Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On December 18, 1940, Hitler had signed War Directive No. 21 to the German high command for an operation now codenamed Operation Barbarossa stating: "The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign." [182] Hitler directed Raeder that Germany would have to take Polyarny and Murmansk at that time to cut off access ...
Only after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989/1990 did the Polish government try to renegotiate the issue of reparations, but found little support in this from the German side and none from the Soviet (later, Russian) side. [35] The total number of forced labourers under Nazi rule who were still alive as of August 1999 was 2.3 million. [1]
The Berghof, Hitler's private retreat, was renovated at a massive cost, all of it paid for with Nazi Party donations. While hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic had crippled the German economy and plunged millions of German workers into unemployment, Hitler and his party received lavish donations from wealthy benefactors at home and abroad. [18]
Hitler desired to delay as long as possible delivery of the "industrial goods" mentioned in the list of the orders to be placed, including the transmission of plans for the Bismarck class and of the Lützow to Russia in furtherance of his hope that Germany could avoid these altogether if the war developed favorably for it. In February 1940 ...
Like Swiss banks, American car companies deny helping the Nazi war machine or profiting from forced labor at their German subsidiaries during World War II. [9] "General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland," according to Bradford Snell. "The Nazis could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland.
Hitler was aware of the fact that Germany lacked reserves of raw materials, and full autarky was therefore impossible. Thus he chose a different approach. The Nazi government tried to limit the number of its trade partners, and, when possible, only trade with countries within the German sphere of influence.
Although Hitler was warned by many high-ranking military officers, such as Friedrich Paulus, that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation," he anticipated compensatory benefits such as the demobilisation of entire divisions to relieve the acute labour shortage in German industry, the ...
The strategy paid off, as such industrial increases were able to occur even while the Germans in late 1942 occupied more than half of European Russia, including 40 percent (80 million) of its population, and approximately 2,500,000 square kilometres (970,000 sq mi) of Soviet territory. [149]