Hitler bodyguard, witness to Nazi leader's final hours, dies

Rochus Misch, who served as Adolf Hitler's devoted bodyguard for most of the Second World War and was the last remaining witness to the Nazi leader's final hours in his Berlin bunker, has died. He was 96.

 

Misch died Thursday in Berlin after a short illness, Burkhard Nachtigall, who helped him write his 2008 memoir, told The Associated Press in an email on Friday.

 

Misch remained proud to the end about his years with Hitler, whom he affectionately called "boss." In a 2005 interview with The Associated Press, Misch recalled Hitler as "a very normal man" and gave a riveting account of the German dictator's last days before he and his wife Eva Braun killed themselves as the Soviet Red Army closed in around their bunker in Berlin.

"He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman," Misch said.

 

Born July 29, 1917, in the tiny Silesian town of Alt Schalkowitz, in what today is Poland, Misch was orphaned at an early age. At age 20, he decided to join the SS — an organization that he saw as a counterweight to a rising threat from the left. He signed up for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, a unit that was founded to serve as Hitler's personal protection.

 

"It was anti-communist, against Stalin — to protect Europe," Misch said. "I signed up in the war against Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler."

 

But when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Misch found himself in the vanguard, as his SS division was attached to a regular army unit for the blitzkrieg attack.

 

Misch was shot and nearly killed while trying to negotiate the surrender of a fortress near Warsaw, and he was sent to Germany to recover. There, he was chosen in May 1940 as one of two SS men who would serve as Hitler's bodyguards and general assistants, doing everything from answering the telephones to greeting dignitaries.

 

Misch and comrade Johannes Hentschel accompanied Hitler almost everywhere he went — including his Alpine retreat in Berchtesgaden and his forward "Wolf's Lair" headquarters.

 

He lived between the Fuehrer's apartments in the New Reich Chancellery and the home in a working-class Berlin neighbourhood that he kept until his death.

'He was a wonderful boss'

"He was a wonderful boss," Misch said. "I lived with him for five years. We were the closest people who worked with him ... we were always there. Hitler was never without us day and night."

In the last days of Hitler's life, Misch followed him to live underground, protected by the so-called Fuehrerbunker's heavily reinforced concrete ceilings and walls.

 

"Hentschel ran the lights, air and water and I did the telephones — there was nobody else," he said. "When someone would come downstairs we couldn't even offer them a place to sit. It was far too small."

 

After the Soviet assault began, Misch remembered generals and Nazi brass coming and going as they tried desperately to cobble together a defence of the capital with the ragtag remains of the German military.

 

He recalled that on April 22, two days before two Soviet armies completed their encirclement of the city, Hitler said: "That's it. The war is lost. Everybody can go."

 

"Everyone except those who still had jobs to do like us — we had to stay," Misch said. "The lights, water, telephone ... those had to be kept going but everybody else was allowed to go and almost all were gone immediately."

 

However, Hitler clung to a report — false, as it turned out — that the Western Allies had called upon Germany to hold Berlin for two more weeks against the Soviets so that they could battle communism together.

 

"He still believed in a union between West and East," Misch said. "Hitler liked England — except for (then-Prime Minister Winston) Churchill — and didn't think that a people like the English would bind themselves with the communists to crush Germany."

 

On April 28, Misch saw Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler confidant Martin Bormann enter the bunker with a man he had never seen before.

 

"I asked who it was and they said that's the civil magistrate who has come to perform Hitler's marriage," Misch said. That night, Hitler and longtime mistress Eva Braun were married in a short ceremony.

 

Two days later, Misch saw Goebbels and Bormann talking with Hitler and his adjutant, SS Maj. Otto Guensche, in the bunker's corridor.

 

"I saw him go into his room ... and someone, Guensche, said that he shouldn't be disturbed," Misch said. "We all knew that it was happening. He said he wasn't going to leave Berlin, he would stay here."

 

"We heard no shot, we heard nothing, but one of those who was in the hallway, I don't remember if it was Guensche or Bormann, said, 'Linge, Linge, I think it's done,"' Misch said, referring to Hitler's valet Heinz Linge.

 

"Then everything was really quiet ... who opened the door I don't remember, Guensche or Linge. They opened the door, and I naturally looked, and then there was a short pause and the second door was opened... and I saw Hitler lying on the table like so," Misch said, putting his head down on his hands on his living-room table.

 

"And Eva lay like so on the sofa with knees up, her head to him."

Misch ran up to the chancellery to tell his superior the news and then back downstairs, where Hitler's corpse had been put on the floor with a blanket over it.

 

"Then they bundled Hitler up and said 'What do we do now?"' Misch said. "As they took Hitler out ... they walked by me about three or four metres away. I saw his shoes sticking outside the sack."

An SS guard ran down the stairs and tried to get Misch to watch as the two were covered in gasoline and set alight.

 

"He said, 'The boss is being burned. Come on out,"' Misch recalled. But instead Misch hastily retreated deeper into the bunker to talk with comrade Hentschel.

"I said 'I saw the Gestapo upstairs in the ... chancellery, and it could be that they'll want to kill us as witnesses,"' Misch said.

 

Rochus Misch remained proud to the end about his years with Adolf Hitler, whom he affectionately called "boss."

 

But Misch stuck to his post in the bunker — which he described as "a coffin of concrete" — taking and directing telephone calls with Goebbels as his new boss until May 2, when he was given permission to flee.

 

Goebbels, he said, "came down and said: 'You have a chance to live. You don't have to stay here and die."'

 

Misch grabbed the rucksack he had packed and fled with a few others into the rubble of Berlin.

Working his way through cellars and subways, Misch decided to surface after hearing German being spoken above through an air ventilation shaft. But the voices came from about 300 soldiers who had been taken prisoner, and the Soviet guards grabbed him as well.

Spent 9 years in POW camp

Following the German surrender May 7, Misch was taken to the Soviet Union, where he spent the next nine years in prisoner of war camps before being allowed to return to Berlin in 1954.

He reunited with his wife Gerda, whom he had married in 1942 and who died in 1997, and opened up a shop.

 

At age 87, when he talked with the AP, Misch still cut the image of an SS man, with a rigid posture, broad shoulders and neatly combed white hair.

He stayed away from questions of guilt or responsibility for the Holocaust, saying he knew nothing of the murder of six million Jews and that Hitler never brought up the Final Solution in his presence.

"That was never a topic," he said emphatically. "Never."

The Last Nazi, aged 89, finally faces justice as he goes on trial accused of helping to kill 28,000 Jews

He is frail and almost 90 years old but a former SS guard will finally face justice over the deaths of almost 28,000 Jews in the Holocaust next week.

 

In what may be the final Nazi trial, John Demjanjuk, 89, will appear in court in Munich over allegations he took part in an extermination programme at Sobibor in Poland.

The Ukrainian-born former U.S. auto worker fought in the Red Army before being captured by the Nazis and recruited as a concentration camp guard, it is claimed by prosecutors.

He was extradited from the U.S. in May after months of legal wrangling and is due to go on trial on Monday despite his family insisting he is too frail to be in the dock

 

Demjanjuk, who denies any involvement in the Holocaust, will come face to face with one of the lucky few who survived the camp where at least 250,000 people died.

 

Thomas Blatt, whose younger brother and parents were killed at Sobibor, has travelled from his American home to see the trial.

 

'It is important to hear the testimony of those times, for young people to truly know the meaning of the hell on earth that was Sobibor,' he 88-year-old told the Daily Mirror.

'The stink of carbon monoxide, the naked little children going to be gassed, the flames that licked out of the furnace chimney as all you knew and loved evaporated before your eyes.

'Demjanjuk is not an old man who deserves pity but who should come to terms with what he did.'

Clue: John Demjanjuk's alleged SS card

 

'His physical condition alters by the day, even by the hour. He is an old man suffering from a range of ailments,' his lawyer, Guenther Maull, told Reuters.

 

'His mood swings, too. Sometimes you think he as an old man who is mentally absent but you don't know if it's a general condition or an illness,' he said.

 

Despite protestations from his family, medics have deemed Demjanjuk fit for trial.

The hearings in Munich will be limited to two 90-minute sessions per day due to his frail condition.

The trial is due to last until May and if convicted Demjanjuk could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

 

'It is an opportunity to demonstrate what inhuman behaviour the Nazi regime executed and to respect my family's memory,' said David van Huiden, a Dutch co-plaintiff whose parents and 18-year-old sister were gassed at Sobibor.

'He should get the heaviest available punishment according to German law.'

The Wiesenthal Center, which says Demjanjuk pushed men, women and children into gas chambers, says the trial sends a message that justice can be done even after decades.

 

'John Demjanjuk has lived a largely undisturbed life. He has been with his family, celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, something his victims didn't have the chance to do,' said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean of the Center in Los Angeles.

'Do we have compassion? No, not at all. He'll be in court where he belongs.'

Many Germans, keen to draw a line under the Nazi past and forge a new role for their country, are resigned to the spectacle of the trial which has underscored Germany's patchy record on bringing its Nazi war criminals to justice.

 

The Institute for Contemporary History in Munich says West Germany has seen only about 6,600 convictions. About two thirds of those individuals got sentences of less than two years in jail. There are no reliable figures for Communist East Germany.

 

'There have been many investigations but if you look at the dimensions of the crimes, the results are unsatisfactory,' said Andreas Eichmueller, a Nazi war crime expert at the Institute.

While acknowledging he was at other camps, Demjanjuk has denied he was in Sobibor, which prosecutors say was run by 20-30 SS members and 100-150 former Soviet prisoners of war.

In the gas chambers, Jews died within 30 minutes of a toxic mix of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, say prosecutors who argue Demjanjuk was at Sobibor for about six months in 1943.

Experts say the trial's most interesting aspect is whether prosecutors can prove Demjanjuk was party to specific crimes.

 

'The court will enter new ground if it convicts him just because he was there. Usually there has to be proof of a concrete crime,' said Eichmueller.

'The prosecutors seem to be saying purely because he was in an extermination camp, he was involved in murder. That's different from proving an actual crime,' said Eichmueller.

Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States to Israel in 1986, accused of being 'Ivan the Terrible', a notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp.

He was sentenced to death in 1988 but his conviction was overturned when new evidence showed another man was probably 'Ivan'.

List of Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Each year since 2001, Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center produces an Annual Status Report on the Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals which, since at least 2005, includes a list of "most wanted" criminals.

The 2014 list is as follows:

1. Gerhard Sommer (age 93. Last known location: Germany)
2. Vladimir Katriuk (age 93. Last known location: Canada)
3. Hans Lipschis (age 94. Last known news: Arrested in Germany, 2013, found unfit for trial due to dementia).
4. Ivan Kalymon (age 93. Found in United States, lost US citizenship, ordered deported in 2011, but remained in the United States pending an appeal; died 29 June 2014)
5. Søren Kam (age 92. Last known location: Germany)
6. Algimantas Dailidė (age 93. Last known news: Deported from USA to Germany in 2004. Sentenced to five years imprisonment, but was diagnosed "medically unfit to be punished".)
7. Theodor Szehinskyj (age 90. Last known location: United States)
8. Helmut Oberlander (age 90. Last known location: Canada)

Named on previous lists:

1. Aribert Heim - listed until 2013, death uncovered a year earlier
2. Alois Brunner - listed until 2013, presumed dead
3. Mikhail Gorshkow - listed until 2013, cleared of charges in 2011 due to inconclusive evidence, died 2013.
4. László Csatáry - listed until 2013, died August 10, 2013
5. Charles Zentai - listed until 2012, the Australian High Court ruled that Zentai could not be sent for trial to Hungary, alleging that the category of "War Crimes" did not exist at that time in Hungarian law.
6. Klaas Carel Faber - listed until 2012, died in the process of extradition from Germany to Netherlands on 24 May 2012, aged 90.
7. Sándor Képíró - listed until 2011,  tried and found not guilty that year. Died 3 September 2011.
8. Adam Nagorny - listed until 2011, died 2011.
9. Milivoj Ašner - listed until 2011, died 14 June 2011.
10. Samuel Kunz - listed until 2010, died 18 November 2010.
11. Adolf Storms - listed until 2010, died 28 June 2010 while awaiting trial.
12. Peter Egner - listed until 2010, died January 2011 while awaiting trial.
13. Ivan Demjanjuk - listed until 2009, deported to Germany for trial in 2009, and was convicted in 2011 pending appeal, died 17 March 2012. Demjanjuk died before his appeal could be tried by the German Appellate Court, and as a result, his previous conviction was not upheld. A few days after his death, the German court clarified that, according to German law, Demjanjuk was "presumed innocent," that he did not have a criminal record, and that his previous interim conviction was invalidated.
14. Heinrich Boere - listed until 2009, convicted 2010 and sentenced to life in prison. Died December 1, 2013.
15. Harry Männil - listed until 2009,cleared of charges in 2005 after four-year investigation, died 11 January 2010.
16. Erna Wallisch - listed until 2007, died 21 February 2008 while under investigation.
17. Lajos Polgár - listed until 2006, died 12 July 2006.
18. Ladislav Niznansky - listed until 2005,  tried in 2005 and acquitted by German court due to lack of reliable evidence. Died 23 December 2011.
19. Jack Reimer - listed until 2005, extradition granted but died before he could be deported.
20. Nada Sakic - listed until 2004
21. Rosemarie Albrecht - listed until 2004, died 7 January 2008.
22. Petras Bernatavicius - listed until 2004

Sorry

I enjoy reading about World War Two, which is the explanation to why I am posting so many things on the war; including the biggest Concentration Camp Auschwiz; including pictures of the Camp that is a museum for people to go and visit. It is said that no birds fly over the camp. Also when you look around the Camp it is so quiet in respect for all the people who lost their lives.

 

Timeline- Joseph Goebbels

1923: Like others who were later prominent in the Third Reich, Goebbels came into contact with the Nazi Party in 1923, during the campaign of resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr.

 

1931: His diaries reveal a long succession of affairs, before and after his marriage before a Protestant pastor in 1931 to Magda Quandt, with whom he had six children.

 

1937: "The Jews must get out of Germany, indeed out of Europe altogether," he wrote in his diary in November 1937.

 

1938: When Magda Goebbels learned of this in October 1938, she complained to Hitler, a prude in sexual matters, who was fond of Magda and the Goebbels' young children.

1

943: Goebbels struggled in 1943 and 1944 to rally the German people behind a regime that faced increasingly obvious military defeat.

1944: By July 1944, it was in any case too late for Goebbels and Speer's internal coup to make any real difference to the outcome of the war.

2006: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Part I: Notations, 1923-1941, Volume 2 written by Joseph Goebbels was first published in 2006.

The Death of Adolf Hitler

Mystery surrounded the death of Adolf Hitler for many years. However, more is now thought to be known about Adolf Hitler’s death as a result of the work by Antony Beevor.

 

Slowly but surely the forces of the Red Army moved through Berlin in the spring of 1945. The German Army did not have the means to halt Marshall Zhukov’s troops – they were outnumbered 15 to 1 and the Red Army’s ability to call on mechanised armour seemed unlimited. Civilian and military casualties in Berlin were appalling. Regardless of this, Adolf Hitler clung to his belief that the German Army would defeat Zhukov’s eight armies in Berlin. Aides watched as he spoke about grandiose German armoured formations that would defeat Zhukov in Berlin. In reality, the Red Army was up against exhausted troops effectively at the end of their fighting ability, Hitler Youth troops armed with the anti-tank weapon, the panzerfaust, and the male elderly who had been forced into a civilian’s militia which was expected to make a last stand.

 

Any signs of surrender were dealt with harshly by the SS. In the Kurfürstendamm Boulevard, SS squads shot any householder who put a white flag outside of their house.

 

Adolf Hitler was based in his bunker underneath the Reich Chancellery building. Bomb proof and with its own air recycling plant, the complex had been built without a proper communication system. The only way staff officers could know about the extent of the Red Army’s movement into Berlin was to phone civilians at random  to ascertain if the Red Army was in their vicinity.

 

Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, had brought his wife and six children to the apparent safety of the bunker. Major Freytag von Loringhoven, a staff officer at the bunker, described Fraulein Goebbels as “very ladylike” though he thought that the children looked sad. The Goebbels children were to be poisoned by their parents within the bunker, who, in turn, committed suicide.

 

On April 28th, Hitler received a report that Himmler, head of the SS, had been in touch with the Allies regarding a surrender. Himmler had contacted Count Bernadette of the Swedish Red Cross. Adolf Hitler had always considered Himmler to be the most loyal of his men. When he received a Reuter’s confirmation of the report, witnesses said that he exploded with rage. He accused an SS officer in the bunker, Herman Fegelein, of knowing about what Himmler had planned. Fegelein admitted that he had known about it and, stripped of all his rank and medals, he was marched by SS guards to the Reich Chancellery garden and shot.

Around midnight on April 28th, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun. The wedding service was held in Hitler’s private sitting room. A low ranking Nazi official who had the authority to perform a civil wedding was brought in by Goebbels. Eva Braun wore a black silk dress for the occasion. In keeping with Nazi requirements, the official had to ask both Hitler and Eva Braun whether they were of pure Ayran blood and whether they were free from hereditary illnesses. Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann signed the register. After the service, the newly married couple received the congratulations of generals and others in the bunker’s conference room. From here they went to Hitler’s sitting room for breakfast with champagne. They were joined by Joseph and Magda Goebbels, Bormann and by two secretaries, Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge.

 

Hitler took Junge away to dictate his last political testament. It was full of recriminations on those who had betrayed him; the war being caused by international Jewish interests etc. Hitler claimed that, “in spite of all setbacks”; the war “will one day go down in history as the most glorious and heroic manifestation of a people’s will to live.” Junge’s task finished at about 04.00 on Sunday, April 29th. On this day, Hitler had ordered that cyanide capsules intended for him, should be tested on his dog Blondi. The dog, a favourite playmate for the Goebbels children while they were in the bunker, was taken, along with her puppies, to the Reich Chancellery garden. The cyanide capsules were tested and Blondi was killed along with her puppies.

 

On the night of April 29th, Hitler received news from Field Marshall Keitel that Berlin would receive no more troops and that the city would be lost to the Russians. General Weidling, given the task of defending Berlin, believed that his men would stop fighting that night due to their ammunition running out.

 

Though there seems little doubt that Adolf Hitler had already decided that suicide was his only option, and also that of Eva Braun’s, it is probable that these two pieces of information moved that nearer. Hitler had also received confirmation that Mussolini had been caught in Italy, shot and his body, along with that of his mistress, Clara Pettachi, had been hung upside down in a square in Milan. Above all else, Adolf Hitler had decided that such humiliation would not happen to him as he ordered that his body should be burned.

 

On April 30th, Hitler gave very clear instructions to his personal adjunct, Otto Gunsche, that both his and his wife’s body should be burned. After lunch, both Hitler and Eva Hitler (as she wanted to be called) met his inner circle in the ante-room chamber of the bunker. Here Hitler said his farewells. The area known as the lower bunker was cleared to allow for privacy. However, noise of partying in the Reich Chancellery canteen could be heard. SS guards were sent up to stop it.

 

None of the bunker’s survivors heard the shot that killed Hitler. At 15.15 on April 30th, Bormann, Goebbels, Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, Otto Gunshce and Artur Axmann, Head of the Hitler Youth, entered Hitler’s sitting room. Gunsche and Linge wrapped the body of Hitler in a blanket and carried it to the Reich Chancellery garden. Eva Braun’s body was also carried up and laid next to Hitler’s. Both bodies were laid near to the bunker’s exit. The bodies were drenched in petrol and set alight. Both Bormann and Goebbels watched this. Goebbels later committed suicide. Bormann disappeared and his body was never found, sparking off rumours that he managed somehow to flee to South America.

 

On May 2nd, men from the Red Army’s intelligence unit entered the Reich Chancellery building. ‘Normal’ Red Army troops were told to leave the building. The men from the intelligence unit found the body of Goebbels and his wife. However, the men from SMERSH, the Red Army’s feared intelligence unit, knew that Stalin was interested in Hitler’s body and that he would not be happy if it was not found. The men from SMERSH, feared by other Red Army units, were themselves concerned.

 

The unit of SMERSH men at the Chancellery building was led by General Vadis. It is his report that has given historians so much information as to what happened in the immediate aftermath of Hitler’s suicide.

 

Moscow had declared that the announcement of Hitler’s death was a trick. Finding his body had now become a major political issue as well. Vadis interrogated as many of the bunker’s survivors as he could and they all said the same – Hitler had committed suicide. The bunker itself was searched – a difficult task as the generator providing light had failed. But nothing was found.

 

Stalin then ordered Beria, the head of the secret police, the NKVD, to send a NKVD general to Berlin. He had to report back to Moscow on a very regular basis.

 

On May 3rd, the bodies of the six Goebbels children were found in their bunk beds. Their faces were tinged with blue – a sign that cyanide had been used on them. Vice-Admiral Voss of the German Navy identified them. On the same day, the body of a man was found in the Chancellery garden. The body had a small moustache and diagonally combed hair. However, he also had on darned socks and SMERSH decided that Adolf Hitler would never wear darned socks so concluded that the body was not Hitler’s. How the body got there remains a mystery.

 

On May 4th, the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were found in the Reich Chancellery garden. A SMERSH operative saw part of a grey blanket at the bottom of a shell crater. The crater was dug into and two bodies were found along with the bodies of a German Alsatian and a puppy.

 

Very early on May 5th, the bodies were taken to Buch in northeast Berlin, where SMERSH had its headquarters. Such was the secrecy surrounding this, that not even Zhukov was informed about the discovery. Dental records and thorough dental checks proved to Vadis that the body was that of Adolf Hitler.

 

On May 7th, Moscow was informed that Hitler’s body had been found. From that time on, it was kept under the greatest of secrecy.

 

In 1970, the Kremlin decided to dispose of the body. They claim that it was buried beneath an army parade ground in Magdeburg. SMERSH had kept the jaws of Hitler, used in their dental checks. This was confirmed by Yelena Rzhevskaya who was the interpreter used by SMERSH when Hitler’s dental staff were questioned at Buch. The NKVD had kept Hitler’s cranium. Both of these have been found in Moscow’s archives in recent years. In the mid-1990’s, the Russian authorities claim that they exhumed the body of Hitler from the parade ground in Magdeburg, burned it and then flushed the ashes into the town’s sewage system. 

World War Two Timeline

1939

• Hitler invades Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later.

Three years of mounting international tension - encompassing the Spanish Civil War, the Anschluss  of Germany and Austria, Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland and the invasion of Czechoslovakia - culminated in the German invasion of Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. While the USA proclaimed neutrality, it continued to supply Britain with essential supplies, and the critical Battle of the Atlantic between German U-Boats and British naval convoys commenced.

Western Europe was eerily quiet during this 'phoney war'. Preparations for war continued in earnest, but there were few signs of conflict, and civilians who had been evacuated from London in the first months drifted back into the city. Gas masks were distributed, and everybody waited for the proper war to begin.

In eastern Europe and Scandinavia, however, there was nothing phoney about the war. With the Ribbentrop Pact signed between the Soviet Union and Germany in late August, Russia followed Germany into Poland in September. That country was carved up between the two invaders before the end of the year, and Russia continued this aggression by going on to invade Finland.

 

1940

• Rationing starts in the UK.
• German 'Blitzkrieg' overwhelms Belgium, Holland and France.
• Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain.
• British Expeditionary Force evacuated from Dunkirk.
• British victory in Battle of Britain forces Hitler to postpone invasion plans.

Rationing was introduced in Britain early in the New Year, but little happened in western Europe until the spring. The 'winter war' between Russia and Finland concluded in March, and in the following month Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.

Denmark surrendered immediately, but the Norwegians fought on - with British and French assistance - surrendering in June only once events in France meant that they were fighting alone.

On 10 May - the same day that Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of the UK - Germany invaded France, Belgium and Holland, and western Europe encountered the Blitzkrieg - or 'lightning war'.

Germany's combination of fast armoured tanks on land, and superiority in the air, made a unified attacking force that was both innovative and effective. Despite greater numbers of air and army personnel - and the presence of the British Expeditionary Force - the Low Countries and France proved no match for the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe. Holland and Belgium fell by the end of May; Paris was taken two weeks later.

British troops retreated from the invaders in haste, and some 226,000 British and 110,000 French troops were rescued from the channel port of Dunkirk only by a ragged fleet, using craft that ranged from pleasure boats to Navy destroyers.

In France an armistice was signed with Germany, with the puppet French Vichy government - under a hero of World War One, Marshall Pétain - in control in the 'unoccupied' part of southern and eastern France, and Germany in control in the rest of the country.

Charles de Gaulle, as the leader of the Free French, fled to England (much to Churchill's chagrin) to continue the fight against Hitler . But it looked as if that fight might not last too long. Having conquered France, Hitler turned his attention to Britain, and began preparations for an invasion. For this to be successful, however, he needed air superiority, and he charged the Luftwaffe with destroying British air power and coastal defences.

The Battle of Britain, lasting from July to September, was the first to be fought solely in the air. Germany lacked planes but had many pilots. In Britain, the situation was reversed, but - crucially - it also had radar. This, combined with the German decision to switch the attacks from airfields and factories to the major cities, enabled the RAF to squeak a narrow victory, maintain air superiority and ensure the - ultimately indefinite - postponement of the German invasion plans.

The 'Blitz' of Britain's cities lasted throughout the war, saw the bombing of Buckingham Palace and the near-destruction of Coventry, and claimed some 40,000 civilian lives.

 

1941

• Hitler begins Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of Russia.
• The Blitz continues against Britain's major cities.
• Allies take Tobruk in North Africa, and resist German attacks.
• Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, and the US enters the war.

With continental Europe under Nazi control, and Britain safe - for the time being - the war took on a more global dimension. Following the defeat of Mussolini's armies in Greece and Tobruk, German forces arrived in North Africa in February, and invaded Greece and Yugoslavia in April.

While the bombing of British and German cities continued, and the gas chambers at Auschwitz were put to use, Hitler invaded Russia . Operation Barbarossa, as the invasion was called, began on 22 June. The initial advance was swift, with the fall of Sebastopol at the end of October, and Moscow coming under attack at the end of the year.

The bitter Russian winter, however, like the one that Napoleon had experienced a century and a half earlier, crippled the Germans. The Soviets counterattacked in December and the Eastern Front stagnated until the spring.

Winter in the Pacific, of course, presented no such problems. The Japanese, tired of American trade embargoes, mounted a surprise attack on the US Navy base of Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, on 7 December.

This ensured that global conflict commenced, with Germany declaring war on the US, a few days later. Within a week of Pearl Harbor, Japan had invaded the Philippines, Burma and Hong Kong. The Pacific war was on.

 

1942

• Germany suffers setbacks at Stalingrad and El Alamein.
• Singapore falls to the Japanese in February - around 25,000 prisoners taken.
• American naval victory at Battle of Midway, in June, marks turning point in Pacific War.
• Mass murder of Jewish people at Auschwitz begins.

 

The first Americans arrived in England in January - 'Over paid, over sexed and over here' as the gripe went - and in North Africa Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps began their counter-offensive, capturing Tobruk in June.

The Blitz intensified in both England and Germany, with the first thousand-bomber air raid on Cologne, and German bombing of British cathedral cities.

In the Pacific, the Japanese continued their expansion into Borneo, Java and Sumatra. The 'unassailable' British fortress of Singapore fell rapidly in February, with around 25,000 prisoners taken, many of whom would die in Japanese camps in the years to follow.

But June saw the peak of Japanese expansion. The Battle of Midway, in which US sea-based aircraft destroyed four Japanese carriers and a cruiser, marked the turning point in the Pacific War.

The second half of the year also saw a reversal of German fortunes. British forces under Montgomery gained the initiative in North Africa at El Alamein, and Russian forces counterattacked at Stalingrad. The news of mass murders of Jewish people by the Nazis reached the Allies, and the US pledged to avenge these crimes.

 

1943

• Surrender at Stalingrad marks Germany's first major defeat.
• Allied victory in North Africa enables invasion of Italy to be launched.
• Italy surrenders, but Germany takes over the battle.
• British and Indian forces fight Japanese in Burma.

February saw German surrender at Stalingrad: the first major defeat of Hitler's armies. Battle continued to rage in the Atlantic, and one four-day period in March saw 27 merchant vessels sunk by German U-boats.

A combination of long-range aircraft and the codebreakers at Bletchley, however, were inflicting enormous losses on the U-boats. Towards the end of May Admiral Dönitz withdrew the German fleet from the contended areas - the Battle of the Atlantic was effectively over.

In mid-May German and Italian forces in North Africa surrendered to the Allies, who used Tunisia as a springboard to invade Sicily in July. By the end of the month Mussolini had fallen, and in September the Italians surrendered to the Allies, prompting a German invasion into northern Italy.

Mussolini was audaciously rescued by a German task force, led by Otto Skorzeny, and established a fascist republic in the north. German troops also engaged the Allies in the south - the fight through Italy was to prove slow and costly.

In the Pacific, US forces overcame the Japanese at Guadalcanal, and British and Indian troops began their guerrilla campaign in Burma. American progress continued in the Aleutian Islands, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

As the Russian advance on the Eastern Front gathered pace, recapturing Kharkov and Kiev from Germany, Allied bombers began to attack German cities in enormous daylight air raids. The opening of the Second Front in Europe, long discussed and always postponed, was being prepared for the following year.

 

1944

• Allies land at Anzio and bomb monastery at Monte Cassino.
• Soviet offensive gathers pace in Eastern Europe.
• D Day: The Allied invasion of France. Paris is liberated in August.
• Guam liberated by the US Okinawa, and Iwo Jima bombed.

With advances in Burma, New Guinea and Guam, Japan began its last offensive in China, capturing further territory in the south to add to the acquisitions made in central and northern areas following the invasion of 1938. However, their control was limited to the major cities and lines of communication, and resistance - often led by the Communists - was widespread.

The Allied advance in Italy continued with landings at Anzio, in central Italy, in January. It was a static campaign. The Germans counter-attacked in February and the fighting saw the destruction of the medieval monastery at Monte Cassino after Allied bombing. Only at the end of May did the Germans retreat from Anzio. Rome was liberated in June, the day before the Allies' 'Operation Overlord', now known as the D-Day landings.

On 6 June - as Operation Overlord got underway - some 6,500 vessels landed over 130,000 Allied forces on five Normandy beaches: codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

Some 12,000 aircraft ensured air superiority for the Allies - bombing German defences, and providing cover. The pessimistic predictions that had been made of massive Allied casualties were not borne out. On Utah beach 23,000 troops were landed, with 197 casualties, and most of the 4,649 American casualties that day occurred at Omaha beach, where the landing was significantly more difficult to achieve, meeting with fierce German resistance.

Overall, however, the landings caught the Germans by surprise, and they were unable to counter-attack with the necessary speed and strength. Anything that was moving and German was liable to be attacked from the air.

Despite this, in the weeks following the landings Allied progress was slowed considerably, by the narrow lanes and thick hedgerows of the French countryside. Nevertheless, Cherbourg was liberated by the end of June. Paris followed two months later.

Hitler's troubles were compounded by a Russian counterattack in June. This drove 300 miles west to Warsaw, and killed, wounded or captured 350,000 German soldiers. By the end of August the Russians had taken Bucharest. Estonia was taken within months, and Budapest was under siege by the end of the year.

One glimmer of light for Germany came in the Ardennes, in France, where in December a German counteroffensive - the Battle of the Bulge - killed 19,000 Americans and delayed the Allies' march into Germany.

 

1945

• Auschwitz liberated by Soviet troops.
• Russians reach Berlin: Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders on 7 May.
• Truman becomes President of the US on Roosevelt's death, and Attlee replaces Churchill.
• After atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrenders on 14 August.

The New Year saw the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz, and the revelation of the sickening obscenity of the Holocaust, its scale becoming clearer as more camps were liberated in the following months.

The Soviet army continued its offensive from the east, while from the west the Allies established a bridge across the Rhine at Remagen, in March.

While the bombing campaigns of the Blitz were over, German V1 and V2 rockets continued to drop on London. The return bombing raids on Dresden, which devastated the city in a huge firestorm, have often been considered misguided.

Meantime, the Western Allies raced the Russians to be the first into Berlin. The Russians won, reaching the capital on 21 April. Hitler killed himself on the 30th, two days after Mussolini had been captured and hanged by Italian partisans. Germany surrendered unconditionally on 7 May, and the following day was celebrated as VE (Victory in Europe) day. The war in Europe was over.

In the Pacific, however, it had continued to rage throughout this time. The British advanced further in Burma, and in February the Americans had invaded Iwo Jima. The Philippines and Okinawa followed and Japanese forces began to withdraw from China.

Plans were being prepared for an Allied invasion of Japan, but fears of fierce resistance and massive casualties prompted Harry Truman - the new American president following Roosevelt's death in April - to sanction the use of an atomic bomb against Japan.

Such bombs had been in development since 1942, and on 6 August one of them was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later another was dropped on Nagasaki. No country could withstand such attacks, and the Japanese surrendered on 14 August.

The biggest conflict in history had lasted almost six years. Some 100 million people had been militarised, and 50 million had been killed. Of those who had died, 15 million were soldiers, 20 million were Russian civilians, six million were Jews and over four million were Poles.