By staff
Title: The Second World War, History and Aftermath, 1939-1945
Predominant Dates:1939 -- 1945
ID: RG-41/
Primary Creator: US Military Administration in Germany
Other Creators: Central Commission for Investigating of German Crimes in Poland (1939 -- 1945)
Extent: 2.0 Boxes
Arrangement: Materials are arranged by subject/creator, then by identifier, as assigned by the processor
Subjects: Aerial Warfare, Second World War, Liberation of Nazi-German concentration camps, Germany, Taking of hostages, Poland
This Record Group comprises two sub-collections and a folder-level collection vaguely correlated to each other. They largely relates to the chronological criterion of the end of the war and with the aftermath of the war.
RG-41.01, Video testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks
RG-41.02, Photo-documents of the warfare in Germany
RG-41.03, Resistance in Poland
This Record Group consists of three collections. One is the oral history narrated by Julien D. Saks, a Chemical Warfare officer of the 12th Armored Division, of the US Army. This Division captured the first bridge over the Danube River and later fought in Rhineland, Alsace-Lorraine and in Bavaria. A unit of this Division liberated one of the sub-camp of Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. Another collection consists of numerous aerial photo-shots, which depict the last months of the war in Germany, as well as the aftermath of the Second World War in Europe.
There is also a folder-level collection, Resistance in Poland. It contains a document of its own right, namely an appeal issued by German police and security forces in Zakopane, Poland. This printed announcement contains the list of Polish and Jewish hostages taken into custody by the Gestapo as an act of retaliation against the Polish resistance. The group of Polish resistance fighters destroyed a German military installation in Zakopane. The German issued an ultimatum demanding of the Polish civilian population of Zakopane to give in the executioners of the anti-German act, otherwise the hostages will be killed. Another document of this folder-level collections relates to the Report of the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland.
It may be important to note that the aftermath documented in this collection comes from the perspective of American soldiers.
RG-41.01, Video testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks
RG-41.01.01, There are ten video files present in the folder labeled “COL. JULIEN SAKS, HOLOCAUST VIDEO TS.” The third file in that folder, a VOB file, can be opened in Windows Media Player
RG-41.01.02, Transcript of the video testimony
RG-41.02, Photo-documents of the warfare in Germany
RG-41.02.01, Aerial shot of soldiers on the ground and anti-tank obstacles
RG-41.02.02, Aerial shot of bombed out German city
RG-41.02.03, Aerial shot of a bombed out marine installation
RG-41.02.04, Aerial shot a railway juncture
RG-41.02.05, Aerial shot of a bombed out territory
RG-41.02.06, Aerial shot of bombed out airfields
RG-41.02.07, Aerial shot of a bombed out industrial complex
RG-41.02.08, Aerial shot of a motorway and roads
RG-41.02.09, Aerial shot of a railway tracks
RG-41.02.10, Aerial shot of a bombed out area
RG-41.02.11, Aerial shot of the Julich area. It is in the district of Dueren in the Ruhr Valley north of the Rhine. Some sort of factory is shown and one can see the bombing aftermath. Date: 16 December 1944
RG-41.02.12, Aerial shot of airplanes and motorways
RG-41.02.13, Aerial shot of airplanes on the ground
RG-41.02.14, Aerial shot of the Dueren area. Date: 16 December 1944
RG-41.02.15, Aerial of the German airfields with war planes
RG-41.02.16, Aerial view of a German town
RG-41.02.17, Aerial shot of German airfields
RG-41.02.18, Aerial view of a small German town and air base
RG-41.02.19, Aerial shot of the Muenster area. Date: 1 January 1945
RG-41.02.20, Aerial view of a castle in winter, Germany
RG-41.02.21, Aerial shot of the Düsseldorf area. Date: 16 December 1944
RG-41.02.22, Aerial view of railway tracks and industrial objects
RG-41.02.23, Aerial view of vineyard
RG-41.02.24, German soldier shooting a machine gun
RG-41.02.25, Cathedral in ruins
RG-41.02.26, Cathedral in ruins, another view
RG-41.02.27, dark photo of house and street
RG-41.02.28, photo of a river and houses
RG-41.02.29, German men being searched by American soldiers
RG-41.02.30, a former camp
RG-41.02.31, a crematorium
RG-41.02.32, two bodies on grass
RG-41.02.33, camp barracks, scene in early spring
RG-41.02.34, barracks behind a fence
RG-41.02.35, Buchenwald camp with signs on the wall. The writing on the wall says, roughly, “Buchenwald incriminates” and “[something] gives the Nazis their answer”
RG-41.02.36, looking into crematorium
RG-41.02.37, camp barracks, early spring
RG-41.02.38, German town, bombed out street
RG-41.02.39, street on which most buildings are gone
RG-41.02.40, ruins and rubble
RG-41.02.41, people at a liberated camp, mingling
RG-41.02.42, brick wall
RG-41.02.43, grave
RG-41.02.44, remnants of a bombed structure
RG-41.02.45, survivors lying on cots
RG-41.02.46, part of a former camp
RG-41.02.47, inside of camp barracks
RG-41.02.48, dead victims lined up on grass
RG-41.02.49, street in ruins
RG-41.02.50, men laying human remains in a grave
RG-41.02.51, people around a former camp
RG-41.02.52, an Allied soldier with baby on a porch
RG-41.02.53, camp prisoner suspended on barbed wire
RG-41.02.54, dark photo of a ruined building
RG-41.02.55, wooded area with barracks in the background
RG-41.02.56, victims' lower torsos and legs
RG-41.02.57, photo of building in ruins
RG-41.02.58, destroyed building, view of the top
RG-41.02.59, a yard strewn with debris, including cars
RG-41.02.60, kids standing in rubble, bombed buildings behind
RG-41.02.61, people walking around bombed neighborhood
RG-41.02.62, bombed out structure behind trees and shrubs
RG-41.02.63, reconstruction, featuring onlookers and man on pole
RG-41.02.64, people standing and looking at a bombed down house
RG-41.02.65, a ruined house, another angle
RG-41.02.66, Wunstorf aerodrome
RG-41.02.67, Wunsdorf aerodrome, swimming pool
RG-41.02.68, bombed out buildings
RG-41.02.69, people walking past ruined houses
RG-41.02.70, sepia of bombed out buildings
RG-41.02.71, pile of dead bodies
RG-41.02.72, pile of dead bodies near camp barracks
RG-41.02.73, facial expressions of the dead
RG-41.02.74, truck loaded with dead bodies
RG-41.02.75, dead bodies piled against a wall
RG-41.02.76, pile of bones, perhaps
RG-41.02.77, reconstruction of Nazi tortures
RG-41.02.78, postcard depicting German soldiers on the Eastern Front
RG-41.03, Resistance in Poland
RG-41.03.01, Placard listing the names of Polish hostages taken by Gestapo, 1944
RG-41.03.02, German crimes in Poland, materials of the Central Commission investigating of German crimes in Poland, vol. 2, 1947
Aerial Warfare, Second World War
Liberation of Nazi-German concentration camps, Germany
Taking of hostages, Poland
