German Military Personnel Photograph Collection

Background

Ruling through a totalitarian dictatorship, from 1933 until 1945 Germany was governed by the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more commonly known as the Nazi Party. Pulling the German economy out of the depths of the Great Depression through a heavy focus on military production, the Nazi regime became extremely popular in Germany and began implementing its agenda of racism within the Third Reich and territorial expansion outside of it, eventually leading to two of the largest catastrophes of the twentieth century: World War II and the Holocaust. The military, the Nazi Party, and the government became blurred together over the reign of the Nazis until they were almost indistinguishable.

Beginning with the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis quickly conquered most of Europe by the end of 1940. However, the tides of the war shifted after the failed invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, as well as the entry of the United States on the side of the Allies after the events at Pearl Harbor. The Nazi regime crumbled at the end of World War II as the Allies closed in on Berlin and Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. The German Military Personnel Papers are a large collection of photographs from this time period documenting various actors of the regime in government and military capacities.