131-473: Chełmno or Kulmhof was the first of Nazi Germany 's extermination camps and was situated 50 km (31 mi) north of Łódź , near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem . Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany annexed the area into the new territory of Reichsgau Wartheland . The camp, which was specifically intended for no other purpose than mass murder, operated from December 8, 1941 , to April 11, 1943 , parallel to Operation Reinhard during
262-476: A pervasive cult of personality around Adolf Hitler to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Genocide , mass murder , and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime; the implementation of the regime's racial policies culminated in the Holocaust . After the initial success of German invasion of
393-674: A totalitarian dictatorship . The Third Reich , meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800/962–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich , ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered
524-532: A bath, that their clothes had to be disinfected and that they could hand in any valuable items beforehand to be registered. When they had undressed they were sent to the cellar of the castle and then along a passageway onto the ramp and from there into the gas-van. In the castle, there were signs marked "to the baths". The gas vans were large vans, about 4–5 m [13–16 ft] long, 2.2 m [7.2 ft] wide and 2 m [6.6 ft] high. The interior walls were lined with sheet metal. A wooden grille
655-488: A communist uprising. The Reichstag Fire Decree , imposed on 28 February 1933, rescinded most civil liberties, including rights of assembly and freedom of the press. The decree also allowed the police to detain people indefinitely without charges. The legislation was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that led to public support for the measure. Violent suppression of communists by the SA was undertaken nationwide and 4,000 members of
786-561: A much smaller Powiercie station, just outside Chełmno. As round-ups in Łódź normally took place in the morning, it was usually late afternoon by the time Jews disembarked from the Holocaust trains in Powiercie. Therefore, they were marched to a disused mill at Zawadki some two kilometres distance where they spent the night. The mill building continued to be used after the railway repairs, if transports arrived late. The following morning
917-524: A non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe . In alliance with Italy and other Axis powers , Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain. Racism , Nazi eugenics , anti-Slavism , and especially antisemitism were central ideological features of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by
1048-657: A non-aggression pact with Poland. In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor , a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939. On 23 May, Hitler described to his generals his overall plan of not only seizing
1179-474: A protectorate of France under the condition that its residents would later decide by referendum which country to join, and Poland became a separate nation and was given access to the sea by the creation of the Polish Corridor , which separated Prussia from the rest of Germany, while Danzig was made a free city . Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in
1310-459: A second national anthem. Germany was still in a dire economic situation, as six million people were unemployed and the balance of trade deficit was daunting. Using deficit spending , public works projects were undertaken beginning in 1934, creating 1.7 million new jobs by the end of that year alone. Average wages began to rise. The SA leadership continued to apply pressure for greater political and military power. In response, Hitler used
1441-772: A substantial minority of Germans, who lived mostly in the Sudetenland . Under pressure from separatist groups within the Sudeten German Party , the Czechoslovak government offered economic concessions to the region. Hitler decided not just to incorporate the Sudetenland into the Reich, but to destroy the country of Czechoslovakia entirely. The Nazis undertook a propaganda campaign to try to generate support for an invasion. Top German military leaders opposed
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#17327661730781572-626: A thousand people (out of a population of around 16,000) committed suicide in Demmin around 1 May 1945 as the 65th Army of 2nd Belorussian Front first broke into a distillery and then rampaged through the town, committing mass rapes, arbitrarily executing civilians, and setting fire to buildings. High numbers of suicides took place in many other locations, including Neubrandenburg (600 dead), Stolp in Pommern (1,000 dead), and Berlin, where at least 7,057 people committed suicide in 1945. Estimates of
1703-593: A translator released earlier from the Gestapo prison in Poznań . The victims were led to a large empty room and ordered to undress; their clothing stacked for disinfection. They were told that all hidden banknotes would be destroyed during steaming and needed to be taken out and handed over for safe-keeping. Occasionally they were met by a German officer dressed as a local squire with a Tyrolean hat , announcing that some of them would remain there. Wearing just underwear, with
1834-697: A tremendous effort to inform and warn the Jewish communities about the fate that awaited them, however, many people refused to believe their stories. Nazi Germany Nazi Germany , officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich , was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into
1965-896: A war fought on two fronts. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus , and west Ukraine . After the successful Battle of Smolensk in September 1941, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its advance to Moscow and temporarily divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kyiv . This pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves. The Moscow offensive, which resumed in October 1941, ended disastrously in December . On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor , Hawaii. Four days later, Germany declared war on
2096-515: A war of conquest to obtain more territory. The Saarland , which had been placed under League of Nations supervision for 15 years at the end of World War I, voted in January 1935 to become part of Germany. In March 1935, Hitler announced the creation of an air force, and that the Reichswehr would be increased to 550,000 men. Britain agreed to Germany building a naval fleet with the signing of
2227-657: Is a village in Poland , annexed to Nazi Germany in 1939 and renamed Kulmhof during German occupation . As the Nazis themselves exclusively referred to the camp as "Kulmhof", the name "Chełmno extermination camp" is not historically accurate, with its use perhaps deriving from the Main Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland shortly after the war. Chełmno (Kulmhof) camp was set up by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange , following his gas van experiments in
2358-584: The Autobahnen (motorways) and a massive secret rearmament program , forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Germany signed
2489-466: The Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo to purge the entire SA leadership. Hitler targeted SA Stabschef (Chief of Staff) Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who—along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher )—were arrested and shot. Up to 200 people were killed from 30 June to 2 July 1934 in an event that became known as
2620-579: The Völkisch movement . The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria , and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr . When
2751-541: The 6th Army could be supplied by air, but this turned out to be infeasible. Hitler's refusal to allow a retreat led to the deaths of 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers; of the 91,000 men who surrendered in the city on 31 January 1943, only 6,000 survivors returned to Germany after the war. Losses continued to mount after Stalingrad, leading to a sharp reduction in the popularity of the Nazi Party and deteriorating morale. Soviet forces continued to push westward after
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#17327661730782882-745: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement on 18 June 1935. When the Italian invasion of Ethiopia led to only mild protests by the British and French governments, on 7 March 1936 Hitler used the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as a pretext to order the army to march 3,000 troops into the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty. As the territory was part of Germany,
3013-634: The Anschluss of 1938. The Munich Agreement of 1938 gave Germany control of the Sudetenland, and they seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months later. Under threat of invasion by sea, Lithuania surrendered the Memel district in March 1939. Between 1939 and 1941, German forces invaded Poland , Denmark , Norway , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Belgium , Yugoslavia , Greece , and
3144-575: The Battle of Berlin (16 April – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery , Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide . On 2 May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov . Hitler
3275-686: The Communist Party of Germany were arrested. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act , an amendment to the Weimar Constitution , passed in the Reichstag by a vote of 444 to 94. This amendment allowed Hitler and his cabinet to pass laws—even laws that violated the constitution—without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. As the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass, the Nazis used intimidation tactics as well as
3406-633: The German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles . The government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices, economic chaos, and food riots. When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along
3537-565: The Hague Convention , industrial firms in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium were put to work producing war materiel for Germany. The Nazis seized from the French thousands of locomotives and rolling stock, stockpiles of weapons, and raw materials such as copper, tin, oil, and nickel. Payments for occupation costs were levied upon France, Belgium, and Norway. Barriers to trade led to hoarding, black markets , and uncertainty about
3668-670: The Holocaust Encyclopedia , Mordechaï Zurawski is included as survivor in three other sources, each of which documents his testifying, along with Srebnik and Podchlebnik about his experience at Chełmno, at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem . In addition, Srebnik testified in the Chelmno Guard Trials of 1962–63. The French director Claude Lanzmann included interviews with Srebnik and Podchlebnik in his documentary Shoah , referring to them as
3799-511: The League of Nations in October, claiming its disarmament clauses were unfair if they applied only to Germany. In a referendum held in November , 95 per cent of voters supported Germany's withdrawal. In 1934, Hitler told his military leaders that rearmament needed to be complete by 1942, as by then the German people would require more living space and resources, so Germany would have to start
3930-791: The Low Countries . They quickly conquered Luxembourg and the Netherlands and outmanoeuvred the Allies in Belgium , forcing the evacuation of many British and French troops at Dunkirk . France fell as well, surrendering to Germany on 22 June . The victory in France resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever in Germany. In violation of the provisions of
4061-527: The Nazi euthanasia program . Political courts called Sondergerichte sentenced some 12,000 members of the German resistance to death, and civil courts sentenced an additional 40,000 Germans. Mass rapes of German women also took place. As a result of their defeat in World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine , Northern Schleswig , and Memel . The Saarland became
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4192-722: The Night of the Long Knives . On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the " Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich ", which stated that upon Hindenburg's death the office of Reich President would be abolished and its powers merged with those of Reich Chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor"), although eventually Reichskanzler
4323-521: The Orpo police marched them toward the Warta river near Zawadka , where they were locked overnight in a mill, without food or water. The next morning, they were loaded onto lorries and taken to Chełmno. At "the palace", they were stripped of possessions, transferred to vans, and murdered with exhaust fumes on the way to burial pits in the forest. The daily average for the camp was about six to nine van-loads of
4454-522: The Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. It was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party (DAP) formed one year earlier, and one of several far-right political parties then active. The Nazi Party platform included destruction of
4585-523: The SS Special Detachment. Periodically, the SS executed the members of the Jewish special detachment and replaced them with workers selected from recent transports. The SS held jumping contests and races among the prisoners, who were shackled with chains on their ankles, to deem who was fit to continue working. The losers of such contests were shot. The early killing process carried out by
4716-474: The SS and police began deporting the remaining inhabitants of the Łódź ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau . In September 1944, the SS brought in a new Commando 1005 of Jewish prisoners from outside the Wartheland District to exhume and cremate remaining corpses and to remove evidence of the mass murder operations. A month later, the SS executed about half of the 80-man detachment after most of
4847-555: The SS murdered at least 152,000–180,000 people at Chełmno between December 1941 and March 1943, and from June 23, 1944 , until the Soviet advance. Note: a 1946–47 report by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland [ pl ] placed the number closer to 340,000 based on a statistical approach, as the camp authorities had destroyed all waybills in an effort to hide their actions. After
4978-463: The Waldlager (forest camp). On the grounds of the estate was a large two-story brick country house called "the palace". Its rooms were adapted to use as the reception offices, including space for the victims to undress and to give up their valuables. The SS and police staff and guards were housed in other buildings in the town. The Germans had a high wooden fence built around the manor house and
5109-470: The federal election of 1932 , the party was the largest in the Reichstag , holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority. Hitler refused to participate in a coalition government unless he was its leader. Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and
5240-566: The Allied bombing campaign became even more devastating. By targeting oil refineries and factories, they crippled the German war effort by late 1944. On 6 June 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a front in France with the D-Day landings in Normandy . On 20 July 1944 , Hitler survived an assassination attempt. He ordered brutal reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and
5371-456: The British and French governments did not feel that attempting to enforce the treaty was worth the risk of war. In the one-party election held on 29 March, the Nazis received 98.9 per cent support. In 1936, Hitler signed an Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and a non-aggression agreement with Mussolini, who was soon referring to a "Rome-Berlin Axis". Hitler sent military supplies and assistance to
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5502-764: The German National People's Party – their former coalition partners – which then disbanded on 29 June. The remaining major political parties followed suit. On 14 July 1933 Germany became a one-party state with the passage of the Law Against the Formation of Parties , decreeing the Nazi Party to be the sole legal party in Germany. The founding of new parties was also made illegal, and all remaining political parties which had not already been dissolved were banned. Further elections in November 1933 , 1936 , and 1938 were Nazi-controlled, with only members of
5633-411: The German state in the Nazi era are "Nazi Germany" and the "Third Reich", which Hitler and the Nazis also referred to as the "Thousand-Year Reich" ( Tausendjähriges Reich ). The latter, a translation of the Nazi propaganda term Drittes Reich , was first used in Das Dritte Reich , a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck . The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and
5764-413: The Germans closed the Chełmno killing centre, while Operation Reinhard was still underway elsewhere. Other death camps had faster methods of murdering and incinerating people. Chełmno was not a part of Reinhard. The SS ordered complete demolition of Schlosslager, along with the manor house, which was levelled. To hide the evidence of the SS -committed war crimes, from 1943 onward, the Germans ordered
5895-410: The Germans had already destroyed evidence of the camp's existence, leaving no prisoners behind. One of the camp survivors, who was fifteen years old at the time, testified that only three Jewish males had escaped successfully. The Holocaust Encyclopedia counted seven Jews who escaped; among them was the author of the Grojanowski Report , written under an assumed name by Szlama Ber Winer , a prisoner in
6026-401: The Germans. The Special Detachment "Bothmann" returned to the forest and resumed murdering victims at a smaller camp, consisting of brand new wooden barracks along with new crematory pyres. First, the victims were taken to the desecrated church in Chełmno where they spent the night if necessary, and left their bundles behind on the way to the reception area. They were driven to the forest, where
6157-447: The Governor of Reichsgau Wartheland . In a letter to Himmler dated May 30, 1942 , Greiser referred to an authorization he had received from him and Reinhard Heydrich , stating that the clandestine program of murdering 100,000 Polish Jews, about one-third of the total Jewish population of Wartheland , was expected to be carried out soon. Greiser's plan was based on the German government's decision of October 1941 to deport German Jews to
6288-455: The Jewish Sonderkommando who escaped only to perish at Bełżec during the liquidation of yet another Jewish ghetto in German-occupied Poland . In June 1945, two survivors testified at the trial of camp personnel in Łódź . The three best-known survivors testified about Chełmno at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem . Two survivors testified also at the camp personnel trials conducted in 1962–65 by West Germany . Chełmno nad Nerem
6419-492: The Jews were transported from Zawadki by truck, in numbers which could be easily controlled at their destination. The victims were "processed" immediately upon arrival at the manor-house. Beginning in late July 1942, the victims were brought to the camp directly from Powiercie after the regular railway line linking Koło with Dąbie was restored; and the bridge over the Rgilewka River had been repaired. The German SS staff selected young Jewish prisoners from incoming transports to join
6550-445: The Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War , which began in July 1936. The German Condor Legion included a range of aircraft and their crews, as well as a tank contingent. The aircraft of the Legion destroyed the city of Guernica in 1937. The Nationalists were victorious in 1939 and became an informal ally of Nazi Germany. In February 1938, Hitler emphasised to Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg
6681-687: The Nazis to be the " master race ", the purest branch of the Aryan race. Jews , Romani people , Slavs , homosexuals , liberals , socialists , communists , other political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , those who refused to work , and other "undesirables" were imprisoned, deported , or murdered. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed and leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology , population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed . Nazi Propaganda Ministry disseminated films, antisemitic canards , and organized mass rallies; fostering
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#17327661730786812-421: The Party and a small number of independents elected. All civilian organisations had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members, and either merged with the Nazi Party or faced dissolution. The Nazi government declared a "Day of National Labor" for May Day 1933, and invited many trade union delegates to Berlin for celebrations. The day after, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around
6943-403: The Polish Corridor but greatly expanding German territory eastward at the expense of Poland. He expected this time they would be met by force. The Germans reaffirmed their alliance with Italy and signed non-aggression pacts with Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia whilst trade links were formalised with Romania, Norway, and Sweden. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arranged in negotiations with
7074-402: The RAF in what became known as the Battle of Britain , and by the end of October, Hitler realised that air superiority would not be achieved. He permanently postponed the invasion, a plan which the commanders of the German army had never taken entirely seriously. Several historians, including Andrew Gordon , believe the primary reason for the failure of the invasion plan was the superiority of
7205-456: The Royal Navy, not the actions of the RAF. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps arrived in Libya to aid the Italians in the North African Campaign . On 6 April, Germany launched an invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece . All of Yugoslavia and parts of Greece were subsequently divided between Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria. On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, about 3.8 million Axis troops attacked
7336-432: The Russians entered Chełmno, but he survived. Winer wrote under pseudonym Grojanowski about the operations of the camp in his Grojanowski Report , but he was rounded up with thousands of others and murdered in the gas chamber of Bełżec extermination camp . In June 1945, both Podchlebnik and Srebnik (then age fifteen), testified at the Chełmno trials of camp personnel in Łódź , Poland. In addition to being included in
7467-414: The SS from December 8, 1941, until mid-January 1942, was intended to murder Jews from all nearby towns and villages, which were slated for German colonization ( Lebensraum ). From mid-January 1942, the SS and Order Police began transporting Jews in crowded freight and passenger trains from Łódź. By then, Jews had also been deported to Łódź from Germany, Bohemia-Moravia , and Luxembourg, and were included in
7598-454: The Soviet Union . Germany annexed parts of northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, while Mussolini ceded Trieste , South Tyrol , and Istria to Germany in 1943. Ner The Ner is a river in central Poland approximately 134 km (83 mi) long, with sources to the south-east of Łódź . Running through the Łódzkie and Wielkopolskie provinces, it is a right tributaries of the Warta River (the third largest river in Poland), and
7729-493: The Soviet Union a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , signed in August 1939. The treaty also contained secret protocols dividing Poland and the Baltic states into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany's wartime foreign policy involved the creation of allied governments controlled directly or indirectly from Berlin. They intended to obtain soldiers from allies such as Italy and Hungary and workers and food supplies from allies such as Vichy France . Hungary
7860-506: The Soviet Union attacked from the east on 17 September. Reinhard Heydrich , chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links. Initially the intention was to deport them further east, or possibly to Madagascar . Using lists prepared in advance , some 65,000 Polish intelligentsia, noblemen, clergy, and teachers were murdered by
7991-441: The Soviet Union in 1941, Nazi Germany attempted to implement the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan , as part of its war of extermination in Eastern Europe. The Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant Germany lost the initiative in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the 1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. Germany
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#17327661730788122-443: The Soviet Union. In addition to Hitler's stated purpose of acquiring Lebensraum , this large-scale offensive—codenamed Operation Barbarossa —was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The reaction among Germans was one of surprise and trepidation as many were concerned about how much longer the war would continue or suspected that Germany could not win
8253-419: The United States. Food was in short supply in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union and Poland, as the retreating armies had burned the crops in some areas, and much of the remainder was sent back to the Reich. In Germany, rations were cut in 1942. In his role as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan , Hermann Göring demanded increased shipments of grain from France and fish from Norway. The 1942 harvest
8384-444: The Weimar Republic, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism , and anti- Bolshevism . They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews , who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon
8515-462: The West German prosecution, citing Nazi figures during the Chełmno trials of 1962–65, laid charges for at least 180,000 victims. The Polish official estimates, in the early postwar period, have suggested much higher numbers, up to a total of 340,000 men, women, and children. The Kulmhof Museum of Martyrdom [ pl ] gives the figure of around 200,000, the vast majority of whom were Jews of west-central Poland, along with Romani people from
8646-519: The aforementioned survivors. She said that her father was the escapee recognized by the Holocaust Encyclopedia as Abram Roj, although she was mistaken about their total number. Two other survivors of Chełmno include Yitzhak Justman and Yerachmiel Yisrael Widawski who escaped together from the forest burial commando in the winter of 1942. They arrived at Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto in March 1942 and deposited their testimonies with Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau. Widawski spoke with Rabbi Lau as well as some members of
8777-451: The blockade, imports into Germany declined by 80 per cent. To safeguard Swedish iron ore shipments to Germany, Hitler ordered the invasion of Denmark and Norway , which began on 9 April. Denmark fell after less than a day , while most of Norway followed by the end of the month. By early June, Germany occupied all of Norway . Against the advice of many of his senior military officers, in May 1940 Hitler ordered an attack on France and
8908-400: The business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set afire . Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutch communist, was found guilty of starting the blaze. Hitler proclaimed that the arson marked the start of
9039-548: The camp Sonderkommando , a special unit of 50 to 60 men deployed at the forest burial camp. They removed corpses from the gas-vans and placed them in mass graves. The large trenches were quickly filled, but the smell of decomposing bodies began to permeate the surrounding countryside including nearby villages. In the spring of 1942, the SS ordered burning of the bodies in the forest. The bodies were cremated on open air grids constructed of concrete slabs and rail tracks; pipes were used for air ducts, and long ash pans were built below
9170-409: The camp authorities bought a bone-crushing machine ( Knochenmühle ) from Schriever and Co. in Hamburg to speed up the process. On June 23, 1944 , in spite of earlier demolition of the palace , the SS renewed gassing operations at Chełmno in order to complete the annihilation of the remaining 70,000 Jewish prisoners of the ghetto in Łódź, the last ghetto in occupied Poland to produce war supplies for
9301-405: The camp authorities had constructed two fenced-out barracks for undressing before "shower", and two new open-air cremation pits, further up. The SS and police guarded the victims as they took off their clothes and gave up valuables before entering gas-vans. In this final phase of the camp operation, some 25,000 Jews were murdered. Their bodies were burned immediately after death. From mid-July 1944,
9432-470: The camp were the Jewish and Romani populations of Koło , Dąbie , Sompolno , Kłodawa , Babiak , Izbica Kujawska , Bugaj , Nowiny Brdowskie and Kowale Pańskie . A total of 3,830 Jews and around 4,000 Romani were murdered by gas before February 1942. The victims were brought from all over Koło County ( German : Landkreis Warthbrücken ) to Koło by rail with the last stop in Powiercie . Using whips,
9563-515: The camp's daily operations thereafter. The killing center consisted of a vacated manorial estate in the village of Chełmno on the Ner river, and a large forest clearing about 4 km (2.5 mi) northwest of Chełmno, off the road to Koło town with a sizable Jewish population which had been previously ghettoized. The two sites were known respectively as the Schlosslager (manor-house camp) and
9694-485: The camp's murder techniques. The change was prompted by two incidents in March and April of that year. First, the gas-van broke down on the highway while full of living victims. Many passers-by heard their loud cries. Soon after that, the Saurer van exploded while the driver was revving its engine at the loading ramp; the gassing compartment was full of living Jews. The explosion blew off the locked back door, and badly burned
9825-646: The camp, Srebnik was recognised by the Chelmno Guards only by this moniker. Walter Burmeister, a gas-van driver (not to be confused with the camp's SS-Unterscharfuehrer Walter Burmeister), testified in Bonn in 1967. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia , a total of seven Jews from the burial Sonderkommando escaped from the Waldlager . Determining the identities of the few survivors of Chełmno had presented ambiguity because records use different versions of their names. One survivor may not have been recorded in
9956-595: The capital, Berlin , ending World War II in Europe . After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator by merging the powers of the chancellery and presidency. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader). Power
10087-513: The churches. The Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic—including the black, red, and gold tricolour flag —and adopted reworked symbolism. The previous imperial black, white, and red tricolour was restored as one of Germany's two official flags; the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi Party, which became the sole national flag in September 1935. The Party anthem " Horst-Wessel-Lied " ("Horst Wessel Song") became
10218-603: The country; all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed in April, removed from their jobs all teachers, professors, judges, magistrates, and government officials who were Jewish or whose commitment to the party was suspect. This meant the only non-political institutions not under control of the Nazis were
10349-549: The dead. The drivers used gas-masks . From January 1942, the transports included hundreds of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. In addition, they included over 10,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Luxembourg, who had first been deported to the ghetto in Łódź and subsisted there already for weeks. As soon as the ramp had been erected in the castle, people started arriving in Kulmhof from Litzmannstadt ( Łódź ) in lorries... The people were told that they had to take
10480-440: The deadliest phase of the Holocaust , and again from June 23, 1944 , to January 18, 1945 , during the Soviet counter-offensive. In 1943, modifications were made to the camp's killing methods as the reception building had already been dismantled. At the very minimum, 152,000 people were murdered in the camp, which would make it the fifth deadliest extermination camp, after Auschwitz , Treblinka , Bełżec , and Sobibór . However,
10611-470: The early postwar years because he did not testify at trials of camp personnel. Five escaped during the winter of 1942, including Mordechaï Podchlebnik , Milnak Meyer, Abraham Tauber, Abram Roj and Szlama Ber Winer (Szlamek Bajler) whose identity was recognized also as Yakov or Jacob Grojanowski . Mordechaï Zurawski and Simon Srebnik escaped later. Srebnik was among Jews shot by the Germans two days before
10742-637: The effectiveness of industrial-scale murder by exhaust fumes, called a secret meeting of German officials to undertake the European-wide Final Solution to the Jewish Question under the pretext of "resettlement". The use of the killing centre at Chełmno for the mass murder of rapidly growing number of Jews deported to the Łódź Ghetto ("Special Handling", the Sonderbehandlung ) was initiated by Arthur Greiser ,
10873-563: The electorate in a plebiscite . Most Germans were relieved that the conflicts and street fighting of the Weimar era had ended. They were deluged with propaganda orchestrated by Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels , who promised peace and plenty for all in a united, Marxist-free country without the constraints of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi Party obtained and legitimised power through its initial revolutionary activities, then through manipulation of legal mechanisms,
11004-529: The end of 1939 in an attempt to destroy Poland's identity as a nation. Soviet forces advanced into Finland in the Winter War , and German forces saw action at sea. But little other activity occurred until May, so the period became known as the " Phoney War ". From the start of the war, a British blockade on shipments to Germany affected its economy. Germany was particularly dependent on foreign supplies of oil, coal, and grain. Thanks to trade embargoes and
11135-482: The engine exhaust was directed. Victims generally suffocated to death, with their "bodies thrown out blue, wet with sweat and urine, the legs covered with excrement and menstrual blood". Drivers of gas vans also heard victims screaming and knocking on the walls. The SS had first used pure carbon monoxide from steel cylinders to murder mental patients in extermination hospitals of Action T4, and therefore had considerable knowledge of its efficacy. For all practical purposes,
11266-602: The establishment of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped them of their basic rights. The Nazis would take from the Jews their wealth, their right to intermarry with non-Jews, and their right to occupy many fields of labour (such as law, medicine, or education). Eventually the Nazis declared the Jews as undesirable to remain among German citizens and society. As early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must begin, albeit clandestinely at first, as to do so
11397-473: The execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive on the western front, and Soviet forces entered Germany on 27 January. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat and his insistence that the war be fought to the last man led to unnecessary death and destruction in the war's closing months. Through his Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack , Hitler ordered that anyone who
11528-471: The exhumation of all remains and burning of bodies in open-air cremation pits by a unit of Sonderkommando 1005 . The bones were crushed on cement with mallets and added to the ashes. These were transported every night in sacks made of blankets to river Warta (or to the Ner River ) on the other side of Zawadka, where they were dumped into the water from a bridge and from a flat-bottomed boat. Eventually,
11659-760: The extermination by mobile gas vans proved equally efficient following Operation Barbarossa of 1941. In the newly occupied territories, the gas vans were used to murder mental patients as well as Jews in the extermination ghettos. By employing just three vans on the Eastern Front (the Opel-Blitz and the larger Saurerwagen ), without any faults occurring in the vehicles, the Einsatzgruppen were able to murder 97,000 captives in less than six months between December 1941 and June 1942. The SS relayed urgent requests to Berlin for more vans. The rank and file of
11790-559: The facility was selected personally by Ernst Damzog , Commander of Security Police and SD from headquarters in occupied Poznań (Posen). Damzog formed the SS-Sonderkommando Lange (special detachment), and appointed Herbert Lange the first camp commandant because of his experience in the mass-murder of Poles from Wartheland ( Wielkopolska ). Lange served with Einsatzgruppe VI during Operation Tannenberg . Already by mid-1940, Lange and his men were responsible for
11921-1071: The failed German offensive at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. By the end of 1943, the Germans had lost most of their eastern territorial gains. In Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 's Afrika Korps were defeated by British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in October 1942. The Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 and were on the Italian peninsula by September. Meanwhile, American and British bomber fleets based in Britain began operations against Germany . Many sorties were intentionally given civilian targets in an effort to destroy German morale. The bombing of aircraft factories as well as Peenemünde Army Research Center , where V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed and produced, were also deemed particularly important. German aircraft production could not keep pace with losses, and without air cover
12052-497: The forest Waldlager camp. The vans were unloaded to excavated mass graves, and cleaned by the Waldkommando before returning to the manor house. Scharführer Walter Burmeister, a gas-van driver, made sure his own vehicle "would be cleaned of the excretions of the people that had died in it. Afterwards, it would once again be used for gassing" at the loading dock. On January 16, 1942, the SS and police began deportations from
12183-702: The forest. Later on, Lange was given three gas vans by the RSHA in Berlin for the murder of greater numbers of victims. The vehicles had been converted to mobile gas-chambers by the Gaubschat company ( de ) in Berlin which, by June 1942, produced twenty of them in accordance with the SS purchase order. The sealed compartments (also called superstructures) installed on the chassis had floor openings – about 60 mm (2.4 in) in diameter – with metal pipes welded below, into which
12314-668: The future. Food supplies were precarious; production dropped in most of Europe. Famine was experienced in many occupied countries. Hitler's peace overtures to the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were rejected in July 1940. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had advised Hitler in June that air superiority was a pre-condition for a successful invasion of Britain , so Hitler ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force (RAF) airbases and radar stations, as well as nightly air raids on British cities, including London , Plymouth , and Coventry . The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat
12445-491: The grid. Later, the Jewish Sonderkommando had to exhume the mass graves and burn the previously interred bodies. In addition, they sorted the clothing of the victims, and cleaned the excrement and blood from the vans. A small detachment of about 15 Jews worked at the manor house, sorting and packing the belongings of the victims. Between eight and ten skilled craftsmen worked there to produce or repair goods for
12576-464: The grounds. The clearing in the forest camp, which contained large mass graves, was likewise fenced off. The camp consisted of separate zones: an administration section with nearby barracks and storage for plundered goods; and the more distant burial and cremation site to which victims were delivered in hermetically proofed superstructures . The SS-Sonderkommando "Lange" was supplied with two vans initially, each carrying about 50 Jews gassed en route to
12707-453: The murder of 1,558 Polish prisoners of the Soldau concentration camp northeast of Chełmno nad Nerem . In October 1941, Lange toured the area looking for a suitable site for an extermination centre, and chose Chełmno on the Ner , because of the estate, with a large manor house similar to Sonnenstein , which could be used for mass admissions of prisoners with only minor modifications. Staff for
12838-746: The murder of about 1,100 patients in Owińska , 2,750 patients at Kościan , 1,558 patients and 300 Poles at Działdowo , and hundreds of Poles at Fort VII where the mobile gas-chamber ( Einsatzwagen ) was invented. Their earlier hospital victims were usually shot out of town in the back of the neck. The two so-called Kaisers-Kaffe vans, manufactured by the Gaubschat factory in Berlin, were delivered in November. Chełmno began mass gassing operations on December 8, 1941 using vehicles approved by Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich from RSHA . Two months later, on January 20, 1942 , Heydrich, who had already confirmed
12969-478: The need for Germany to secure its frontiers. Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite regarding Austrian independence for 13 March, but Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazi Party or face an invasion. German troops entered Austria the next day, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the populace. The Republic of Czechoslovakia was home to
13100-498: The only two Jewish survivors of Chełmno, but he was in error. Some sources repeat that only Simon Srebnik and Mordechaï Podchlebnik survived the war but these are also in error. Podchlebnik is sometimes referred to as Michał (or Michael), in Polish and English versions of his name. Not all escapees have been identified in the postwar period. In 2002 Dr. Sara Roy of Harvard University wrote that her father, Abraham Roy, belonged to
13231-497: The plan, as Germany was not yet ready for war. The crisis led to war preparations by Britain, Czechoslovakia, and France (Czechoslovakia's ally). Attempting to avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arranged a series of meetings, the result of which was the Munich Agreement , signed on 29 September 1938. The Czechoslovak government was forced to accept the Sudetenland's annexation into Germany. Chamberlain
13362-471: The prewar Communal Council before he left the ghetto, robbing them of their peace of mind with earth-shattering facts about the extermination process. Widawski saw the bodies of thirteen relatives murdered in gas vans including his own fiancée . Both fugitives, Justman and Widawski, arrived also at the Częstochowa Ghetto and met with Rabbi Chanoch Gad Justman . They headed in various directions and made
13493-606: The provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending, and the Communists had already been banned. The Enabling Act would subsequently serve as the legal foundation for the dictatorship the Nazis established. On 10 May, the government seized the assets of the Social Democrats, and they were banned on 22 June. On 21 June, the SA raided the offices of
13624-471: The region , as well as foreign Jews from Hungary, Bohemia and Moravia , Germany, Luxembourg, and Austria transported to Chełmno via the Łódź Ghetto , on top of the Soviet prisoners of war . The victims were murdered using gas vans . Chełmno was a place of early experimentation in the development of the Nazi extermination programme. Red Army troops captured the town of Chełmno on January 17, 1945 . By then,
13755-424: The sisters of author Franz Kafka , Valli Kafka (born 1890), was murdered with them before mid-September. During the first five weeks, the murder victims came only from the nearby areas. On reaching their final destination before "transport" to Germany and Austria, the Jews disembarked in the courtyard of the Schlosslager manor where the SS men wearing white coats and pretending to be medics waited for them with
13886-553: The so-called SS Special Detachment Lange was made up of Gestapo , Criminal Police , and Order Police personnel, under the leadership of Security Police and SD officers. Herbert Lange was replaced as camp commandant in March (or April) 1942 by Schultze. He was succeeded by SS-Captain Hans Bothmann , who formed and led the Special Detachment Bothmann . The maximum strength of each Special Detachment
14017-523: The stock market in the United States crashed in 1929 , the effect in Germany was dire. Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After
14148-529: The total German war dead range from 5.5 to 6.9 million persons. A study by German historian Rüdiger Overmans puts the number of German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders. Richard Overy estimated in 2014 that about 353,000 civilians were killed in Allied air raids. Other civilian deaths include 300,000 Germans (including Jews) who were victims of Nazi political, racial, and religious persecution and 200,000 who were murdered in
14279-444: The transports at that time. The transports included most of the 5,000 Roma (Gypsies) who had been deported from Austria. Throughout 1942, the Jews from Wartheland were still being processed; in March 1943 the SS declared the district judenfrei . Other victims murdered at the killing center included several hundred Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war. During the summer of 1942, the new commandant Bothmann made substantial changes to
14410-421: The use of police powers, and by taking control of the state and federal institutions. The first major Nazi concentration camp , initially for political prisoners, was opened at Dachau in 1933. Hundreds of camps of varying size and function were created by the end of the war. Beginning in April 1933, scores of measures defining the status of Jews and their rights were instituted. These measures culminated in
14541-515: The victims inside. Drivers were replaced. Bothmann's modifications included adding poison to gasoline. There is evidence that some red powder and a fluid were delivered from Germany by Maks Sado freight company, in order to murder the victims more quickly. Another major change involved parking the gas vans while prisoners were murdered. They were no longer driven en route to the forest cremation area with living victims inside. After having annihilated almost all Jews of Wartheland District, in March 1943
14672-431: The war drew to a close. Suicide rates in Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing. Among soldiers and party personnel, suicide was often deemed an honourable and heroic alternative to surrender. First-hand accounts and propaganda about the uncivilised behaviour of the advancing Soviet troops caused panic among civilians on the Eastern Front, especially women, who feared being raped. More than
14803-544: The war, some Chełmno extermination camp personnel were tried in Poland as well as in other court cases spanning a period of about 20 years. The first judicial trial of three former members of the SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof , including camp's deputy commandant Oberscharführer Walter Piller, took place in 1945 at the District Court in Łódź . The examination of evidence during the investigation
14934-433: The women allowed to keep slips on, the victims were taken to the cellar and across the ramp into the back of a gas van holding from 50–70 people each ( Opel Blitz ) and up to 150 ( Magirus ). When the van was full, the doors were shut and the engine started. Surviving witnesses heard their screams as they were dying of asphyxiation . After about 5–10 minutes, the vans full of corpses were driven 4 km (2.5 mi) to
15065-462: The work was done. The gas vans were sent back to Berlin. The remaining Jewish workers were executed just before the German retreat from the Chełmno killing center on January 18, 1945, as the Soviet army approached (it reached the camp two days later). The 15-year-old Jewish prisoner Simon Srebnik was the only one to survive the last executions with a gunshot wound to the head. Historians estimate that
15196-575: The Łódź Ghetto lasting for two weeks. German officials with the aid of Ordnungspolizei rounded up 10,000 Polish Jews based on selection by the ghetto Judenrat . The victims were transported from the Radegast train station in Łódź, to Koło railway station, 10 km (6.2 mi) northwest of Chełmno. There, the SS and police personnel supervised transfer of prisoners from the freight as well as passenger trains, to smaller-size cargo trains running on narrow gauge tracks, which took them from Koło to
15327-586: The Łódź Ghetto. Greiser and the SS decided to create space for the incoming Jews by annihilating the existing Polish-Jewish population in his district. According to post-war testimony of Wilhelm Koppe , Higher SS and Police Leader for Reichsgau Wartheland , Koppe received an order from Himmler to liaise with Greiser regarding the Sonderbehandlung requested by the latter. Koppe entrusted the extermination operation to SS-Standartenführer Ernst Damzog from Security Police in Poznań . Damzog supervised
15458-494: Was a powerful ally, the relationship was distant, with little co-ordination or co-operation. For example, Germany refused to share their formula for synthetic oil from coal until late in the war. Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Poland fell quickly, as
15589-506: Was arrested for trying to bring public attention to what was being perpetrated at the camp. He was interrogated and executed three days later on February 28, 1942, near a church along with his wife. His secret communiqué was intercepted by the SS-Sonderkommando . Today, there is an obelisk to his memory erected at Chełmno on August 7, 1991 . Over 4,500, Czech Jews from Prague were sent to the Łódź Ghetto before May 1942. One of
15720-638: Was carried out by Judge Władysław Bednarz. The subsequent four trials, held in Bonn , began in 1962 and concluded three years later in 1965 in Cologne . Adolf Eichmann testified about the camp during his 1961 war-crimes trial in Jerusalem. He visited it once in late 1942. Simon Srebnik , from the burial Sonderkommando , testified in both the Chelmno Guard and Eichmann trials. Nicknamed Spinnefix at
15851-490: Was centralised in Hitler's person, and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power. In the midst of the Great Depression , the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending. Financed by deficit spending , the regime undertook extensive public works projects, including
15982-562: Was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, and capitulated on 8 May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war. The Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials . Common English terms for
16113-417: Was dropped. Germany was now a totalitarian state with Hitler at its head. As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The new law provided an altered loyalty oath for servicemen so that they affirmed loyalty to Hitler personally rather than the office of supreme commander or the state. On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 per cent of
16244-641: Was good, and food supplies remained adequate in Western Europe. Germany and Europe as a whole were almost totally dependent on foreign oil imports. In an attempt to resolve the shortage, in June 1942 Germany launched Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), an offensive against the Caucasian oilfields. The Red Army launched a counter-offensive on 19 November and encircled the Axis forces, who were trapped in Stalingrad on 23 November. Göring assured Hitler that
16375-526: Was greeted with cheers when he landed in London, saying the agreement brought "peace for our time". Austrian and Czech foreign exchange reserves were seized by the Nazis, as were stockpiles of raw materials such as metals and completed goods such as weaponry and aircraft, which were shipped to Germany. The Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate took control of steel and coal production facilities in both countries. In January 1934, Germany signed
16506-497: Was in violation of the Versailles Treaty. On 17 May 1933, Hitler gave a speech before the Reichstag outlining his desire for world peace and accepted an offer from American President Franklin D. Roosevelt for military disarmament, provided the other nations of Europe did the same. When the other European powers failed to accept this offer, Hitler pulled Germany out of the World Disarmament Conference and
16637-547: Was just under 100 men, of whom around 80 belonged to the Order Police. The local SS also maintained a "paper command" of the camps Allgemeine-SS inspectorate, to which most of the Chełmno camp staff were attached for administrative purposes. Historians do not believe members of the 120th SS-Standarte office established in Chełmno performed any duties at the camp. The SS and police began murdering victims at Chełmno on December 8, 1941 . The first people transported to
16768-432: Was not prepared to fight should be court-martialed, and thousands of people were executed. In many areas, people surrendered to the approaching Allies in spite of exhortations of local leaders to continue to fight. Hitler ordered the destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure—a scorched earth decree—but Armaments Minister Albert Speer prevented this order from being fully carried out. During
16899-438: Was set into the floor. The floor of the van had an opening which could be connected to the exhaust by means of a removable metal pipe. When the lorries were full of people, the double doors at the back were closed and the exhaust connected to the interior of the van. — SS-Scharführer Walter Burmeister, The Good Old Days In late February 1942, the secretary of the local Polish council in Chełmno, Stanisław Kaszyński (b. 1903),
17030-489: Was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children . Between 4 and 8 May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered. The German Instrument of Surrender was signed 8 May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe . Popular support for Hitler almost completely disappeared as
17161-682: Was the fourth nation to join the Axis, signing the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940. Bulgaria signed the pact on 17 November. German efforts to secure oil included negotiating a supply from their new ally, Romania , who signed the Pact on 23 November, alongside the Slovak Republic. By late 1942, there were 24 divisions from Romania on the Eastern Front, 10 from Italy, and 10 from Hungary. Germany assumed full control in France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944. Although Japan
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