Babi Yar- Name of a ravine near Kiev where, in September 1941, thousands of Jews were slaughtered. On September 19, 1941, a German Army group, after hammering at the Soviet defenses at Kiev for 45 days, finally entered the city. A few days later tremendous explosions rocked the Continental Hotel, which housed the headquarters of a German command post, and nearby areas. In the huge fires which then followed, many German soldiers lost their lives. The German military command decided that the Jews of Kiev were responsible for the heavy loss of German lives. In reprisal the Jews were marched in small groups to the outer limits of the city to the Babi Yar ravine. There some 35,000 were killed in two days of summary executions. The bodies were buried in a pit about 60 years long and 8 feet deep.
Bamberg Party Congress- A meeting of all party Gaufuhrer (district leaders) called by Hitler at Bamberg in southern Germany on February 14, 1926, to settle the Nazi party program. There had been a clash of opinion between northern and southern leaders, and Hitler was anxious to resolved the difficulties. He carefully selected a weekday, when it was difficult for the northerners to get away from their jobs. Only Gregor Strasser and Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels were able to speak for northerners against the majority of south Germans. The northerner Gregor Strasser represented the urban, socialist, revolutionary trend, while the southerner Gottfried Feder reflected rural, racialist, and populist ideas. Hitler was determined to move slowly between these two hostile groups, and he was not inclined to allow his fledgling party to turn in the direction of "undiluted socialist principles".
Barbarossa- Code name, sometimes called Fall Barbarossa, for the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. In his War Directive 21, issued on December 18, 1940, Hitler dropped the original cover name Fritz and substituted for it the term Barbarossa. He took the name from the German hero and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (1123-1190), known as Barbarossa from the Italian for "red beard". On June 10, 1190, while clad in full armor on the Third Crusade through Asia Minor, Barbarossa was drowned in attempting to cross a stream. The legend arose that Barbarossa continued to live on, awaiting the call of his country, in a cave in the Kyffhauser mountain range in the geographical center of Germany. It became a summer tradition for thousands of German schoolchildren to journey to the cave to see a marble statue of the legendary hero.
In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin agreed to a ten-year nonagression pact. Nearly two years later, on June 22, 1941, the Fuhrer sent his war machine crashing across the frontiers of the U.S.S.R., unleashing a furious Blitzkrieg. As a pretext for invasion, Hitler accused Stalin of treachery, of threatening to cross German frontiers, and of promoting anti-German propoganda. At his own choice Hitler opted for another two-front war. Although the invasion came as a surprise to many observers, those who had studied Mein Kampf knew of his hatred for bolshevism. The Fuhrer described the assault on Russia as a crusade against communism, but he obviously was motivated by a need for wheat, oil, and mineral supplies to enable him to defy the British blockade.
Battle for Berlin- The final battle of World War II in Europe. Hitler intended to make Berlin, the huge, sprawling metropolis on the Spree, the capital of his Nazi world empire. In the closing days of the war, the Fuhrer retreated there for a last stand. Now worn out, he was determined to fight on "until five past midnight". He refused to surrender or leave, rejected the advice of genereals, and remained in his bunker in the Reich Chancellery to await the miracle that would save his empire (Gotterdammerung).
Berlin was protected on the east by a dense system of trenches. In the city proper, pillboxes, mines, and booby traps were placed at strategic points. The streets were barricaded. Slogans by Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels covered the walls: "Wie kapitulieren nie!" (We shall never surrender), "Every German Will Defend His Capital!", "We Shall Halt the Red Hordes at the Walls of Our Own Berlin!", and "Victory or Siberia!" Despite this show of bravado, Berlin was already in its death throes. The great pieces by Russian artillery from the east and by British and American air power from the west. British Lancasters and Americans Flying Fortresses and Liberators rained a hail of bombs on the metropolis. Between raids by the giant planes, fast British medium bombers called Mosquitoes droned over the doomed city in a pyschological attack designed to give the residents little or no sleep.
The city was systematically destroyed as one famous landmark after another--the Opera, the Chancellery, the Air Ministry--crumbled into dust. Flames poured from broken gas mains, lighting up the blackened shells of the buildings. Berliners cringed in cellars and subways. Boys in their teens and men in their sixties were rounded up for a fianl stand. Desperate housewives stole food from the stores. Loudspeakers in the streets appealed to the people to fight to the death.
In the final days of April 1945, Soviet troops broke through the suburbs and headed toward Unter den Linden in the center of the city. Powerful Russian tanks and rocket-firing trucks moved through the rubble-filled streets and smashed down the barricades. German suicide squads left their hiding places aand attacked the Russian tanks with bottles filled with gasoline. Germans and Russians joined in hand-to-hand fighting with tommy guns, rifles, and pistols. The combat suged from corridors to rooftops and into the cellars, tunnels, and subways.
By April 25, eight Soviet armies were closing in on the city. By the evening of the next day, the Russians cut off the last German force in Potsdam and pushed the Berlin defenders into a pocket 9 miles long from east to west and 1 to 3 miles wide. In the center of the city the Russians drove spearheads from north to south to the governmental quarter. Soviet armiers competed with one another for the honor of taking the Reichstag, which they regarded as a symbol of the Third Reich, even though it had been gutted by a 1933 fire.
Berlin went down in a wave of destruction. Other cities had felt the lash of war. Leningrad had been subjected to cold and starvation, and Dresden and Hamburg to the devastation of fire bombs; Hiroshima and Nagasake were later to feel the annihilating atomic bomb. But Berlin had been signled out for special torture. For months a despairing population, reduced to 1.7 million, mostly women, children, and the aged, had been forced underground into the air-raid shelters. They endured Soviet shells and rockets and Allied bombs as the city disintegrated above them.
Berlin formerly surrendered on May 2, 1945. It was a terrible spectacle in the end. The city was reduced to a hollow shell. The streets were impassablebecause of the giant rubble heaps. For mile after mile grotesque skeletons of buildings swayed on their shaky foundations. The air was foul with the stench of dead people and animals in the streets. It was as if a giant scourge had leveled the metropolis.
Beamtenbund- (Reichsbund Deutscher Beamter; Civil Service League) A monolithic body of civil servants closely allied with the Nazi party and under its control. A part of the system of Gleichschaltung, it was designed to supersede the old professional civil service organizations. It was expected to implement all special decrees of the government. For example, by decree of September 9, 1937, all Beamtenbund members were required to boycott those department stores then under attack. There were more than 1 million members who paid substantial dues and contributions, attended meetings after office hours, and observed all orders from the authorities.
Beer Hall Putsch- Unsuccessful attempt by Hitler and his new Nazi party to seize power in the early stages of the Nationalist Socialist movement. On the evening of November 8, 1923, some 3,000 Germans were present in the Burgerbrau Keller, a large beer hall in Munich, to hear a speach by Gustav Ritter von Kahr, state commisioner of Bavaria. On the platform with him were such dignitaries as General Otto von Lossow, commander of the armed forces in Bavaria, and Colonel Hans von Seisser, chief of the Bavarian State Police. While Von Kahr was delivering his talk, the hall was silently surrounded by 600 Storm Troopers. The SA men set up a machine gun outside with its muzzle pointed at the front door. In the darkness the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, surrounded by followers, hurried down the aisle, jumped on a chair, fired a shot at the ceiling, and in the sudden silence cried out: "The national revolution had broken out!" To the astonished audience he added: "The hall is filled with 600 armed men. No one is allowed to leave. The Bavarian government and the government at Berlin are hereby deposed. A new government will be formed at once. The barracks of the Reichswehr and the police barracks are occupied. Both have rallied to the swastika!"
Hitler then turned to the podium and gruffly ordered Von Kahr, Von Lossow, and Von Seisser to follow him to a small side room. Here he denounced his prisoners and informed them that he, together with General Erich von Ludendorff, the war hero, was forming a new government. The three leaders of the Bavarian regime, still nervous, but beginning to recover their wits, started to berate Hitler and demanded to know what he meant by this confounded nonsense. Hitler flew into a rage. He dashed back into the hall and shouted to the still-muttering crowd: "Tomorrow will find a national government in Germany, or it will find us dead!"
The huge crowd, puzzled by the spectacle, did not know what was coming next. At this crucial moment a great cheer went up when Ludendorff, known to everyone in the audience, appeared on the scene. Ludendorff at once denounced Hitler for presuming to start a revolution without clearing the matter with him in advance. Hitler, sensing enthusiasm in the audience, ignored the slight. Once again, he mounted the podium, turned to the crowd, and informed it that victory was his. "I have at last fulfilled the oath I swore five years ago as a blind cripple in a military hospital."
This continued through the night and by morning Hitler believed the Putsch to have misfired, but Ludendorf demanded no retreat. At 11 am, the assembled Nazis, with swastika banners in hand with war flags, began a demonstration march toward the Marienplatz in the center of Munich. At the head were Hitler, Ludendorff, Hermann Goering, and Julius Streicher. About 100 police confronted 3,000 Nazis. Hitler called the Nazis to surrender. In seconds, 16 Nazis and 3 policemen lay dead on the pavement, and others wounded.
On the surface the Beer-Hall Putsch seemed to be a failure, but actually it was a brilliant achievement for a political nobody. In a few hours Hitler catapulted his scarcely known, unimportant movement into headlines throughout Germany and the world. Moreover, he learned an important lesson: direct action was not the way to political power. it was necessary that he seek a political victory by winning the masses to his side and also by attracting the support of wealthy industrialists. Then he could ease his way to political supremacy by legal means.
Belsen (Bergen-Belsen)- Concentration camp 10 miles Northwest of Celle, Hannover, near the village of Bergen on the road to Hamburg. Originally a small camp, Belsen was later enlarged and at one time included some 10,000 prisoners, including those jailed for political offenses. Staffed like the oterh camps, Belsen had no gas chambers, but thousands of its inmates died from disease and starvation. The shortage of food was always acute, although the camp staff was well fed. Prisoners are said to have resorted to cannibalism. In late 1944 Belsen received a new commandant, Josef Kramer, later known as the Beast of Belsen. Allied troops liberated Belsen in April 1945.
Belzec- With Sobibor and Maidanek, one of the extermination camps in the Lublin district of Poland. Originally a labor camp, Belzec was founded by SS-Brigadefuhrer Odilo Globocnik, who in 1941 became head of all the death camps in the General Government of Poland. There were no non-Jewish inmates, nor was there any industrial activity. The business of Belzec was the gassing of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Originally, the gassings took place in a shack known as the Heckenboldt Foundation after Unterscharffuhrer Heckenboldt, who ran the diesel engine that distributed exhaust fumes used for gassing. In August 1942, Zyklon-B (hydrocyanic, or prussic, acid fumes) was demonstrated for the first time at Belzec. it was declared to be more humane (effective) than engine exhaust fumes, not only at Belzec but also at Sobibor, Madanek, and Treblinka. Belzec was also known for its supply of euthanasia technicians.
Bendlerstrasse- Street in Berlin on which the Ministry of War was located. In popular parlance Bendlerstrasse was used for a synonym for the Ministry of War or for the High Command of the armed forces, just as Wilhelmstrasse was used to denote the chancellery.
Berchtesgaden- German town in southeast Bavaria near the Austrian border, 74 miles southeast of Munich. Berchtesgaden was the site of Hitler's mountain retreat. Situated at a height of 1700 feet in the Alps, it was near three majestic mountains, Waltzmann (8820 feet), Hochkalter (8473 feet), and Hoher Goll (8196 feet). Here the Fuhrer built the Berghof, a large estate and chalet. At the foot of the steps leading up to the house, he received his famous guests.
Berghof- Hitler's estate and chalet on the Obersalzburg high above the town of Berchtesgaden, in southeastern Bavaria. This elaborate mountain retreat, constructed on the site of the original Haus Wachenfeld, was bought by the Fuhrer with his own funds acquired from the sales of Mein Kampf. The Berghof reflected Hitler's passions for huge rooms, thick carpets, and a view of the mountain area. He planned the building himself, and he had it completed by slave labor. The central chalet, built in the midst of a compound containing barracks for some 20,000 troops, was protected by five rings of fortifications. Made of stone in the shape of a mushroom, the Berghof sat squarely on a mountaintop. Of the thirteen stories, only the top story was above ground. On this floor was a series of large rooms from which there were magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and the valley below. Most impressive was the great reception room with a huge octagonal table and a massive picture window. Nearby was a rectangular banqueting hall. In the underground fllors was a maze of guardrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, and food and wine cellars. There was also a special tower, the Eagle's Nest, with a private elevator to the top, where the Fuhrer could resign himself to complete solitude.
In the vicinity of Hitler's chalet were smaller houses occupied by Hermann Goering, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann. Goering insisted that his own estate be no more than 100 yards from Hitler's chalet. He persuaded the Bavarian Cabinet to give him a piece of land 100,000 meters square. In every direction were camps for the security troops. A special road led from Berchtesgaden to the Berghof.
On September 15, 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich and then went by automobile to Berchtesgaden to discuss the critical Czechoslovakian situation with Hitler. The Fuhrer received him in the usual fashion at the foot of the steps leading to the Berghof. During World War II the compound was a special target for Allied air raids. The central chalets were wrecked, and the entire area after the bombing gave the appearance of a landscape on the moon.
Berlin Putsch- An attempt by the Resistance movement to overthrow Hitler in September 1938. The Fuhrer distrusted most of his generals, who had opposed him and National Socialism from the beginning. In all, there were five occasions on which members of the military were implicated in the goal of ending Hitler's career: 1) the January 1933 Potsdam Putsch 2) The September 1938 Berlin Putsch, 3) the November 1939 Zossen Putsch, 4) the January 1943 Stalingrad Putsch, and 5) the 1944 July Plot. In each case Hitler, either by careful planning or by good fortune, was able to outwit the conspirators and survive.
By 1938, the opposition to Hitler was transformed into a Resistance movement, including, in addition to the recalcitrant generals, civilians who were disgusted with the Nazi regime. The generals were infuriated by the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis. The angry officiers included Col. Gen. Ludwig Beck and Col. Gen. Kurt Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord. Added to the miliary were such high placed civilians as Hjalmar Schacht, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Johannes Popitz; members of the Abwehr, such as Adm. Wilhelm Canaris and Col. Hans Oster; and a younger group including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Hans von Dohnanyi, and Otto John. Other members of the Kreisau Circle joined later.
Bernhard, Operation- Code name for a plan to drop forged British banknotes on England by plane early in World War II. The scheme was devised by Alfred Helmut Naujocks, an assistant to Reinhard Heydrich Naujocks, an assistant to Reinhard Heydrich Naujocks for a time managed a section of the SD that specialized in forging passports and similar necessites for espionage agents.
Birkenau- Extermination camp located in the Birkenau woods near Auschwitz in occupied Poland. Birkenau was constructed in 1941 on orders from Heinrich Himmler as a special killing center for 100,000 Russian prisoners. Two old farm buildings were made airtight by strong wooden doors. Prisoners were unloaded from nearby transports and separated into those fit for work and those to be liquidated. The latter were required to undress at the doors of the Disinfektionsraum (disinfection chamber) and there were then sent in 250 at a time. After the doors were locked, tins of Zyklon-B gas were thrown into specially contruced apertures. Later the doors were opened, and the bodies were removed by prisoner details and burned in pits lined with rags soaked in paraffin. Six to seven hours were necessary to cremate 100 bodies in one burial pit.
Bismarck- German superdreadnaught, one of the most powerful warships ever launched, sunk by the British in World War II. Displacing 42,000 tons and measuring 791 feet at the waterline, she mounted a main battery of eight modern 15-inch guns, twelve 5.9 inch guns, and sixteen 4.1 inch guns. Her twin-shaft turbines gave her a speed of 30 knots. her optical fire-control system was one of the best in the world, and her watertight compartments were believed to have made her virtually unsinkable. Winston Churchill pronounced her a "masterpiece of naval construction."
The Bismarck was very destructive to the allies, but then became battered eventually. On the morning of May 27, 1941, the powerful George V and the Rodney appeared on the scene to finish off the Bismarck. Salvos from 14- and 16-inch guns sliced through the armor of the German battlewagon. By this time, the Bismarck was battered beyond recognition, her superstructure destroyed and her impotent guns pointing crazily in all directions. Hundreds of the crew, unable to survive on the blazing ship, jumped into the sea. The Doretshire closed in on the mortally wounded hulk and sent her remaining torpedoes speeding toward the target. Slowly, the Bismarck heeled over to port, turned upside down, and disappeared beneath the waves. In the rough seas British sailors lowered lines to survivors and rescued 100 crewsmen, but broke off the operation when a submarine was reported in the vicinity. The destruction of the Bismarck, at a time when the Germans were inflicted heavy defeats on the British on land, was important for the Allied cause. Not only was the sinking of the Hood quickly avenged, but the demonstration of British naval power gave a psychological lift to the nations pledged to destroy Nazism.
Black Wednesday- Name given to September 28, 1938, the day on which war seemed inevitable because of the unresoved Czechoslovakian crisis. At 2 pm, Hitler, just as his ultimatum was about to expire, decided to postpone mobilization of his troops "at the request of my great friend and ally, Mussolini." Invitations were hastily sent to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Premier Edouard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini to meet the Fuhrer in Munich at noon the following day to settle the Czech question.
Blitzkrieg (lightning war)- Military tactics inaugurated by Hitler and carried out by such combat commanders as Gen. Heinz Guderian in the Polish and French campaigns of 1939 and 1940. The accent was no longer placed on endless columns of soldiers marching a few miles a day. instead, of the static lines of World War I, as in the bloodbath of Verdun, where opposing armies dug themselves like moles into the ground and hurled artillery shells at one another, Blitzkrieg emphasized mobility and fluidity. "The whole battlefield," said one observer,"becomes an amorphous permeation like a plague of vermin in a garden." It was a new kind of attack that threw defenders into hopeless confusion.
First, the way was prepared by activities of the fifth column behind enemy lines. Second, in a swift surprise blow, the opposing air force was destroyed on the ground, thus removing the prime obstacle to land attack. Third, the enemy was slowed down by bombing from the air all his means of communication and transportation. Fourth, troop concentrations were dive-bombed to keep them off balance and prevent them from striking back in strength. Fifth, light forces-motorcycle infantry, light tanks, motor-drawn artillery-were sent ahead. Sixth, heavy tanks followed them to carve out mechanized pockets in the rear. Finally, the regular infantry-foot soldiers, supported by artillery-were committed to mop up resistance and join up with advanced forces.
The theory of Blitzkrieg was suggested in 1934 by a 44 year old French officer. Col. Charles de Gaulle, in Vers l'armee de metier (army of the future). In a plea for mechanization, de Gaulle favored the concentration of armored troops in armored divisions as against the French General Staff policy of parceling them out as army tank brigades in a supporting role. His ideas on the tactical employment of armor were opposed by conservative officers inured to the policies of Foch and Joffre. Frenchmen would not listen to de Gaulle's revolutionary ideas, but Hitler and his generals adopted them with scintillating success in the opening phases of World War II.
Blomberg-Fritsch Crisis- Hitler's dismissal in early 1938 of his two leading generals after distasteful personal scandals. the outcome allowed the Fuhrer to solidify his control over the Army and embark upon his program of aggression. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he was merely tolerated by the Army as a political upstart. By the summer in 1934 he succeeded in extinguishing any spark of organized political opposition inside Germany. High army officers at first saw no reason to oppose him because he was obtaining precisely the results they desired. The Blomberg-Fritsch crisis shattered their illusions. Officers disgusted by Hitler's plans began to take a stand against him. Opposition ripened into Resistance and eventually into conspiracy. The miliary played an important role in all three movements.
Blondi- Hitler's Alsatian dog, to which he was much attached. Blondi was a favorite in the household at the Berghof. The Fuhrer turned for comfort in his last days in the Berlin bunker to the only two creatures on earth who he believed had remained loyal to him-Eva Braun and Blondi. He furiously rejected Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering because he believed that they had deserted him at a critical hour. On the morning of April 30, 1945, the day of his suicide, Hitler called in one of his doctors to destroy Blondi with poison. At the same time two other dogs were shot by the sergeant assigned to take care of them..
Blood Purge (Die Nacht der langen messer or Night of the Long Knives)- A campaign of assasination unleashed by Hitler on the night of June 30, 1934, against the growing power of the SA, the brownshirted Storm Troopers. From its beginning, the Nazi revolution was pulled in two directions. The very name of the party--National Socialist--spelled trouble between the two movements, nationalism and socialism. Eventually, Hitler was forced to choose between them.
The struggle revolved around the personality, career, and beliefs of Ernst Roehm, Hitler's close friend for 15 years. A hard, stock little man, Roehm gave the appearance of being a tough character. Wounded three times in World War I, he faced the world with half his nose shot away and his cheek scarred by a bullet. In the immediate postwar years he was a professional free-booter, always looking for a fight. "Because I am a bad man," he was fond of saying, "war appeals to me more than peace." In the early days of the Nazi movement, Roehm created the SA, the "popular army" composed of patriots, street bullies, and gangsters. Under Roehm's direction, the SA won the battle of the streets against the Communists and played an important role in Hitler's rise to political power. A grateful Hitler said that he would never forget what Roehm had done for the movement. "I want to thank Heaven," Hitler said, "for having given me the right to call a man like you my friend and comrade-in-arms."
At the same time, Hitler began to be more and more seriously embarrassed by Roehm's political position. Roehm, together with Gregor Strasser and other early Nazis, formed a left-wing branch of the party and called for a second revolution in the direction of socialism. "The National Socialist struggle," Roehm said, "has been a Socialist Revolution. It has been a revolution of the workers' movement. Those who made this revolution of the workers' movement. Those who made this revolution must also be the ones to speak for it." The implication was that the SA would see to it that the Nazi revolution would not slow down.
This view placed Hitler in an uncomfortable dilemma. He wanted to retain Roehm's friendship and loyalty, but he also needed support from two other sources, both of which detested Roehm and his aggregation of misfits and roughnecks. Roehm hoped that one day his Storm Troopers would be absorbed into the regular Army, a view which infuriated high officers of the armed forces. Moreover, Hitler desparately needed financial support from the Rhineland industrialists, all of whom scored the socialism of the Nazi left-wingers.
Hitler tried to reason with Roehm. On June 4, 1934, he sent for the SA leader, and in a five-hour conversation begged his good friend to keep in line. "Forget the idea of a Second Revolution. Believe in me. Don't cause any trouble." Hitler said that he did not intend to dissolve the SA, to which he owed so much, but he ordered it on leave for the month of August, during which time no uniforms were to be worn. Another conversation with Roehm was arranged for Bad Wiessee on July 1.
By this time, Hitler had almost come to the conclusion that Roehm and his followers had to be eliminated for the good of the cause. He was joined in his determination by Hermann Goering, the No. 2 Nazi, and Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS. Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propoganda expert, who at one time had flirted with the left wing, decided to cast his lot with Hitler. The time for vacillation was over.
Followed by his SS guards, Hitler set out in a hurry for Bad Wiessee. Here Roehm and several of his associates were staying at a private hotel. Roehm lay in bed, fast asleep. Hitler banged on the door. "Who is there?" Roehm asked sleepily. "It's I, Hitler. Open up!" Roehm unbolted the door and said: "Already? I was expecting you until tomoorow." "Arrest him," Hitler shouted to his aidea. At the same time, a detachment of the SS kicked in the door of a neighboring room. There they found SA-Obergruppenfuhrer (general) Edmund Heines, a close associate of Roehm, in bed with his young chauffeur. Heines and his young friend were shot dead. Several other SA leaders were taken prisoner and, together with the protesting Roehm and the corpses of Heines and his friend, were pushed into a waiting automobile.
Back in Munich, Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer, who had arrived at the Brown House (Braunes Haus), turned the building into a trap for SA officers. As storm troopers arrived, they were taken prisoner by an SS cordon. One after another the bewildered men were taken to the Stadelheim Prison. Hitler went there and ordered additional executions.
Meanwhile, Hitler called Berlin and ordered Goering and Himmler go ahead with their end of the bloodbath. More than 150 top SA leaders suspected of disloyalty to Hitler were arrested and placed in a coal cellar at the Lichterfelde Cadet School barracks. Most had no idea why they were being shot. Many went to their death shouting "Heil, Hitler!" Four at a time of the victims were led out to a wall in the courtyard. Then an SS man opened their shirts and with a piece of charcoal drew a black circle on the left part of their chest. This was the target. A few yards from the wall a firing squad of eight men pumped bullets into the doomed men. On it went, hour after hour. The firing squads had to be changed frequently because the executioners could not stand the strain for long. The victims lay screaming and writhing on the ground. An officer finished them off with a shot in the head. The bodies were taken away in a butcher's tin-lined truck.
Two days later Roehm died. Hitler had ordered that a revolver be left in his cell so that he could take the "honorable" way out within ten minutes. Roehm refused to believe the order and demanded that his friend come to see him. Two guards, acting on Sepp Dietrich's orders, then entered the cell and pumped bullets into the half-clad prisoner.
The Fuhrer went on to state that some months previously he had heard rumors of a plot against the new order. At first, he had attributed tthe stories to his obvious enemies, but now he began to see plainly the hand of the SA dissidents. He accused them of leading disgraceful lives. There were guilty of "bad behavior, drunken excesses, molestation of decent people." "These men are not National Socialists, and they are in the highest degree detestable." Hitler insisted that his action in suppressing the plot was not illegal and barbaric but instead "belonged to a higher justice". "This was the Second Revolution. Their ghastly name for it was the 'Night of the Long Knives'". In this way Hitler assigned to the "Roehm plot" the name that was to be given to his own purge. He went on to list the victims among the SA or the party who had lost their lives with the massacre.
Hitler concluded with these words: "In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and therefore I became the supreme Justiciar of the German people. . . Everyone must know that in all future time if he raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death will be his lot.
Wilhelm Frick framed an extraordinary law that declared all Hitler's actions in the purge to be legal and statesmanlike. It was passed quickly by the puppet Reichstag.
Books, Burning of the - A symbolic incident in early Nazi Germany that provoked a wave of disgust throughout the world. On May 10, 1933, students and other young people invaded public and private libraries and collected books by Jewish, Marxist, bolshevist, and other "disruptive authors". The books were removed and publicly burned in huge bonfires. In Berlin the works of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Maxim Gorky, Henri Barbusse, Lion Feuchwanger, Walther Rathenau, Heinrich Heine, and many others were burned in front of the University of Berlin. Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels made a short speech: "Spirits are awakening, oh, century; it is a joy to live!" The Propoganda Minister was careful, however, to instruct all German newspapers to minimize the event. The world press denounced the book burning as a descent into barbarism.
Boxheim Documents- A plan of action adopted by Nazi functionaries in 1931 and intended as a blueprint for the seizure of political power. The name comes from the Boxheim estate, near Worms, where a group of National Socialists held a series of conversations. The documents were signed by Werner Best, who later became Reich Commissioner for occupied Denmark. The plan was to take power after a hypothetical Communist revolution had been thwarted by battle in the streets. The National Socialist party would execute anyone who opposed the new government. Hitler, at this time anxious to obtain funds from Rhineland industrialists and insistent that he would attain power only through legal means, publicly disavowed the Boxheim documents.
Braunes Haus- (brown house)- From 1931 on the headquarters of the Reich leadership of the Nationalsozialistsche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. It was located at Briennerstrasse 45 in Munich. An early headquarters building had been opened in 1920 in a modest building on the Sternacker-Brau in Munich. From 1922 to the breakup in the party on November 11, 1923, after the Beer-Hall Putsch, Hitler and the Nazis used a small building at Corneliusstrasse 12 for meetings. After the party was reorganized on February 27, 1925, the movement used the facilities of the Eher Verlag, a publishing firm at Thierstrasse 15, which was eventually to become the official National Socialist publishing house. Six months later Hitler moved the party rooms to the rear of Schellingstrasse 50, and then took over the entire house. With funds obtained from Rhineland industrialists, especially from Emil Kirdorf, the party in 1928 bought the spacious old patrician mansion called the Barlow Palace at Briennerstrasse 45. The architect Paul Ludwig Troost, under directions from Hitler, rebuilt the palace into a complex of offices. The large rooms and great halls were reduced to moderate sized rooms, and intermediate floors were added.
Buchenwald- One of the major concentration camps in the Third Reich. Buchenwald was one of three camps set up in 1933 to form the nucleus of a concentration camp system: Sachsenhausen in the north, Dachau in the south, and Buchenwald in central Germany. Buchenwald was located on a wooded hill 4 miles from Weimar, the shrine of German culture associated with the names of Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland. According to the report of a congressional committee sent to investigate Buchenwald: "It was an extermination factory and the means of extermination were starvation, beatings, tortures, incredibly crowded sleeping conditions, and sickness. The effectiveness of these measures was enhanced by the requirements that the prisoners work in an adjacent armaments factory for the manufacture of machine guns, small guns, ammunition, and other materiel for the German Army. The factory operated 24 hours a day, using two 12 hour shifts of prisoners."
Bund Deutscher Madel (BdM; League of German Girls)- The feminine branch of the German youth movement. The BdM was organized on parallel lines with the Hitler Jugend, the Hitler Youth. It was under the supervision of the Reichsjugendfuhrer (Reich Youth Leader) Baldur von Schirach. There were two general age groups: the Jungmadel, from ten to fourteen years of age, and older girls from fifteen to twenty-one. The smallest group was the Madelschaft, two to four of which made up a Madelschar. Two to four Madelscharen constituted a Gruppe, and five Gruppen made up a Ring. From five to six Ringe formed an Untergau, of which there were 684. Then came the Obergau. Altogether, there were 125,000 leaders, who were trained in thirty-five provincial schools, most of them on a part-time basis.
Burgerbrau Keller Attentat (Beer-Hall Attempt)- Unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life shortly after the outbreak of World War II. On November 8, 1939, on the sixteenth anniversary of the 1923 Beer-Hall Putsch, Hitler summoned his followers to Munich to celebrate that critical event in the history of the Nazi movement. Meanwhile, a bomb was planted in the pillar of the hall with a fuse that could be operated by a push button in an alcove near the street entrance. The Fuhrer's speech, which was concerned with the theme of British perfidy, was shorter than customary, and he left the hall earlier than usual. Twenty minutes later the bomb, which had tremendous force. The roof collapsed on the audience, killing seven and injuring sixty-three, all members of the Alte Kampfer, the old guard. Hitler offered a large reward for the apprehension of the conspirators and attended the funeral held for the victims.
The attentat remained a mystery. An official explanation accused Communists, Nazi deviationists, and the British Secret Service of planning the attempt on Hitler's wife. Some observers, including Martin Niemoeller, claimed that the incident had been planned by Heinrich Himmler, with Hitler's approval, as a means of augmenting the Fuhrer's popularity and of stimulating war fever in the German people.
Butter or Guns Speech - A talk delivered by Hermann Goering in 1936. In his speech, Goering made it plain that if Germans were to make a choice between butter and guns, they must choose guns. The speech had a depressing effect in the world's capitals. The key passage follows:
Party comrades, friends, I have come to talk to you about Germany, our Germany. Germany must have a place in the sun! Rearmament is only the first step to make our people happy. For me, rearming is not merely a goal in itself. I do not want to have rearmament for military ends or to oppress others. I want it solely for the freedom of Germany. Believe me, my friends, I am for international understanding. That is just why we are rearming. If we are weak, we shall be at the mercy of the world. What's the good of being in the concert of nations, if we are only allowed to play a comb?I must speak clearly. There are those in international life who are hard of hearing. They listen only if guns go off. We have no butter, my good people, but I ask you, would you rather have butter or guns? Should we import lard or metal ores? Let me tell it to you straight--preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat!