Matthäus Hetzenauer was an Austrian sniper in the 3rd Mountain Division on the Eastern Front of World War II, who was credited with 345 kills. His longest confirmed kill was reported at 1,100 meters (3,600 ft). Hetzenauer was also a recipient of the Kni…
Heinrich Himmler looks at a young Soviet prisoner of war during an official visit to Shirokaya Street Concentration Camp in Minsk, Belarus, on or about August 15, 1941. You had to be a hard man to look Himmler in the face like that. This is standing for…
These kids had no idea what kind of hell was about to be unleashed on them. They're literally marching to hell. It's kind of eerie looking at the men in this picture and realizing that statistically speaking, they most likely never saw 1944. Those sungl…
A German World War II prisoner is released by the Soviet Union and reunited with his 12-year-old daughter, who has not seen him since infancy. The child has not seen her father since she was one year old. The event, where this famous photo was taken, wa…
Vlasik’s off-the-record photos of Stalin caused a sensation in the early 1960s when an enterprising Soviet journalist spirited some out, selling them to newspapers and magazines worldwide. This photo shows how human this “monster” was, like Hitler with his…
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 …
The Nazi concentration camps during World War II were a place of unimaginable horror and suffering for millions of innocent people. While much attention has been paid to the role of male guards in perpetrating these atrocities, the role of female guards in …
These are rarely seen color pictures from the Second World War featured in the book “The Second World War in Colour” by the Imperial War Museum. Many are being published for the first time and shed light behind the scenes of the conflict. Color film was…
The events of 1942 were crucial in the way that World War Two played out. The first Americans arrived in England in January - 'Overpaid, oversexed - and in North Africa Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps began their counter-offensive, capturing Tobr…
The Berlin Wall’s story began in the early hours of August 13th, 1961, when the government of East Germany ordered the closure of all borders between East and West Berlin. As the sun rose that morning, Berliners were awoken by the sound of trucks, jackh…
Most of these rare and relatively intimate pictures of the Imperial Romanov family were taken by the head of the family and Russia's last tsar himself, Nicholas II. An insatiable photographer, the tsar took great care of his pictures, filing them carefully…
The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. Before the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7-8 May 1942, the Imperial Navy of Japan had swept aside all of its enemies from the Pacific and Indian oceans. At the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japane…
In jails and prisons around the world, tattoos can become a significant part of an inmate's uniform, not only marking the crime they're in for but also serving as a way to communicate with others. Arkady Bronnikov, regarded as Russia's leading expert on…
At the end of the war, millions of people were dead and millions homeless, the European economy had collapsed, and much of the European industrial infrastructure had been destroyed. The Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected. Borders were redrawn …
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He was Korean – captured by the Japanese and pressed to fight the Soviets, captured by the Soviets and pressed to fight the Germans, captured by the Germans and pressed to defend Normandy, where he was captured by the Americans. This is the story of Yang K…
The decisive year was 1968. In the early morning of 30 January, Vietcong forces launched the Tet Offensive, named for the Vietnamese holiday then being observed. In coordinated attacks throughout South Vietnam, the Vietcong assaulted major urban areas a…
Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the German codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which commenced on June 22, 1941. It was to be the turning point for the fortunes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, i…
The Second World War changed the United States for women, and women in turn transformed their nation. Over three hundred fifty thousand women volunteered for military service, while twenty times as many stepped into civilian jobs, including positions pr…
In 1945 disillusioned Himmler believed victory had slipped from Germany's grasp and secretly attempted to start peace negotiations with Eisenhower in a bid to escape a war crimes trial. But Eisenhower refused to have anything to do with Himmler. A furio…