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    Belsen and Its Liberation
    Belsen and Its Liberation
    Belsen and Its Liberation
    Ebook240 pages51 minutes

    Belsen and Its Liberation

    By Ian Baxter

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    About this ebook

    Accompanied by rare and unpublished photos with in-depth captions the book presents a unique visual account of one of the Nazi's most infamous concentration camps. The imagery shows the SS's murderous activities inside Belsen, and also reveal another disturbing side to them relaxing in their barracks or visiting their families and loved ones.The book is an absorbing insight into how the SS played a key part in murdering, torturing and starving to death tens of thousands of inmates. During the latter part of the war as many as 500 a day were perishing from the long-term effects of starvation as well as the resultant diseases. There is a wealth of information on how the camp was run and all aspects of life inside the camp for the inmates are covered. The final episode of Belsen is witnessed by British soldiers of the Second Army, who were completely unprepared for what they encountered when they arrived at the gates of the camp. Inside the camp they found some 10,000 unburied dead in addition to the mass graves already containing 40,000 more corpses.This latest Images of War book captures the shocking story of those that ran Belsen, those that perished, and the troops that liberated the living from their hell.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 6, 2014
    ISBN9781473838598
    Belsen and Its Liberation
    Author

    Ian Baxter

    IAN BAXTER is a military historian who specialises in German twentieth century military history. He has written more than twenty books and over one hundred articles. He has also reviewed numerous military studies for publication, supplied thousands of photographs and important documents to various publishers and film production companies worldwide. He also lectures to schools, colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and Southern Ireland.

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      Book preview

      Belsen and Its Liberation - Ian Baxter

      First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

      PEN & SWORD MILITARY

      An imprint of

      Pen & Sword Books Ltd

      47 Church Street

      Barnsley

      South Yorkshire

      S70 2AS

      Copyright © Ian Baxter, 2014

      ISBN 978-1-78159-331-8

      eISBN 9781473838598

      The right of Ian Baxter to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

      Typeset by Concept, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire HD4 5JL.

      Printed and bound in England by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY.

      Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, and Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe.

      For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

      PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

      47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

      E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk

      Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

      Contents

      Introduction

      Profile of a Concentration Camp Guard

      Chapter One

      POW Camp

      Chapter Two

      Under SS Control

      Chapter Three

      Liberation

      Appendix I

      Belsen Concentration Camp Staff

      Appendix II

      Sentences given to Staff

      About the Author

      Ian Baxter is a military historian who specialises in German twentieth-century military history. He has written more than forty books including Poland – The Eighteen Day Victory March, Panzers in North Africa, The Ardennes Offensive, The Western Campaign, The 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, The Waffen-SS on the Western Front, The Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front, The Red Army at Stalingrad, Elite German Forces of World War II, Armoured Warfare, German Tanks of War, Blitzkrieg, Panzer-Divisions at War, Hitler’s Panzers, German Armoured Vehicles of World War Two, Last Two Years of the Waffen-SS at War, German Soldier Uniforms and Insignia, German Guns of the Third Reich, Defeat to Retreat: The Last Years of the German Army at War 1943–1945, Operation Bagration – the destruction of Army Group Centre, German Guns of the Third Reich, Rommel and the Afrika Korps, U-Boat War, and most recently The Sixth Army, the Road to Stalingrad, German Mountain Troops, and Himmler’s Nazi Concentration Camp Guards. He has also written over 100 articles including ‘Last Days of Hitler’, ‘Wolf’s Lair’, ‘Story of the VI and V2 Rocket Programme’, ‘Secret Aircraft of World War Two’, ‘Rommel At Tobruk’, ‘Hitler’s War with his Generals’, ‘Secret British Plans to Assassinate Hitler’, ‘SS At Arnhem’, ‘Hitlerjugend’, ‘Battle Of Caen 1944’, ‘Gebirgsjäger at War’, ‘Panzer Crews’, ‘Hitlerjugend Guerrillas’, ‘Last Battles in the East’, ‘Battle of Berlin’ and many more. He has also reviewed numerous military studies for publication, supplied thousands of photographs and important documents to various publishers and film Production Companys worldwide, and lectures to various schools, colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and Southern Ireland.

      Photographic Credits

      Many of the photographs in this volume showing the liberation of Belsen were obtained with the kind permission of the Imperial War Museum in London. The photographs were taken by the British Army Film and Photographic Unit and prove beyond any reasonable doubt the pain and horror that was inflicted on the inmates of the camp.

      Other photographs in this book were collected over a period of years by the author showing SS guards, notably the infamous ‘Totenkopf’ (Death’s Head) while training or on duty. Imagery by the Germans relating to the operations of Belsen is almost non-existent and unpublished material very scarce. The author has striven throughout to show in photographic form, at least to some degree, the life of the SS soldier while operating inside and outside the concentration camp. To maintain a balance, photographs from the Imperial War Museum have been used showing extensively the liberation and what the British found upon entering the camp.

      Introduction

      Belsen and Its Liberation is an illustrated record of how the Nazi’s ran this notorious concentration camp. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, Jewish hostages were held there with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. However, by 1943 the SS took over the camp and decided to expand the camp to accommodate Jews from other concentration camps. What followed were scenes of absolute horror and barbarity on a grand scale, perpetrated by both male and female guards. Accompanied by rare and unpublished photos, this book presents a unique visual account of one of history’s most infamous episodes. Some of the imagery in it will show the murderous activities of individual SS-men inside Belsen, and reveal another disturbing side to them relaxing in their barracks or visiting their families and loved ones. The book provides an absorbing insight into how the SS played a key part in murdering, torturing and starving to death the inmates. During the latter part of the war, as many as 500 a day were perishing from the long-term effects of starvation and disease. The reader will find a wealth of information on how the camp was run and on all aspects of life for the inmates.

      With the war dramatically drawing to an end, the final episode of Belsen is witnessed by British soldiers of the Second Army, who were neither physically nor psychologically prepared for what they encountered when they arrived at the gates of the camp. Inside the camp they were greeted with some 10,000 unburied dead, in addition to the mass graves which already contained 40,000 more corpses.

      This volume captures the story of

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