Early life Hermann Göring was born in Bavaria, in 1893. “His father was a member of the colonial service in Africa.” His mother abandoned him when he was six weeks old, and did not care for her child for a period of three years. At a very early age he was interested in being a soldier. He graduated in a military education centre, where he was sent at the age of sixteen. He was discovered to have a very high intelligence quotient of 138. During and after the First World War Goring remained with his troops when the First World War began in 1914. During World War One he became famous for being a war hero. During this period of time, he was an aircraft pilot. “He won numerous awards for bravery and was the last commander of the legendary Richthofen Fighter Squadron.” Between the years of 1924 and 1921, he studied in the Munich University as the war ended. From 1924 to 1929, he lived in Sweden. Before returning to Germany Göring’s behaviour was peculiar as the war emerged. Due to the different attitude, Göring became addicted to drugs, became lazy and fat. Göring was detected to be ex...
Officially credited with 80 air combat victories, 26 year old Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron”) was not only Germany’s greatest Ace, but the greatest Ace of World War 2. Despite the fact that he was killed nearly 100 years ago on 21 April 1918, the question still remains: Who killed Manfred von Richthofen? While the kill was credited to be the work of Captain Roy Brown, a Canadian pilot, there are reasons to believe that the Baron was killed at the hands of a different soldier. Sergeant Cedric Popkin, of the 24th Australian Machine Gun Company is the man who was most likely to have shot his plane down. Not only was Cedric within the range the bullet was shot from, but bullet trajectory and evidence from the official autopsy comes
This book adds to our historical knowledge because it gives a great firsthand account of the war from a man who served in the trenches. Not only that, but Jünger participated in many major battles throughout the war. Due to this, Jünger’s experiences give an unprecedented look into the life of the average soldier. This perspective also shows how the soldiers were effected by and perceived the changes and events that occurred we have discussed in class on a broader front. However, Jünger rarely expresses his opinions of the war as a whole or dwells on broader concepts such as the justification of the war. Overall Jünger’s assessment of the war is very detailed and interesting, but it lacks in explanation.
In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque reveals a dimmer sense of the cost of war. The main character in the book, German soldier, Paul Baumer, embodies the cost of war before he reaches his ultimate fate. The tactics and weapons used in World War 1 were more advanced compared to the past as a result of the industrial revolution. Germany was forced to fight a two-front war and this intensified the losses suffered by soldiers like Paul and the other men in the Second Company (Gomez 2016, German Strategy for a Two-Front War – Modern Weapons: War and the Industrial Revolution). Remarque’s observations that he shares with readers are not to World War 1 because it portrayed not only the physical but mental consequences of combat. Regardless of what era of war soldiers were involved in they were the ones who paid the price for facing so much death.
Paul Baumer is a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during World War I. He and his classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, hounded by the nationalist ranting of a feverish schoolmaster, Kantorek. Though not all of them want to enlist, they do so in order to save face. Their first stop is boot camp, where life is still laughter and games. “Where are all the medals?” asks one. “Just wait a month and I’ll have them,” comes the boisterous response. This is their last vestige of boyhood.
Imagine going on a trip a long way from home for a job, and then all of a sudden, instead of going to your job that you went for on the long trip, you have to fight the Germans? In "Going Solo" by Roald Dahl, a young man (Roald Dahl) was on a ship traveling for his job, when he was called to fight the Germans when the war broke out. It was World War Two. He was chosen to be a leader of a squadron. He meets many people on his while fighting with them and learning new things in the war with them. His life is crazy with all of the transferring and learning new things. He is learning how to fly now for Britian right after learning how to be a leader with no military experience and no fighting experience. He had tons of responsibility for his squadron.
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel born November 15 1891 in Heidenheim, Germany was one of the greatest military generals Germany has ever seen possibly one of the greatest of the entire 19th century. He would later go on to command huge Nazi military campaigns across the globe with the rank of field marshall. Ever since he was a young boy Rommel was fascinated by how things worked and their efficiency this later proved useful when it came to military strategies and techniques he used during his service . By the age of fourteen Rommel had already built a hang glider with his peers, he also managed to take a part and put back together a brand new motorcycle. His plans for the future were to become an engineer considering his interest in mechanics and technology but took a change of course when he accepted his fathers wishes to join the military. At the age of 18 he joined the local 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment as a Fähnrich, this was the start of his legendary military legacy. Two years later he completed officer school he graduated as a second lieutenant. When chaos in the north eastern hemisphere broke out with the Assassination of the archduke Fran Ferdinan. Germany along with most of the European countries entered the war because of their military alliances with one another in August 1914, which would later become the first world war ever fought in history. This is where Rommel found his reputation in battle as his battalion fought they lost a quarter their officers. Rommel was constantly moving to the front to lead the fight. In a battle with the french Rommel fired a shot downing two french men he quickly reloaded his weapon and went to take...
Einstein’s education was unconventional for a person who was to become a success. Early on, he was failing a large number of his courses; and he transferred from a German school at age fifteen to a Swiss school, so that he could avoid compulsive military service in the German armed forces. By the age of sixteen, he officially became a school dropout. His grade school principle made the statement to his parents, “it didn’t matter what profession the boy prepared for because he wo...
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA: William Hermanns was born on the 23rd of July 1895 in Koblenz, Germany to a merchant family. His parents were Michael and Bertha. Mr. Hermanns was highly educated with an M.A. from the University of Berlin and he continued school to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt. His career consisted of being a German soldier during World War I from 1915 to 1920.
The Forgotten Soldier is not a book concerning the tactics and strategy of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Nor does it analyze Nazi ideology and philosophy. Instead, it describes the life of a typical teenage German soldier on the Eastern Front. And through this examined life, the reader receives a first hand account of the atrocious nature of war. Sajer's book portrays the reality of combat in relation to the human physical, psychological, and physiological condition.
Adolf Eichmann was born on March 19, 1906 near Cologne, Germany, into a middle class Protestant family. His family moved to Austria early in Eichmann’s life, following the death of his mother. He spent his childhood in Linz, Austria, which also is the hometown of Adolf Hitler. As a child, Eichmann was teased about his looks and dark complexion, and was given a nickname by his cla...
The contrast between Hitler’s savage effectiveness, drive and ambition later in his life and this period of drift and passive homelessness has been difficult, biographically, to assimilate. Langer interprets the distinction as a qualitative difference in personality brought about by the psychiatric illness a biological depression. Thus for three or four months between 1909 and 1910 Hitler became a different man, subjectively depressed and hopeless and biologically with altered brain chemistry that materially altered his personality and characteristic way of reacting to his environment. Within this hypothesis – his depression may have been triggered by the combination of the death of his mother and his twice being rejected by the Viennese Academy of Art combined with the narcissistic wound of being penniless in a city with a prominent and affluent middle class with whom he identified but was excluded from, following the drying up of his allowances.
Roberts-Pedersen, Elizabeth. "A Weak Spot In The Personality? Conceptualising 'War Neurosis' In British Medical Literature Of The Second World War." Australian Journal Of Politics & History 58.3 (2012): 408-420. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
As the use of methamphetamines spread throughout the civilian sphere of Germany, the military was taking notice of its possible uses in combat. One of the main proponents of methamphetamine use was Dr. Otto Ranke. At the age of thirty-eight, he was appointed to be the director of the Research Institute of Defence Physiology. Physiology was a relatively undervalued discipline during this era, but its use in warfare was expanding. Soldiers were starting to be seen as almost as advanced, sentient machines and it was Ranke’s job to keep the machines oiled and running good. His researched looked to get the most out of the men that made up the soldiers of the Nazi army. While doing this he came to the conclusion that becoming tired or spent was a major
Einstein was born in 1879 in Germany. When he was a small child he didn’t show any high intelligence. In fact he even took a while to learn how to speak. He was a smart kid but it took a while for people to notice his intelligence. He would ask questions his own teachers couldn’t answer and he even taught himself calculus. He took an entrance exam for Swiss Federal Polytechnic School and failed. He failed but he was still admitted a year later. While doing his regular work he also studied physics on his own. He applied for an academic position but was rejected. Why would they reject such an intelligent man? But they did and in 1902 he was hired as a patent examiner in Berne. In 1905 his intelligence came out of the dark. He invented the theory E=mc2 that means (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) and the theory of light.
As the power of the Nazis rose, so did their desire to have a super human perception. Hitler portrayed himself as a tireless workaholic that only wanted German greatness. He built a society that excelled in athletics, academics, engineering, architecture, wholesomeness, virtuous, and above all, military might. However, Germany’s military was limited by the Treaty of Versailles, and had to build from and almost nonexistent force. Hitler needed an edge, and he found it in the form of performance enhancing drugs. And the drug of choice was pervitin, something available to the German public since the late 1930’s. Germans in all facets of life consumed drugs pervitin on a daily basis, it became the German wonder drug.