Figure 1.--Here is a NAZI funeral, we think for a soldier killed in World War II. Most of the uniformed individuals look to be SA Stromtroopers sand not Wehrmacht soldiers. Notice that the service is being held outdoors and not in sa church. |
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NAZI German launched Wotrld War II with the Blitzkrieg on Poland in cooperation with the Soviet Union (September 1939). Germany held the ininitative in the early years of the War. After the success in Poland, the Wehrmacht swept over most of Western Europe, invading Denmark and Norway (April 1940) and Belgium, Holland and France (May 1940). Plans to invade Britain (September 1940) had to be scraped when the Luftwaffe failed to gain air supremecy. Diplomatic efforts to secure the Balkans failed, resulting in another Blitkrief (April 1941). German casualties in these campaigns were extremely light. This was startling in view of the horific casualties sustauned on the Western Front during World War I. The doctrine of war developed by the Wehrmacht overwealmed poorly prepared European armies, even the French Army which had been considered the strongest in Europe. The Wehrmacht continued its string of victories with the invasion of the Soviet Union--Operation Barbarossa (June 1941). Again casualties were relattively light, byr stiffened as Red Army resistance stiffened before Moscow. Xukov's Winter Offence (December 1941) for the first time inflicted sizeable casualties on the Wehrmacht. There after casualties mounted. The NAZIs finally surrendered only after Hitler's suiside in Berlin (May 1945). The German military is believed to have suffered about 3.5 million killed and 4.6 million wounded during the War. A substantial portion of the men killed died after being taken prisioner by the Red Army. The casualties Germany inflicted on countries it invaded were astomomical, especially in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Yugoslavia, because of the genocidal treatment of POWs and civilians. German civilians were not much affected by the War until the fighting began to go decisively against Germany in 1943. Probably about 2 million German civilians died in the War. The Reich was not occupied until the final months of the War, but civilians began to be affected when the allies began to serious escalate the strategic bombing campaign. Even so, only about 0.3 million Germans were killed by the bombing, largely as aresult of effective civilian defense measures. Most of the civilian casualties occurred when German civilians were driven out of the countries they occupied and the German territory transferred to Poland.
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