German Soldiers. WEHRMACHT. Rare Images: Part 5

A German 50 mm anti-tank gun hits a T-34 tank

The humn side of the Wehrmacht. A German officer feeds a squirrel

A German V-2 rocket on the launchpad

VIDEO: V-2 ROCKETS: THE VENGEANCE WEAPONS

A German anti-aircraft gun

Mortarmen of the Air Division of the Luftwaffe

German soldiers have a bite to eat

Germans use a anti-aircraft gun against Italian partisans

Germans drinking beer in France. January 1941

A german machine gun in action in Africa

Religious ceremony Nazi style

CHRISTIANITY IN NAZI GERMANY

The main opposition to Hitler came from a group of young pastors led by Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoffer and Heinrich Gruber. Initially the main complaint was the decision by Adolf Hitler to appoint Ludwig Muller, as the country's Reich Bishop of the Protestant Church. With the support of Karl Barth, a professor of theology at Bonn University, in May, 1934, these rebel pastors formed what became known as the Confessional Church. Over the next few years hundreds of these pastors were sent to concentration camps and some were executed.

In 1934 Michael von Faulhaber, the Archbishop of Munich, published Judenum, Christentum, Germanentum, that defended the principles of racial tolerance and humanity and called for the people of Germany to respect the Jewish religion. However, Faulhaber, and other Catholic bishops, made no open protest against the atrocities being committed against the Jews in Germany.

Faulhaber occasionally condemned racial intolerance in his sermons and during Crystal Night he provided a truck for the Chief Rabbi of Munich to salvage religious objects from his synagogue before it was destroyed by the Nazis in November, 1938.

In 1938 Faulhaber supported Anschluss and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. He also held a special mass in November 1939 to celebrate Hitler's escape from Johann Elser's assassination attempt.

Pope Pius XI condemned the Nuremberg Laws in July, 1938, and was preparing an encyclical against anti-Semitism, but died in 1939 before it could be completed. His successor, Pius XII decided not to speak out against the atrocities being carried out in Germany.

In 1941 August von Galen, the Archbishop of Munster, spoke out in a sermon against the Nazi practice of euthanasia (the killing of those considered by the Nazis as genetically unsuitable). Adolf Hitler wanted Galen arrested but Joseph Goebbels warned against this as Galen was a popular religious leader. It is claimed that Galen's sermon inspired the formation of the anti-Nazi White Rose group.

Martin Niemöller spent the Second World War in Dachau Concentration Camp. As he was a First World War hero Adolf Hitler gave orders for him to be left alive. His colleague, Dietrich Bonhoffer, was arrested in April, 1943 and was charged with planning the July Plot. He was held in Buchenwald Concentration Camp until being executed in April, 1945.

A wounded SS man. Look at his helmet. He was lucky.

This man was lucky too.

Cleaning a dugout. Germans act against guerrilla fighters

An SS Division in action during Operation Citadel during Battle of Kursk

This man was lucky too!

A religious ceremony

One can see the adrenaline pumping in the man.

German mortar in action

VIDEO: GERMAN GUNS IN ACTION AT SEVASTOPOL

Aiming at an enemy airplane

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-- German soldiers: Part 1
-- German soldiers: Part 2
-- Rare Images Of The Wehrmacht: Part 3
-- Wehrmacht: Part 4

-- Wehramcht (German Soldiers): Part 6 
-- Wehrmacht: Part 7

-- Wehrmacht: Part 8