Arbeitsfront der Volksdeutschen in der Slowakei ('Labour Front of the Volksdeutsche in Slovakia', abbreviated A.d.V.) was an organization of ethnic German workers in World War II Slovakia. [1] [2] A.d.V. was modelled after the German Labour Front (D.A.F.) in the German Reich. [3] [4] A.d.V. was formed on 26 November 1940, replacing the previous German Trade Unions in Slovakia. [3] [4] [5] [6] A.d.V. leaders were trained at the D.A.F. training centre in Schwechat. [4] [7]
As of 1943 A.d.V. claimed to have over 33,000 members. [6]
The German Labour Front was the national labour organization of the Nazi Party, which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany during the process of Gleichschaltung or Nazification.
Organisation Todt was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior member of the Nazi Party. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in Nazi Germany and in occupied territories from France to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The organisation became notorious for using forced labour. From 1943 until 1945 during the late phase of the Third Reich, OT administered all constructions of concentration camps to supply forced labour to industry.
Fritz Todt was a German construction engineer and senior figure of the Nazi Party. He was the founder of Organisation Todt (OT), a military-engineering organisation that supplied German industry with forced labour, and served as Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition in Nazi Germany early in World War II, directing the entire German wartime military economy from that position.
Army Group Centre was the name of two distinct strategic German Army Groups that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II. The first Army Group Centre was created during the planning of Operation Barbarossa, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, as one of the three German Army formations assigned to the invasion.
The 1st Ski Division was a mountain infantry unit of the German Waffen-SS/Army trained to use skis for movement during winter. It was created on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1943 in preparation for upcoming winter operations. It was enlarged into a full division in the summer of 1944. The division fought exclusively on the Eastern Front as part of Army Group Centre, including an approach to the Vistula river and during the retreat into Slovakia, southern Poland and the Czech lands, where it surrendered to the Red Army in May 1945.
The 24th Panzer Division was formed in late 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division based at Königsberg.
The German Seventeenth Army was a field army of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Ferdinand Ďurčanský was a Slovak nationalist leader who for a time served with as a minister in the government of the Axis-aligned Slovak State in 1939 and 1940. He was known for spreading virulent antisemitic propaganda, although he left the government before the Holocaust in Slovakia was fully implemented. After the war, he joined the Gehlen Organization.
Slovak National Uprising was organised by the Slovak resistance during the Second World War, directed against the German invasion of Slovakia by the German military, which began on 29 August 1944, and on the other against the Slovak collaborationist regime of the Ludaks under Jozef Tiso. Along with the Warsaw Uprising, it was the largest uprising against Nazism and its allies in Europe.
The Carpathian German Party was a political party in Czechoslovakia, active amongst the Carpathian German minority of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus'. It began as a bourgeois centrist party, but after teaming up with the Sudeten German Party in 1933 it developed in a National Socialist orientation.
The German Party was a Nazi political party active amongst the German minority in Slovakia from 1938 to 1945.
Deutscher Aufbaudienst was an organization of ethnic Germans in Slovakia during World War II, organizing volunteer labour for construction efforts. German sources claimed 19,725 persons participated in the D.A.D. brigades of 1941.
The Slovak Expeditionary Army Group was an element of the military forces of the Slovak Republic that fought under Nazi German command on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Freiwillige Schutzstaffel was a paramilitary organization in the World War II Slovak Republic. FS was founded in late 1938. Modelled on the German Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Allgemeine SS, FS organized members of the German community in Slovakia. It functioned as the paramilitary wing of the German Party (DP). Walter Donath served as the national commander (Landesführer) of FS.
Einsatzgruppe H was one of the Einsatzgruppen, the paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany. A special task force of more than 700 soldiers, it was created at the end of August 1944 to deport or murder the remaining Jews in Slovakia following the German suppression of the Slovak National Uprising. During its seven-month existence, Einsatzgruppe H collaborated closely with the Hlinka Guard Emergency Divisions and arrested 18,937 people, of whom at least 2,257 were murdered; thousands of others were deported to Nazi concentration camps. The victims included Jews, Romani people, actual or suspected Slovak partisans, and real or perceived political opponents. One of its component units, Einsatzkommando 14, committed the two of the largest massacres in the history of Slovakia, at Kremnička and Nemecká.
The German Youth in Slovakia was a youth organization in the Second World War Slovak Republic. The organization functioned as the youth wing of the German Party. DJ was modelled after the Hitler Youth in the German Reich. The leader (Landesleiter) of DJ was F. Klug.
Ján Spišiak was a Slovak lawyer who specialized in business law, who worked for much of his career as the legal representative of Tatra banka. However, he is best known for his role as the Slovak ambassador to Hungary during the Second World War.
Persecution of Czechs occurred throughout the existence of the Slovak State (1939–1945).
The question of how much knowledge German civilians had about the Holocaust whilst it was happening has been studied and debated by historians. In Nazi Germany, it was an open secret among the population by 1943, Peter Longerich argues, but some authors place it even earlier. After the war, many Germans claimed that they were ignorant of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime, a claim associated with the stereotypical phrase "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst".
Richard Knorre was a Sudeten German politician.