Operation Barbarossa: Did you mean...?

The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend or HJ), named after the leader of the German Nazi Party Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), was designed to indoctrinate 14-18 year-old boys into the party's way of thinking. Its activities promoted physical exercise...

The Anschluss ('fusion') of 12 March 1938 was the annexation and formal union of Austria with Germany. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the Nazi leader of Germany, dreamed of an empire which enclosed all German speakers, his 'Greater Germany'. Hitler's...

Auschwitz was a concentration and extermination camp in German-occupied Poland operated by the Nazi SS from 1940 to 1945. Around 1.1 million people died at the Auschwitz complex from overwork, malnutrition, disease, and in the gas chambers...

Johannes Gutenberg (l. c. 1398-1468) was the inventor of the printing press (c. 1450) who seems to have developed the device from wine and oil presses of the time. Gutenberg’s printing press not only revolutionized book making but literally...

The Desert Rats was the nickname of the 7th Armoured Division of the British Eighth Army, which first fought in North Africa during the Second World War (1939-45). Fighting in the Western Desert Campaigns and the North Africa Campaign, the...

The evacuation of children from British cities during the Second World War (1939-45) was the largest population movement the country has ever experienced. Some 6 million women and children voluntarily evacuated from large cities to live with...

Cologne (Köln) was the first German city to experience a "1,000-bomber raid" by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War (1939-45). The attack took place on the night of 30 May 1942 and was planned as a demonstration of the destruction...

A photograph showing Allied troops landing in Algeria, North Africa as part of Operation Torch, the Allied North Africa Landings of November 1942. (Imperial War Museums)

A photograph of General Richard O'Connor (1889-1981) - on the right - and General Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), the commanders of Operation Compass (9 Dec 40 - 7 Feb 41), the Allied offensive which won several important victories against...

A map illustrating the geopolitical situation in Europe and the Mediterranean in early November 1942 with World War II in Europe at a critical juncture. The Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, had made significant advances across the continent...