by Ulrike BrandtLudolf Stamer was 15 years old - actually he too should have defended his hometown. But he fled. The town of Bleckede - 25 kilometers east of Lüneburg - was spared the fighting of the Second World War for a long time. But that changed within a few days in April 1945:With its locatio
by Lars GröningThe honorary cemetery on the outskirts of Lüneburg was reconstructed on the initiative of victims associations and the Lüneburg History Workshop. In 1956 the resting place of the dead from April 1945 was leveled. On April 7, 1945, Allied bombers attack the Lüneburg freight yard. The
Since 1992, a simple memorial in the Triftanlagen near the Celle train station has commemorated the massacre. Celle on the afternoon of April 8, 1945:A freight train with open wagons pulls into the station, on board around 3,400 prisoners from the Salzgitter-Drütte and Holzen concentration camps. M
British soldiers take Osnabrück at the beginning of April 1945 without resistance. The SS issued orders to the Volkssturm to defend the city. The people of Osnabrück ignored the order. April 4, 1945:Allied troops invade Germany from the west. Five weeks before the German Wehrmacht surrenders to the
Shortly before the end of the war, the Swedish Red Cross organized the liberation of around 15,000 concentration camp prisoners in secret talks. On April 20, 1945 alone, 4,200 inmates were evacuated from Neuengamme. by Britta Probol At the last minute, the message came from the Swedish Ministry of
by Irene Altenmüller, NDR.deThe bodies of around two million people were buried by the Nazis in mass graves like this one in Mirny (Ukraine). It was a heinous crime:Between 1942 and 1944, the National Socialists had countless mass graves opened along the Eastern Front and the bodies of hundreds of
In one of the largest trials of the German post-war period, the Nazi crimes at Auschwitz were tried in Frankfurt from 1963. At the same time, the public debated the statute of limitations for National Socialist acts. by Ulrike Bosse, NDR Info The Christmas market in Frankfurt, wonderful. And we st
In March 1946, Rudolf Höß, the former commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, was discovered in hiding near Flensburg. His captor:a young Jew who hunts Nazis for the British after the war. by Oliver Diedrich, NDR.de Ten months after the end of the Second World War:late in the evening on Ma
On March 18, 1946, the first trial against those responsible for the Neuengamme concentration camp before a British military court begins in Hamburgs Curiohaus. The accused show no remorse by Irene Altenmüller In the so-called Curiohaus trial, 14 senior SS men are accused, including the last comma
The Hamburg company Tesch &Stabenow supplied concentration camps with the poison gas Zyklon B. With the trial of the bosses from March 1, 1946, entrepreneurs are brought before the court for their involvement in the Holocaust for the first time. by Irene Altenmüller The cans of deadly poison gas w
Nuremberg Trials:A Milestone in International Law The Nuremberg trials began on November 20, 1945, and with them an important chapter in the legal and historical coming to terms with the crimes against humanity in World War II. A conversation with the historian Norbert Frei. Mr. Frei, the Nurember
The Otto family business is one of the largest mail order companies in the world - now largely in the online business. It all started very small - in a barracks in Hamburg in 1949. by Beatrix Hasse The right idea at the right time:On August 17, 1949, entrepreneur Werner Otto started his mail order
In March 1949, Max Herz and Carl Tchilling-Hiryan founded a roasted coffee company in Hamburg. Her revolutionary business idea is to send coffee by post. Today, Tchibo is a retail giant. The two merchants Max Herz and Carl Tchilling-Hiryan begin their joint project in Hamburg in 1949 by sending Tch
Hardly any props, no studio, rubble everywhere:Under these conditions, the first film by Studio Hamburgs predecessor Real-Film, founded on January 10, 1947, was made after the war. The company now produces series such as Großstadtrevier. by Kathrin Weber A tiny room in a former dance hall as a stu
The white death in the famine winter of 1946/47 The Second World War is over, Germany is occupied, the cities have been bombed. Then, in 1946, the coldest winter of the century set in. Several hundred thousand people die in Germany alone. Around 55 million dead:That is the horrifying balance of tw
In November 1946, people hold the news magazine This Week from Hanover in their hands for the first time. One of the brains behind it is Rudolf Augstein, who soon after renames the paper Der Spiegel. by Felix Klabe November 16, 1946 - Not much is left of Hanover after the Allied bombing raids. Whi
A new era for Hamburg begins on October 13, 1946:In a largely destroyed city, the population votes for the Hamburg Parliament for the first time since the end of the Second World War. by Marc-Oliver Rehrmann, NDR.de Not enough plywood for the ballot boxes, not enough pencils for the crosses on the
After the end of the war, the Allies had the City of the KdF-Wagen renamed Wolfsburg in 1945. The Volkswagen production facility quickly became the VW city par excellence. 50 years ago it achieved the status of a major city. When you hear Wolfsburg, you think of Volkswagen:There is hardly any other
Benno Ohnesorg was born in Hanover on October 15, 1940. A police officer shoots the student at a demonstration in Berlin in 1967. Ohnesorgs death becomes a symbol for the increasing politicization of the student movement. Who is behind the symbol figure? by Dirk Hempel In the early summer of 1967,
Destroyed cities, people in need:After the Second World War, Germany is fighting for survival. The country also has to reorganize itself politically. What was the development like in the north? Hunger, cold and a lack of housing made the first years after the end of the war in 1945 a struggle for s
One more year the Hollywood factory presents us with another film based on this iconic character from the European Middle Ages. The search for the protagonist that hides this legend has unleashed countless theories, and the historical figures that could inspire this monarch are a few. The first of t
The rates of the Anglo-Saxon postal system at the beginning of the 19th century depended on the distance between the origin and the destination of the letter as well as the number of sheets of paper used. In fact, the fee was doubled if two sheets were used in one letter. As is often the case, diff
Hera was one of the most important goddesses of Greek religiosity. She was Zeus wife and was marked by her jealousy of her husband and her vindictiveness. Ivy she was an important goddess of Greek religiosity, known for being the divine representative of women, marriage, family and birth. She was t
The Egyptian campaign is a military expedition to the East led by General Bonaparte from 1798 to 1800, as part of the fight against England, the only power to maintain hostilities against Revolutionary France. Appointed by the Directory to lead the expedition to Egypt in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte sec