World History: True Stories of the 20th Century

The Arājs Kommando was a Latvian collaborationist unit that helped carry out mass murder during the Holocaust in occupied Latvia and Belarus. The rise of the Arājs Kommando marks one of the darkest chapters of the Holocaust in the Baltic region during the Second World War. In July 1941, as Nazi Germany advanced into Latvia following Operation Barbarossa, the collapse of Soviet authority created a...

Ebensee was one of the deadliest subcamps of the Mauthausen concentration camp system, where prisoners were worked, starved, and beaten to death during World War II. The Ebensee concentration camp was one of the most brutal subcamps in the Mauthausen camp system and stands as a grim symbol of Nazi Germany’s use of forced labor, mass starvation, and systematic cruelty during the Second World War. E...

Ivan Marchenko was a Trawniki guard at Treblinka extermination camp who helped operate the gas chambers during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Ivan Marchenko was born on the 2 March 1911, in the Ukrainian village of Sierhiejówka, then part of the Russian Empire. Before the outbreak of the war, Ivan Marchenko was already a father of two children - a son and a daughter – whom he had with his wife...

Amon Göth was the brutal Nazi commandant of the Płaszów concentration camp whose crimes made him one of the most feared figures of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Amon Göth, commandant of the Płaszów concentration camp, remains one of the most notorious Nazi figures of the Holocaust. A former Austrian publisher’s son turned SS officer, Göth rose to infamy for his direct involvement in the persec...

Fritz Sauckel was the Nazi official who organized Germany’s vast forced labor system during World War II and was later executed at the Nuremberg Trials. Fritz Sauckel rose from modest origins to become one of the most notorious figures of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. As Hitler’s General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment, Sauckel oversaw the largest forced labor program in modern E...

Operation Barbarossa was Nazi Germany’s massive invasion of the Soviet Union, later surrounded by myths about Stalin, the Russian winter, and the Eastern Front. Operation Barbarossa, launched on 22 June 1941, remains one of the largest and most decisive military campaigns of the Second World War. Adolf Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was driven by ideological goals—destroying communism and a...

Hermannus Reydon was a leading Dutch fascist collaborator whose propaganda work helped support Nazi occupation policies in the Netherlands during World War II. Hermannus Reydon was one of the most influential Dutch collaborators during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. A committed National Socialist long before the German invasion, he rose quickly through the ranks of the NSB and became a ce...

Hisao Tani was an Imperial Japanese general held responsible for atrocities committed during the Nanjing Massacre and later executed for war crimes. Lieutenant General Hisao Tani was one of the senior Japanese commanders responsible for atrocities committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War, including the Nanjing Massacre of 1937—one of the worst war crimes of World War II. This documentary exam...

Yelena Mazanik was a Belarusian resistance operative who assassinated Nazi official Wilhelm Kube during the German occupation of Belarus in World War II. Yelena Mazanik was a Belarusian resistance operative whose actions struck at the very heart of Nazi power during World War II. In September 1943, she carried out one of the most daring assassinations of the war: the killing of Wilhelm Kube, the G...

John C. Woods was the American Army executioner who carried out the death sentences of top Nazi officials after the Nuremberg Trials. John Clarence Woods remains one of the most controversial figures of the postwar era—the American master sergeant who carried out the executions of Nazi Germany’s most senior war criminals at Nuremberg. Born in 1911 in Wichita, Kansas, Woods grew up amid poverty and...

Nikolai Yezhov was the Soviet secret police chief who oversaw Stalin’s Great Purge before becoming a victim of the same terror system he helped create. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was the small, soft-spoken man who became the face of the Soviet Union’s greatest nightmare—the Great Purge. Born in 1895 in St. Petersburg to a poor family, he grew up with little education, drifting through factory jobs b...

Lída Baarová was a famous Czech actress whose affair with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels led to scandal, ruin, and tragedy. Lída Baarová’s life is one of the most tragic and controversial stories of 20th-century cinema. Born in Prague and rising to fame as one of Czechoslovakia’s brightest film stars, her beauty and talent soon drew the attention of Germany’s powerful UFA studios. In 193...

The Dirlewanger Brigade was one of the most brutal Nazi units of World War II, responsible for mass killings across Eastern Europe and the Wola massacre in Warsaw. Oskar Dirlewanger remains one of the most notorious war criminals of the Second World War. As commander of the infamous Dirlewanger Brigade, he led a unit composed of convicted criminals, poachers, concentration camp inmates, and violen...

The Battle of Stalingrad marked a turning point in World War II, as the German 6th Army was encircled and ultimately surrendered to Soviet forces. The Battle of Stalingrad remains one of the most pivotal and harrowing confrontations of the Second World War. From the summer of 1942 until February 1943, over 300,000 German troops, including the elite 6th Army under General Friedrich Paulus, were dra...

András Kun was a Catholic priest who became a brutal killer for Hungary’s Arrow Cross regime, leading murders during the Holocaust in Budapest. András Kun was one of the most disturbing figures of the Holocaust in Hungary—a Roman Catholic priest who became a fanatical executioner for the fascist Arrow Cross regime during the final months of World War II. As Nazi Germany tightened its grip on Hunga...

Christian Wirth was one of the key Nazi perpetrators behind Operation Reinhard, overseeing death camps where more than 1.5 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Christian Wirth was one of the most ruthless architects of the Holocaust and a central figure behind the Nazi extermination program known as Operation Reinhard. As commandant of Bełżec and later inspector of the death camps Bełż...

Alfred Rosenberg was one of the chief ideologues of Nazi Germany whose racial theories helped shape the Holocaust and led to his execution after World War II. Alfred Rosenberg was one of the most influential ideologues of Nazi Germany—yet also one of its most destructive. Our documentary traces his rise from a Baltic German architecture student in the Russian Empire to the chief racial theorist of...

Peter Kürten, known as the Vampire of Düsseldorf, was one of Germany’s most infamous serial killers whose reign of terror ended at the guillotine. Peter Kürten, known to history as the Vampire of Düsseldorf, was one of the most terrifying criminals of the early 20th century. Born in 1883 into an abusive and impoverished family, Kürten grew up in an environment shaped by violence, alcoholism, and c...

Fritz Kuhn was the leader of the German American Bund who tried to spread Nazi ideology in the United States before falling in scandal and disgrace. Fritz Kuhn, once hailed by his followers as the “American Führer,” sought to bring Hitler’s ideology to the United States. As leader of the German American Bund, he staged mass rallies, met Hitler, and promised to reshape America in the image of Nazi...

Moritake Tanabe was a Japanese major general whose wartime command roles tied him to atrocities in China and later led to his execution after World War II. Major General Moritake Tanabe was a key architect of one of the most horrifying atrocities of World War II: the Nanjing Massacre. A career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army, Tanabe rose through the ranks with discipline and education, gradu...

Jan Kubiš was a Czechoslovak resistance hero whose role in Operation Anthropoid helped strike one of the boldest blows against Nazi leadership during World War II. Jan Kubiš stands as one of the most celebrated heroes of the Second World War—a young Czechoslovak paratrooper whose courage helped change the course of history. Born into a modest family in Moravia, he grew up shaped by hardship, stron...

The Krasnodar Trial led to one of the first mass public executions for Nazi crimes during World War II, when collaborators were hanged before thousands in Soviet Russia. The Krasnodar Trial marked one of the first public prosecutions of Nazi war crimes during the Second World War. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union under Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, mass murder became a system...

Boris Rodos was one of the most feared torturers of Stalin’s Soviet secret police, later executed for extracting false confessions through brutality. Boris Veniaminovich Rodos rose from an unimpressive provincial life to become one of the most sadistic interrogators in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Born on 22 June 1905 in Melitopol to a Jewish tailor, Rodos drifted through odd jobs—packer, cigarette sell...

Henriette von Schirach, wife of Nazi leader Baldur von Schirach, lived in privilege built on looted Jewish property and remained tied to the legacy of the Third Reich. Henriette von Schirach lived at the very heart of Nazi high society: a woman raised in privilege, connected to power, and married to one of Adolf Hitler’s closest protégés. But behind the glamorous façade lay a life built on fanatic...

The 1st Mountain Division, known as the Edelweiss Division, was a German Wehrmacht unit responsible for mass atrocities across Europe during World War II. The 1st Mountain Division—also known as the Edelweiss Division—was one of the most notorious units of the German Wehrmacht in World War II. Formed in 1938 and originally trained for alpine warfare, the division gained infamy not for its military...