Hitler's Vengeance Weapons: V 2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2)

They were Nazi Germany's weapons of revenge. A marvel far ahead of their time. A testimony to German excellence and inventive genius. The Vergeltungswaffe. The V weapons. Vengeance weapons. V1 was the father of the modern drones. V2 was the first missile ever made.

The ballistic missile A4 (V2)

The V-2 rocket (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, i.e. retaliation weapon 2), technical name Aggregat-4 (A4), was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp.

General Wehrmacht Army Signal Erich Felgibel congratulates members Wernher von Braun at Peenemunde on the successful launch of the V-2. October 3, 1942 General Felgibel (left) shakes hands with Gen. Walter Dornbergeru (center). To the right Felgibel - General Janssen. From left to right in back row: Werner von Braun, the captain and Dr. Gerhard Shtoltsel Reyzig.

The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known human artifact to enter outer space. It was the progenitor of all modern rockets, including those used by the United States and Soviet Union's space programs.

Two V2 being launched in Antwerp

During the aftermath of World War II the American, Soviet and British governments all gained access to the V-2's technical designs and the actual German scientists responsible for creating the rockets, via Operation Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim and Operation Backfire.

London. After a V2 fell.


The weapon was presented by Nazi propaganda as a retaliation for the bombers that attacked ever more German cities from 1942 until Germany surrendered. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets during the war, mostly London and later Antwerp. The attacks resulted in the death of an estimated 7,250 military personnel and civilians, while 12,000 forced labourers were killed producing the weapons.red.

The launch trailer of the V2


HOW THE V2 WAS BORN

In the late 1920s, a young Wernher von Braun acquired a copy of Hermann Oberth's book, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space). Starting in 1930, he attended the Technical University of Berlin, where he assisted Oberth in liquid-fueled rocket motor tests. Von Braun was working on his creative doctorate when the Nazi Party gained power in Germany. An artillery captain, Walter Dornberger, arranged an Ordnance Department research grant for von Braun, who from then on worked next to Dornberger's existing solid-fuel rocket test site at Kummersdorf.Von Braun's thesis, Construction, Theoretical, and Experimental Solution to the Problem of the Liquid Propellant Rocket (dated 16 April 1934), was kept classified by the German army and was not published until 1960.By the end of 1934, his group had successfully launched two rockets that reached heights of 2.2 and 3.5 km (1.4 and 2.2 mi)

At the time, Germany was highly interested in American physicist Robert H. Goddard's research. Before 1939, German scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly with technical questions. Von Braun used Goddard's plans from various journals and incorporated them into the building of the Aggregat (A) series of rockets.

A V2 fell here


A production line was nearly ready at Peenemünde when the Operation Hydra attack caused the Germans to move production to the Mittelwerk in the Kohnstein where 5,200 V-2 rockets were built. Period of Production Production Up to 15 Sep 1944, 190015 Sep to 29 Oct 1944 90029 Oct to 24 Nov 1944 60024 Nov to 15 Jan 1945 110015 Jan to 15 Feb 1945 700Total 5200

The devastation wrought by a V2 in London


DEALING WITH THE V2 MENACE

Unlike the V-1, the V-2's speed and trajectory made it invulnerable to anti-aircraft guns and fighters, as it dropped from an altitude of 100–110 km (62–68 mi) at up to four times the speed of sound (approximately 3550 km/h). A plan was proposed whereby the missile would be detected by radar, its terminal trajectory calculated, and the area along that trajectory saturated by large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. The plan was dropped after operations research indicated that the likely number of malfunctioning artillery shells falling to the ground would do more damage than the V-2 itself.

The defence against the V-2 campaign was to destroy the launch infrastructure—expensive in terms of bomber resources and casualties—or to cause the Germans to "aim" at the wrong place through disinformation. The British were able to convince the Germans to direct V-1s and V-2s aimed at London to less populated areas east of the city. This was done by sending false impact reports via the German espionage network in Britain, which was controlled by the British (the Double Cross System).

There is a record of one V-2, fortuitously observed at launch from a passing American B-24 Liberator, being shot down by .50 caliber machine-gun fire. The limitations of any countermeasures can be understood by two facts: 20 seconds after launch, a V-2 was out of reach; the time from launch to impact in London being merely 3 minutes. 

Ultimately the most successful countermeasure was the Allied advance that forced the launchers back beyond range. 

V2 in London

November 27, 1944. Antwerp. A V2 fell here.

A V2 being launched

A V2 on its way

An aerial view of the platform from where a V2 was being launched

A V2 in 1944

A V2 being transported to its launch pad

A London boy sits in the ruins of his home. A V2 destroyed it.

At the crash site of German guided missile BV-143 August 27, 1941

Salvaging the parts of a V2

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Hitler's Vengeance Weapons: V1 (Vergeltungswaffe 1)

V1 and V2 were attempts of a desperate Nazi Germany to turn the inexorable tide of war in its favour. They killed many people and gave the Allies a big headache. But ultimately Hitler's Vengeance weapons made little difference in the war. 


 Now if Einstein had not fled Germany...If the Germans had made the atom bomb before its defeat....One shudders at the thought. 


V 1  and V1 made history. If not in the hands of the Nazi Germans. V1 is the father of the modern Drones being used by the Americans in Afghanistan. V2 is the mother of the ICBM.


 Below is V1. Vengeance Weapon 1. Vergeltungswaffe 1

 A V1 being rolled out

The first V-1 was launched at London on 13 June 1944, one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied landing in Europe. At its peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied forces. This caused the remaining V-1s to be directed at the port of Antwerp and other targets in Belgium, with 2,448 V-1s being launched. The attacks stopped when the last site was overrun on 29 March 1945. In total, the V-1 attacks caused 22,892 casualties (almost entirely civilians).

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The intended operational altitude was originally set at 2,750 m (9,000 ft). However, repeated failures of a barometric fuel-pressure regulator led to it being changed in May 1944, halving the operational height, thereby bringing V-1s into range of the Bofors guns commonly used by Allied AA units.

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Almost 30,000 V-1s were made; by March 1944, they were produced in 350 hours (including 120 for the autopilot), at a cost of just 4% of a V-2, which delivered a comparable payload. Approximately 10,000 were fired at England; 2,419 reached London, killing about 6,184 people and injuring 17,981. The greatest density of hits were received by Croydon, on the southeast fringe of London. Antwerp, Belgium was hit by 2,448 V-1s from October 1944 to March 1945.

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By September 1944, the V-1 threat to England was temporarily halted when the launch sites on the French coast were overrun by the advancing Allied armies. 4,261 V-1s had been destroyed by fighters, anti-aircraft fire and barrage balloons. The last enemy action of any kind on British soil occurred on 29 March 1945, when a V-1 struck Datchworth in Hertfordshire.

 German Heinkel bomber He-111 carrying a flying bomb, V1 on its external sling





THE ALLIES HAPPILY LAPPED UP THE V1 TECHNOLOGY

After the war, the armed forces of France, the Soviet Union and the United States experimented with the V-1. 

FranceThe French produced copies of the V-1 for use as target drones. These were called the CT-10 and were smaller than the V-1 with twin tail surfaces. The CT 10 could be ground launched using a rocket booster or from an aircraft. Some CT-10s were sold to the UK and USA. 

Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union captured V-1s when they overran the Blizna test range in Poland. The 10Kh was their copy of the V-1, later called Izdeliye 10. Initial tests began in March 1945 at a test range in Tashkent with further launches from ground sites and from aircraft of improved versions continuing into the late 1940s. The inaccuracy of the guidance system compared to new methods such as beam-riding and TV guidance saw development end in the early 1950s. The Soviets also worked on a piloted attack aircraft based on the Argus pulse jet engine of the V-1 which began as a German project, the Junkers EF 126 Lilli, in the latter stages of the war. The Soviet development of the Lilli ended in 1946 after a crash that killed the test pilot. 

United States A KGW-1 being fired from USS Cusk in 1951 Main article: JB-2 Loon The United States reverse-engineered the V-1 in 1944 from salvaged parts recovered in England during June. By 8 September, the first of thirteen complete prototype Republic-Ford JB-2 Loons, were assembled at Republic Aviation. The United States JB-2 was different from the German V-1 in only the smallest of dimensions. The wing span was only 2.5 in (6.4 cm) wider and the length was extended less than 2 ft (0.61 m). The difference gave the JB-2 60.7 square feet (5.64 m2) of wing area versus 55 square feet (5.1 m2) for the V-1. A navalized version, designated KGW-1, was developed to be launched from LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank) as well as escort carriers (CVEs) and long-range 4-engine reconnaissance aircraft. Waterproof carriers for the KGW-1 were developed for launches of the missile from surfaced submarines. Both the USAAF JB-2 and Navy KGW-1 were put into production and were planned to be used in the Allied invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall), however the atomic bombings of Japan negated its use. After World War II, the JB-2/KGW-1 played a significant role in the development of more advanced surface-to-surface tactical missile systems such as the MGM-1 Matador and later MGM-13 Mace.

Preparing to fire a a V1

A weeping British girl is carried out of the wreckage of a house destroyed by the V1

German doodlebug (cruise missile) V-1 (V-1) in flight

Conveyor in an underground factory for assembling the plane of the projectile V-1. Germany, in 1945

This V-1 broke through the defense and fell on London.

This V1 fell in the English countryside

V1 in flight

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1945: As The Soviet Army Closed In Slowly.......Last Stages Of WW2 (LARGE IMAGES)

As the 1945 began, the Russian army inexorably began to close into Germany. The result was foregone. But for the Nazi regime and the German soldiers there was only one option....To fight on...Desperately... Till one died. Surrender was just not an option.

Below is the story of the dying months on the Eastern Front of WW2. The Russians had just stepped onto German soil....The tragic, brutal story begins.....

Staff officers of the 1st Panzer Parachute First Division "Hermann Goering" inspect the battlefield on the outskirts of the German city of Bautzen.  From heavily damaged buildings can be seen how serious were fighting for the city. April 26, 1945. Amongst the destroyed buildings lies a  self-propelled gun ISU-122 Soviet-made with a Polish eagle on the armor.  Behind the self-propelled gun is the body of a dead crew member.

VIDEO: DESPERATE GERMAN SOLDIERS FIGHT ON IN 1945

Russian soldiers listen to one of them playing the piano. Breslau. March 1945.

Russian soldiers study a map. District River Neisse. April17, 1945

Those who escaped from Breslau crossed the Neisse river at Görlitz. Conditions were so bad there that it has been described as ‘the worst city in Germany’ at the time. In one appalling incident thirty women were driven into a barn and raped. When one refused she was shot. The local Soviet commander heard about the atrocity and went to the barn and shot four of his own men. In another incident eight Russian soldiers died after drinking methylated spirits. Forty more were struck blind.

Wounded Russian soldiers await an ambulance

Russian soldiers engaged in street fighting. Glogau (Glogow) April 1945. The town was made into a stronghold by the Nazi government in 1945 during World War II. Glogau was besieged for six weeks by the Soviet Red Army and was 95% destroyed in the ensuing fighting. The Russian carries a German MP 40 machine gun, which was standard issue to SS soldiers

 German civilians trudge back home

 A Russian sign-board on the Polish-German border. 1945

 A T-34 tank trundles on the street of a German village

A SU 76 crew. The SU-76 (Samokhodnaya Ustanovka 76) was a Soviet self-propelled gun used during and after World War II.

 The legend. General Konev (left) of the Ist Ukrainian Front. He and Zhukov were the two top Russian general who led the assault onto Germany in the dying moments of the war. Along with Konev is General Lelyushenko, commander of the 4th Tank Army. They are at the Poland-German border, Neisse area. April 1945

 Lower Silesia. March 1945. Germans march along with Panther tanks

 March 1, 1945. Dead German soldiers lie alongside a King Tiger tank. Pomerania.

HISTORY SIDESHOW: POMERANIA

Following the empire's defeat in World War I, Pomerelia was transformed into the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. Germany's Province of Pomerania was expanded in 1938 to include northern parts of the former Province of Posen–West Prussia, and in 1939 the annexed Polish Corridor became part of the wartime Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. The Nazis deported the Pomeranian Jews to a reservation near Lublinand, in Pomerelia, mass murdered Jews, as well as Poles to some extent, through Nazi Germany's anti-semitic and untermensch pogroms.

After Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II, the German–Polish border was shifted west to the Oder–Neisse line and all of Pomerania was under Soviet military control.The German population of the areas east of the line was expelled, and the area was resettled primarily with Poles (some themselves expellees from former eastern Poland) and some Ukrainians (resettled under Operation Vistula) and Jews. Most of Western Pomerania (Vorpommern) remained in Germany and today forms the eastern part of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, while the Polish part of the region is divided between the West Pomeranian and Pomeranian voivodeships, with their capitals in Szczecin (Stettin) and Gdańsk (Danzig), respectively.

Preparing to attack Berlin. Russian soldiers build a pontoon bridge on the river Oder. 1945

A German Heavy half-track tractor tows a Sd.Kfz.7 88-mm anti-aircraft gun FlaK on a city street of Stettin. March 1945


INTERESTING HISTORY SIDELIGHTS: STETTIN; THE CITY GERMANY LOST....
Source: Yahoo Answers

Stettin belonged to Germany until 1945 as a part of the state of Prussia, province of Pommern. After WW II the German territories eastern the Oder-Neisse line were given under Polish administration. Notwithstanding Stettin is located western of the Oder-River it was given to Polish administration too, to give to Poland the whole of the Oder-mouth into Baltic Sea. The Polish drove away the Germans from their homes and settled Polish population there as they did in the other German territories eastern of the Oder river. So it is now a Polish town: Sczezin. By treaty along with German reunification 1990 Germany had to acknowledge its territorial losses to Poland.

The whole thing has to do with the western shift of Poland by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, to leave to Russia the eastern territories of Poland (which in reality were Belorussian and Litowian)which they had got by the Hitler-Stalin-Treaty 1939 and to compensate Poland with German territories. For decades there had been disagreement between the Federal Republic of Germany (Western Germany) as to the "temporary" state of Polish administration of German territories, which Poland had always claimed as definitive.

Hell on Earth. German civilians flee Danzig as it burns...March 1945

German soldiers in an armored personnel carrier patrol the outskirts of a town in Germany. March 1945

Roadside signboard in Russian in Germany. Spring 1945

 The soldiers of a Soviet assault battalion in combat in the ruins of the tram depot in Breslau. March 1945

The soldiers of the Waffen SS look at a destroyed Soviet tank T-34-85. in the German city of Guben. February 1945.

German defenders discuss how to defend Pirits in Pomerania. February 1945. Many of them are boys.

Germans walk past a Russian T-34-85 tank. Pomerania. February, 1945

Young German soldiers walk down the street in the town of Lauban in Silesia. March 30, 1945.

A Russian gun fires in Danzig. 1945

The Russians prepare to move to Berlin

A German soldier armed with a Faustpatrone going to the front. Still cheerful! Brave man!


WHAT WAS A FAUSTPATRONE?

A forerunner of the Panzerfaust was the Faustpatrone (literally 'fist cartridge').

Much smaller in physical appearance, the Faustpatrone was actually heavier than the better-known Panzerfaust. Development of the Faustpatrone started in the summer of 1942 at the German company HASAG with the development of a smaller prototype called Gretchen ("little Gretel") by a team headed by Dr. Heinrich Langweiler in Leipzig. The basic concept was that of a recoilless gun; neither the Faustpatrone, nor its successor the Panzerfaust were rockets.

 The IS 2 tank in eastern Pomerania. March 1945

The Iosif Vissarionovich tank (or IS tank, also known as the Joseph Stalin tank), was a heavy tank developed by the Soviet Union during World War II and first used in the Kursk area in September 1943. The tanks in the series are also sometimes called JS.

The heavy tank was designed with thick armour to counter the German 88 mm guns, and carried a main gun that was capable of defeating the German Tiger and Panther tanks. It was mainly a breakthrough tank, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-2 was put into service in April 1944, and was used as a spearhead in the Battle of Berlin by the Red Army in the final stage of the war.

The Russian air force dominated the skies totally. Luftwaffe was finished. Here Soviet planes fly over Germany.

 Russian troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front occupy Mühlhausen (now the Polish city Mlynary)

A Russian soldier fires from a tank at Germans at Danzig. March 28, 1945

A German town. German soldiers surrender to Soviet troops

The final destination. Russian soldiers look across the river Oder towards Berlin. March 1945

 A short reversal of fortune. Russian soldiers of 311th Rifle Division in the German city Altdam, captured after heavy fighting during March 14-20, 1945.

Russians pose at Muhlhausen

Russian soldiers move rapidly towards Berlin in armored troop carriers

A German soldier hanged in Koenigsberg. February 1945 for looting. The board says "those who loot will be executed".

German POW in Koenigsberg. April 1945

As the russians approached Germany the German civilians fled from East Prussia. Here German refugees get aboard the Hans Albrecht Wedel, the air traffic control ship of the Luftwaffe at Pillau. February 1945


MORE ON PILLAU


As the Red Army entered East Prussia, more than 450,000 refugees were ferried from Pillau to central and western Germany. Pillau was eventually captured by Soviets on April 25, 1945. After the war, this part of East Prussia passed to the Soviet Union, and the German inhabitants were expelled. During the Russification campaign, the town's name was changed to Baltiysk in 1946.

The German 88mm artillery waits for the inevitable Russian onslaught. East Prussia. February 1945

The capitulation of the Germans in the spit-Frisch Nerung. 1945.

FRISCH NERUNG

The Vistula Spit (German Die Frische Nehrung, Polish Mierzeja Wiślana , Russian Балтийская коса Baltiyskaya Kosa ) is a narrow spit of land ( spit ) of about 70 km long and several hundred meters in width (maximum width 1.8 km), extending in a northeasterly direction and the Vistula Lagoon of the open Baltic Sea separates. Across the Vistula Spit is the boundary between Poland ( Pomeranian Voivodeship ) and Russia ( Kaliningrad Oblast ).

At the end of the Second World War was over the frozen lagoon and the Vistula Spit one of the main route of refugees from East Prussia to the west.

Waiting for the Russians with little hope. German defensive positions on the outskirts of Konigsberg.

German landing craft, evacuating troops , enters the harbor of Pillau, March 1945.

Belonging to the 5th Armored Division tank Pz.Kpfw. V Ausf. G «Panther" on the street of Goldap. East Prussia, in November 1944.


MORE ON GOLDAP

During World War II Goldap was planned by the German staff as one of the strongholds guarding the rest of East Prussia from the Red Army on the Eastern Front. As a result of heavy fighting for the city and the regions directly east of it, in August and September 1944, 90% of the town was yet again destroyed. According to German war-time reports, about 50 civilians were murdered (some raped) by the Red Army on its initial entry into Goldap in October 1944. It was the first town of the German Reich to fall. However, in November 1944 the Wehrmacht reconquered Goldap and would be able to keep it until the end of December of the same year. In January, the German positions in far-eastern East Prussia broke down completely.

German sentry on the bridge in the center of Konigsberg. February 1945.

Parts of the German 5th Army waits. in tanks "Panther" and APCs in the district of Kattenau, East Prussia, 14 January 1945.

The Russian army managed to subdue the German forces at Pillau only on April 25, 1945

 War at Goldap. German soldiers fire at Russian position at Goldap railway station. November 1944.


VIDEO

WW2 footage. German Wartime Newsreel (Die Deutsche Wochenschau Nr. 741, 16-Nov-1944) The Gumbinnen Operation, also known as the Goldap Operation (or Goldap-Gumbinnen Operation), was a Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front late in 1944, in which forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front attempted to penetrate the borders of East Prussia. The offensive failed, due to strong resistance by the Wehrmacht. As a result it is largely known through German accounts of the defence and because of the atrocities that were alleged to have been committed by troops of the 11th Guards Army, the so-called Nemmersdorf massacre. On 16 October, the 5th and 11th Guards Armies went onto the offensive and initially penetrated some 11 km into the German defensive belt. The flanking armies commenced operations the next day, by which time units of the 11th Guards Army had crossed the East Prussian border. The Soviet troops ran into extremely strong resistance, however. It took them four days to penetrate the initial tactical defences, while the second defence line was so strong that Chernyakhovsky was compelled to commit the 2nd Guards Tank Corps to break it. Casualties were extremely heavy. On 20 October, the second line was ruptured by the 11th Guards Army and 2nd Guards Tank Corps east of Gumbinnen, defended by the guns of the 18th Anti-Aircraft Division and the Fallschirm-Panzerkorps Hermann Göring, which had been redeployed in the area to counter the Soviet advance.

BBC

German soldiers drop their arms before being evacuated from Pillau. April 1945

Germans at Goldap. November 1944

The Nemmersdorf Massacre. A trailer of the rape and atrocities that the appraoching Russian army would commit in Germany.




THE NEMMERSDORF MASSACRE: BRUTAL RUSSIANS

Nemmersdorf in East Prussia (today's Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast) was one of the first pre-war ethnic German villages to fall to the advancing Red Army in World War 2. On October 22, 1944 it was the scene of a massacre perpetrated by the Soviet soldiers against German civilians and French and Belgian noncombattants. Determining the facts has aroused controversy. Scholars now generally believe that while the massacre occurred the Nazi Propaganda Ministry embellished the incident for propaganda purposes.

The 2nd Battalion, 25th Guards Tank Brigade, belonging to the 2nd Guards Tank Corps of the 11th Guards Army, crossed the Angrapa bridge and established a bridgehead on the western bank of the river. German forces tried to retake the bridge, but several attacks were repelled by the Soviet tanks and the supporting infantry. During an air attack, a number of Soviet soldiers took shelter in an improvised bunker already occupied by 14 local men and women. 

According to the testimony of the seriously injured Gerda Meczulat, when a Soviet officer arrived and ordered everybody out, the Russians shot and killed the German civilians at close range. During the night, the Soviet 25th Tank Brigade was ordered to retreat back across the river and take defensive positions along the Rominte. The Wehrmacht regained control of Nemmersdorf and discovered the massacre. 

 German authorities organized an international commission to investigate, headed by Estonian Hjalmar Mäe and other representatives of neutral countries, such as Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The commission heard the report from a medical commission. It reported that all the dead women had been raped (they ranged in age from eight to 84). The Nazi Propaganda Ministry,(separately) used the Völkischer Beobachter and the cinema Wochenschau) to accuse the Soviet Army of having killed tens of civilians at Nemmersdorf and summarily executed about 50 French and Belgian noncombatant POWs,that had been ordered to take care of thoroughbred horses, but had been blocked by the bridge. The civilians were allegedly killed by blows with shovels or gun butts. Karl Potrek of Königsberg, leader of a Volkssturm company present on the retaking of the village, testified in a 1953 report: 

"In the farmyard stood a cart, to which more naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position...Near a large inn, the 'Roter Krug', stood a barn and to each of its two doors a naked woman was nailed through the hands, in a crucified posture....In the dwellings we found a total of 72 women, including children, and one old man, 74, all dead....Some babies had their heads bashed in." 

The former chief of staff of the German Fourth Army, Major General Erich Dethleffsen, testified on July 5, 1946 before an American tribunal in Neu-Ulm. He said: 

"When in October, 1944, Russian units temporarily entered Nemmersdorf, they tortured the civilians, specifically they nailed them to barn doors, and then shot them. A large number of women were raped and then shot. During this massacre, the Russian soldiers also shot some fifty French prisoners of war. Within forty-eight hours the Germans re-occupied the area

 The Nazi Propaganda Ministry disseminated a graphic description of the events with the intention to inspire the German soldiers. On the home front, civilians reacted immediately, with an increase in the number of volunteers joining the Volkssturm.A larger number of civilians responded with panic, and started to leave the area en masse. 


To many Germans, "Nemmersdorf" is a symbol of war crimes committed by the Red Army, and an example of the worst behavior in Eastern Germany. Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, the post-war co-publisher of the weekly Die Zeit, at the time of the reports lived in the village of Quittainen (Kwitany) in western East Prussia, near Preussisch Holland (Pasłęk). She wrote in 1962 that: "In those years one was so accustomed to everything that was officially published or reported being lies that at first I took the pictures from Nemmersdorf to be falsified. Later, however, it turned out that that was not the case."

 Most historians now generally believe that the fact that a massacre by Soviet forces is beyond reasonable dispute, although the accounts by the German Propaganda Ministry embellished the massacre for propaganda purposes.

Germans surrender in East Prussia

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Apocalypse: Battle of Berlin: April 1945 (LARGE IMAGES)

1945: The Russians Were Coming: East PrussiaAnd Battle Of KOENIGSBURG