Arnold E. Samuelson (1917-2002) was a combat photographer during World War II who was among the first Allied photographers to document Nazi war crimes.
Before America's entry into World War II, Samuelson worked for the Eastman Kodak Company in Portland, Oregon. In May 1942, he was inducted into the U.S. Army. He served in the Army Air Forces and later joined the Signal Corps in January 1943.
Three months after D-Day (June 6, 1944), Samuelson came ashore on the Normandy beaches with the 167th Signal Photographic Company and began documenting the Allied military campaigns in France and Belgium. He saw service in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944), and, in 1945, he was given command of Combat Assignment Unit #123. That unit consisted of two motion picture cameramen, John O'Brian and Edward Urban, and two still photographers, J Malan Heslop and Walter McDonald.
During this campaign, Samuelson's crew was the first group of Allied photographers to document Nazi crimes and the plight of concentration camp prisoners at Lenzing and Ebensee, two subcamps of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the West Coast because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage. As the war progressed, many of the young Nisei, Japanese immigrants' children who were born with American citizenship, volunteered or were drafted to serve in the United States military. Japanese Americans served in all the branches of the United States Armed Forces, including the United States Merchant Marine. An estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, of which 20,000 joined the Army. Approximately 800 were killed in action.
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf Hitler's suicide and handing over of power to grand admiral Karl Dönitz in May of 1945, the Soviet troops conquered Berlin and accepted surrender of the Dönitz-led government. The last battles were fought as part of the Eastern Front which ended in the total surrender of all of Nazi Germany’s remaining armed forces such as in the Courland Pocket in western Latvia from Army Group Courland in the Baltics surrendering on 10 May 1945 and in Czechoslovakia during the Prague offensive on 11 May 1945.
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The three Gusen concentration camps in and around the village of St Georgen/Gusen, just a few kilometres from Mauthausen, held a significant proportion of prisoners within the camp complex, at times exceeding the number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp.
The 6th Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army during World War II. It was formed with a cadre from the 2nd Armored Division.
The 11th Armored Division was a division of the United States Army in World War II. It was activated on 15 August 1942 at Camp Polk, Louisiana and moved on 24 June 1943 for the Louisiana Maneuvers. Transferred then to Camp Barkeley, Texas on 5 September 1943, the division participated, beginning 29 October 1943, in the California Maneuvers and arrived at Camp Cooke California on 11 February 1944. The division staged at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey from 16 to 29 September 1944 until departing New York Port of Embarkation on 29 September 1944, arriving in England on 11 October 1944.
The 12th Armored Division was an armored division of the United States Army in World War II. It fought in the European Theater of Operations in France, Germany and Austria, between November 1944 and May 1945.
Joachim Peiper was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) war criminal convicted for the Malmedy massacre of U.S. Army prisoners of war (POWs). During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS. Peiper personified Nazi ideology as a purportedly ruthless glory-hound commander who was indifferent to the combat casualties of Battle Group Peiper, and who encouraged, expected, and tolerated war crimes by his Waffen-SS soldiers.
The 83rd Infantry Division ("Thunderbolt") was a formation of the United States Army in World War I and World War II.
The 92nd Infantry Division was an African-American, later mix, infantry division of the United States Army that served in both World War I, World War II and later the Korean War. The military was then segregated. The division was organized in October 1917, after the U.S. entry into World War I, at Camp Funston, Kansas, with African-American soldiers from all states. In 1918, before leaving for France, the American buffalo was selected as the divisional insignia due to the "Buffalo Soldiers" nickname, given to African-American cavalrymen in the 19th century. The divisional nickname, "Buffalo Soldiers Division", was inherited from the 366th Infantry, one of the first units organized in the division.
Łapanka was the Polish name for a World War II practice in German-occupied Poland, whereby the German SS, Wehrmacht and Gestapo rounded up civilians on the streets of Polish cities. The civilians arrested were in most cases chosen at random from among passers-by or inhabitants of city quarters surrounded by German forces prior to the action.
The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" was a German Waffen-SS division that saw action on the Western Front during World War II.
Eduard Deisenhofer was a German commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. He was an early member in the SS, and served with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and at the Dachau concentration camp in 1930s. During World War II, Deisenhofer served with several combat divisions on both the Eastern and Western fronts, earning the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. He held a PhD in political economy.
The 18th AAF Base Unit, originally known as the First Motion Picture Unit, Army Air Forces, was the primary film production unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) during World War II, and was the first military unit made up entirely of professionals from the film industry. It produced more than 400 propaganda and training films, which were notable for being informative as well as entertaining. Films for which the unit is known include Resisting Enemy Interrogation, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress and The Last Bomb—all of which were released in theatres. Veteran actors such as Clark Gable, William Holden, Clayton Moore, Ronald Reagan, and DeForest Kelley, and directors such as John Sturges served with the 18th AAF Base Unit. The unit also produced training films and trained combat cameramen.
Fritz Klein was an Austrian Nazi doctor and war criminal, hanged for his role in atrocities at Auschwitz concentration camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.
The German Army was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht, the regular Armed Forces of Nazi Germany, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946. During World War II, a total of about 13.6 million soldiers served in the German Army. Army personnel were made up of volunteers and conscripts.
J Malan Heslop was a World War II combat photographer with Arnold E. Samuelson's Combat Assignment Unit #123 of the 167th Signal Photographic Company who documented evidence of Nazi war crimes. He later served as editor of the Church News and managing editor of the Deseret News.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to World War II:
The 289th Engineer Combat Battalion was a combat engineer battalion of the United States Army during World War II. It served under XXI Corps of the Seventh Army in action mainly in France and Germany in 1944 and 1945. It received campaign credit for participation in the Ardennes-Alsace campaign , Rhineland campaign, and the Invasion of Germany.
Nazi Concentration Camps, also known as Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps, is a 1945 American film that documents the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces during World War II. It was produced by the United States from footage captured by military photographers serving in the Allied armies as they advanced into Germany. The film was presented as evidence of Nazi war crimes in the Nuremberg trials.
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