German Military Uniforms

Here's a website I found about the uniforms of German soldiers and officers:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/german-ww2.htm

It talks about the uniforms of different levels and kinds of German soldiers. There's a variety of uniforms that German soldiers wore. I like the cap of German Luftwaffe (Pic 1) best. It looks very cool! Imagine that I am the pilot of a fighter plane in WWII. I turned left and right in the sky and shot all the enemies off. Bang!

I also like the pattern of a belt buckle of German soldiers in WWI (Pic 2). There is even a swastika, the symbol of the Nazi Party under the bird.





This is the cap that German Luftwaffe in WWII. Isn't it very cool?






The Army's WW1 "God is with us" belt buckle made a
return with a swastika added.



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Here's another website I found about German army uniform:
http://www.grantsmilitaria.com/militariaphotos/militaria_images.asp?key=06

This is a fake WWII German D.A.K. Soldier. It is in the standard tropical uniform of German soldiers of Motor Reconnaissance Unit. The helmet was repainted later.

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Here is a website about German military uniforms:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/germany.htm

It has a really detailed and clear illustration about different uniforms of different departments, levels and weathers of German armies.

This Waffen-SS uniform is in the "mouse gray" or "mouse brown" color. There are many badges on his uniform. In the left of his chest, ther is a Close Combat clasp (Pic 5) , which is made of gold. There is also a Tank Destroyer badge (Pic 6) on the upper of his right arm. It means that the soldier who earned it destroyed at least one enemy tank.


Pic5



Pic6






This is the uniform of Waffen-SS, in winter camouflage. It can be reversed into snow-white color.

German Occupation

Here's a website I found about German occupation of France in World War II:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/German_occupation_of_France_in_World_War_II
It tells about the resistence of French under German's occupation. German extracted a lot of money from French by the armistice with French signed in June 1940. The power of French was weak. Even though there weren't a lot of French resisted actively, but many of them supported the members of resistence secretly. They also listened to the banned BBC, and even helped lost Americans escape and British airmen go back to British. French organized armed groups underground in late 1942 and 1943. They got aids of weapons from parachute drops and solo landings at night by RAF, too. There were also directions from British radio. After the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the French armed resistance groups destroyed railway lines, and bridges systematically. They also communicate the intelligence from British.

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Here is a website I found about Hungary under German occupation:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005458

In Hungary in World War Two, the Jews were deeply harmed by Germans. They were centralized in certain cities, and they were forced to live outdoor with inadequate food and water. Furthermore, German soldiers tortured them very often. Without a week, these cities were eliminated. About 63,000 Jews died in the the German occupation in March 1944. A terrifying amount of people died just in a occupation. Moreover, they weren't soldiers, they were merely innocent citizens, including women and children. We can see how a cruel thing German did.












This is a deserted street in the area of the Sighet Marmatiei ghetto after the deportation of the ghetto population.
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And here's a map of Hungary under the occupation.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_nm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005458&MediaId=346

German occupied most of the near countries, and Hungary was one of them. Some of the countries on the map are neutral: Spain, Switz, Ireland and Sweden.

Blitzkrieg

Here is a website I found about Junkers Ju 87 Stuka: http://science.howstuffworks.com/junkers-ju-87-stuka.htm

Ju 87 Stuka was an important bomber of Germany in WWI and II. It caused a great damage to Poland in 1939, the beginning of WWII, with its horrible noise and terrifying accuracy. Nonetheless, the situation of the war had turned against it when fighting Soviet Union in the East.

There is also a cool video about JU-88A-4 in this website. It was the most important bomber of Germans in WWII. It talks about its advantage and disadvantage, too. Its maximum speed is 295 mph. It doesn't have enough payload and defense armament. When the pilot changed to use the machine guns, the stuka was shot by its enimies. It says that this stuka wasn't good at fighting the east part of Soviet Union, because of the terrain of mountains brought it inferiority. Therefore, it can only be rated as the 8th dive-bombers.











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Here's a website I found about the blitzkrieg:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitzkrieg.htm

After Hitler defeated Poland in 1939 and Norway in April 1940, France thought that they were safe behind Maginot Line. It was able to defend another world war. In May 1940, Germany began the blitzkrieg against the Netherlands and Belgium. Their defending troops kept retreating and retreating, and lots of civilians fled from the front of the attack in haste. The bombers of German were filled in the sky, striking the retreating troops and escaping civilians with machine gun and bomb. Thousands and thousands of people died then. Then, the German invaded France and reached the English Channel. Nonetheless, German stopped there and went to north to secure the coastal ports and destroy the trapped armies. During the two days, British prepared and was ready to defend the German's attack, though Britain was the rest of its allies.

We can see how bold Hiter was that he dared to resist the military doctrine. Germany even planed to cut the resource of iron ore of Sweden, we can see how far Hiter looked forward. Hitler attacked Poland, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium and France, and he even planned to invade Sweden and British later. We can see how huge the ambition Hitler possessed. He did a lot of amazing things.

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Pic 1 The first Junkers Ju 87 Stukas flew in 1935.

Pic 2 German panzer troops reachthe French coast, June 10, 1940

Bomb Shelters and Air Raid of WWII

Here's a website I found about bomb shelters in WWII:

http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconpressac.html

Poison gas was used a lot in WWI, thus people were very afraid of it and tried to prevent it after WWI. German bomb shelters were made to secure from both bombs and poison gas. Nonetheless, poison gas wasn't used much in World War II.

For a better quality:

http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcturen.html

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Here's a website I found about the remaining bomb shelter of WWII in Naples:

http://www.larryray.com/images/index_files/air%20raid.htm

The shelters were mostly improvised at that time. They are approximately 200 feet deep underground. Now the shelters are still there and even opened to visit.

This is the shelter in Naples in World War Two.

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Here's a youtube video about WWII Air Raid Siren in the US I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7QD-GCae94&feature=related

For no reason, I found myself hate the the sound of the air raid siren instinctively while I was listening to it. The siren gave me an agonizing feeling. My head ached, and I felt very dizzy and wanted to vomit. I can hardly type what I learned from this video. I feel really miserable now.

A World Devided

Fascism: Here's a website I found about some countries like Germany and Italy changed from democratic into fascist: http://www2.ministries-online.org/thenewworldorder/aglobgov.html

Germany was a democratic country before. Hitler gained strong political by propagandas, and he also became the spiritual leader of Germans. Hitler was the belief of Germans. Later, Hitler became the sole leader of Germant, and his Nazi Party took control of the entire Germany. The Nazi Party was the only government of Germany.

The left picture, Fasces, was the symbol of imperial power in ancient Rome. It is a bundle of sticks bound together, which represented the "many bound together as one."

Communism: Here's a website talks about the rise of the Communism of China: http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/rise-of-communism-in-china-faq.htm

There were lots of people died in Boxer Rebellion in 1900. After that, Chinese were in extreme poverty. Mao Zedong helped many poor farmers, and the people hoped that someone ccould change the political parties and the whole country. Therefore, he strated Marxism and in 1921 its members established the Chinese Communist Party sucessfully. People loved him at the beginning. The communism was basically common ownership and production. Nevertheless, in Soviet communism, both them were forsaken, and only atheism and tyranny remain.

The belief of Marx is that a man's worth is the efforts he has made. If everyone has the state of equality, no one would strive hard to do better. I really agree what he said. The efforts we make are brought up by our believes of making better achievements.

Powwow

Here is a website which has a introduction about the Powwows (or Pow Wows) :
http://www.powwows.com/info/?p=47

A Powwow is a traditional meeting of different tribes of Native American people with dancing and singing. In a Powwow, the singers are the most important part. There couldn't be any dancing if there are no songs. The songs are varied. There are songs about their religion, the wars, and even their societies. During the fusion of different tribes, the words of the old songs even change into vocables with no words. The Powwows nowadays are public to watch, and the flags they carry include the US, the tribes and the Pow. The Powwow starts with the Grand Entry, which goes through the town the Powwow is in. Then the dancers starts to dance. After that, the Indians have a prayer. Then, they begin Round Dances. Their clothes are also changing as time passes, so the costumes they wear are the fashion ones of different Tribes. Then all the Indians from different tribes dances along to the beat of the drums.

And here's a video of a part of a song with a drum of Powwow I found:
http://tv.powwows.com/video/2201/Northern-Cree-At-Toronto-Pow-Wow-2008

Approximately ten people sat around a drum with a kind of special drumsticks, which is thin in the handle and thicker on the tip, in their right hands. They sang the song with turns of singing by one person or together while playing the drum. These songs the Indians sing remind them their old tradition and heritage.

Here is another video I found which has some Powwow dances:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNOMG-TeEDQ&eurl=http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=powwow&vc=&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fp_ip

There is a variety of their costumes of the dancers. Some of them has several rows of feathers on it, some of them wear clothes with different stripes of colors, and some of them wear a hat with feathers. They dance along to the beat of drums rhythmically.

The Nazi Party

Here is a website I found about the rise of the Nazi Party with timelines from 1918~1933: http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/TIMELINE/nazirise.HTM

It tells about the depression of economy in Germany and the unstable German government after WWI ends. Hitler joined the right-wing political party in 1919 and became the leader of it. He not only encouraged the German nation pride, but also promoted the antisemitic feelings. The Nazi Party gathers approximately 3,000 members in 1920. Hitler went to jail after the attempt at an armed overturn of local authorities. In the prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf which shows his radical ideas of German nationalism, antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. It also became the basic belief of the members of Nazi Party. He began rebuilding the Nazi Party after he had been freed from the prison. The amount of the members of the Party grows from 27,000 in 1925, to 108,000 in 1929. The Germany goverment was almost collapsing. In the elect in 1932, the Nazi Party won 37% of the vote.

In the rise of the Nazi Party, I can see the Germany's government was filled with arguments, and the economy of Germany was declinong continuously. On the other hand, the Nazi Party grew bigger and stronger during the depression. Even though Hitler went jailed for a short time, it didn't wither away. Instead, more and more people joined the Party. Finally, the Nazi Party pushed the German's government.

Here are some videos I found about the Nazi Party: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/407190/Nazi-Party

We can see there were thousands and thousands of people joined the Nazi Party. They believed in the passive leader, Adolf Hitler, could change thier lives better. They burned lots of books about Jews, and Germans hated Jewish people very much.

In another video on the right side, we can see Germans killing Jewish families, including children, women and old men and women. I think they were really, really brutal. They killed thousands of people without any feelings. Fortunately, I live in this peaceful generation and place. No wars happen around me.