Hitler & the Third Reich: VII - Miscellaneous Quiz

Answer: Spetsnaz.

A bit of a trick question here. "Kristallnacht", "Einsatzgruppen" and "Ariernachweis" were all associated with Nazi Germany. The Spetsnaz is the name of the Russian Special Forces that was formed after World War II.

The "Kristallnacht" took place on the 9th and 10th of November, 1938 (and in some areas continued for about 3-4 days). It was a synchornized attack on the Jewish people and their property. By the end of the night hundreds of Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed, 91 Jews were murdered and thousands were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The event became known as the "Night of Broken Glass" or "Kristallnacht" because of the massive amounts of broken glass that littered the steets.

The "Einsatzgruppen" were SS death squads that took part in the killings of Jews and others. The "Einsatzgruppen" followed the forward troops in the invasion of the Soviet Union and systematically killed the Jews.

The "Ariernachweis" was a certificate of "Aryan" origin. It was usually based on certificates of baptism, though of course problems arose if there was any illegitimacy in a family.

Answer: It co-ordinated the administration of the "Final Solution".

Contrary to a widespread misconception found in some older, out-of-date history books, the Wannsee Conference did *not* take any policy decision. (The decision to exterminate the Jews had already been taken some time between September and December, 1941, and the Holocaust had already started). The Wannsee Conference was a quite short, brisk meeting that lasted only 85 minutes and was held on 20 January, 1942).

It was held in an SS villa in Wannsee, in S.W. Berlin and attended by 15 high ranking Nazis, but not by the actual Nazi leadership. The meeting was chaired by Heydrich, and Eichmann took the minutes with their notorious references to "the Final Solution of the Jewish Question".

Answer: A woman that cleared debris and rubble.

A Trümmerfrau was a woman that helped to clear the rubble from bombed buildings in the aftermath of the war. The name translates to: ruin, or rubble, women. Up to 50,000 women were drafted into the Trümmerfrau. The Allies again employed Trümmerfrauen. (In 1945 in the British Zone they were paid three (pre-decimal) pence (3d) an hour at the then current rate of exchange, but they and their children were also given free meals).

Gertrud Scholtz-Klink's title was Reichfrauenführerin (RFF) or National Women's Leader.

Answer: we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs.

The failure of France to take positive action against the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 was to only encourage Hitler in following years. Ultimately, the occupation had been a test to see how France would react. As a result of French inactivity, Hitler's confidence was surged to new heights.

Answer: Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Dubbed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was signed in August 1939.

Vyacheslav Molotov was the Soviet Foreign Minister (1939-49).

Joachim von Ribbentrop was the German Foreign Minister (1938-45). He was executed for war crimes at Nuremberg.

Semyon Krivoshein was a Soviet tank commander.

Heinz Guderian was a German general.

Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg was the last German ambassador in the Soviet Union prior to the invasion.

Andrei Zhdanov was a Communist politician.

Answer: Hummingbird.

Operation T4 was the notorious euthanasia programme to rid the Third Reich of the mentally ill and other "incurably ill" citizens, including the elderly. Hitler signed the orders on September 20, 1939.

Operation Reinhard was the name given to the plan to kill the Polish Jews. Over 2 million Jews died as a result of this Operation. (In all, about 2.9 million Polish Jews out of a total prewar Polish Jewish population of about 3.3 million were killed).

Answer: Guernica.

On 26 April, 1937 bombers of Hitler's "Condor Legion" turned the town of Guernica into rubble during the Spanish Civil War. During a two and a half hour raid the Spanish civilians got a taste of what other cities in Europe would get in later years.

Pablo Picasso created a famous painting of the raid.

Answer: He volunteered to be imprisoned in the Auschwitz.

Polish hero, Witold Pilecki, volunteered to be imprisoned at Auschwitz and provided intelligence on the camp for the Polish Home Army and the Allies. He is the only person ever known to actually volunteer to go INTO Auschwitz. After 945 days he managed to escape. Unfortunately, his reports were dismissed by the British government as exaggerated and implausible ...

However Pilecki was not the only person to escape the barbed wire of Auschwitz. Female inmate, Mala Zimetbaum, and her lover, Edek Galinski, walked right out of the gates! Galinski wore a stolen SS uniform and escorted Zimetbaum through the gates. The plan worked, but was short-lived. They made it to a nearby village but a local resident became suspicious and they were recaptured. They both died for their efforts.

Over 700 people managed to escape from Auschwitz, but the majority were soon recaptured.

Answer: Lidice.

The village of Lidice was subjected to reprisals on 10 June, 1942 for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

Heydrich was badly wounded on 27 May, 1942 and died in hospital a week later as a result.

Orders were issued by Himmler that all of the men were to be executed, the women shipped off to concentration camps and that the village be burned to the ground. Bulldozers then levelled what was left of the village, and the village effectively ceased to exist.

A new village, of the same name, was later built after the war close to the original site.

Answer: Counterfeit money.

Operation Bernhard was a large counterfeiting operation, in fact, it was the largest.

The Nazi in charge of the operation was SS-Sturmbannführer Bernhard Krueger.

During the operation over £134,610,810 ($377 million in American terms) of American and British bank notes were produced by Jewish prisoners (trained in forgery by the SS).

The fake notes are apparently the best reproductions ever made and practically impossible to distinguish from the real mccoy.

The camp also had a shoe walking unit. The inmates were forced to walk around all day in shoes to test the shoes for local manufacturers! The tracks the inmates had to walk on were made of various surfaces (sand, rubble, cement etc).

Bricks were also produced at a nearby brick factory. Prisoners were supplied by the camp.