150-597: Durchgangsstrasse IV (translated as Thoroughfare IV or Transit Road IV ; abbreviated DG IV ) was a road constructed by Nazi Germany in occupied Ukraine during World War II . It was a strategic military road to supply the southern sector of the Eastern Front . The large scale constructions works started in early 1942 to support the German advance towards Stalingrad . It ran for over 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) from Lviv east to Stalino (now Donetsk ). Organisation Todt
300-471: A pervasive cult of personality around Adolf Hitler to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Genocide , mass murder , and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime; the implementation of the regime's racial policies culminated in the Holocaust . After the initial success of German invasion of
450-607: A Jew". Persons in these latter categories would be killed even if married to non-Jews. In the case of mixed marriages , Heydrich recommended that each case should be evaluated individually, and the impact on any German relatives assessed. If such a marriage had produced children who were being raised as Germans, the Jewish partner would not be killed. If they were being raised as Jews, they might be killed or sent to an old-age ghetto. These exemptions applied only to German and Austrian Jews, and were not always observed even for them. In most of
600-573: A camp and receiving a column of slave laborers. Harry Bennett, associate professor at Plymouth University , identified the man as Gieseke which could prove his role in the atrocities along DG IV. In 1966, after a decade-long investigation involving 1,500 interviews, two cases related to atrocities committed at Ternopil were brought before court. Ten men were tried in the first case; two (Paul Raebel and Hermann Müller) received life sentences and five others received prison sentences. The second case involved 15 men; Ernst Epple [ de ] received
750-485: A communist uprising. The Reichstag Fire Decree , imposed on 28 February 1933, rescinded most civil liberties, including rights of assembly and freedom of the press. The decree also allowed the police to detain people indefinitely without charges. The legislation was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that led to public support for the measure. Violent suppression of communists by the SA was undertaken nationwide and 4,000 members of
900-483: A document outlining the purpose of the meeting and the intentions of the regime. He stated at his trial that it was personally edited by Heydrich, and thus reflected the message he intended the participants to take away from the meeting. Copies of the minutes (known by the German word for "minutes" as the "Wannsee Protocol" ) were sent by Eichmann to all the participants after the meeting. Most of these copies were destroyed at
1050-628: A life sentence while other nine men received prison sentences ranging from 2.5 to 5 years. Other cases were brought in Lübeck against Franz Christoffel and Oskar Friese in 1965, in Bremen against Otto Fach in 1970, and in Dortmund in 1971. All these proceedings resulted in acquittals due to lack of evidence. Investigation into Walter Mintel, commandant of the Mykhailivka camp, was dropped in 1976. Jürgen Stroop , who
1200-564: A massive secret rearmament program , forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with
1350-577: A meeting to be held on 20 January. The venue for the rescheduled conference was a villa at Am Großen Wannsee 56–58 , overlooking the Großer Wannsee . The villa had been purchased from Friedrich Minoux in 1940 by the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Force; SD) for use as a conference centre and guest house. The attendees from the Reich civilian ministries were high level administrators. Most were either
1500-503: A new solution would take its place: "evacuating" Jews to the east. This would be a temporary solution, a step towards the "final solution of the Jewish question". Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in
1650-640: A non-aggression pact with Poland. In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor , a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939. On 23 May, Hitler described to his generals his overall plan of not only seizing
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#17328759294861800-509: A plan for a "total solution of the Jewish question" in territories under German control and to coordinate the participation of all involved government organisations. At the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich emphasised that once the deportation process was complete, the fate of the deportees would become an internal matter under the purview of the SS. A secondary goal was to arrive at a definition of who
1950-469: A protectorate of France under the condition that its residents would later decide by referendum which country to join, and Poland became a separate nation and was given access to the sea by the creation of the Polish Corridor , which separated Prussia from the rest of Germany, while Danzig was made a free city . Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in
2100-459: A second national anthem. Germany was still in a dire economic situation, as six million people were unemployed and the balance of trade deficit was daunting. Using deficit spending , public works projects were undertaken beginning in 1934, creating 1.7 million new jobs by the end of that year alone. Average wages began to rise. The SA leadership continued to apply pressure for greater political and military power. In response, Hitler used
2250-642: A special task force ( Einsatzstab ) commanded by Oberstleutnant Walter Gieseke. He commanded four Oberbauabschnittsleitungen (Senior Construction Sector Directorates) based in Vinnytsia, Kirovograd, Kryvyi Rih, and Stalino. In total, about 5,000 Germans worked on the road. A network of small camps for forced laborers was set up about every 15 kilometres (9.3 mi). About 50 camps for Jews have been documented. These camps were guarded by various auxiliary police battalions of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Cossack Schutzmannschaft . The main tasks of forced laborers
2400-480: A specific meaning for members of the regime were common, especially when people were being ordered to carry out criminal activities. Leaders were given briefings about the need to be "severe" and "firm"; all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly. The wording of the Wannsee Protocol—the distributed minutes of the meeting—made it clear to participants that evacuation east
2550-640: A substantial minority of Germans, who lived mostly in the Sudetenland . Under pressure from separatist groups within the Sudeten German Party , the Czechoslovak government offered economic concessions to the region. Hitler decided not just to incorporate the Sudetenland into the Reich, but to destroy the country of Czechoslovakia entirely. The Nazis undertook a propaganda campaign to try to generate support for an invasion. Top German military leaders opposed
2700-617: A thousand people (out of a population of around 16,000) committed suicide in Demmin around 1 May 1945 as the 65th Army of 2nd Belorussian Front first broke into a distillery and then rampaged through the town, committing mass rapes, arbitrarily executing civilians, and setting fire to buildings. High numbers of suicides took place in many other locations, including Neubrandenburg (600 dead), Stolp in Pommern (1,000 dead), and Berlin, where at least 7,057 people committed suicide in 1945. Estimates of
2850-872: A war fought on two fronts. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus , and west Ukraine . After the successful Battle of Smolensk in September 1941, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its advance to Moscow and temporarily divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kyiv . This pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves. The Moscow offensive, which resumed in October 1941, ended disastrously in December . On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor , Hawaii. Four days later, Germany declared war on
3000-504: A war of conquest to obtain more territory. The Saarland , which had been placed under League of Nations supervision for 15 years at the end of World War I, voted in January 1935 to become part of Germany. In March 1935, Hitler announced the creation of an air force, and that the Reichswehr would be increased to 550,000 men. Britain agreed to Germany building a naval fleet with the signing of
3150-649: Is listed as Judenfrei (free of Jews), since the 4,500 Jews who remained in Estonia after the German occupation had been killed by the end of 1941. Occupied Poland was not on the list because by 1939 the country was split three ways among Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in the west, the territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union in the east, and the General Government where many Polish and Jewish expellees had already been resettled. Heydrich opened
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#17328759294863300-400: Is significantly lower than numbers provided by Hans-Adolf Prützmann in a June 1943 letter to Himmler. Prützmann stated that more than 140,000 laborers were working on the road and were guarded by about 12,000 men from Schutzmannschaft . In a June 1943 report, Fritz Katzmann stated that about 20,000 Jews "passed through" the camps built for DG IV and that 160 kilometres (99 mi) of road
3450-459: The Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo to purge the entire SA leadership. Hitler targeted SA Stabschef (Chief of Staff) Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who—along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher )—were arrested and shot. Up to 200 people were killed from 30 June to 2 July 1934 in an event that became known as
3600-569: The Völkisch movement . The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria , and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr . When
3750-535: The 6th Army could be supplied by air, but this turned out to be infeasible. Hitler's refusal to allow a retreat led to the deaths of 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers; of the 91,000 men who surrendered in the city on 31 January 1943, only 6,000 survivors returned to Germany after the war. Losses continued to mount after Stalingrad, leading to a sharp reduction in the popularity of the Nazi Party and deteriorating morale. Soviet forces continued to push westward after
3900-706: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement on 18 June 1935. When the Italian invasion of Ethiopia led to only mild protests by the British and French governments, on 7 March 1936 Hitler used the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as a pretext to order the army to march 3,000 troops into the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty. As the territory was part of Germany,
4050-615: The Anschluss of 1938. The Munich Agreement of 1938 gave Germany control of the Sudetenland, and they seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months later. Under threat of invasion by sea, Lithuania surrendered the Memel district in March 1939. Between 1939 and 1941, German forces invaded Poland , Denmark , Norway , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Belgium , Yugoslavia , Greece , and
4200-558: The Battle of Berlin (16 April – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery , Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide . On 2 May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov . Hitler
4350-843: The Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by the director of the Reich Security Main Office SS- Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich , was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question , whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered. Conference participants included representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from
4500-707: The Communist Party of Germany were arrested. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act , an amendment to the Weimar Constitution , passed in the Reichstag by a vote of 444 to 94. This amendment allowed Hitler and his cabinet to pass laws—even laws that violated the constitution—without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. As the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass, the Nazis used intimidation tactics as well as
4650-573: The German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly 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, economic chaos, and food riots. When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along
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4800-553: The Hague Convention , industrial firms in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium were put to work producing war materiel for Germany. The Nazis seized from the French thousands of locomotives and rolling stock, stockpiles of weapons, and raw materials such as copper, tin, oil, and nickel. Payments for occupation costs were levied upon France, Belgium, and Norway. Barriers to trade led to hoarding, black markets , and uncertainty about
4950-724: The Jews and Slavs living there, who were viewed as being inferior to the Aryan master race . Discrimination against Jews, long-standing but extra-legal throughout much of Europe at the time, was codified in Germany immediately after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed on 7 April of that year, excluded most Jews from
5100-502: The League of Nations in October, claiming its disarmament clauses were unfair if they applied only to Germany. In a referendum held in November , 95 per cent of voters supported Germany's withdrawal. In 1934, Hitler told his military leaders that rearmament needed to be complete by 1942, as by then the German people would require more living space and resources, so Germany would have to start
5250-706: The Low Countries . They quickly conquered Luxembourg and the Netherlands and outmanoeuvred the Allies in Belgium , forcing the evacuation of many British and French troops at Dunkirk . France fell as well, surrendering to Germany on 22 June . The victory in France resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever in Germany. In violation of the provisions of
5400-472: The Nazi euthanasia program . Political courts called Sondergerichte sentenced some 12,000 members of the German resistance to death, and civil courts sentenced an additional 40,000 Germans. Mass rapes of German women also took place. As a result of their defeat in World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine , Northern Schleswig , and Memel . The Saarland became
5550-482: The Nazi seizure of power in January 1933. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene , and eugenics and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by invading Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or exterminate
5700-702: The Night of the Long Knives . On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the " Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich ", which stated that upon Hindenburg's death the office of Reich President would be abolished and its powers merged with those of Reich Chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor"), although eventually Reichskanzler
5850-616: The Nuremberg Laws were enacted, prohibiting marriages between Jews and people of Germanic extraction, extramarital sexual relations between Jews and Germans, and the employment of German women under the age of 45 as domestic servants in Jewish households. The Citizenship Law stated that only those of German or related blood were defined as citizens; thus, Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship. A supplementary decree issued in November defined as Jewish anyone with three Jewish grandparents, or two grandparents if
6000-511: The Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. It was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party (DAP) formed one year earlier, and one of several far-right political parties then active. The Nazi Party platform included destruction of
6150-703: The Slavic civilian populations under German occupation by directing all food supplies to the German home population and the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . According to the historian Timothy Snyder , "4.2 million Soviet citizens (largely Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians) were starved" by the Nazis (and the Nazi-controlled Wehrmacht ) in 1941–1944 as a result of Backe's plan. Harvests were poor in Germany in 1940 and 1941 and food supplies were short, as large numbers of forced labourers had been brought into
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6300-502: The Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe . In alliance with Italy and other Axis powers , Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain. Racism , Nazi eugenics , anti-Slavism , and especially antisemitism were central ideological features of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be
6450-631: The extermination camps , primarily Auschwitz . Heydrich spoke for nearly an hour. Then followed about thirty minutes of questions and comments, followed by some less formal conversation. Otto Hofmann (head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office ; RuSHA) and Wilhelm Stuckart (State Secretary of the Interior Ministry ) pointed out the legalistic and administrative difficulties over mixed marriages, and suggested compulsory dissolution of mixed marriages or
6600-414: The federal election of 1932 , the party was the largest in the Reichstag , holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority. Hitler refused to participate in a coalition government unless he was its leader. Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and
6750-671: The " master race ", the purest branch of the Aryan race. Jews , Romani people , Slavs , homosexuals , liberals , socialists , communists , other political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , those who refused to work , and other "undesirables" were imprisoned, deported , or murdered. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed and leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology , population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed . Nazi Propaganda Ministry disseminated films, antisemitic canards , and organized mass rallies; fostering
6900-407: The Allied bombing campaign became even more devastating. By targeting oil refineries and factories, they crippled the German war effort by late 1944. On 6 June 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a front in France with the D-Day landings in Normandy . On 20 July 1944 , Hitler survived an assassination attempt. He ordered brutal reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and
7050-405: The British and French governments did not feel that attempting to enforce the treaty was worth the risk of war. In the one-party election held on 29 March, the Nazis received 98.9 per cent support. In 1936, Hitler signed an Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and a non-aggression agreement with Mussolini, who was soon referring to a "Rome-Berlin Axis". Hitler sent military supplies and assistance to
7200-457: The Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the SS. In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be killed . Discrimination against Jews began immediately after the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933. Violence and economic pressure were used by
7350-573: The German National People's Party – their former coalition partners – which then disbanded on 29 June. The remaining major political parties followed suit. On 14 July 1933 Germany became a one-party state with the passage of the Law Against the Formation of Parties , decreeing the Nazi Party to be the sole legal party in Germany. The founding of new parties was also made illegal, and all remaining political parties which had not already been dissolved were banned. Further elections in November 1933 , 1936 , and 1938 were Nazi-controlled, with only members of
7500-411: The German state in the Nazi era are "Nazi Germany" and the "Third Reich", which Hitler and the Nazis also referred to as the "Thousand-Year Reich" ( Tausendjähriges Reich ). The latter, a translation of the Nazi propaganda term 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 (962–1806) as the first Reich and
7650-424: The Hungarian government". The Hungarian regime of Miklós Horthy continued to resist German interference in its Jewish policy until the spring of 1944, when the Wehrmacht invaded Hungary . Very soon, Eichmann – with the collaboration of Hungarian authorities – would send 600,000 Jews of Hungary (and parts of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia occupied by Hungary) to be murdered in
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#17328759294867800-521: The Jewish faith was followed. By the start of World War II in Europe in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, British Mandatory Palestine , Great Britain, and other countries. After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, Hitler ordered that the Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed . The Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen (Special Ledger of Wanted Persons–Poland) —lists of people to be located so they could be interned or killed—had been drawn up by
7950-490: The Jews of Europe were to be exterminated immediately, rather than after the war, which now had no end in sight. At the Reich Chancellery meeting of 12 December 1941 he met with top party officials and made his intentions plain. On 18 December, Hitler discussed the fate of the Jews with Himmler in the Wolfsschanze . Following the meeting, Himmler made a note on his service calendar, which simply stated: "Jewish question/to be destroyed as partisans". The original intention
8100-425: The Jews to be removed from their areas to allow accommodation for Germans made homeless by Allied bombing, as well as to make space for laborers being imported from occupied countries. The "evacuated" Jews, he said, would first be sent to "transit ghettos" in the General Government, from which they would be transported eastward. Heydrich said that to avoid legal and political difficulties, it was important to define who
8250-445: The Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War , which began in July 1936. The German Condor Legion included a range of aircraft and their crews, as well as a tank contingent. The aircraft of the Legion destroyed the city of Guernica in 1937. The Nationalists were victorious in 1939 and became an informal ally of Nazi Germany. In February 1938, Hitler emphasised to Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg
8400-408: The Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800/962–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich , ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin , ending World War II in Europe . After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by
8550-417: The Nazi regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country . After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the extermination of European Jews began, first through mobile death squads like the Einsatzgruppen , and the killings continued and accelerated after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. On 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorization to Heydrich to prepare and submit
8700-432: The Nazis also planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan devised by Herbert Backe . Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists. The objective of the Hunger Plan was to inflict deliberate mass starvation on
8850-435: The Party and State". Such persons would be sterilised or deported if they refused sterilisation. A " Mischling of the second degree" (a person with one Jewish grandparent) would be treated as German, unless he or she was married to a Jew or a Mischling of the first degree, had a "racially especially undesirable appearance that marks him outwardly as a Jew", or had a "political record that shows that he feels and behaves like
9000-421: The Party and a small number of independents elected. All civilian organisations had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members, and either merged with the Nazi Party or faced dissolution. The Nazi government declared a "Day of National Labor" for May Day 1933, and invited many trade union delegates to Berlin for celebrations. The day after, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around
9150-403: The Polish Corridor but greatly expanding German territory eastward at the expense of Poland. He expected this time they would be met by force. The Germans reaffirmed their alliance with Italy and signed non-aggression pacts with Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia whilst trade links were formalised with Romania, Norway, and Sweden. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arranged in negotiations with
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#17328759294869300-411: The President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator by merging the powers of the chancellery and presidency. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, and his word became
9450-402: The RAF in what became known as the Battle of Britain , and by the end of October, Hitler realised that air superiority would not be achieved. He permanently postponed the invasion, a plan which the commanders of the German army had never taken entirely seriously. Several historians, including Andrew Gordon , believe the primary reason for the failure of the invasion plan was the superiority of
9600-456: The Royal Navy, not the actions of the RAF. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps arrived in Libya to aid the Italians in the North African Campaign . On 6 April, Germany launched an invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece . All of Yugoslavia and parts of Greece were subsequently divided between Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria. On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, about 3.8 million Axis troops attacked
9750-461: The SS as early as May 1939. The Einsatzgruppen (special task forces) performed these murders with the support of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz (Germanic Self-Protection Group), a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland. Members of the SS, the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces), and the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo) also shot civilians during the Polish campaign. Approximately 65,000 civilians were killed by
9900-406: The SS to the Wehrmacht . As Red Army began its advance in late summer and fall 1943, sections of the road came under fire and were captured by the Soviets. The last labor camps were liquidated in December 1943. The Operations Staff on DG IV was disbanded in January–February 1944. Even though private construction companies contracted to build DG IV paid SS for the forced laborers and their rations,
10050-429: The Soviet Union . Germany annexed parts of northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, while Mussolini ceded Trieste , South Tyrol , and Istria to Germany in 1943. Wannsee Conference The Wannsee Conference ( German : Wannseekonferenz , German pronunciation: [ˈvanzeːkɔnfeˌʁɛnt͡s] ) was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders, held in
10200-493: The Soviet Union a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , signed in August 1939. The treaty also contained secret protocols dividing Poland and the Baltic states into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany's wartime foreign policy involved the creation of allied governments controlled directly or indirectly from Berlin. They intended to obtain soldiers from allies such as Italy and Hungary and workers and food supplies from allies such as Vichy France . Hungary
10350-506: The Soviet Union attacked from the east on 17 September. Reinhard Heydrich , chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links. Initially the intention was to deport them further east, or possibly to Madagascar . Using lists prepared in advance , some 65,000 Polish intelligentsia, noblemen, clergy, and teachers were murdered by
10500-441: The Soviet Union in 1941, Nazi Germany attempted to implement the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan , as part of its war of extermination in Eastern Europe. The Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant Germany lost the initiative in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the 1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. Germany
10650-443: The Soviet Union. In addition to Hitler's stated purpose of acquiring Lebensraum , this large-scale offensive—codenamed Operation Barbarossa —was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The reaction among Germans was one of surprise and trepidation as many were concerned about how much longer the war would continue or suspected that Germany could not win
10800-531: The United States. Food was in short supply in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union and Poland, as the retreating armies had burned the crops in some areas, and much of the remainder was sent back to the Reich. In Germany, rations were cut in 1942. In his role as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan , Hermann Göring demanded increased shipments of grain from France and fish from Norway. The 1942 harvest
10950-551: The Weimar Republic, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism , and anti- Bolshevism . They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews , who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon
11100-483: The West German government was not interested at that time. The building was in use as a school, and funding was not available. Despondent at the failure of the project, and at the West German government's failure to pursue and convict Nazi war criminals, Wulf committed suicide in 1974. On 20 January 1992, on the fiftieth anniversary of the conference, the site was finally opened as a Holocaust memorial and museum known as
11250-537: The annihilation campaign. "The simplest, most decisive way that Heydrich could ensure the smooth flow of deportations", he writes, "was by asserting his total control over the fate of the Jews in the Reich and the east, and [by] cow[ing] other interested parties into toeing the line of the RSHA". In 1965, historian Joseph Wulf proposed that the Wannsee House should be made into a Holocaust memorial and document centre, but
11400-512: The assigned section of the road was completed. For example, a camp with about 1,250 Romanian Jews in Lityn was liquidated in September 1942. Despite facing manpower shortages, various German units pursued the Final Solution . According to post-war investigations by the district attorney in Lübeck , approximately 50,000 POWs, 50,000 civilian workers, and 10,000 Jews worked on DG IV in 1942. The number of laborers decreased to 70,000 in 1943. This estimate
11550-497: The blockade, imports into Germany declined by 80 per cent. To safeguard Swedish iron ore shipments to Germany, Hitler ordered the invasion of Denmark and Norway , which began on 9 April. Denmark fell after less than a day , while most of Norway followed by the end of the month. By early June, Germany occupied all of Norway . Against the advice of many of his senior military officers, in May 1940 Hitler ordered an attack on France and
11700-508: The business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set afire . Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutch communist, was found guilty of starting the blaze. Hitler proclaimed that the arson marked the start of
11850-513: The churches. The Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic—including the black, red, and gold tricolour flag —and adopted reworked symbolism. The previous imperial black, white, and red tricolour was restored as one of Germany's two official flags; the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi Party, which became the sole national flag in September 1935. The Party anthem " Horst-Wessel-Lied " ("Horst Wessel Song") became
12000-538: The conditions were very poor and rations were meager. Germans used Soviet POWs to construct the road. The POWs were taken from POW camps and placed into a network of transit camps ( Durchgangslager ) along the road. The conditions were poor resulting in high rate of deaths. A March 1942 report from one of the camps stated that out of 1,052 POWs taken for works, 183 had already died and 174 had fallen ill. POWs provided insufficient labor force and Germans forced civilians living within 50 kilometres (31 mi) on either side of
12150-411: The conference by post-war writers was not evident to most of its participants at the time. Heydrich did not call the meeting to make fundamental new decisions on the Jewish question; massive killings of Jews in the conquered territories in the Soviet Union and Poland were ongoing. A new extermination camp was under construction at Belzec at the time of the conference, and other extermination camps were in
12300-597: The conference with an account of the anti-Jewish measures taken in Germany since the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. He said that between 1933 and October 1941, 537,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews had emigrated. This information was taken from a briefing paper prepared for him the previous week by Eichmann. Heydrich reported that there were approximately eleven million Jews in the whole of Europe, of whom half were in countries not under German control. He explained that since further Jewish emigration had been prohibited by Himmler,
12450-463: The conference, Eichmann drafted a list of the total numbers of Jews in the various European countries. Countries were listed in two groups, "A" and "B". "A" countries were those under direct German control or occupation (or partially occupied and quiescent, in the case of Vichy France ); "B" countries were allied or client states, neutral, or at war with Germany. The numbers reflect the estimated Jewish population within each country; for example, Estonia
12600-433: The country to work in the armaments industry. If these workers—as well as the German people—were to be adequately fed, there must be a sharp reduction in the number of "useless mouths", of whom the millions of Jews under German rule were, in the light of Nazi ideology, the most obvious example. At the time of the Wannsee Conference, the killing of Jews in the Soviet Union had already been underway for some months. Right from
12750-459: The country; all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed in April, removed from their jobs all teachers, professors, judges, magistrates, and government officials who were Jewish or whose commitment to the party was suspect. This meant the only non-political institutions not under control of the Nazis were
12900-426: The course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival. German historian Peter Longerich notes that vague orders couched in terminology that had
13050-559: The electorate in a plebiscite . Most Germans were relieved that the conflicts and street fighting of the Weimar era had ended. They were deluged with propaganda orchestrated by Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels , who promised peace and plenty for all in a united, Marxist-free country without the constraints of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi Party obtained and legitimised power through its initial revolutionary activities, then through manipulation of legal mechanisms,
13200-523: The end of 1939 in an attempt to destroy Poland's identity as a nation. Soviet forces advanced into Finland in the Winter War , and German forces saw action at sea. But little other activity occurred until May, so the period became known as the " Phoney War ". From the start of the war, a British blockade on shipments to Germany affected its economy. Germany was particularly dependent on foreign supplies of oil, coal, and grain. Thanks to trade embargoes and
13350-511: The end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they killed Jews, prostitutes, Romani people , and the mentally ill. On 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorization to SS- Obergruppenführer (Senior Group Leader) Reinhard Heydrich , Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), to prepare and submit a plan for a "total solution of the Jewish question" in territories under German control and to coordinate
13500-577: The end of the war as participants and other officials sought to cover their tracks. It was not until 1947 that Luther's copy (number 16 out of 30 copies prepared) was found by Robert Kempner , a U.S. prosecutor in the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg , in files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office. The Wannsee Conference lasted only about ninety minutes. The enormous importance which has been attached to
13650-488: The establishment of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped them of their basic rights. The Nazis would take from the Jews their wealth, their right to intermarry with non-Jews, and their right to occupy many fields of labour (such as law, medicine, or education). Eventually the Nazis declared the Jews as undesirable to remain among German citizens and society. As early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must begin, albeit clandestinely at first, as to do so
13800-668: The eventual location of the meeting. He enclosed a copy of a letter from Göring dated 31 July that authorised him to plan a so-called Final Solution to the Jewish Question . The ministries to be represented were those responsible for Jewish issues, including the Reich Chancellery , the Foreign Office, Interior, Justice, Propaganda , the Four Year Plan , and the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories . Representatives from Party and SS components with special interests in
13950-473: The execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive on the western front, and Soviet forces entered Germany on 27 January. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat and his insistence that the war be fought to the last man led to unnecessary death and destruction in the war's closing months. Through his Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack , Hitler ordered that anyone who
14100-1104: The failed German offensive at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. By the end of 1943, the Germans had lost most of their eastern territorial gains. In Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 's Afrika Korps were defeated by British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in October 1942. The Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 and were on the Italian peninsula by September. Meanwhile, American and British bomber fleets based in Britain began operations against Germany . Many sorties were intentionally given civilian targets in an effort to destroy German morale. The bombing of aircraft factories as well as Peenemünde Army Research Center , where V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed and produced, were also deemed particularly important. German aircraft production could not keep pace with losses, and without air cover
14250-664: The future. Food supplies were precarious; production dropped in most of Europe. Famine was experienced in many occupied countries. Hitler's peace overtures to the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were rejected in July 1940. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had advised Hitler in June that air superiority was a pre-condition for a successful invasion of Britain , so Hitler ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force (RAF) airbases and radar stations, as well as nightly air raids on British cities, including London , Plymouth , and Coventry . The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat
14400-512: The highest law. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power. In the midst of the Great Depression , the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending. Financed by deficit spending , the regime undertook extensive public works projects, including the Autobahnen (motorways) and
14550-414: The invited guests, Heydrich instructed several SS officials from his RSHA component to attend. In all, 15 officials attended the conference. Half the attendees were under forty years of age and only two were over fifty. They were well educated, with ten having a university education (of whom eight held academic doctorates ), and eight were lawyers. Deputy Reichsführer-SS Presiding In preparation for
14700-474: The legal profession and the civil service. Similar legislation soon deprived other Jews of the right to practise their professions . Violence and economic pressure were used by the regime to force Jews to leave the country. Jewish businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of access to government contracts. Citizens were harassed and subjected to violent attacks and boycotts of their businesses. In September 1935,
14850-455: The minutes were written by Eichmann in consultation with Heydrich. At the conclusion of the meeting, Heydrich gave Eichmann firm instructions about what was to appear in the minutes. They were not to be verbatim: Eichmann ensured that nothing too explicit appeared in them. He said at his trial : "How shall I put it – certain over-plain talk and jargon expressions had to be rendered into office language by me." Eichmann condensed his records into
15000-423: The murders that were about to be undertaken. Eichmann's biographer David Cesarani agrees with Longerich's interpretation; he notes that Heydrich's main purpose was to impose his own authority on the various ministries and agencies involved in Jewish policy matters, and to avoid any repetition of the objections to the deportations and genocide from his military and civilian subordinates that had occurred earlier in
15150-469: The need for Germany to secure its frontiers. Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite regarding Austrian independence for 13 March, but Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazi Party or face an invasion. German troops entered Austria the next day, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the populace. The Republic of Czechoslovakia was home to
15300-501: The occupants of the conquered territories were to be quietly encouraged. On 8 July, he announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot. By August, the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population. By the time planning was underway for the Wannsee Conference, hundreds of thousands of Polish, Serbian, and Russian Jews had already been killed. The initial plan
15450-415: The occupied countries, Jews were rounded up and killed en masse , and anyone who lived in or identified with the Jewish community in any given place was regarded as a Jew. Heydrich commented: "In occupied and unoccupied France, the registration of Jews for evacuation will in all probability proceed without great difficulty", but in the end, the great majority of French-born Jews survived. More difficulty
15600-548: The participation of all involved government organisations. The resulting Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East) called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia, for use as slave labour or to be murdered. The minutes of the Wannsee Conference estimated the Jewish population of the Soviet Union to be five million, including nearly three million in Ukraine. In addition to eliminating Jews,
15750-572: The plan and his hope that the killings would commence as soon as possible. Towards the end of the meeting cognac was served, and after that the conversation became less restrained. Eichmann said: "The gentlemen were standing together, or sitting together and were discussing the subject quite bluntly, quite differently from the language which I had to use later in the record. During the conversation they minced no words about it at all ... they spoke about methods of killing, about liquidation, about extermination." Eichmann recorded that Heydrich
15900-489: The plan, as Germany was not yet ready for war. The crisis led to war preparations by Britain, Czechoslovakia, and France (Czechoslovakia's ally). Attempting to avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arranged a series of meetings, the result of which was the Munich Agreement , signed on 29 September 1938. The Czechoslovak government was forced to accept the Sudetenland's annexation into Germany. Chamberlain
16050-416: The planning stages. The decision to exterminate the Jews had already been made, and Heydrich, as Himmler's emissary, held the meeting to ensure the cooperation of the various departments in conducting the deportations. Observations from historian Laurence Rees support Longerich's position that the decision over the fate of the Jews was determined before the conference; Rees notes that the Wannsee Conference
16200-539: The practice of " extermination through labour ". In December 1941, Heinrich Himmler inspected the southern sector of the Eastern Front and experienced poor road conditions first hand. He even had to cancel a meeting with Eberhard von Mackensen , commander of the III Army Corps as road conditions made it too difficult to reach the unit. Himmler quickly agreed that road improvement was a top priority. The planning for
16350-622: The project was discussed with Adolf Hitler , he insisted that the road be primitive and the surface should last only two to three years. Other projects undertaken under the auspices of DG IV included the repair of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and building a bridge over the Kerch Strait and a bridge over the Southern Bug at Mykolaiv . In District of Galicia , SS and Police Leader Fritz Katzmann ordered Jews to work on
16500-583: The provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending, and the Communists had already been banned. The Enabling Act would subsequently serve as the legal foundation for the dictatorship the Nazis established. On 10 May, the government seized the assets of the Social Democrats, and they were banned on 22 June. On 21 June, the SA raided the offices of
16650-664: The race issue were invited, including the Party Chancellery , the SS Race and Settlement Main Office , and the Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood (RKFDV). Representatives from the General Government of occupied Poland were also added to the list. Between the date the invitations to the conference went out (29 November) and the date of the cancelled first meeting (9 December),
16800-594: The road in October 1941 (some photos of DG IV were included in the Katzmann Report of June 1943). Historians have proposed that when Reinhard Heydrich made a reference to Jews working on road construction during the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, it was an allusion to the DG IV project. The large-scale construction works started in 1942 in preparation for the German advance towards Stalingrad . Organisation Todt
16950-839: The road started in fall 1941. It was not a new road but a widening (to 8 metres (26 ft)) and modernization of a late 18th-century Russian road built by Catherine the Great . The planned road stretched approximately 2,175 kilometres (1,351 mi) from Lviv in District of Galicia of the General Government via Ternopil , Letychiv , Vinnytsia , Haisyn , Uman , Kirovograd (now Kropyvnytskyi ), Kryvyi Rih , Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro ), Stalino (now Donetsk ), and Taganrog to Rostov-on-Don in Russia. The road had two branches – DG IVb from Lviv via Brody , Dubno to Rivne and DG IVc from Kirovograd via Oleksandriia , Kremenchuk to Poltava . At Vinnytsia,
17100-404: The road to work on DG IV. Conditions of the civilians were better as they were paid for their work and could return home after the workday. However, civilians were also needed to work in agriculture. To protect the labor force, civilians living within the 50 km zone were not to be taken for forced labor to Nazi Germany. The Germans also used Jews to construct DG IV, but there were few located in
17250-524: The road would intersect with the proposed Durchgangsstrasse V that would connect to Werwolf , Führer Headquarters , and go south up to Zhytomyr . There were further plans to extend the road into Caucasus as the Wehrmacht advanced further into Russia. The initial plans called for the road further south, but the plans were modified to avoid Transnistria Governorate controlled by the Romanian allies . When
17400-534: The situation changed. On 5 December 1941, the Red Army began a counter-offensive in front of Moscow ending the prospect of a rapid conquest of the Soviet Union. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese carried out an attack on Pearl Harbor , causing the U.S. to declare war on Japan the next day. Germany declared war on the U.S. on 11 December. Some invitees were involved in these preparations, so Heydrich postponed his meeting. Somewhere around this time, Hitler resolved that
17550-851: The start of Operation Barbarossa —the invasion of the Soviet Union— Einsatzgruppen were assigned to follow the army into the conquered areas and round up and kill Jews. In a letter dated 2 July 1941, Heydrich communicated to his SS and police leaders that the Einsatzgruppen were to execute Comintern officials, ranking members of the Communist Party, extremist and radical Communist Party members, people's commissars , and Jews in party and government posts. Open-ended instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.)". He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by
17700-422: The state secretary or an undersecretary. With the cabinet not meeting regularly, meetings between the state secretaries were the chief means of policy coordination among agencies. The process of disseminating information about the fate of the Jews was already well underway by the time the meeting was held, and several of the attendees were aware that changes to the Jewish policy were already underway. In addition to
17850-460: The stock market in the United States crashed in 1929 , the effect in Germany was dire. Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After
18000-766: The title of Righteous Among the Nations in 1965. Arnold Daghani , a Jewish artist, managed to escape from one of the camps in Mykhailivka [ uk ] near Haysin. In 1960, his diary was translated and published in West Germany . The publication spurred the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes to investigate SS officer Walter Gieseke. He
18150-578: The total German war dead range from 5.5 to 6.9 million persons. A study by German historian Rüdiger Overmans puts the number of German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders. Richard Overy estimated in 2014 that about 353,000 civilians were killed in Allied air raids. Other civilian deaths include 300,000 Germans (including Jews) who were victims of Nazi political, racial, and religious persecution and 200,000 who were murdered in
18300-421: The use of police powers, and by taking control of the state and federal institutions. The first major Nazi concentration camp , initially for political prisoners, was opened at Dachau in 1933. Hundreds of camps of varying size and function were created by the end of the war. Beginning in April 1933, scores of measures defining the status of Jews and their rights were instituted. These measures culminated in
18450-739: The vicinity of the road who had survived the mass executions in 1941 . Therefore, Germans looked for Jews in the Transnistria Governorate where Jews deported from Bukovina and Bessarabia were housed in various camps. In August–November 1942 and May 1943, groups of Jews were taken from various camps, including the Pechora concentration camp , in Transnistria to work on DG IV. The food ration were very poor and many Jews died from starvation and exhaustion. Jews unfit for labor were shot. Jewish camps were also liquidated due to impending epidemics or once
18600-431: The war drew to a close. Suicide rates in Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing. Among soldiers and party personnel, suicide was often deemed an honourable and heroic alternative to surrender. First-hand accounts and propaganda about the uncivilised behaviour of the advancing Soviet troops caused panic among civilians on the Eastern Front, especially women, who feared being raped. More than
18750-457: The wider use of sterilisation as a simpler alternative. Erich Neumann from the Four Year Plan argued for the exemption of Jews who were working in industries vital to the war effort and for whom no replacements were available. Heydrich assured him that this was already the policy; such Jews would not be killed. Josef Bühler , State Secretary of the General Government, stated his support for
18900-535: Was Jewish . One copy of the Protocol with circulated minutes of the meeting survived the war. It was found by Robert Kempner in March 1947 among files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office . It was used as evidence in the subsequent Nuremberg trials . The Wannsee House, site of the conference, is now a Holocaust memorial . Legalized discrimination against Jews in Germany began immediately after
19050-433: Was Jewish and who was Mischling . "The representatives of the ministerial bureaucracy had made it plain that they had no concerns about the principle of deportation per se . This was indeed the crucial result of the meeting and the main reason why Heydrich had detailed minutes prepared and widely circulated", said Longerich. Their presence at the meeting also ensured that all those present were accomplices and accessories to
19200-552: Was a Jew for the purposes of "evacuation". He outlined categories of people who would not be killed. Jews over 65 years old, and Jewish World War I veterans who had been severely wounded or who had won the Iron Cross , might be sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp instead of being killed. "With this expedient solution", he said, "in one fell swoop, many interventions will be prevented." The situation of people who were half or quarter Jews, and of Jews who were married to non-Jews,
19350-566: Was a euphemism for death. Heydrich went on to say that in the course of the "practical execution of the final solution", Europe would be "combed through from west to east", but that Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia would have priority, "due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities". This was a reference to increasing pressure from the Gauleiters (regional Nazi Party leaders) in Germany for
19500-489: Was a powerful ally, the relationship was distant, with little co-ordination or co-operation. For example, Germany refused to share their formula for synthetic oil from coal until late in the war. Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Poland fell quickly, as
19650-459: Was anticipated with Germany's allies Romania and Hungary . "In Romania the government has [now] appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs", Heydrich said. In fact the deportation of Romanian Jews was slow and inefficient despite a high degree of popular antisemitism. "In order to settle the question in Hungary", Heydrich said, "it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto
19800-421: Was charged with constructing the road and provided technical supervisors while Legion Speer transported supplies. Various German construction companies were contracted to build different sections of the road. The SS was tasked with providing forced laborers and their guards. Himmler put Higher SS and Police Leader Hans-Adolf Prützmann in charge of the SS units involved in the construction. Prützmann organized
19950-404: Was completed in District of Galicia . German historian Hermann Kaienburg [ de ] estimated that some 25,000 Jews were killed in labor camps related to DG IV in 84 known mass shootings when the labor camps were liquidated in late 1943 and early 1944. Willi Ahrem , commander of labor camp that was used to expand Durchgangsstrasse IV, helped Jews escape execution, for which he received
20100-496: Was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, and capitulated on 8 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 Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials . Common English terms for
20250-417: Was dropped. Germany was now a totalitarian state with Hitler at its head. As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The new law provided an altered loyalty oath for servicemen so that they affirmed loyalty to Hitler personally rather than the office of supreme commander or the state. On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 per cent of
20400-670: Was good, and food supplies remained adequate in Western Europe. Germany and Europe as a whole were almost totally dependent on foreign oil imports. In an attempt to resolve the shortage, in June 1942 Germany launched Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), an offensive against the Caucasian oilfields. The Red Army launched a counter-offensive on 19 November and encircled the Axis forces, who were trapped in Stalingrad on 23 November. Göring assured Hitler that
20550-522: Was greeted with cheers when he landed in London, saying the agreement brought "peace for our time". Austrian and Czech foreign exchange reserves were seized by the Nazis, as were stockpiles of raw materials such as metals and completed goods such as weaponry and aircraft, which were shipped to Germany. The Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate took control of steel and coal production facilities in both countries. In January 1934, Germany signed
20700-485: Was in violation of the Versailles Treaty. On 17 May 1933, Hitler gave a speech before the Reichstag outlining his desire for world peace and accepted an offer from American President Franklin D. Roosevelt for military disarmament, provided the other nations of Europe did the same. When the other European powers failed to accept this offer, Hitler pulled Germany out of the World Disarmament Conference and
20850-680: Was inspector of DG IV, was executed in 1952 for his role in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto . Nazi Germany Nazi Germany , officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich , was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship . The Third Reich , meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to
21000-488: Was more complex. Under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, their status had been left deliberately ambiguous. Heydrich announced that Mischlinge (mixed-race persons) of the first degree (persons with two Jewish grandparents) would be treated as Jews. This would not apply if they were married to a non-Jew and had children by that marriage. It would also not apply if they had been granted written exemption by "the highest offices of
21150-432: Was not prepared to fight should be court-martialed, and thousands of people were executed. In many areas, people surrendered to the approaching Allies in spite of exhortations of local leaders to continue to fight. Hitler ordered the destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure—a scorched earth decree—but Armaments Minister Albert Speer prevented this order from being fully carried out. During
21300-405: Was pleased with the course of the meeting. He had expected a lot of resistance, Eichmann recalled, but instead, he had found "an atmosphere not only of agreement on the part of the participants, but more than that, one could feel an agreement which had assumed a form which had not been expected". Shorthand notes for the minutes were taken by Eichmann's secretary, Ingeburg Werlemann , and
21450-464: Was questioned in 1960 and later in 1968, after his subordinates provided additional information. Both times, Gieseke denied responsibility and shifted the blame to his superior, Hans-Adolf Prützmann . No charges were brought against Gieseke due to insufficient evidence. In 2006, a 11-minute film was found in a Baptist church in Cullompton , Devon. It shows high-ranking Nazis off-duty and one man inspecting
21600-448: Was really a meeting of "second-level functionaries", and stresses that Himmler, Goebbels, and Hitler were not present. According to Longerich, a primary goal of the meeting was to emphasise that once the deportations had been completed, the fate of the deportees became an internal matter of the SS, totally outside the purview of any other agency. A secondary goal was to determine the scope of the deportations and arrive at definitions of who
21750-538: Was responsible for the construction which was sub-contracted to several private construction firms. It was constructed by forced laborers – Soviet prisoners of war, local civilians, and Jews – who were procured by the SS and guarded by the Schutzmannschaft battalions. One of the largest forced labor projects undertaken by Nazi Germany that involved Jewish labor, it marked a transition between using Jews as forced laborers to
21900-489: Was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children . Between 4 and 8 May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered. The German Instrument of Surrender was signed 8 May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe . Popular support for Hitler almost completely disappeared as
22050-664: Was the fourth nation to join the Axis, signing the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940. Bulgaria signed the pact on 17 November. German efforts to secure oil included negotiating a supply from their new ally, Romania , who signed the Pact on 23 November, alongside the Slovak Republic. By late 1942, there were 24 divisions from Romania on the Eastern Front, 10 from Italy, and 10 from Hungary. Germany assumed full control in France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944. Although Japan
22200-524: Was to deport the Jews to camps in occupied areas of the Soviet Union and kill them there, but because victory over the Soviet Union was not forthcoming, the plans had to be changed. Heydrich decided that the Jews currently living in the General Government (the German-occupied area of Poland) would be killed in extermination camps set up in occupied areas of Poland, as would Jews from the rest of Europe. On 8 January 1942, Heydrich sent new invitations to
22350-402: Was to implement Generalplan Ost after the conquest of the Soviet Union. European Jews would be deported to occupied parts of Russia, where they would be worked to death in road-building projects. On 29 November 1941, Heydrich sent invitations for a ministerial conference to be held on 9 December at the offices of Interpol at Am Kleinen Wannsee 16 . He changed the venue on 4 December to
22500-429: Was to produce, collect, and transport materials (e.g. sand, gravel), construct the road, and build protections (e.g. walls against snowdrifts or ditches for drainage). The road was also an anchor for various support facilities – field hospitals, veterinary clinics, motor pools, repair shops, supply depots, etc. In July 1943, a directive from Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski transferred the protection of all thoroughfares from
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