The Waffen-SS was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. With the start of World War II, tactical control was exercised by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, with some units being subordinated to the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS directly under Himmler's control. It was disbanded in May 1945.
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 epic biographical adventure drama film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence and his 1926 book Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company Horizon Pictures and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film stars Peter O'Toole as Lawrence with Alec Guinness playing Prince Faisal. The film also stars Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy. The screenplay was written by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson.
The Night of the Long Knives, also called the Röhm purge or Operation Hummingbird, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called Röhm Putsch.
Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny was an Austrian-born German SS-Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including the removal from power of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and the Gran Sasso raid which rescued Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny led Operation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing their enemies' uniforms. As a result, he was charged in 1947 at the Dachau Military Tribunal with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention, but was acquitted.
Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein was a German Generalfeldmarschall in the Heer (Army) of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was subsequently convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich was a German politician and a general in the Schutzstaffel (SS) during the Nazi era. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Prior to 1929, Dietrich was Adolf Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard.
The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding the Führer's person, offices, and residences. Initially the size of a regiment, the LSSAH eventually grew into an elite division-sized unit during World War II.
Helmuth Otto Ludwig Weidling was a German general during the Second World War. He was the last commander of the Berlin Defence Area during the Battle of Berlin, led the defence of the city against Soviet forces and finally surrendered just before the end of World War II in Europe.
The Vistula–Oder offensive was a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European theatre of World War II in January 1945. The army made a major advance into German-held territory, capturing Kraków, Warsaw and Poznań. The Red Army had built up their strength around a number of key bridgeheads, with two fronts commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev. Against them, the German Army Group A, led by Colonel-General Josef Harpe, was outnumbered five to one. Within days, German commandants evacuated the concentration camps, sending the prisoners on their death marches to the west, where ethnic Germans also started fleeing. In a little over two weeks, the Red Army had advanced 480 kilometres (300 mi) from the Vistula to the Oder, only 69 kilometres (43 mi) from Berlin, which was undefended. However, Zhukov called a halt, owing to continued German resistance on his northern flank (Pomerania), and the advance on Berlin had to be delayed until April.
Charles Gray was an English actor and voice artist. Appearing in around 140 films and TV series, he was best known as the arch-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever; Dikko Henderson in a previous Bond film, You Only Live Twice; Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; and The Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The I Army Corps was a corps of the German army during World War II. It was active between 1934 and 1945, and participated in the Invasion of Poland, the Battle of France and the campaigns on the Eastern Front before eventually ending the war trapped in the Courland Pocket.
The Upper Silesian offensive was a strategically significant Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II in 1945. It was aimed at capturing the considerable industrial and natural resources located in Upper Silesia and involved forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev. Due to the importance of the region to the Germans, considerable forces were provided to Army Group Centre for its defence and the Germans were only slowly pushed back to the Czech border. Fighting for the region lasted from mid January right until the last day of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945.
Bogislaw Oskar Adolf Fürchtegott von Bonin was a colonel in the German Wehrmacht and journalist.
Wolfgang Zilzer was a German-American stage and film actor, often under the stage name Paul Andor.
Josef Albert Meisinger, also known as the "Butcher of Warsaw", was an SS functionary in Nazi Germany. He held a position in the Gestapo and was a member of the Nazi Party. During the early phases of World War II Meisinger served as commander of Einsatzgruppe IV in Poland. From 1941 to 1945 he worked as liaison for the Gestapo at the German embassy in Tokyo. He was arrested in Japan in 1945, convicted of war crimes and was executed in Warsaw, Poland.
The Night of the Generals: A Novel is a thriller novel by German writer Hans Hellmut Kirst, published in 1962.
Gustave Marie Maurice Mesny was a French Army general in command of the 5th North African Infantry Division who was captured during the Second World War. He was victim of a war crime, controversially killed in retribution for the death of German General Fritz von Brodowski while in French custody.
Rommel is a 2012 German television film first shown on Das Erste. It is a dramatisation of the last days of German general Erwin Rommel.
Christian Hartmann is a German historian. He is a research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich.
