What was ss germany

He was wrong. On the document was an official stamp and British military intelligence had seen the same stamp and unit details being used by members of the SS who had been trying to flee. And so word had gone out that anyone else with those details was to be detained. Next morning, the three men were taken to a detention camp. Once there, Hizinger asked to see a senior officer.

Although his cover was still intact, he must have feared it would not last long and perhaps hoped he could bargain his way out of the situation. So he took off his eye patch and calmly revealed who he really was. After Hitler's death in his bunker, this made him one of the most-wanted Nazis still alive and a man responsible for many of the worst crimes of the Third Reich.

The British team began to question him to confirm he was who he said. A few hours later a medical officer, Capt Wells, was told to check Himmler. As he came to look inside his mouth he saw a small blue-tipped object hidden in his cheek. As Capt Wells tried to pull it out, Himmler struggled with the doctor, pulled his head away and crushed the object between his teeth.

It was a cyanide capsule. Communities conducted scrap In , the year Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, he named Joseph Goebbels , his trusted friend and colleague, to the key post of minister for public enlightenment and propaganda. In this capacity, Goebbels was charged with presenting Hitler to Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Joseph Goebbels. The Executions at Nuremburg. The Nuremberg Trials. Dachau Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, opened in , shortly after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Auschwitz Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Nuremberg Trials Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between and The U.

Joseph Goebbels In , the year Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, he named Joseph Goebbels , his trusted friend and colleague, to the key post of minister for public enlightenment and propaganda.

Rosenberg was an ineffective leader and the party became divided over key issues. The failure of the Munich Putsch had shown Hitler that he would not be able to take power by force. Hitler therefore decided to change tactic and instead focus on winning support for his party democratically and being elected into power.

Following his release from prison on the 20 December , Hitler convinced the Chancellor of Bavaria to remove the ban on the Nazi Party. In February , Hitler organised the Bamberg Conference. Hitler wanted to reunify the party, and set out a plan for the next few years.

Whilst some small differences remained, Hitler was largely successful in reuniting the socialist and nationalist sides of the party.

Firstly, the Nazi Party adopted a new framework, which divided Germany into regions called Gaue. Each Gaue had its own leader, a Gauleiter. Each Gaue was then divided into subsections, called Kreise.

Each Kreise then had its own leader, called a Kreisleiter. Each Kreise was then divided into even smaller sections, each with its own leader, and so on.

Each of these sections were responsible to the section above them, with Hitler at the very top of the party with ultimate authority. The Nazis also established new groups for different professions, from children, to doctors, to lawyers. These aimed to infiltrate already existing social structures, and help the party gain more members and supporters. These political changes changed the Nazi Party from a paramilitary organisation focused on overthrowing the republic by force, to one focused on gaining power through elections and popular support.

Initially most members were ex-soldiers or unemployed men. If Hitler was to gain power democratically, he needed to reform the SA. He set out to change their reputation. A new leader, Franz von Salomon, was recruited. Rather than the violent free rein they had previously enjoyed, Salomon was stricter and gave the SA a more defined role.

In , Hitler also established the Schutzstaffel , otherwise known as the SS. The SS were a small sub-division of the SA with approximately members until In , Heinrich Himmler took over the organisation, and expanded it dramatically. By , the SS had 35, members. They terrorized and aimed to destroy any person or group that threatened this. The SA and the SS became symbols of terror. The Nazi Party used these two forces to terrify their opposition into subordination, slowly eliminate them entirely, or scare people into supporting them.

Whilst the SA and the SS played their part, the Nazis primarily focused on increasing their membership through advertising the party legitimately. They did this through simple and effective propaganda.

The Nazis started advocating clear messages tailored to a broad range of people and their problems. Jews and Communists also featured heavily in the Nazi propaganda as enemies of the German people.

His lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, told the court that the defendant would make no comment at the trial on the allegations against him. He would, however, speak about his personal circumstances at Friday's hearing. Josef S was 21 when he first became a guard at Sachsenhausen in Now almost , he is considered able to appear in court for up to two and half hours a day.

The trial is due to continue until January. Public prosecutor Cyrill Klement told the court of the systematic killings at Sachsenhausen between and Tens of thousands of people died at the camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, including resistance fighters, Jews, political opponents, homosexuals and prisoners of war.

A gas chamber was installed at Sachsenhausen in and 3, people were massacred at the camp as the war drew to a close because they were "unfit to march". The prosecutor gave details of mass shootings and murders by gas, as well as through disease and exhaustion.

Thursday's trial was especially important for 17 co-plaintiffs, who include survivors of Sachsenhausen.