World History: True Stories of the 20th Century

The Lippach massacre in 1945 saw U.S. troops execute unarmed German soldiers in one of the most controversial and little-known incidents at the end of World War II. On April 22, 1945, as the Second World War neared its end, the quiet German village of Lippach found itself in the path of advancing U.S. troops from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division. Expecting surrender from a retr...

Ans van Dijk was a Jewish collaborator in Nazi-occupied Netherlands who betrayed dozens of Jews in hiding, leading to their deportation and deaths during the Holocaust. Ans van Dijk remains one of the most disturbing figures of the Holocaust in the Netherlands. Born in Amsterdam in 1905 into a Jewish family, she would later become one of the most effective collaborators in the Nazi hunt for Jews i...

Josef Kramer, known as the “Beast of Belsen,” was a Nazi camp commandant responsible for mass murder who was executed after the Belsen Trial. Josef Kramer was one of the most notorious concentration camp commandants of Nazi Germany, remembered as the “Beast of Belsen.” His career traces the evolution of the Nazi camp system itself — from early political repression to industrialized mass murder. Bo...

Julius Streicher was a Nazi propagandist whose antisemitic incitement helped fuel the Holocaust, leading to his execution after World War II. Julius Streicher stands as one of the most fanatical and dangerous propagandists of the Nazi regime. Born in 1885, he rose from an elementary school teacher to one of Adolf Hitler’s earliest and most devoted followers. As founder and publisher of the violent...

Adolf Seefeldt, known as “Uncle Tick-Tock,” was a German serial killer who murdered young boys while posing as a harmless traveling watch repairman. Adolf Seefeldt was born on the 6th of March 1870 in the city of Potsdam, then part of the North German Confederation. He was the youngest of nine children and grew up in a deeply troubled household. To make a living, Seefeldt repaired watches for peop...

Yoshiko Kawashima, known as the “Mata Hari of the Far East,” was a spy, collaborator, and key figure in Japan’s expansion in China who was executed for treason after World War II. Born into the fading Qing imperial dynasty but raised in Japan as the adopted child of a spy, Yoshiko Kawashima lived one of the most extraordinary—and controversial—lives of the 20th century. Known across East Asia as t...

Tomoyuki Yamashita, known as the “Tiger of Malaya,” was a Japanese general whose victories and wartime atrocities led to his execution and the creation of the command responsibility doctrine. Tomoyuki Yamashita was one of Imperial Japan’s most famous generals and one of the most controversial figures tried for war crimes after World War II. Known as the “Tiger of Malaya” for his stunning victory o...

Nancy Wake, known as the “White Mouse,” was one of the most daring Allied agents of World War II and a key figure in the French Resistance against Nazi Germany. Nancy Wake, known to the Gestapo as the “White Mouse,” was one of the most daring and decorated Allied agents of the Second World War. Born in 1912 in Wellington, New Zealand, and raised in Australia, she left home at a young age and event...

The Kharkov public execution in 1943 saw Nazi perpetrators and a collaborator hanged for mass atrocities committed during the German occupation of Soviet Ukraine. In December 1943, the city of Kharkov in Soviet Ukraine became the site of the first Allied war crimes trial against German personnel. Four men—Wilhelm Langheld, Hans Ritz, Reinhard Retzlaff, and Soviet collaborator Mikhail Petrovich Bul...

Stanisław Kosior, Soviet leader in Ukraine and one of the key figures behind the Holodomor, was later executed during Stalin’s Great Purge. Stanisław Kosior rose from a poor factory family to become one of the most powerful men in Stalin’s Soviet Union — and one of the central architects of one of the greatest human catastrophes of the 20th century. As First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukr...

Geli Raubal, Adolf Hitler’s niece, became the center of one of the most disturbing and mysterious scandals of the early Nazi era after her unexplained death in Munich. Before Adolf Hitler became one of history’s most destructive dictators, he was already hiding a dark secret—an obsessive, controlling, and ultimately tragic relationship with his own half-niece, Angela Maria “Geli” Raubal. Born in L...

Fyodor Truhin, a Soviet general who became a Nazi collaborator, was executed for treason after helping organize anti-Soviet forces during World War II. Fyodor Truhin was a Soviet general who became one of the most notorious Russian collaborators with Nazi Germany during World War II. A decorated Red Army officer and graduate of the Frunze Military Academy, Truhin’s life changed forever in June 194...

The Chenogne massacre saw U.S. troops execute German prisoners of war in retaliation after SS atrocities during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The massacre at Chenogne remains one of the most controversial and little-known chapters of the Second World War. In the final winter of the conflict, as Germany launched its last major offensive in the West—the Battle of the Bulge—violence on bot...

Stanisław Trzeciak, a Polish Catholic priest and Nazi collaborator, became one of the most prominent voices spreading antisemitic propaganda during the Second World War. A Catholic priest turned ideologue of hate, Stanisław Trzeciak emerged as one of Poland’s most outspoken antisemites and Nazi collaborators during the Second World War. Educated across Europe and the Middle East, Trzeciak was once...

Franz Ziereis, commandant of Mauthausen concentration camp, oversaw one of the deadliest systems of forced labor and mass killing in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Franz Ziereis was the longest-serving and most notorious commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp, presiding over one of the deadliest camp systems in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Born on 13 August 1905 in...

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister and one of the key architects of ideological hatred behind the Holocaust, became one of the most dangerous figures of the Third Reich. Joseph Goebbels stands as one of the most notorious figures of the Nazi regime—its master propagandist, Hitler’s most loyal follower, and one of the key architects of ideological hatred that fuelled the Holocaust. Born into...

Paul Ogorzow, known as the “S-Bahn Murderer,” was a serial killer who terrorized Berlin during Nazi Germany and was executed for his crimes in 1941. Paul Ogorzow, later known as the “S-Bahn Murderer,” lived a double life in Nazi Germany — one as a disciplined Reichsbahn employee and loyal Party member, and another as a violent predator stalking Berlin during the Second World War. Born in 1912 and...

Ferenc Szálasi, Hungarian fascist leader of the Arrow Cross Party, ruled Hungary under Nazi control and was executed for war crimes after World War II. Ferenc Szálasi, the notorious leader of Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross Party, played a central role in one of the darkest chapters of World War II. Installed by Nazi Germany as the “Leader of the Nation” in October 1944, Szálasi oversaw a brutal reg...

Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, a member of Japan’s imperial family and commander during the Nanjing Massacre, oversaw one of the most brutal atrocities of the Second World War yet never faced justice. In December 1937, as Japanese forces swept across China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century unfolded in Nanjing. Behind this catastrophe stood not only genera...

Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance hero who voluntarily entered Auschwitz, became one of the most extraordinary figures of the Second World War before being executed by the communist regime. Witold Pilecki was one of the most extraordinary figures of the Second World War—a man who voluntarily entered Auschwitz to expose the truth about Nazi crimes from within. Born in 1901 into a Polish noble fam...

The Majdanek public execution in 1944 saw Nazi perpetrators hanged at the site of their crimes in one of the earliest war crimes trials of World War II. Majdanek was one of the first Nazi concentration and extermination camps liberated during the Second World War, and its intact gas chambers, crematorium, and mass graves revealed the scale of the Holocaust in Poland to the world. Located on the ou...

Eight Soviet generals, including Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, were arrested and executed during Stalin’s Great Purge in one of the most devastating political purges in military history. In June 1937, the Soviet Union carried out one of the most destructive purges in military history. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky — once celebrated as the Red Army’s brightest strategist and a pioneer of modern mech...

Emmy Göring, the so-called “First Lady of the Third Reich” and wife of Hermann Göring, lived a life of luxury built on looted art and Nazi war crimes. Emmy Göring lived a life built on privilege, power, and plunder—rising from a modest actress to the woman the Nazi regime presented as the “First Lady of the Third Reich.” Born Emma Johanna Henny Sonnemann in 1893 into a wealthy Hamburg family, she...

Bronislav Kaminski, a Nazi collaborator and leader of the brutal Kaminski Brigade, became one of the most notorious figures of the Second World War. Bronislav Kaminski stands as one of the most notorious collaborators of the Second World War. His story begins far from the front lines—in the Soviet Union, where the future commander of the Kaminski Brigade survived political purges before emerging a...

The Wereth 11 massacre saw eleven Black American soldiers captured and killed by Nazi forces during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland using Blitzkrieg tactics, which combined speed, armoured units, and air strikes. When Germany launched its surprise counteroffensive on the 16th of December 1944, in what...