Wehrmacht (German Army): Rare Images: Part 19

Anti-aircraft tank Flakpanzer 1




A warning sign to be careful of Russian partisans
Reich Marshal Goering, in a conversation with Herbert Backe

WHO WAS HERBERT BACKE?

Herbert Backe (1 May 1896 – 6 April 1947) was a German Nazi politician and Obergruppenführer in the SS.

He was born in Batumi, Georgia. He performed a variety duties in the Third Reich government, succeding Richard Walther Darré as Minister of Food in May 1942 and as Minister of Agriculture in April 1944, and, during the war, was proposed by Alfred Rosenberg as administrator of Ukraine. Backe was one of the orchestrators of the Hunger Plan, the plan to starve millions of Slavs in order to ensure steady food supplies for the German people and troops.

Backe was a prominent member of the younger generation of Nazi intellectuals who occupied second tier positions in the Hitlerian system, such as Reinhard Heydrich, Werner Best, and Wilhelm Stuckart. Like Stuckart, who held most effective power in the Interior Ministry (officially led by Wilhelm Frick), Backe was the de facto Minister of Agriculture, under Richard Walther Darré, even before Hitler appointed him as such.

He continued to hold his Ministerial positions in the ephemeral government led by Admiral Karl Dönitz in the last days of World War II, from late April to May 1945, as according to Hitler's political will. After the war officially ended, he was captured by the Allies together with the rest of the government, and was to face the Ministries Trial. However, he hanged himself in his cell on 6 April 1947.


Grim reality of war
A German soldier lights a Molotov cocktail
Germans chat with a local in the USSR

The Third Reich was fighting the war with boys like these in March 1945
Germans looking forward to a feast of tinned Russian food



A German on a BMW motorcycle
Near Brest fortress
A German general inspects a captured Soviet anti-tank gun
Inspection in the Wehrmacht
Checking the men of the artillery
These men are moving with a column of Tiger-2 tanks
Optical communication by the German army
 General Richthofen consults his advisers

Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (10 October 1895 Barzdorf – 12 July 1945) was a German Field Marshal General of the Luftwaffe during World War II.

Von Richthofen was fourth cousin of the German World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, popularly known as the "Red Baron," and the baron's younger brother Lothar von Richthofen.

More At Wikipedia


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Quotes about war....

"War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man."
--Napoleon Hill

"We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide."
--Havelock Ellis

'Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
--Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."
--George McGovern

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
--Joseph Stalin

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
--Voltaire, War

In war, truth is the first casualty.
-- Aeschylus

"The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery."
--Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
--Adolf Hitler

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."
--George Orwell

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
--Bertrand Russell

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.
--Francis Meehan

Snippets From History

German Soldiers in Russia: Part 1

Hubert Menzel was a major in the General Operations Department of the OKH (the Oberkommando des Heers, the German Army headquarters), and for him the idea of invading the Soviet Union in 1941 had the smack of cold, clear logic to it: 'We knew that in two years' time, that is by the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, the English would be ready, the Americans would be ready, the Russians would be ready too, and then we would have to deal with all three of them at the same time.... We had to try to remove the greatest threat from the East.... At the time it seemed possible.'
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Battle for Berlin, 1945

'We started to fire at the masses,' says one former German machine gunner. 'They weren't human beings for us. It was a wall of attacking beasts who were trying to kill us. You yourself were no longer human.'

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Berlin after it fell to the Russians, 1945

"Vladlen Anchishkin, a Soviet battery commander on the 1st Ukrainian Front, sums up the horror of the whole event, when he tells how he took personal revenge on German soldiers: 'I can admit it now, I was in such a state, I was in such a frenzy. I said, 'Bring them here for an interrogation' and I had a knife, and I cut him. I cut a lot of them. I thought, 'You wanted to kill me, now it's your turn.'
Read More

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Dramatic Pictures: Battle For Stalingrad
"...Effective command no longer possible... further defense senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops."
General Paulus' radio message to Hitler on January 24, 1943

"...Capitulation is impossible. The 6th Army will do its historic duty at Stalingrad until the last man, the last bullet..."

Hitler's response to General Friedrich Paulus' request to withdraw from the city

READ MORE>>>

Points To Ponder....

The fall of France was shocking. It reduced France to virtually a non-player in the Second World War. The efforts of Charles de Gualle were more symbolic than material. But the martial instincts of the French must never be doubted. Under Napoleon they were a formidable military power. The French definitely have more iron in their blood then say, the Italians [I do not mean it in a derogatory sense. War never makes sense]

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Bias Of Western Historians

Soviet resistance made possible a successful Allied invasion of France, and ensured the final Allied victory over Germany.

It can hardly be called mere 'resistance'! If it hadn't been for the Russians, Hitler would have made mincemeat of British forces in Africa and landed on British shores in no time. Hitler attacked Russia first because it had more land and resources than Britain. It is as simple as that.

READ MORE>>>>
Eastern Front: Bias Of Western Historians