NS Regime and the Second World War
1933–1945
When Hitler was named chancellor in 1933, the National Socialists quickly established a dictatorship that aimed to prepare Germany for war through a radical transformation of state and society. The Nazi state brutally persecuted its political opponents. Jews and others that didn’t fit the racist aberrations of the National Socialists were ostracized from society.
The German attack on Poland in 1939 launched the Second World War. By 1941 the German army had occupied Denmark, Norway, the Benelux countries, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and parts of northern Africa. During the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, special-operation units following in the wake of the army murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, Sinti and Romany as well as Soviet functionaries. As of 1942 the NS state deployed all means to organize and implement the genocide of the European Jews in concentration camps by the millions.
The Soviet Union, Great Britain and the USA formed a war coalition to combat the German wars of aggression. After landing at Normandy in 1944, the Allied troops drove back the German army on all fronts and advanced towards Germany. The Red Army began the attack on Berlin in April 1945.
Germany’s unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 ended the Nazi reign and the Second World War in Europe, which had claimed more than 50 million human lives.
Felix Nussbaum, Portrait of Three, 1944.
(Inv.Nr. 1988/1250)
Felix Nussbaum, In the Camp (Prison Camp / St. Cyprien), 1940.
(Inv.Nr. 1987/149)
Star of David, after September 1, 1941, 1941.
(Inv.Nr. A 2002/2)
Wall Posting for Properties with Jewish Residents, ca. 1938.
(Inv.Nr. DG 90/6104)
Political Poster from World War II, 1941-1944.
(Inv.Nr. P 93/590)
Encryption and Decryption Machine "Enigma", 1937.
(Inv.Nr. AK 95/640)
Ernst Barlach, The Avenger, 1914 (model), 1950 (cast).
(Inv.Nr. 1988/606)
NS Poster from WWII, 1940.
(Inv.Nr. P 96/1872)
Dutch Poster (5 Years of Oppression) on the End of the War and the End of the Occupation of the Netherlands, 1945.
(Inv.Nr. P 93/584)
French Propaganda Poster for the "Anti-Hitler Coalition", 1945.
(Inv.Nr. 1988/998.42)
Hein Neuner, Propaganda Poster on Entering the Hitler Youth, ca. 1939.
(Inv.Nr. P 63/809)
Henry Morgenthau, Morgenthau Plan, 1945.
(Inv.Nr. R 92/2211)
Craniometer (Instrument for measuring the Circumference of the Skull), found in the Dachau Concentration Camp (with Inventory Sheet and Seal of the US Army), 1933-1945.
(Inv.Nr. AK 2001/318)
Maria von Axster, Advertising Poster for the National Socialist Organization “Kraft durch Freude” for the Volkswagen, 1938.
(Inv.Nr. P 96/127)
File Card of an "Eastern worker", August 7, 1943.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 2000/438)
War-torn City, ca. 1945.
(Inv.Nr. Gm 97/9)
Announcement about the Prohibition of Accommodating Refugee Jews in the “Generalgouvernement” under Threat of the Death Penalty (in German and Polish), September 24, 1942.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 2000/1149)
Propagandistic Image Documentation of the Rautal-Werke Wernigerode on the Deployment of "Eastern Workers", 1943.
(Inv. Nr. Do2 2000/1556)
Reichsjugendführung (Press and Propaganda Office), Advertising Poster of the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) on the Participation in the Children's Area Dispatch, from 1935.
(Inv.Nr. P 2000/48)
Heinrich Hoffmann, Mit Hitler im Westen (With Hitler in the West), September 1940.
(Inv.Nr. GA 2726)
Karl Schaeffer, Special Edition of the Newspaper "Korrespondent" with the Announcement of their Ban, March 15, 1933.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 2001/129)
Advertising Brochure for the "Volksempfänger", ca. 1934.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 2001/567)
Combustion Chamber of the V-2 as found, 1944-1945.
(Inv.Nr. L 97/44)
Franz von Lenbach, Richard Wagner (1813-1883), after 1882.
(Inv.Nr. L 99/26)
Max Reimer, Propaganda Poster of the Winter Relief Organization (WHW), ca. 1938.
(Inv.Nr. P 99/25)
Otto Pieper, Advertising Poster for the Logistics Company "Kuehne und Nagel", ca. 1935.
(Inv.Nr. P 99/447)
Calendar with Handwritten Entries by a Volunteer Nurse from the Last Months of the Second World War, 1945.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 99/1272)
Urgent Message from a Family about the Apartment’s Damage by Bombs (on Postcard Form), December 2, 1944.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 99/1027)
Illustration Sheet on Corresponding with Soldiers at the Front Line (Bunter Bilderbogen No. 3), ca. 1942.
(Inv.Nr. Do 56/1594.32)
Special Edition of the US Soldiers' Newspaper "The Stars and Stripes" on Hitler's death, May 2, 1945.
(Inv.Nr. Do2 90/557)