could not manufacture rifles but it could produce replacement parts and refurbish weapons. Israel only used its Mauser rifles in their original configuration for a short period, when NATO countries adopted a standard rifle cartridge, the 7.62×51mm NATO, Israel replaced all of the 7.92×57mm Mauser barrels on its Mauser rifles with barrels chambered for the new 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge.
After World War I the Treaty of Versailles imposed comprehensive and complex restrictions upon the post-war German armed forces. According to the treaty the Reichswehr could on a limited scale continue using the 7.92×57mm Mauser as their service cartridge. The Treaty of Versailles however nixed the civilian use of 7.92×57mm Mauser chambered rifles by German hunters and sport shooters. During the mid 1930s Germany stopped obeying the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and the civilian use of 7.92×57mm Mauser chambered rifles by German hunters and sport shooters was resumed. In 1939 the Normalisierungsverordnung prohibited the production of non S-bore/7.92×57mm Mauser cham
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was a constitutional monarchy at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe. It existed from 1881, when prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was crowned as King Carol I of Romania, until 1947, when King Michael I of Romania abdicated and the Romanian parliament proclaimed Romania a socialist republic. From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a personal union of two vassal principalities under a single prince to an autonomous principality with a Hohenzollern monarchy; the country gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire during the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, when it received Northern Dobruja in exchange for the southern part of Bessarabia. The kingdom's territory during the reign of King Carol I, between 14 March 1881 and 27 September 1914 is sometimes referred as the Romanian Old Kingdom, to distinguish it from "Greater Romania", which included the provinces that became part of the state after World War I. With the exception of the southern halves of Bukovina and Transylvania, these territories were ceded to neighboring countries in 1940, under the pressure of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
Following a disastrous World War II campaign on the side of the Axis powers and name change, Romania joined the Allies in 1944, recovering Northern Transylvania. The influence of the neighboring Soviet Union and the policies followed by Communist-dominated coalition governments led to the abolition of the monarchy, with Romania becoming a People's Republic on the last day of 1947; the 1859 ascendancy of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia under the nominal suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire united an identifiably Romanian nation under a single ruler. On 5 February 1862 the two principalities were formally united to form the Principality of Romania, with Bucharest as its capital. On 23 February 1866 a so-called Monstrous coalition, composed of Conservatives and radical Liberals, forced Cuza to abdicate; the German prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as Prince of Romania, in a move to assure German backing to unity and future independence. He adopted the Romanian spelling of his name and his descendants would rule Romania until the overthrow of the monarchy in 1947.
Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Treaty of Berlin, 1878 and acquired Dobruja, although it was forced to surrender southern Bessarabia to Russia. On 15 March 1881, as an assertion of full sovereignty, the Romanian parliament raised the country to the status of a kingdom, Carol was crowned as king on 10 May; the new state, squeezed between the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian Empires, with Slavic populations on its southwestern and northeastern borders, the Black Sea due east, Hungarian neighbors on its western and northwestern borders, looked to the West France, for its cultural and administrative models. Abstaining from the Initial Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Romania entered the Second Balkan War in June 1913 against the Tsardom of Bulgaria. 330,000 Romanian troops moved into Bulgaria. One army occupied Southern Dobrudja and another moved into northern Bulgaria to threaten Sofia, helping to bring an end to the war.
Romania thus acquired the ethnically-mixed territory of Southern Dobrudja, which it had desired for years. In 1916 Romania entered World War I on the Entente side. Romania engaged in a conflict against Bulgaria but as a result Bulgarian forces, after a series of successful battles, regained Dobruja, ceded from Bulgaria by the treaty of Bucharest and the Berlin congress. Although the Romanian forces did not fare well militarily, by the end of the war the Austrian and Russian empires were gone; the Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, composed of the Danubian Principalities — Wallachia and Moldavia. It was achieved when, under the auspices of the Treaty of Paris, the ad hoc Divans of both countries - which were under Imperial Ottoman suzerainty at the time - voted for Alexander Ioan Cuza as their prince, thus achieving a de facto unification; the region itself is defined by the result of that political act, followed by the inclusion of Northern Dobruja in 1878, the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania in 1881, the annexation of Southern Dobruja in 1913.
The term came into use after World War I, when the Old Kingdom was opposed to Greater Romania, which included Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina. Nowadays, the term has a historical relevance, is otherwise used as a common term for all regions in Romania included in both the Old Kingdom and present-day borders. Romania delayed in entering World War I, but declared war on the Central Powers in 1916; the Romanian military campaign ended in stalemate when the Central Powers crushed the country's offensive into Transylvania and occupied Wallachia and Dobruja, including Bucharest and the strategically important oil fields, by the end of 1916. In 1917, despite fierce Romanian resistance at Mărăşeşti, due to Russia's withdrawal from the war following the October Revolu
Tiger I
The Tiger I listen is a German heavy tank of World War II deployed from 1942 in Africa and Europe in independent heavy tank battalions. Its final designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E shortened to Tiger; the Tiger I gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted the 8.8 cm KwK 36 gun. 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. After August 1944, production of the Tiger I was phased out in favour of the Tiger II. While the Tiger I has been called an outstanding design for its time, it was over-engineered, using expensive materials and labour-intensive production methods; the Tiger was prone to certain types of track failures and breakdowns, was limited in range by its high fuel consumption. It was expensive to maintain, but mechanically reliable, it was difficult to transport, vulnerable to immobilisation when mud and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved Schachtellaufwerk-pattern road wheels jamming them solid. This was a problem on the Eastern Front in the muddy rasputitsa season and during periods of extreme cold.
The tank was given its nickname "Tiger" by Ferdinand Porsche, the Roman numeral was added after the Tiger II entered production. The initial designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H where'H' denoted Henschel as the designer/manufacturer, it was classified with ordnance inventory designation Sd. Kfz. 182. The tank was re-designated as PzKpfw VI Ausf. E in March 1943, with ordnance inventory designation Sd. Kfz. 181. Today, only seven Tiger I tanks survive in private collections worldwide; the Tiger 131 at the UK's Tank Museum, captured during the North Africa Campaign, is the only one restored to running order. Henschel & Sohn began the development of a large tank design in January 1937 when the Waffenamt requested Henschel to develop a Durchbruchwagen in the 30–33 tonne range. Only one prototype hull was built and it was never fitted with a turret; the Durchbruchwagen I's general shape and suspension resembled the Panzer III, while the turret resembled the early Panzer IV C turret with the short-barrelled 7.5 cm L/24 cannon.
Before Durchbruchwagen I was completed, a request was issued for a heavier 30-tonne class vehicle with thicker armour. Overall weight would have been 36 tonnes. Only one hull was built and no turret was fitted. Further development of the Durchbruchwagen was dropped in 1938 in favour of the larger and better-armoured VK 30.01 and VK 36.01 designs. Both the Durchbruchwagen I and II prototype hulls were used as test vehicles until 1941; the VK 30.01 medium tank and the VK 36.01 heavy tank designs pioneered the use of the complex Schachtellaufwerk track suspension system of torsion bar-sprung and interleaved main road wheels for tank use. This concept was common on German half-tracks such as the Sd. Kfz. 7. The VK 30.01 was intended to mount a low-velocity 7.5 cm L/24 infantry support gun, a 7.5 cm L/40 dual purpose anti-tank gun, or a 10.5 cm L/28 field gun in a Krupp turret. Overall weight was to be 33 tonnes; the armour was designed to be 30 mm on the side surfaces. Four prototype hulls were completed for testing.
Two of these were modified to build the "Sturer Emil" self-propelled anti-tank gun. The VK 36.01 was intended to weigh 40 tonnes, with 100 mm of armour on front surfaces, 80 mm on turret sides and 60 mm on the hull sides. The VK 36.01 was intended to carry a 7.5 cm L/24, or a 7.5 cm L/43, or a 7.5 cm L/70, or a 12.8 cm L/28 cannon in a Krupp turret that looked similar to an enlarged Panzer IV Ausf. C turret; the hull for one prototype was built, followed by five more. The six turrets built were used as part of the Atlantic Wall; the VK 36.01 project was discontinued in early 1942 in favour of the VK 45.01 project. Combat experience against the French SOMUA S35 cavalry tank and Char B1 heavy tank, the British Matilda II infantry tanks during the Battle of France in June 1940 showed that the German Army needed better armed and armoured tanks. On 26 May 1941, Henschel and Ferdinand Porsche were asked to submit designs for a 45-tonne heavy tank, to be ready by June 1942. Porsche worked on an updated version of their VK 30.01 Leopard tank prototype while Henschel worked on an improved VK 36.01 tank.
Henschel built two prototypes: a VK 45.01 H1 with an 8.8 cm L/56 cannon, a VK 45.01 H2 with a 7.5 cm L/70 cannon. On 22 June 1941, Germany launched the invasion of the Soviet Union; the Germans were shocked to encounter Soviet T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks, according to Henschel designer Erwin Aders: "There was great consternation when it was discovered that the Soviet tanks were superior to anything available to the Heer.". An immediate weight increase to 45 tonnes and an increase in gun calibre to 8.8 cm was ordered. The due date for the new prototypes was set for 20 April 1942, Adolf Hitler's 53rd birthday. Unlike the Panther tank, the designs did not incorporate sloped armour, an innovation taken from the T-34. Porsche and Henschel submitted each making use of the Krupp-designed turret, they were demonstrated at Rastenburg in front of Hitler. The Henschel design was accepted because the Porsche VK 4501 prototype design used a troubled gasoline-electric hybrid power unit which needed large quantities of copper for manufacture of its electrical drivetrain components, a strategic wa
Molotov cocktail
A Molotov cocktail known as a petrol bomb, bottle bomb, poor man's grenade, Molotovin koktaili, fire bomb or just Molotov, sometimes shortened as Molly, is a generic name used for a variety of bottle-based improvised incendiary weapons. Due to the relative ease of production, Molotov cocktails have been used by street criminals, rioters, criminal gangs, urban guerrillas, hard-line militants, irregular soldiers, or regular soldiers short on equivalent military-issue weapons, they are intended to ignite rather than obliterate targets. The name "Molotov cocktail" was coined by the Finns during the Winter War, called in Finnish: polttopullo or Molotovin koktaili; the name was an insulting reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, one of the architects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in late August 1939. The pact with Nazi Germany was mocked by the Finns, as was much of the propaganda Molotov produced to accompany the pact, including his declaration on Soviet state radio that bombing missions over Finland were airborne humanitarian food deliveries for their starving neighbours.
The Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets" in reference to Molotov's propaganda broadcasts. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with the food". A Molotov cocktail is a breakable glass bottle containing a flammable substance such as petrol, alcohol or a napalm-like mixture, with some motor oil added, a source of ignition such as a burning cloth wick held in place by the bottle's stopper; the wick is soaked in alcohol or kerosene, rather than petrol. In action, the wick is the bottle hurled at a target such as a vehicle or fortification; when the bottle smashes on impact, the ensuing cloud of fuel droplets and vapour is ignited by the attached wick, causing an immediate fireball followed by spreading flames as the remainder of the fuel is consumed. Other flammable liquids such as diesel fuel, turpentine, jet fuel, isopropyl alcohol have been used in place of, or combined with petrol.
Thickening agents such as solvents, foam polystyrene, baking soda, petroleum jelly, strips of tyre tubing, nitrocellulose, XPS foam, motor oil, rubber cement and dish soap have been added to help the burning liquid adhere to the target and create clouds of thick, choking smoke. In addition, toxic substances are known to be added to the mixture, in order to create a suffocating or poisonous gas on the resulting explosion turning the Molotov cocktail into a makeshift chemical weapon; these include bleach, various strong acids, among others. Improvised incendiary devices of this type were used for the first time in the Spanish Civil War between July 1936 and April 1939, before they became known as "Molotov cocktails." In 1936, General Francisco Franco ordered Spanish Nationalist forces to use the weapon against Soviet T-26 tanks supporting the Spanish Republicans in a failed assault on the Nationalist stronghold of Seseña, near Toledo, 40 km south of Madrid. After that, both sides used petrol-soaked blankets with some success.
Tom Wintringham, a veteran of the International Brigades publicised his recommended method of using them: We made use of "petrol bombs" as follows: take a 2lb glass jam jar. Fill with petrol. Take a heavy curtain, half a blanket, or some other heavy material. Wrap this over the mouth of the jar, tie it round the neck with string, leave the ends of the material hanging free; when you want to use it have somebody standing by with a light. Put a corner of the material down in front of you, turn the bottle over so that petrol soaks out round the mouth of the bottle and drips on to this corner of the material. Turn the bottle right way up again, hold it in your right hand, most of the blanket bunched beneath the bottle, with your left hand take the blanket near the corner, wetted with petrol. Wait for your tank; when near enough, your pal lights the petrol soaked corner of the blanket. Throw the bottle and blanket as soon as this corner is flaring. See that it drops in front of the tank; the blanket should wind itself round an axle.
The bottle will smash, but the petrol should soak the blanket well enough to make a healthy fire which will burn the rubber wheels on which the tank track runs, set fire to the carburetor or frizzle the crew. Do not play with these things, they are dangerous. The Battle of Khalkhin Gol, a border conflict of 1939 ostensibly between Mongolia and Manchukuo, saw heavy fighting between Japanese and Soviet forces. Short of anti-tank equipment, Japanese infantry attacked Soviet tanks with gasoline-filled bottles. Japanese infantrymen claimed that several hundred Soviet tanks had been destroyed this way, though Soviet loss records do not support this assessment. On 30 November 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, starting what came to be known as the Winter War; the Finns perfected the design and tactical use of the petrol bomb. The fuel for the Molotov cocktail was refined to a sticky mixture of gasoline, kerosene and potassium chlorate. Further refinements included the attachment of wind-proof matches or a phial of chemicals that would ignite on breakage, thereby removing the need to pre-ignite the bottle, leaving the bottle about one-third empty was found to make breaking more likely.
A British War Office report dated June 1940 noted that: The Finns' policy was to allow the Russian tanks to
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process; the official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire; the Nazi regime ended. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, on 30 January 1933; the NSDAP began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934 and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the offices and powers of the Chancellery and Presidency. A national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany.
All power was centralised in Hitler's person and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitler's favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen; the return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Racism antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime; the Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the master race, the purest branch of the Aryan race. Discrimination and persecution against Jews and Romani people began in earnest after the seizure of power; the first concentration camps were established in March 1933. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, liberals and communists were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed, many leaders imprisoned.
Education focused on racial biology, population policy, fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed. Recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased Germany on the international stage. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, Hitler's hypnotic oratory to influence public opinion; the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. The Nazi regime dominated neighbours through military threats in the years leading up to war. Nazi Germany made aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if these were not met, it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR, invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe. By early 1941, Germany controlled much of Europe. Reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas and a German administration was established in the remainder of Poland.
Germany exploited labour of both its occupied territories and its allies. In the Holocaust, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, or shot. While the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was successful, the Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant the Wehrmacht lost the initiative on the Eastern Front in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the pre-1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated in 1944 and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. After the Allied invasion of France, Germany was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, capitulated in May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war; the victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.
The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945, while common English terms are "Nazi Germany" and "Third Reich". The latter, adopted by Nazi propaganda as Drittes Reich, was first used in Das Dritte Reich, a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck; the book counted the Holy Roman Empire as the German Empire as the second. Germany was known as the Weimar Republic during the years 1919 to 1933, it was a republic with a semi-presidential system. The Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, contentious relationships with the Allied victors of World War I, a series of failed attempts at coalition government by divided political parties. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles; the government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices for consumer goods, economic chaos, food riots.
When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along the Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (National
Panzergrenadier
Panzergrenadier, shortened as PzGren or PzG, is a German term for motorised or mechanized infantry – that is, infantry transported in combat vehicles specialized for such tasks – as introduced during World War II. It is used in the armies of Austria and Switzerland. Additionally, in the German Army, Panzergrenadier is the lowest rank of enlisted men in the Panzergrenadiertruppe, comparable to NATO Other Rank-1 level; the term Panzergrenadier was not adopted until 1942. Infantry in panzer divisions from 1937 onwards were known as Schützen Regiments. Soldiers in special Motorized Infantry units wore the standard white piping of the Infantry. In 1942, when Infantry Regiments were renamed as Grenadier Regiments by Hitler as a historical homage to Frederick the Great's Army, the Schützen regiments began to be redesignated as Panzergrenadier regiments, as did Motorized Infantry units and soldiers, their Waffenfarbe was changed from either white or rose pink to a meadow-green shade worn by motorcycle troops.
Some units did not change over their designations and/or Waffenfarbe accoutrements until 1943, many veteran Schützen ignored regulations and kept their rose-pink until the end of the war. The term Panzergrenadier had been introduced in 1942, was applied to the infantry component of Panzer divisions as well as the new divisions known as Panzergrenadier Divisions. Most of the Heer's PzGren. Divisions evolved via upgrades from ordinary infantry divisions, first to Motorized Infantry divisions and to PzGren. Divisions, retaining their numerical designation within the series for infantry divisions throughout the process; this included the 3rd, 10th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 25th, 29th divisions. Others, such as the Großdeutschland Division, were built up over the course of the war by augmenting the size of an elite regiment or battalion; the Waffen-SS created several PzGren. Divisions by the same methods, or by creating new divisions from scratch in the war. A number of PzGren. Divisions in both the Heer and Waffen-SS were upgraded to Panzer divisions.
The Panzergrenadier divisions were organized as combined arms formations with six battalions of truck-mounted infantry organized into either two or three regiments, a battalion of tanks, an ordinary division's complement of artillery, reconnaissance units, combat engineers, anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery, so forth. All these support elements would be mechanized in a PzGren. Division, though most of the artillery, anti-tank, anti-aircraft elements were equipped with weapons towed by trucks rather than the rare armored and self-propelled models. In practice the PzGren. Divisions were equipped with heavy assault guns rather than tanks, due to a chronic shortage of tanks throughout the German armed forces. A few elite units, on the other hand, might have the tanks plus a battalion of heavy assault guns for their anti-tank element, armored carriers for some of their infantry battalions as well. On paper a Panzergrenadier division had one tank battalion less than a Panzer division, but two more infantry battalions, thus was as strong as a Panzer division on the defensive.
Of 226 panzergrenadier battalions in the whole of the German Army and Waffen SS in September 1943, only 26 were equipped with armoured half tracks, or just over 11 percent. The rest were equipped with trucks. 3rd Panzergrenadier Division 10th Panzergrenadier Division 15th Panzergrenadier Division 16th Panzergrenadier Division 18th Panzergrenadier Division 20th Panzergrenadier Division 25th Panzergrenadier Division 29th Panzergrenadier Division 90th Panzergrenadier Division 233rd Panzergrenadier Division Panzergrenadier Division Brandenburg Panzergrenadier Division Feldherrnhalle Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier Division 2 Hermann Göring SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division 9th SS Panzergrenadier Division Hohenstaufen 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen 18th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Horst Wessel 23rd SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nederland 28th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Wallonien 38th SS Panzergrenadier Division Nibelungen The use of armoured half-tracks was rare in the German Army, the elite Großdeutschland Division, with two panzergrenadier regiments, only mustered a few companies' worth of the vehicles Sd.
Kfz. 251 troop carriers. The vast majority of Schützen/Panzergrenadier soldiers were mounted in trucks. Additionally, vehicles in the early war period suffered from poor off-road performance. In 1944 a couple of Panzer Divisions based in France had more than the standard one battalion mounted in Sd. Kfz. 251 troop carriers. The Panzer Lehr Division's infantry and engineers were mounted in Sd. Kfz. 251 troop carriers, while the 1st Battalion in both Panzergrenadier regiments in 2. Panzer Division and 21. Panzer Division were half-equipped with armoured halftracks. In the German army, Panzergrenadiere act as mechanized infantry and escort for tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles. According to the German central army regulation HDv 100/100, the Panzergren
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