Related Research Articles
The Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo, was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The Nuremberg trials were a series of military tribunals held following World War II by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war. The trials were most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany, who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes. The trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany, and their decisions marked a turning point between classical and contemporary international law.
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence and by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the war and was solidified by the Potsdam Agreement in August 1945.
The Hitler Youth was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name Hitler-Jugend, Bund deutscher Arbeiterjugend in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was the sole official boys' youth organisation in Germany and it was partially a paramilitary organisation; it was composed of the Hitler Youth proper for male youths aged 14 to 18, and the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth for younger boys aged 10 to 14.
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II, as well as the overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, took place in late April and early May 1945.
ODESSA is an American codename coined in 1946 to cover Nazi underground escape plans at the end of World War II by a group of SS officers with the aim of facilitating secret escape routes, and any directly ensuing arrangements. The idea has been widely circulated in fictional spy novels and movies, including Frederick Forsyth's best-selling thriller The Odessa File (1972). The routes are also called ratlines. Known goals included allowing the SS members to escape to Argentina or the Middle East under false passports.
The pursuit of Nazi collaborators refers to the post-World War II pursuit and apprehension of individuals who were not citizens of the Third Reich at the outbreak of World War II but collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war. Hence, this article does not cover former members of the NSDAP and their fates after the war.
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.
The Ordnungspolizei, abbreviated Orpo, meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government. The Orpo was controlled, nominally by the Interior Ministry but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II. Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as Grüne Polizei. The force was first established as a centralised organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis.
Kriminalpolizei is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal police department for the entire Reich. Today, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the state police (Landespolizei) perform the majority of investigations. Its Criminal Investigation Department is known as the Kriminalpolizei or more colloquially, the Kripo.
Italian war crimes have mainly been associated with Fascist Italy in the Pacification of Libya, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Spanish Civil War, and World War II.
The war-responsibility trials in Finland were trials of the Finnish wartime leaders held responsible for "definitely influencing Finland in getting into a war with the Soviet Union and United Kingdom in 1941 or preventing peace" during the Continuation War, the Finnish term for their participation in the Second World War from 1941–1944. Unlike other World War II war-responsibility trials, the Finnish trials were not international. The trials were conducted from November 1945 through February 1946 by a special court consisting of the presidents of the Supreme Court of Finland, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland, a professor from the University of Helsinki and twelve MPs appointed by the Parliament of Finland. The accused were convicted and were imprisoned until they were eventually paroled and then pardoned.
"Ratlines" were a system of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe in the aftermath of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in Latin America, particularly Argentina though also in Paraguay, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia, as well as the United States, Spain and Switzerland.
The Lithuanian Security Police (LSP), also known as Saugumas, was a local police force that operated in German-occupied Lithuania from 1941 to 1944, in collaboration with the occupational authorities. Collaborating with the Nazi Sipo and SD, the unit was directly subordinate to the German Kripo. The LSP took part in perpetrating the Holocaust in Lithuania, persecuting Polish resistance and communist underground.
Sergeant Arthur Banks GC was a member of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War who was tortured and killed after being captured behind enemy lines. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross for his courage during captivity.
The Berlin Declaration of 5 June 1945, had the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France, acting on behalf of the Allies of World War II, jointly assume "supreme authority" over German territory and asserted the legitimacy of their joint determination of issues regarding its administration and boundaries prior to the forthcoming Potsdam Conference.
The Geheime Feldpolizei, short: GFP, lit. 'Secret Field Police', was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of the Second World War (1945). Its units carried out plain-clothed security work in the field - such as counter-espionage, counter-sabotage, detection of treasonable activities, counter-propaganda, protecting military installations and the provision of assistance to the German Army in courts-martial investigations. GFP personnel, who were also classed as Abwehrpolizei, operated as an executive branch of German military intelligence, detecting resistance activity in Germany and in occupied France. They were also known to carry out torture and executions of prisoners.
The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority and also referred to as the Four Powers, was the governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany and Allied-occupied Austria after the end of World War II. Members were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and France. The organisation was based in Berlin-Schöneberg. The council was convened to determine several plans for postwar Europe, including how to change borders and transfer populations in Eastern Europe and Germany. As the four Allied Powers had joined themselves into a condominium asserting supreme power in Germany, the Allied Control Council was constituted the sole legal sovereign authority for Germany as a whole, replacing the extinct civil government of Nazi Germany.
Two of the three Axis powers of World War II—Nazi Germany and their Fascist Italian allies—committed war crimes in the Kingdom of Italy.
The 'Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects', more commonly known as 'CROWCASS', was an organisation set up to assist the United Nations War Crimes Commission and Allied governments in tracing ex-enemy nationals suspected of committing war crimes or atrocities in Europe during the Second World War. The organisation was originally set up by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in 1945.
References
- Simpson, Christopher. Blowback: The first full account of America's recruitment of Nazis, and its disastrous effects on our domestic and foreign policy, Chapter 6 'CROWCASS' pp. 66–79, 1988, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company. 398 pp. ISBN 0-02-044995-X
- The Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, Consolidated Wanted Lists (1947), 2005, The Naval and Military Press, Uckfield
 | This military-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |