Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The infamous concentration camps 50km West of Krakow.

by harveyblackauthor on 01/04/201227/05/2012

During 2010, I worked and lived in Poland. I took this as an opportunity to visit some of the great towns and cities of Poland, Including Wroclaw, Warsaw and Krakow. Krakow has to have been the most interesting. Not only is it a beautiful place, with a tremendous backdrop of mountains to the southwest.

But unfortunately there is a darker side to that area; 50 kilometres away is the home of the infamous concentration camp, Auschwitz.

It is not my intention to write the history of this notorious site, that has already been done, and by much better writers than me. I would just like to share some of my photography with you.

I am sure, had I visited the two sites in the middle of summer, with greenery, flowers and birds singing, the impact may have been different. But with snow on the ground and it being bitter cold, it was much easier to picture in your mind the atrocious conditions experienced by the people incarcerated there.

Auschwitz-Camp I

Gate into the main Auschwitz camp. Hoess’s infamous ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign, ‘Work will set you free.”

In his autobiography, Hoess points out that the expression meant ‘work liberates one in a spiritual sense’, not that you will be free. To the Jews, it was later known as the ‘Death Factory”.

Auschwitz main camp, Camp I, the fences say it all.

Some of the main brick built camp buildings, an ex Polish Army Barracks.

Security was paramount.

The roof of the gas chamber at Auschwitz main camp, the crematoria chimney in the background.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the first view of this bleak concentration camp, Camp II.

Looking into the camp through the barbed wire perimeter fence.

The Iconic picture of the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The view the guards would have had of the camp from the control tower at the top of the archway entrance.

The view the camp prisoners would have got of the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau, as they were ordered off the cattle trucks to a fate they probably didn’t anticipate.

The long railway sidings where the dogs would have been barking, whistles blowing, guards screaming, families separated and children crying.

The reality of it all.

The site of some of the ruins of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

They had latrines, but not quite what we may be used to.

A view of the bunk beds, although I don’t think it depicts the true horror that was experienced within.

A more realistic view.

As indicated at the beginning, my intention was just to share a few photographs with you and not do a write up on the background to the camp and the atrocities linked to it. It was a fascinating, yet horrific, time in our Worlds history and I sometimes wonder if all the lessons from it have been learnt.

Devils with Wings- The Fallschirmjager, Green Devils, glider assault on Fort Eben Emael

by harveyblackauthor on 01/04/201215/07/2018

A military thriller based around the adventures of two young Fallschirmjager paratroopers during the early part of World War II. It is a fictionalised adventure based on the famous assault on the impregnable Belgian Fortress, Eben Emael.

Tall, gangly Paul Brand is supported by his junior sergeant, Unterfeldwebel Max Grun, as he experiences his first action as a platoon commander in Poland, September 1939. The mutual respect between the two comrades grows as they experience the sights and smells of battle at close quarters. Following their success in Poland, Paul, Max and the platoon are sent to a clandestine camp in the foothills of the Harz Mountains to train for a secret mission. Confined to camp for six months they undergo intensive training for their next mission – the subjugation of the Eben Emael Fortress.

Two German secret weapons will assist them to complete their task; the first is the glider, used for the first time to deposit troops directly onto a target, and the second secret weapon is a new Hollow Charge Weapon, capable of blasting through steel or concrete. On completion of their training, nine gliders containing seventy two Fallschirmjager land on top of the fortress, before the troops move in to the depths of the tunnels to finish the job. Over one thousand Belgian troops fail to stop them.

Effects of a Hohlladung, shaped charge, on an armoured turret.

DFS-230 Glider

This exciting fictionalised retelling of the assault on Eben Emael is written by an author with experience in army intelligence.

Video Clip- Assualt on Eben Emael.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_xsfQPQicQ&context=C4ee50f8ADvjVQa1PpcFN4SRfRBFPjuFRtYcx2OZf4CM9-Mi_XGZQ=

Buy the book from….

General Manstein’s push on Leningrad Part 3. (Fallschirmjager soon to be committed to Battle in Russia)

by harveyblackauthor on 26/03/201227/05/2012

General Erich Von Manstein, Part 3.

During the battles around southern Leningrad, in October and November 1941, in temperatures reaching -40 degrees, the 3rd Fallschirmjager Regiment, FJR3, 7th Flieger Division, commanded by General Student, was dispatched to defend parts of the River Neva and repulse any Russian attempts at creating a bridgehead. They were used in battalion-sized units in a fire-fighting role and consequently some elements suffered up to 75% casualties. The setting for my third novel, Devils with Wings: Frozen Sun

This unit was just a small piece of the jigsaw of Army Group North’s push through the Balkans during Operation Barbarossa, launched by Hitler on Sunday, 22nd June 1941.

With Operation Sea lion, the Invasion of Britain cancelled, Hitler’s eyes were already turning east. Manstein was to prove his worth yet again in one of the largest battles ever…

For the drive east, Operation Barbarossa, the subjugation of the Soviet Union, Manstein was put in command of a motorised corps, LVI AK (mot), assigned to Generaloberst Erich Hopner’s 4^th Panzergruppe, part of Army Group North. He was assigned the 8^th Panzer Division, 3^rd Infantry Division (mot) and the 290^th Infantry Division, a key problem being that one of his divisions would have to move by the age-old method of travel, by foot.

He received his instructions from Hopner and, along with General Reinhardt, was ordered to punch through the thinly held Russian defences, then, encircling any units on their way, particularly the Soviet 6^th Army, secure crossings over the Dvina River.

In the early hours of the 22^nd June 1941, Manstein struck at the army boundary between the Soviet 8^th and 11^th Armies, advancing over 40 miles in the first day. Although General Reinhardt’s XLI AK (mot) Corps, had been held up by a surprise attack from the Soviet 3^rd Mechanised Corps around Raseiniai, Manstein continued his dash across Lithuania and made rapid progress down the Dvinsk highway. After an advance of nearly 200 hundred miles in less than 5 days, he secured the Dvinsk road and rail bridges across the River Dvina intact.

The drawback to this speedy advance meant that Manstein’s forces were well ahead of the rest of Army Group North and his Infantry were still two days away. Along with that, his lack of experience in commanding armoured units meant his advanced units were practically immobilised through lack of supplies, particularly fuel. He had used up to 100 tons of gasoline per day.

After an unsuccessful counterattack on Manstein’s bridgehead on the 28^th June, by Soviet General-Major Lelyushenko’s 21^st Mechanised Corps, Manstein’s Corps refuelled, the rest of Army Group North reached the Dvina River, and Manstein was again able to continue his advance, pursuing Lelyushenko’s retreat northeast, supported by the SS-Division ‘Totenkopf’, now attached to his Corps.

Although his advance proved sluggish, Reinhardt having much more success in his drive for Leningrad, his Corps eventually marched northeast towards Novgorod with his 8^th Panzer Division in the lead.

In the meantime, Soviet General-Major Lazarev, gathered a force in the woods north of Soltsy, the 21^st Tank Division and 70^th Rifle Division, and three weaker rifle divisions south of Soltsy. On the morning of the 15^th July he struck, mounting a pincer attack behind 8^th Panzer Division in an attempt to cut them off from the rest of their Corps, the German panzer division was soon surrounded.

Provided with limited supplies from the air, 8^th Panzer Division was ordered to break out. After two days of fighting and incurring heavy casualties, they succeeded, but had to be withdrawn and switched to being a reserve unit while refitting.

In early August, Manstein, reinforced by two Infantry divisions, conducted a frontal action against the Soviet defences around Luga. Just as he was on the verge of linking up with Reinhardt’s enveloping Panzers the Soviets counterattacked again.

On the 12^th August, the Soviet 11^th and 34^th Armies’ ten divisions attacked the three divisions of the German X AK, in Staraya, Russia. This was a major catastrophe for Army Group North. Manstein, on the 19^th August, with his SS-Division ‘Totenkopf’ and 3^rd Infantry Division, mounted a two-division pincer attack against Kachanov’s 34^th Army to relieve the trapped Corps.

Manstein not only re-established communication with the encircled Army Corps, but encircled the elements of five Soviet divisions capturing up to 12,000 prisoners. The Soviet High Command considered the defeat so serious; Kachanov was executed for his failure.

Generalfieldmarschall Ritter von Leeb, commander of Army Group North, then attached Manstein’s Corp to 16^th Army Corps to continue the push eastwards towards Demyansk. But, on the 12^th September, very close to Demyansk, Manstein was given the command of 11^th Army Corps in Army Group South. He left the next day to join his new command. The Crimea his next destination…

The Fallschirmjager Glider Assault on Fort Eben Emael, May 1940.

by harveyblackauthor on 25/03/201215/07/2018

On 10 May 1940, 80 paratroopers of the German 7th Flieger, later known as the 1^st Fallschirmjager Division, landed on top of the supposedly impregnable Fortress, Eben Emael. They used two German secret weapons to achieve their aim, the DFS 230 Glider and Hollow Charged weapons. Using the gliders to silently land in the early hours of the morning and using a new type of explosive to smash through the concrete bunkers and punch through the armoured turrets, they destroyed much of the fort’s defensive armament in a matter of minutes.

DFS 230 Glider

Although paratroopers were only able to penetrate a small part of the myriad of underground passageways linking the fort’s armament, the garrison was unable to dislodge them from the surface. The fortress surrendered one day later, when the German 151st Infantry Regiment reinforced the German paratroopers.

At the time of the assault, of the one thousand two hundred Belgian troops available to man the fort’s defences, only between six and seven hundred were at the fort during the attack, with over two hundred soldiers some six kilometres away.

The devastating effect of a hollow charge explosive, Hohlladung, on an armoured turret.

In preparation for the attack, the German paratroopers had been secreted at an undisclosed camp in the foothills of the Harz Mountains, where they trained for up to six months for the task. They were not even told of the identity of their target until days before, training using mock ups marked out on the ground.

An impressive Casemate containing three 75mm guns.

The capture of Eben-Emael involved the first utilisation of gliders for the initial attack and the first use of hollow charge weapons, opening the gateway for the later invasion of France and the defeat of the allies.