167-662: Operation Harvest Festival ( German : Aktion Erntefest ) was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek , Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS , the Order Police battalions , and the Ukrainian Sonderdienst on 3–4 November 1943. After a series of Jewish uprisings in ghettos and extermination camps , Heinrich Himmler ordered the murder of the remaining Jewish forced laborers in
334-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
501-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
668-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
835-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1002-656: A group of 120 SS men on 17 March 1933 by Sepp Dietrich to form the Sonderkommando Berlin. By November 1933 the formation had 800 men, and at a commemorative ceremony in Munich for the tenth anniversary of the failed Beer Hall Putsch the regiment swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler . The oaths pledged were "Pledging loyalty to him alone" and "Obedience unto death". The formation was given the title Leibstandarte ( transl. Bodyguard Regiment ) Adolf Hitler (LAH). On 13 April 1934, by order of Himmler,
1169-591: A large majority of the senior officers corps of the Waffen-SS were from an upper-middle-class background and would have been considered for commissioning by traditional standards. Among later Waffen-SS generals, approximately six out of ten had a "university entrance qualification (Abitur), and no less than one-fifth a university degree". Hausser became the Inspector of the SS-VT in 1936. In this role, Hausser
1336-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
1503-503: A plan to recruit volunteers in the conquered territories from the ethnic German and Germanic populations. At first, Hitler had doubts about recruiting foreigners, but he was persuaded by Himmler and Berger. He gave approval for a new division to be formed from foreign nationals with German officers. By June 1940, Danish and Norwegian volunteers had formed the SS Regiment Nordland , with Dutch and Flemish volunteers forming
1670-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
1837-463: A ramp leading to the trenches, the Jews were separated into groups of ten and forced onward to the trenches. Execution squads of 10–12 men each from police battalions and 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking were waiting, and were replaced every few hours. The prisoners were forced to lie down in the trenches and were shot in the nape of the neck . About 600 prisoners, half men and half women, were selected at
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#17327732529932004-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
2171-590: A third path. He ordered that the SS-VT form its own divisions but that the divisions would be under army command. Hitler resisted integrating the Waffen-SS into the army, as it was intended to remain the armed wing of the party and to become an elite police force once the war was won. During the invasion, numerous war crimes were committed against the Polish people. The Leibstandarte became notorious for torching villages without military justification. Members of
2338-401: A woman and hid with them. The women remained at the camp and sorted the belongings of the murdered Jews until May 1944, when they were deported via Majdanek to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. About 50 Jews hid from the shootings at Poniatowa, and 150 were left alive after the shooting to clean up and cremate the corpses. Upon refusing to do so, they were shot on 6 November. Therefore,
2505-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
2672-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
2839-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
3006-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
3173-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
3340-683: Is demonstrated by the record of SS Totenkopf Standarte "Brandenburg" . It arrived in Włocławek on 22 September 1939 and embarked on a four-day "Jewish action" that included the burning of synagogues and the execution en-masse of the leaders of the Jewish community. On 29 September the Standarte travelled to Bydgoszcz to conduct an " intelligentsia action ". In October 1939, the Deutschland , Germania , and Der Führer regiments were reorganised into
3507-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
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#17327732529933674-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
3841-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
4008-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
4175-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
4342-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
4509-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
4676-646: Is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
4843-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
5010-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
5177-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
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5344-631: The Leibstandarte also committed atrocities in numerous towns, including the murder of 50 Polish Jews in Błonie and the massacre of 200 civilians, including children, who were machine gunned in Złoczew . Shootings also took place in Bolesławiec , Torzeniec , Goworowo , Mława , and Włocławek . Eicke's SS-TV field forces were not military. Their military capabilities were employed instead in terrorizing
5511-465: The Leibstandarte battalion was up to strength. The three SS divisions and the Leibstandarte spent the winter of 1939 and the spring of 1940 training and preparing for the coming war in the west. In May, they moved to the front, and the Leibstandarte was attached to the army's 227th Infantry Division . The Der Führer Regiment was detached from the SS-VT Division and attached to
5678-599: The Leibstandarte had taken the village of Wormhout , only ten miles from Dunkirk. After their surrender, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment , along with some other units (including French soldiers), were taken to a barn in La Plaine au Bois near Wormhout and Esquelbecq . It was there that troops of the Leibstandarte 's 2nd Battalion committed the Wormhoudt massacre , where 81 British and French prisoners of war were murdered. By 30 May,
5845-740: The Reichswehr (the Weimar Republic's armed forces) and conservatives of the country, people whose support Hitler needed to solidify his position. When Hitler decided to act against the SA, the SS was put in charge of killing Röhm and the other high-ranking SA officers. The Night of the Long Knives occurred between 30 June and 2 July 1934, claiming up to 200 victims and murdering almost the entire SA leadership, effectively ending its power. This action
6012-687: The SS-Verfügungs-Division . The Leibstandarte remained independent and was increased in strength to a reinforced motorised regiment. Hitler authorised the creation of two new divisions: the SS Totenkopf Division , formed from militarised Standarten of the SS-Totenkopfverbände , and the Polizei Division , formed from members of the national police force. Almost overnight the force that
6179-647: The 207th Infantry Division . The SS-VT Division minus Der Führer was concentrated near Münster awaiting the invasion of the Netherlands . The SS Totenkopf and Polizei Divisions were held in reserve. On 10 May, the Leibstandarte overcame Dutch border guards to spearhead the German advance of X Corps into the Netherlands, north of the rivers towards the Dutch Grebbe Line and subsequently
6346-672: The 6th Army was destroyed during the Battle of Stalingrad . Hitler ordered the SS Panzer Corps back to the Eastern Front for a counter-attack with the city of Kharkov as its objective. The SS Panzer Corps was in full retreat on 19 February, having been attacked by the Soviet 6th Army , when they received the order to counter-attack. Disobeying Hitler's order to "stand fast and fight to the death" , Hausser withdrew in front of
6513-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
6680-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
6847-703: The Deutschland Regiment from being destroyed and their bridgehead lost. That same day, as the SS Totenkopf Division advanced near Merville, they encountered stubborn resistance from British Army units, which slowed their advance. The SS Totenkopf 4 Company, then committed the Le Paradis massacre , where 97 captured men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine gunned after surrendering, with survivors finished off with bayonets . Only two men survived. By 28 May,
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7014-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
7181-480: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
7348-501: The Geneva Convention by allowing the prisoners to be executed. Himmler's aide, Werner Grothmann , replied that "all Jews without exception are subject to liquidation". At 5:00 on 3 November 1943, prisoners at Majdanek were awoken as usual in the dark, but the camp had been surrounded by an additional 500 soldiers during the night. The 3,500 to 4,000 Jewish prisoners lived among non-Jewish prisoners. After morning roll call,
7515-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
7682-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
7849-531: The Lagerstrasse [ de ] (main avenue) in the camp. Prisoners were ordered to strip naked, hand over all valuables, and walk down the Lagerstrasse in groups of 50, starting with the men. As loud music blared, the prisoners were herded to the two trenches by the entrance of the camp, 95 metres (310 ft) long, 2 metres (7 ft) wide, and 1.5 metres (5 ft) deep. One soldier stood at
8016-610: The Leie River at Merville . They forced a bridgehead across the river and waited for the SS Totenkopf Division to arrive to cover their flank. What arrived first was a unit of British tanks, which penetrated their position. The SS-VT managed to hold on against the British tank force, which got to within 15 feet of commander Felix Steiner 's position. Only the arrival of the Totenkopf Panzerjäger platoon saved
8183-445: The Lipowa 7 and Lublin airfield camps , which imprisoned Jews in the city. A total of 18,400 people were shot by the early evening. The same day, 6,000 people were murdered at Trawniki, including some from Dorohucza . After finishing the Majdanek operation, several of the involved units proceeded to Poniatowa, where they murdered the camp's 14,500 prisoners on 4 November. In all three camps, Jews were forced to strip naked and walk into
8350-488: The Lublin District of German-occupied Poland . Jewish laborers in the camps had to dig zigzag trenches, supposedly for air defense, in late October. Thousands of SS and police personnel arrived in Lublin on 2 November. That day, SS and Police Leader Jakob Sporrenberg , who was in charge of the operation, held a conference to plan it. The killings began on the morning of 3 November at Majdanek, where Jewish prisoners were separated from non-Jewish prisoners, and encompassed
8517-431: The Lublin airfield camp to clean up after the massacre at Majdanek. The rest, approximately 5,000 or 6,000, along with 2,500 Jewish prisoners of war at Lipowa 7, were marched toward Majdanek. Despite being heavily guarded, the Jewish prisoners of war rushed their guards and tried to escape, reportedly shouting "Niech żyje wolność!" (Long live freedom!) Almost all were shot before they could get away. The first prisoners from
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#17327732529938684-439: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
8851-428: The Pripyat swamps , an operation designed to round up and exterminate Jews, partisans, and civilians in that area of the Byelorussian SSR . Fegelein split the territory to be covered into two sections divided by the Pripyat River , with the 1st Regiment taking the northern half and the 2nd Regiment the south. The regiments worked their way from east to west through their assigned territory, and filed daily reports on
9018-427: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
9185-422: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
9352-427: The Totenkopf ", Eicke was awarded Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross on 20 May 1942. The Waffen-SS expanded further in 1943: in February the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and its sister division, the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg , were formed in France. They were followed in July by the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland created from Norwegian and Danish volunteers. September saw
9519-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
9686-437: The Waffen-SS divisions and brigades fared better. The Totenkopf and Polizei divisions were attached to Army Group North , with the mission to advance through the Baltic states and on to Leningrad . The Das Reich Division was with Army Group Centre and headed towards Moscow . The Leibstandarte and Wiking Divisions were with Army Group South , heading for Ukraine and the city of Kiev . The invasion of
9853-460: The Waffen-SS formations participated (including the Reich Division, which was formally renamed to Das Reich by the fall of 1941). SS Division Nord, which was in northern Finland , took part in Operation Arctic Fox with the Finnish Army and fought at the battle of Salla , where against strong Soviet forces they suffered 300 killed and 400 wounded in the first two days of the invasion. Thick forests and heavy smoke from forest fires disoriented
10020-403: The Waffen-SS had increased in size from eight divisions and some brigades to 16 divisions. By 1943 the Waffen-SS could no longer claim to be an "elite" fighting force. Recruitment and conscription based on "numerical over qualitative expansion" took place, with many of the "foreign" units being good for only rear-guard duty. On the Eastern Front, the Germans suffered a devastating defeat when
10187-421: The Waffen-SS until 1942. At the same time, the Totenkopf-Standarten , aside from the three constituting the TK-Division, lost their Death's Head designation and insignia and were reclassified SS-Infanterie- (or Kavallerie- ) Regimente . The 11th Regiment was transferred into the Reich Division to replace Germania ; the remainder were grouped into three independent brigades and a battle group in Norway. By
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#173277325299310354-404: The heavy panzer companies . The Soviet offensive of January 1942 trapped a number of German divisions in the Demyansk Pocket between February and April 1942; the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division was one of the divisions encircled by the Red Army. The Red Army liberated Demyansk on 1 March 1943 with the retreat of German troops. "For his excellence in command and the particularly fierce fighting of
10521-414: The invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Nazi propaganda claimed that the war was a "European crusade against Bolshevism " and subsequently units consisting largely or solely of foreign volunteers and conscripts were also raised. These Waffen-SS units were made up of men mainly from among the nationals of Nazi-occupied Europe. Despite relaxation of the rules, the Waffen-SS was still based on
10688-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
10855-401: The 2,000 that had started the campaign in June. Altogether, the Waffen-SS had suffered 43,000 casualties. While the Leibstandarte and the SS divisions were fighting in the front line, behind the lines it was a different story. The 1st SS Infantry and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades, which had been formed from surplus concentration camp guards of the SS-TV, and the SS Cavalry Brigade moved into
11022-434: The Amsterdam region. The neighbouring Der Führer Regiment advanced towards the Grebbe Line in the sector of the Grebbeberg with as a follow-up objective the city of Utrecht . The Battle of the Grebbeberg lasted three days and took a toll on Der Führer . On 11 May, the SS-VT Division crossed into the Netherlands south of the rivers and headed towards Breda . It fought a series of skirmishes before Germania advanced into
11189-413: The Balkans. Himmler approved the introduction of formal compulsory service for the Volksdeutsche in German-occupied Serbia. Another new division was formed at the same time, when the SS Cavalry Brigade was used as the cadre in the formation of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer . The front line divisions of the Waffen-SS that had suffered losses through the winter of 1941–1942 and during
11356-408: The British were cornered at Dunkirk , and the SS divisions continued the advance into France. The Leibstandarte reached Saint-Étienne , 250 miles south of Paris, and had advanced further into France than any other unit. By the next day, the fighting was all but over. German forces arrived in Paris unopposed on 14 June and France formally surrendered on 25 June. Hitler expressed his pleasure with
11523-413: The Dutch province of Zeeland on 14 May. The rest of the SS-VT Division joined the northern front against the forces in Antwerp . On the same day, the Leibstandarte entered Rotterdam . After the surrender of Rotterdam, the Leibstandarte left for The Hague , which they reached on 15 May, capturing 3,500 Dutch soldiers as prisoners of war . In France, the SS Totenkopf Division was involved in
11690-426: The Dutch surrender, the Leibstandarte moved south to France on 24 May. Becoming part of the XIX Panzer Corps under the command of General Heinz Guderian , they took up a position 15 miles south west of Dunkirk along the line of the Aa Canal, facing the Allied defensive line near Watten. A patrol from the SS-VT Division crossed the canal at Saint-Venant , but was destroyed by British armour. A larger force from
11857-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
12024-748: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
12191-483: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
12358-451: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
12525-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
12692-843: The Holocaust . In 1942, 360,000 of the Jews who lived in the Lublin District of the General Governorate of German-occupied Poland were murdered during Operation Reinhard . By the end of the year, only 20,000 Jews were living in German camps and ghettos and no more than another 20,000 were in hiding. Beginning in January 1943 , Jews launched a series of revolts in the General Governorate, including those at Warsaw Ghetto , Białystok Ghetto , and Treblinka extermination camp , while anti-Nazi partisan activity
12859-655: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
13026-456: The Jewish prisoners at the Lublin camps in a single decisive blow using overwhelming military force. Himmler ordered Friedrich Krüger , Higher SS and Police Leader in the General Governorate, to carry out the mass murder operation; Krüger delegated it to SS and Police Leader Jakob Sporrenberg , who had recently succeeded Odilo Globocnik . Jewish inmates were ordered to dig zigzag trenches along
13193-489: The LSSAH). Concentration camp guards had to make a one-year commitment, be between the ages of 16 and 23, and at least 1.72 metres (5 ft 8 in) tall. All recruits were required to have 20/20 eyesight , no dental fillings, and to provide a medical certificate. By 1938, the height restrictions were relaxed, up to six dental fillings were permitted, and eyeglasses for astigmatism and mild vision correction were allowed. Once
13360-518: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
13527-524: The OKW had tried to disband had increased from 18,000 to over 100,000 men. Hitler next authorised the creation of four motorised artillery battalions in March 1940, one for each division and the Leibstandarte . The OKW was supposed to supply these new battalions with artillery, but was reluctant to hand over guns from its own arsenal. The weapons arrived only slowly and, by the time of the Battle of France , only
13694-650: The Red Army. During Field Marshal Erich von Manstein 's counteroffensive, the SS Panzer Corps, without support from the Luftwaffe or neighbouring German formations, broke through the Soviet line and advanced on Kharkov. Despite orders to encircle Kharkov from the north, the SS Panzer Corps directly attacked in the Third Battle of Kharkov on 11 March. This led to four days of house-to-house fighting before Kharkov
13861-539: The SS (1st Galician) formed from volunteers from Galicia in western Ukraine. The 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian) was created in 1943, using compulsory military service in the Ostland . The final new division of 1943 was the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS , which was created using the Sturmbrigade Reichsführer SS as a cadre. By the end of the year,
14028-481: The SS Cavalry Brigade had 2 regiments with a strength of 3500 men and played a pivotal role in the transition to the wholesale extermination of the Jewish population. In the summer of 1941, Himmler assigned Hermann Fegelein to be in charge of both regiments. On 19 July 1941, Himmler assigned Fegelein's regiments to the general command of HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski for the "systematic combing" of
14195-781: The SS Regiment Westland . The two regiments, together with Germania (transferred from the Reich Division), formed the SS Division Wiking . A sufficient number of volunteers came forward requiring the SS to open a new training camp just for foreign volunteers at Sennheim in Alsace-Lorraine . At the beginning of the new year, the Polizei Division was brought under FHA administration, although it would not be formally merged into
14362-409: The SS and police soldiers who had been at Majdanek continued to Poniatowa, about 50 kilometres (30 mi) distant, after the massacre had finished. The units participating in the massacre at Poniatowa included Reserve Police Battalion 101, Motorized Gendarmerie Battalion 1, Police Battalion 41, and Police Battalion 67. There were 14,800 Jews at the camp before the massacre, most of them having come from
14529-405: The SS insisted that it had been hampered by having to fight piecemeal instead of as one formation, and was improperly equipped by the army to carry out its objectives. Himmler insisted that the SS-VT should be allowed to fight in its own formations under its own commanders, while the OKW tried to have the SS-VT disbanded altogether. Hitler was unwilling to upset either the army or Himmler, and chose
14696-416: The SS, which still maintained its racial criteria, but rather were considered to be foreign nationals serving under the command of the SS. As a general rule, an "SS Division" was made up of Germans or other Germanic peoples, while a "Division of the SS" was made up of non-Germanic volunteers and conscripts. Himmler's military formations at the outbreak of the war comprised several subgroups that would become
14863-520: The SS-VT Division then crossed the canal and formed a bridgehead at Saint-Venant; 30 miles from Dunkirk. That night the OKW ordered the advance to halt, with the British Expeditionary Force trapped. The Leibstandarte paused for the night. However, on the following day, in defiance of Hitler's orders, Dietrich ordered his 3rd Battalion to cross the canal and take the heights beyond, where British artillery observers were putting
15030-748: The SS-VT was untested in combat. In 1938, a battalion of the Leibstandarte was chosen to accompany the army troops in occupying Austria during the Anschluss , and the three regiments of the SS-VT participated in the occupation of the Sudetenland that same year in October. In both actions no resistance was met. Recruiting ethnic Germans from other countries began in April 1940, and units consisting of non-Germanic recruits were formed beginning in 1942. Non-Germanic units were not considered to be part of
15197-577: The SS-VT would have a role in domestic as well as foreign affairs, which transformed this growing armed force into the rival that the army had feared. He decreed that service in the SS-VT qualified to fulfill military service obligations, although service in the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) would not. Some units of the SS-TV would, in the case of war, be used as reserves for the SS-VT, which did not have its own reserves. For all its training,
15364-435: The SS-VT. At the same time Himmler established two SS-Junker Schools (SS officer training camps) that, under the direction of former Lieutenant General Paul Hausser , prepared future SS leaders. In addition to military training, the courses aimed to instill a proper ideological worldview, with antisemitism being the main tenet. Instructors such as Matthias Kleinheisterkamp , or future war criminals, such as Franz Magill of
15531-634: The Soviet Union behind the advancing armies. At first, they fought Soviet partisans and cut off units of the Red Army in the rear of Army Group South, capturing 7,000 prisoners of war, but from mid-August 1941 until late 1942 they were assigned to the Reich Security Main Office headed by Reinhard Heydrich . The brigades were now used for rear area security and policing, and were no longer under army or Waffen-SS command. In
15698-424: The Soviet Union proceeded well at first, but the cost to the Waffen-SS was extreme: by late October, the Leibstandarte was at half strength due to enemy action and dysentery that swept through the ranks. Das Reich lost 60% of its strength and was still to take part in the Battle of Moscow . The unit was later decimated in the following Soviet offensive. The Der Führer Regiment was reduced to 35 men out of
15865-669: The Soviet counter-offensive were withdrawn to France to recover and be reformed as Panzergrenadier divisions. Due to the efforts of Himmler and Hausser, the new commander of the SS Panzer Corps , the three SS Panzergrenadier divisions Leibstandarte , Das Reich , and Totenkopf were to be formed with a full regiment of tanks rather than only a battalion. This meant that the SS Panzergrenadier divisions were full-strength Panzer divisions in all but name. They each received nine Tiger tanks , which were formed into
16032-521: The Ukrainians were ordered to do so, but they were very reluctant and drank heavily. Many deserted and after a week, the remaining Ukrainians refused to do any more. According to Israeli historian David Silberklang , 120 Jews were brought in from Majdanek to do the work. Other reports have 60 to 80 prisoners of Sonderkommando 1005, who took six weeks to accomplish the task under the guard of Police Battalion 316 from Kraśnik . The bodies were dragged from
16199-500: The Warsaw Ghetto. On 3 November, the Jews were sent back to their barracks after roll call. The camp was sealed and telephone lines were cut, so that the prisoners would not know what fate awaited them. Some thought that there was going to be a selection, and tried to make themselves look healthier. That evening, the camp was surrounded by 1,000–1,500 German and Ukrainian soldiers, who formed three concentric security cordons around
16366-666: The Yugoslav capital. Fritz Klingenberg , a company commander in the Reich , led his men into Belgrade, where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later the Royal Yugoslav Army surrendered. The Leibstandarte had now crossed into Greece, and on 10 April engaged the 6th Australian Division in the Battle of the Klidi Pass . For 48 hours they fought for control of
16533-604: The advance on 13 May. When the Reconnaissance Battalion under the command of Kurt Meyer came under heavy fire from the Greek Army defending the Klisura Pass , they broke through the defenders and captured 1,000 prisoners of war at the cost of only six dead and nine wounded. The next day, Meyer captured Kastoria and took another 11,000 prisoners of war. By 20 May, the Leibstandarte had cut off
16700-566: The autumn of 1941, they left the anti-partisan role to other units and actively took part in the Holocaust . While assisting the Einsatzgruppen , they participated in the extermination of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union, forming firing parties when required. The three brigades were responsible for the murder of tens of thousands by the end of 1941. Because it was more mobile and better able to carry out large-scale operations,
16867-609: The basis of the Waffen-SS : In August 1939, Hitler placed the Leibstandarte and the SS-VT under the operational control of the Army High Command ( OKH ). Himmler retained command of the Totenkopfstandarten for employment behind the advancing combat units in what were euphemistically called "special tasks of a police nature". In spite of the swift military victory over Poland in September 1939,
17034-402: The beginning of the trench with a whip to encourage the Jews to immediately lie down on top of the bodies of those who had already been shot. Two shooters stood on each of the long sides of the trench, shooting alternately at the victims, each equipped with a bottle of schnapps and an assistant to reload their weapons. According to a witness, many of the victims were not killed and lay wounded in
17201-459: The camp by morning. The next morning (4 November), at 4:30, the prisoners were awoken for roll call. Most were held in Hall 3, except 200 prisoners who were temporarily spared at the insistence of commandant Gottlieb Hering , to clean up after the massacre. They were locked in the camp kitchen. Policemen searched the barracks and factory for anyone who was hiding, and then stood guard on both sides of
17368-554: The camp were forced to move and those who lived a bit farther away were forced to stay in their homes. Jewish prisoners who lived in the settlement outside the camp proper were returned to the camp. At 5:00 on 3 November, the prisoners were mustered for roll call, rounded up, and marched to the Hiwi training camp , where loudspeakers were playing music beside the trenches. The victims were ordered to disrobe and place their clothing in piles, then to lie face down on top of those already shot, and
17535-414: The civilian population through acts that included hunting down straggling Polish soldiers, confiscating agricultural produce and livestock, and torturing and murdering large numbers of Polish political leaders, aristocrats, businessmen, priests, intellectuals, and Jews. His Totenkopfverbände troops were called on to carry out "police and security measures" in the rear areas. What these measures involved
17702-413: The civilian population, including torture , human experimentation , kidnapping of children , mass rape , child sexual abuse and mass murder . Therefore Waffen-SS members, with the exception of conscripts, who comprised about one-third of the membership, were denied many of the rights afforded to military veterans. The origins of the Waffen-SS can be traced back to the selection of
17869-508: The commanders of the various units. The murder operation, due to begin at dawn the next day, was planned as a military operation, with the code name Erntefest ("Harvest Festival"). Two loudspeakers, installed on police cars, were positioned at Majdanek, one near the trenches and the other by the entrance of the camp. The leadership of the Lipowa 7 camp in Lublin, which held Jewish prisoners of war, queried Himmler as to whether they should violate
18036-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
18203-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
18370-657: The different branches of the Wehrmacht to meet quotas set by the German High Command ( Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW in German); the SS was given the lowest priority for recruits. Even with the difficulties presented by the quota system, Heinrich Himmler formed two new SS regiments, the SS Germania and SS Deutschland , which together with the Leibstandarte and a communications unit made up
18537-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
18704-426: The executioner would dispatch them by a shot to the nape of the neck. Men were shot before women and children. The shooting was already well underway when prisoners from Dorohucza arrived by rail at 7:00. After the trenches were filled, some Jews were executed at a sand pit in the labor camp. The execution of 6,000 Jews occurred continuously until 15:00 (or 17:00), with only a few managing to hide and survive. Many of
18871-398: The first in the Holocaust to wipe out entire Jewish communities. Fegelein's final operational report dated 18 September 1941, states that they killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, 699 Red Army soldiers, with 830 prisoners taken and losses of 17 dead, 36 wounded, and 3 missing. Historian Henning Pieper estimates the actual number of Jews killed was closer to 23,700. In 1942, the Waffen-SS
19038-568: The forced-labor camps in Radom District which had not been placed under SS command. In the Lublin District, Jews were killed separately at Annopol-Rachów , Puławy, and other smaller sites. The SS enterprise Ostindustrie , which employed many of the murdered prisoners, was not informed in advance; the company was liquidated later in the month. The operation marked the end of Operation Reinhard. According to Christopher Browning ,
19205-602: The formation of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend using volunteers from the Hitler Youth . Himmler and Berger successfully appealed to Hitler to form a Bosnian Muslim division, and the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) , the first non-Germanic division, was formed, to fight Josip Broz Tito 's Yugoslav Partisans . This was followed by the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of
19372-406: The groups were separated, with Jews ordered to go to camp 5. Jews in the infirmary were trucked to that location, while the non-Jewish prisoners at camp 5 were moved to camp 4. The barbed wire fence was repositioned to include the execution area within the cordon. Prisoners were forced to undress and driven in groups of one hundred to the three trenches in the field beyond the camp. At the beginning of
19539-718: The head of the SS. With the start of World War II, tactical control was exercised by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, "High Command of the Armed Forces"), with some units being subordinated to the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS (Command Staff Reichsführer-SS ) directly under Himmler's control. Initially, in keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany , membership was open only to people of Germanic origin (so-called " Aryan ancestry "). The rules were partially relaxed in 1940, and after
19706-646: The heights, often engaging in hand-to-hand combat, eventually gaining control with the capture of Height 997, which opened the pass and allowed the German Army to advance into the Greek interior. This victory gained praise from the OKW: in the order of the day they were commended for their "unshakable offensive spirit" and told that "the present victory signifies for the Leibstandarte a new and imperishable page of honour in its history." The Leibstandarte continued
19873-513: The help of Żegota . Overall, 14,500 people were killed within the span of a few hours. Removing all traces of the killing was a priority of the Nazi leadership because of Soviet military victories on the Eastern Front . After the German defeat at Stalingrad , Soviet forces recaptured most of Ukraine, Russia, and eastern Belarus by the end of 1943. At Majdanek, the cleanup took two months and
20040-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
20207-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
20374-424: The killing of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar outside Kiev and was exceeded only by the 1941 Odessa massacre of more than 50,000 Jews in October 1941, committed by Romanian troops . After the war, Sporrenberg was tried, convicted, and executed by a Polish court for his role in organizing the operation, while Pütz committed suicide. In 1999, Alfons Gotzfrid was sentenced to time served for his participation in
20541-516: The killings at Majdanek. The Majdanek State Museum has hosted ceremonies to commemorate the victims. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It
20708-598: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Waffen-SS The Waffen-SS ( German: [ˈvafn̩ʔɛsˌʔɛs] ; lit. ' Armed 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. It
20875-422: The minimum estimate of the death toll was 30,500 at Majdanek and Poniatowa, and murder estimates at Trawniki start at 6,000, but may be 8,000 to 10,000. Overall, the operation is variously estimated to have killed 39,000 to 43,000, at least 40,000, 42,000, or 42,000 to 43,000 victims. Measured by death count, Harvest Festival was the single largest massacre of Jews by German forces during the Holocaust . It surpassed
21042-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
21209-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
21376-454: The notorious SS Cavalry Brigade were of questionable competence. In 1934, Himmler set stringent requirements for recruits. They were to be German nationals who could prove their Aryan ancestry back to 1800, unmarried, and without a criminal record. A four-year commitment was required for the SS-VT and LSSAH. Recruits had to be between the ages of 17 and 23, at least 1.74 metres (5 ft 9 in) tall (1.78 metres (5 ft 10 in) for
21543-435: The number of people killed and taken prisoner. By 1 August, 1st SS Cavalry Regiment under the command of Gustav Lombard was responsible for the death of 800 people; by 6 August, this total had reached 3,000 "Jews and partisans". Throughout the following weeks, the regiment's personnel under Lombard's command murdered an estimated 11,000 Jews and more than 400 dispersed soldiers of the Red Army. Thus Fegelein's units were among
21710-527: The only Allied tank counterattack in the Battle of France. On 21 May, units of the 1st Army Tank Brigade , supported by the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division , took part in the Battle of Arras . The SS Totenkopf , on the southern flank of the 7th Panzer Division , was overrun, finding their standard anti-tank gun , the 3.7 cm PaK 36 , was no match for the British Matilda II tank. After
21877-403: The operation, ten labor camps for Jews in the Lublin District (including Dęblin–Irena and Budzyń ) had about 10,000 Jews still alive. The Jews at Budzyń were not executed, despite the camp's status as a subcamp of Majdanek. According to survivors, a few Jews were taken from Budzyń to Majdanek, returning with bloody clothing and tales of the massacre. Israeli historian David Silberklang attributes
22044-512: The other camps arrived at Majdanek around 7:30 and continued to arrive throughout the morning. Among the Jews from Majdanek, some tried to escape their fate through suicide or by hiding in the barracks. The next day, twenty-three Jews were discovered and were executed at the Majdanek crematorium. The speakers, which had been installed the previous day, were turned on as soon as the gunfire started, but it could still be heard. Local Poles watched from
22211-552: The performance of the Leibstandarte in the Netherlands and France, telling them, "Henceforth it will be an honour for you, who bear my name, to lead every German attack." On 19 July 1940, Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag , where he gave a summary of the western campaign and praised the German forces involved. He used the term " Waffen-SS " when describing the units of the LSSAH and SS-VT that took part. From that day forward,
22378-451: The perimeter of Majdanek , Poniatowa , and Trawniki concentration camps. At Majdanek, the trenches were dug by a team of 300 prisoners working in three shifts in field 5, south of the crematorium, and measured about 100 metres (330 ft) long, 2–3 metres (7–10 ft) deep and 1.5–3 metres (5–10 ft) wide. Although the trenches were supposedly for defense against air raids, and their zigzag shape granted some plausibility to this lie,
22545-423: The previously dug trenches, where they were shot. Loud music was played to cover the sound of gunfire. After the operation, about 10,000 Jews were left alive in various labor camps in the Lublin District. The bodies of the victims were burned by other Jews, who had been spared temporarily from death. With around 40,000 victims, Operation Harvest Festival was the largest single massacre of Jews by German forces during
22712-611: The prisoners guessed their true purpose. On 2 November, 2,000 to 3,000 SS and police personnel arrived in Lublin: Waffen-SS from as far away as Kraków , Police Regiment 22, Police Regiment 25 (including Reserve Police Battalion 101 ), and the Lublin Security Police . That evening, Sporrenberg convened a meeting between his own staff, the commandants of Majdanek, Trawniki, and Poniatowa, local Security Police commander Karl Pütz [ de ] , and
22879-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
23046-597: The racist ideology of Nazism , and ethnic Poles (who were viewed as subhumans ) were specifically barred from the formations. The Waffen-SS were involved in numerous atrocities. It was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946, due to its involvement in the Holocaust , the Porajmos , and numerous war crimes and crimes against
23213-424: The regiment at risk. They assaulted the heights and drove the observers off. Instead of being censured for his act of defiance, Dietrich was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . On that same day, British forces attacked Saint-Venant, forcing the SS-VT Division to retreat. On 26 May, the German advance resumed. On 27 May, the Deutschland Regiment of the SS-VT Division reached the Allied defensive line on
23380-470: The regiment became known as the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). The Leibstandarte demonstrated their loyalty to Hitler in 1934 during the " Night of the Long Knives ", when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders and the purge of the Sturmabteilung (SA). Led by one of Hitler's oldest comrades, Ernst Röhm , the SA was seen as a threat by Hitler to his newly gained political power. Hitler also wanted to appease leaders of
23547-426: The regular army felt that the performance of the SS-VT left much to be desired; its units took unnecessary risks and had a higher casualty rate than the army. They also stated that the SS-VT was poorly trained and its officers unsuitable for combat command. As an example, the OKW noted that the Leibstandarte had to be rescued by an army regiment after becoming surrounded by the Poles at Pabianice . In its defence,
23714-411: The resistance members. Polish fire fighters were brought in to put out the fires and observed the Germans throwing wounded Jews into the flames. The executions finished around 17:00. Afterward, German soldiers checked the trenches, executing survivors. The corpses were sprinkled with lime and covered with fir branches. Three women survived, climbed out of the mass grave that night, and survived the war with
23881-442: The retreating Greek Army at Metsovo and accepted the surrender of the Greek Epirus-Macedonian Army. As a reward, the Leibstandarte was nominally redesignated as a full motorised division, although few additional elements had been added by the start of the Soviet campaign and the "division" remained effectively a reinforced brigade. Operation Barbarossa , the German invasion of the Soviet Union, started on 22 June 1941, and all
24048-399: The rooftops of nearby buildings outside the camp, while Sporrenberg observed from a Fieseler Storch airplane. It is not clear who directed the operation as it was ongoing; it may have been Sporrenberg or Hermann Höfle . The killing continued, uninterrupted until around 17:00 and by then all 18,400 prisoners had been murdered. Previous to the operation, Polish residents who lived adjacent to
24215-573: The spring of 1941, the Waffen-SS consisted of the equivalent of six or seven divisions: the Reich , Totenkopf , Polizei , and Wiking Divisions and Kampfgruppe (later Division) Nord , and the Leibstandarte , 1st SS Infantry , 2nd SS Infantry , and SS Cavalry Brigades. In March 1941, a major Italian counterattack against Greek forces failed, and Germany came to the aid of its ally. Operation Marita began on 6 April 1941, with German troops invading Greece through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in an effort to secure its southern flank. Reich
24382-492: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
24549-447: The stench of burning flesh hung around the vicinity. The ditches were filled with soil and leveled. The Jews at Milejowo concentration camp were sent to Trawniki on 5 November to clean up the massacre. Six women had to work in the kitchen while the men were ordered to extract gold teeth and hidden valuables from the corpses. After eight days (or two to three weeks), the men were executed, except for Yehezkel Hering, who disguised himself as
24716-399: The survival of the camp to the desire of local German functionaries to continue benefiting financially from slave labor and avoid a transfer to the front, but states it is unclear why the camp escaped Himmler's notice. The Harvest Festival operation coincided with other massacres of surviving Jews in Kraków District and Galicia District , including the Wehrmacht camps in Galicia, but spared
24883-551: The term Waffen-SS became the official designation for the SS combat formations. Himmler gained approval for the Waffen-SS to form its own high command, the Kommandoamt der Waffen-SS within the SS Führungshauptamt , which was created in August 1940. It received command of the SS-VT (the Leibstandarte and the Verfügungs-Division , renamed Reich ) and the armed SS-TV regiments (the Totenkopf Division together with several independent Totenkopf-Standarten ). In 1940, SS chief of staff Gottlob Berger approached Himmler with
25050-449: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
25217-520: The trench as more bodies piled on top of them, cursing the SS. Around 14:00, the executions were halted for a lunch break and the drunk executioners were relieved. The trenches turned out to be too shallow and bloody corpses spilled out of the edges. Some prisoners in Poniatowa had formed a resistance group and had acquired a few weapons. At 18:00, a group of around 100 Jews set fire to some barracks full of clothing and then barricaded themselves in another barracks. The Germans set this on fire, killing all of
25384-445: The trenches by teams of horses, and incinerated on grates with wood and gasoline. Six or eight Jews escaped one night, but many of them were later caught and executed. During this process the decomposing corpses smelled very bad and reportedly caused hardened SS men to vomit. Afterward, the Jewish prisoners were executed by men from Police Battalion 101 in Puławy . 3 November was dubbed "Bloody Wednesday" by Majdanek prisoners. Following
25551-414: The troops and the division's units completely fell apart. By the end of 1941, Nord had suffered severe casualties. Over the winter of 1941–42 it received replacements from the general pool of Waffen-SS recruits, who were supposedly younger and better trained than the SS men of the original formation, which had been drawn largely from Totenkopfstandarten of Nazi concentration camp guards. The rest of
25718-597: The war commenced, the physical requirements were no longer strictly enforced, and any recruit who could pass a basic medical exam was considered for service. Members of the SS could be of any religion except Judaism , but atheists were not allowed according to Himmler in 1937. Hitler expounded on the attitude he wanted during a talk in the Wolf's Lair : "I have six divisions of SS composed of men absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. It doesn't prevent them from going to their deaths with serenity in their souls." Historian Bernd Wegner found in his study of officers that
25885-438: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
26052-415: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
26219-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
26386-407: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
26553-424: Was disbanded in May 1945. The Waffen-SS grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions during World War II . Combining combat and police functions, it served alongside the German Army ( Heer ), Ordnungspolizei (Order Police), and other security units. Originally, it was under the control of the SS Führungshauptamt (SS operational command office) beneath Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ,
26720-413: Was done under the supervision of Erich Muhsfeldt , previously an executioner at Auschwitz. The 600 men and women from the airfield camp had to sort the clothing of the Jews murdered at Majdanek. Then, the women were deported to Auschwitz and killed in the gas chambers . The men had to cremate the bodies, and they were either killed or recruited into Sonderkommando 1005 . Witnesses recalled that for months,
26887-427: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
27054-465: Was further expanded and a new division was entered on the rolls in March. By the second half of 1942, an increasing number of foreigners, many of whom were not volunteers, began entering the ranks. The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was recruited from Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) drafted under threat of punishment by the local German leadership from Croatia , Serbia , Hungary , and Romania and used for anti-partisan operations in
27221-401: Was in charge of the troops' military and ideological training but did not have command authority. The decision on deployment of the troops remained in Himmler's hands. This aligned with Hitler's intentions to maintain these troops exclusively at his disposal, "neither [a part] of the army, nor of the police", according to Hitler's order of 17 August 1938. On 17 August 1938, Hitler declared that
27388-454: Was increasing throughout the area. Although the proximate reason for ordering Harvest Festival is unknown, historians believe that it was in response to the uprising at Sobibór extermination camp on 14 October 1943. Thousands of the Jewish prisoners in the camps of the Lublin District had been transported there from the Warsaw Ghetto after the failure of the uprising there. To avoid further resistance, Heinrich Himmler decided to exterminate
27555-476: Was largely carried out by SS personnel (including the Leibstandarte ) and the Gestapo . In September 1934, Hitler authorised the formation of the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party and approved the formation of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), a special service troop under Hitler's overall command. The SS-VT had to depend on the German Army for its supply of weapons and military training, and its local draft boards responsible for assigning conscripts to
27722-426: Was ordered to leave France and head for Romania , and the Leibstandarte was ordered to Bulgaria. The Leibstandarte , attached to the XL Panzer Corps , advanced west then south from Bulgaria into the mountains, and by 9 April had reached Prilep in Yugoslavia, 30 miles from the Greek border. Further north the Reich Division, with the XLI Panzer Corps , crossed the Romanian border and advanced on Belgrade ,
27889-465: Was recaptured by the Leibstandarte Division on 15 March. Two days later, the Germans recaptured Belgorod , creating the salient that, in July 1943, led to the Battle of Kursk . The German offensive cost the Red Army an estimated 70,000 casualties but the house-to-house fighting in Kharkov was particularly bloody for the SS Panzer Corps, which lost approximately 44% of its strength by the time operations ended in late March. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
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