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Adolf Hitler greeted by cheering crowds in Vienna, following the annexation of Austria into the III Reich, 15 March 1938 Execution of local Polish people in the town of Kórnik, after the German invasion of Poland, 20 October 1939 Clockwise from the north: Memel, Danzig, Polish territories, General Government, Sudetenland, Bohemia-Moravia, Ostmark (), Northern Slovenia, Adriatic littoral ...
The German Occupation Medals were a series of awards, also known as the "Flower War medals", created to commemorate the successive annexations by Nazi Germany of neighbouring countries and regions with large ethnic German populations. These comprised Austria (March 1938), the Sudetenland (October 1938) and Memel (March 1939).
German warships in the port of Klaipėda the day after the ultimatum was accepted. Before the treaty was signed, German soldiers had already entered the port of Klaipėda. Adolf Hitler, arriving on board the cruiser Deutschland, personally toured the city and gave a short speech.
Jewish and Gypsy civilians were eliminated as a result of Nazi Germany's racial policy. Persecutions were mostly carried out by special German units (Einsatzgruppe A, Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) and police units. The German occupation regime attempted to involve the local population in war crimes.
This area of East Prussia, with 160,000 inhabitants, had been turned over to Lithuania in the aftermath of World War I. [1] To commemorate the occupation, the "Memel Medal" was authorized on 1 May 1939. It was awarded until 31 December 1940. In all 31,322 medals were awarded. [2] The wearing of Nazi era awards was banned in 1945.
The Klaipėda Region covered 2,848 km 2 (1,100 sq mi), which included the Curonian Lagoon of approximately 412 km 2 (159 sq mi). [2] According to the Prussian Census of 1910, the city of Memel numbered 21,419 inhabitants, of whom 92% were German and 8% were Lithuanian, while the countryside was inhabited by a Lithuanian majority of 66%.
After Nazi Germany took over the area in 1939, many Lithuanians and their organizations began leaving Memel and the surrounding area. Memel was quickly turned into a fortified naval base by the Germans. After the failure of the German invasion of the USSR the fate of East Prussia and Memel was sealed. By October 1944, the inhabitants of the ...
In present-day Germany, the former eastern territories of Germany (German: ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete) refer to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany, i.e. the Oder–Neisse line, which historically had been considered German and which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union after World War II.