At a time when censors used a heavy hand to keep the American public from knowing and seeing the carnage in the Pacific during World War II, this ground-breaking photograph of dead American soldiers confronted the American public for the first time with th…
These photos were taken between May and December 1944, and they show the officers and guards of Auschwitz relaxing and enjoying themselves — as countless people were being murdered and cremated at the nearby death camp. In some of the photos, SS officers c…
Seen here is an aerial black and white photo of the famous Cologne Cathedral during World War II. The cathedral suffered fourteen hits by aerial bombs during the war. It did not collapse but stood tall in an otherwise flattened city. The twin spires are…
This picture is taken probably by the end of the war when really young and old citizens were enlisted for soldiers. Most likely a member of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" which sustained 43% casualties during the Normandy campaign. SS recrui…
Translation: “Germany is victorious on all fronts”. The V stands for Victory. The Allied V-for-Victory cliché became so popular as a morale raiser that the enemy had to adopt to it, an easier task for the Italians, whose Vs displayed in public could be hel…
Maoris of 'C' Company, 28th Maori Battalion of the 2nd New Zealand Division perform the 'Haka' (ancestral war dance) for the visit of King George II of Greece, his wife the Queen, his cousin Prince Peter and Major General Freyberg. The location was at an a…
This bomb landed on a side road off Drury Lane blasting several buildings, including the office of the Daily Herald. Known as the Flying bomb, Buzz bomb or Doodlebug, V-1 was the first modern guided missile used in wartime and the forerunner of today's cru…
Adolph Hitler put Field Marshall Rommel in charge of the French Atlantic wall and the defense of Europe from an Allies cross-channel invasion in 1944. Rommel arrived, looked over the situation, and immediately ordered a tremendous upgrading of the forti…
After the German 2nd Panzer Division captured Athens, they raised the Nazi German flag above the Acropolis as a sign of victory. This flag, the symbol of Greece's occupation, would be taken down one month later in one of the first acts of the Greek Resista…
The hospital is running a drill to make sure that they can implement the procedures for poison gas and in this case, the nurses are testing out infant gas masks. This gas mask was for children up to two years old and the design covered the whole of the …
The Me 264 was designed from the beginning as part of the “Amerika Bomber” project. Its goal was to be able to carry a small load to the United States but also to support U-boat operations far into the Atlantic. The Amerika Bomber was a project to obtai…
An American tank crew stands beside Bernard Herzog - an American citizen who lived in the Philippines - after his liberation from the Santo Tomas internment camp run by the Japanese in the old University of Santo Tomas campus, Manila. As you can see, he is…
The photograph is taken during a battle of Saipan that claimed the lives of 22,000 Japanese civilians – many by suicide – and nearly all 30,000 Japanese troops on the island. Of the 71,000 American troops who landed on Saipan, 3,426 perished, while more th…
In the summer of 1944 the Soviet Union launched Operation Bagration, a large-scale, complex offensive against the Nazi invaders in Belarus, Poland and the Baltic republics. This vital Soviet offensive was launched just after Allied troops had landed in …
Looks like this man has seen some horror, a little bit like one thousand-yard stare. Note silver badge on his chest, that badge represents Infantry Assault Badge which was awarded in Silver and Bronze. This decoration was instituted on 20 December 1939 …
At 1:10 a.m. on May 9, 1945, night owls in the USSR heard a radio report that Nazi Germany had officially surrendered to the Soviet Union. Up to 30 million soldiers and civilians were dead, the Soviet Union had lost a third of its national wealth, cities s…
On August 25, French General Philippe Leclerc entered the free French capital triumphantly. Pockets of German intransigence remained, but Paris was free from German control. Two days earlier, a French armored division had begun advancing on the capital. …
In the beginning, the war was still fun and the soldiers were not fully engaged in action. So they had some fun with this German Shepherd dog, who has no idea what he's doing. Still looks classy though. Dressing dogs as humans have always been funny. Th…
This last known picture of Hitler was taken approximately two days prior to his death as he stands outside his Berlin bunker entrance surveying the devastating bomb damage. With Germany lying in ruins after six years of war, and with defeat imminent, Hitle…
A picture from an Einsatzgruppen soldier’s personal album, labeled on the back as "Last Jew of Vinnitsa". It shows a member of Einsatzgruppe D just about to shoot a Jewish man kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1941. All 28,000 Je…