Awesome 20 part series of WWII photos from the Atlantic (magazine not the ocean)
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/ww2.html

Updated every Sunday.

10/3/2011 8:17:03 PM

Quote :

"Adolf Hitler, age 35, on his release from Landesberg Prison, on December 20, 1924. Hitler had been convicted of treason for his role in an attempted coup in 1923 called the Beer Hall Putsch. This photograph was taken shortly after he finished dictating "Mein Kampf" to deputy Rudolf Hess. Eight years later, Hitler would be sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, in 1933."

Fucking amazing. From a nobody to everything in 8 years.

10/3/2011 8:26:36 PM

i saw these tweeted earlier today. amazing.

10/3/2011 8:26:57 PM

I'll have to send these to my dad, huge Pearl Harbor buff. He was a volunteer diver on the Arizona a bunch of times when we lived there.

10/3/2011 9:36:32 PM

im surprised at how clear some of those photos are. Erie

10/3/2011 10:22:19 PM

Quote :

""

If this ain't badass, then I don't know what is.

10/3/2011 10:30:34 PM

i second lunak's thoughts. impressive. surreal even

^ I need that as a poster on my wall or some such

[Edited on October 3, 2011 at 10:33 PM. Reason : ,]

10/3/2011 10:32:47 PM

Quote :

""

On Friday, Oct. 30, 2008, a man looks at a photograph of Johann Georg Elser, mounted on a monument in Freiburg, Germany. Elser, a German citizen, attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a self-made bomb in the "Buergerbraukeller" beer hall in Munich on November 8, 1939. Hitler finished his speech early, escaping the timed explosion by just thirteen minutes. Eight people died, 63 were injured, and Elser was caught and imprisoned. Shortly before the end of World War II, he was executed in the Nazi concentration camp in Dachau.

10/3/2011 10:42:09 PM

awesome post
i just spent about 30 minutes looking at some of those

10/3/2011 11:34:01 PM

one of these things is not like the other

10/3/2011 11:46:48 PM

^that needs a four frame zoom pic, stat.

10/4/2011 12:18:56 AM

The condensation trails from German and British fighter planes engaged in an aerial battle appear in the sky over Kent, along the southeastern coast of England, on September 3, 1940.








It's gotta be weird to see this in real life. Do or Die.

10/4/2011 2:25:40 AM

this is awesome; i'm a huge WWII buff so seeing these pics is really something. thanks!

10/4/2011 8:05:49 AM

Well, thanks for this...my morning is now completely wasted.

10/4/2011 8:07:33 AM

About to be engulfed in a gigantic dust cloud is a peaceful little ranch in Boise City, Oklahoma where the topsoil is being dried and blown away during the years of the Dust Bowl in central North America. Severe drought, poor farming techniques and devastating storms rendered millions of acres of farmland useless. This photo was taken on April 15, 1935.

10/4/2011 8:17:55 AM

Quote :

"the Atlantic (magazine not the ocean)"

hahah

sweet pictures



[Edited on October 4, 2011 at 8:45 AM. Reason : my favorite]

10/4/2011 8:26:41 AM

Quote :

"Fucking amazing. From a nobody to everything in 8 years."

Then from everything to dead in a ditch soaked in gasoline in 12 more years.

10/4/2011 12:47:15 PM

Guess I know what I'm doing later. Thanks for posting though

10/4/2011 1:34:07 PM

I just pray that they don't cross the streams.

10/4/2011 4:52:41 PM

I read that the Germans and Soviet signed a non-aggression act just 1 week before the beginning of the war.


At what point was the non-aggression violated? Did the germans violate the agreement or did the soviets?

10/4/2011 9:46:06 PM

^ Hitler never intended to honor that agreement. He made it to keep the Eastern front quiet for the invasion of France. Stalin and Hitler basically divided up Poland and each took half. Germany invaded Russia in 1941.

I just read Storm of War, a fascinating history of WWII. It's scary how close the Nazis were to winning the war. The scale of the war and human tragedy is unimaginable. For example, in the siege of Leningrad, more Soviets died than the entire combined losses of the entire war from the USA and Britain. There was so much fucked up shit that happened. I mean, we were the least fucked up of the participants and we nuked Japan.

10/4/2011 11:15:35 PM

Really great set of photos - a bunch I'd never seen before.

10/5/2011 12:41:28 AM

Although I bet when Germany and the Soviet Union signed that non aggression pact, everyone else in Europe was like "FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

For some interesting reading, check out the Battle of Stalingrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad), probably the largest land battle of WWII. According to that Wikipedia page there were about 2 million casualties in the battle alone, and I don't know if that even includes the civilians. Just goes to show you that you should never invade Russia during the winter.


(Also, check out the movie "Enemy at the Gates" with Jude Law and Ed Harris. Excellent movie set in the Battle of Stalingrad about Russian war hero sniper Vasily Zaytsev)

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 9:26 AM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 9:24:22 AM

This is incredible. A 3-4 second long exposure shot taken from an RAF plane over France during a nighttime raid. The amount of gunfire is insane.

Quote :

"This photograph was taken on Jan. 31, 1941, during a nigthtime air raid carried out by the Royal Air Force above Brest, France. It gives a graphic impression of what flak and anti-aircraft fire looks like from the air. In the period of three to four seconds during which the shutter remained open, the camera clearly captured the furious gunfire. The fine lines of light show the paths of tracer shells, and the broader lines are those of heavier guns. Factories and other buildings can be seen below."

Thanks for sharing the link, some of these photos are beyond words.

10/5/2011 9:25:06 AM

Quote :

"Just goes to show you that you should never invade Russia during the winter."

"Dude, don't."


"What do you know?"

10/5/2011 9:39:57 AM

Three hundred fascist insurgents were killed in this explosion in Madrid, Spain, under the five-story Casa Blanca building, on March 19, 1938. Government loyalists tunneled 600 yards over a six-month period to lay the land mine that caused the explosion.

10/5/2011 9:43:15 AM

Quote :

"For some interesting reading, check out the Battle of Stalingrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad), probably the largest land battle of WWII. "

One of the most chilling scenes from Storm of War had to do with that battle. There was a German platoon that ran out of water and couldn't reach the river because of sniper fire. So the Germans gave bread to starving Russian children, in exchange for filling the German canteens. The Soviet snipers put an end to that scheme by simply shooting the children.

It's ironic that the Nazis were only defeated because the Soviets were willing to use such evil methods.

And the Japanese ... holy shit! The book described many war crimes in pretty graphic detail. But the author said that the war crimes committed by the Japanese against Chinese and Filipino women were "too horrible to describe here."

10/5/2011 4:00:34 PM

I've seen this one before and it's one of the most haunting photos that I've ever seen:

10/5/2011 4:09:45 PM

Quote :

" German Casualties: est. 750,000 killed, missing or wounded 91,000 captured 900 aircraft (including 274 transports and 165 bombers used as transports) 1,500 tanks 6,000 artillery pieces[1]:122–123 Total: 841,000 casualties 478,741 killed or missing Russian Casualties: 650,878 wounded and sick 40,000 civilians dead 4,341 tanks 15,728 guns and mortars 2,769 combat aircraft [7] Total: 1,129,619 casualties"

To put things in perspective, A sold out Superbowl 45 held 109,000 people.


Figures only represent Battle of Stalingrad!!

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 4:18 PM. Reason : .]

10/5/2011 4:16:10 PM

New series released yesterday on the fall of Nazi Germany.

10/10/2011 6:34:43 PM

a+++ thread/link will read again and again

10/10/2011 6:55:40 PM

This is so surreal to me. It doesn't remind me of a war, rather it reminds me of being a kid and playing a tag-like game where you capture your enemy you place your enemy in a pen in your territory.

However, sucks that this isn't a game and this is real life.

[Edited on October 11, 2011 at 1:22 AM. Reason : .]

10/11/2011 1:20:55 AM

^^^ that's an incredible picture

10/11/2011 10:25:18 AM

New series was posted yesterday. The subject matter is the Holocaust, so needless to say it's pretty somber.

10/17/2011 1:06:19 PM

I started ballin tears when I got to pictures around 37-39, when they showed the german civilians what was going on.

10/17/2011 3:21:02 PM

I think the saddest photos were the ones that showed the emaciated people. Starvation would surely be one of the worst ways to go.

10/17/2011 3:27:40 PM

You know, I struggle everyday to educate people that "life's not fair". Look at the bodies of all those innocent people. You could be one, too. None of them thought it would happen to them. None of them thought the hundred of people standing around them would be executed. Each and every one of them.

Americans are just so used to getting their way, that they can't understand that fairness doesn't have to exist. Fairness is a human concept. Humans can easily change their mind about fairness when they have the upperhand.

When people cry about not getting refunds because they ate the food they were complaining about, I think of the people who died in the holocaust of starvation. They should be thankful for the food that was given to them in such quality as the poorest, cheapest quality of food served in America.

Nobody realizes that WHEN our food supply and cycle is broken in the event of a government or monetary collapse, people are going to go into shock. They aren't going to know what to do. People are going to be killing each other over stale bread. The law of survival kicks in. Our artificial ways of agriculture is feeding and keeping more people alive than what is natural.


Lastly,
Comparing a teen in the holocaust to an American teenage spoiled brat is one sick joke. If only we could switch their places.


[/rant]

10/17/2011 3:42:44 PM

My god. I've seen Holocaust documentaries and read books and stuff but none of them ever had any pictures quite so graphic about the horrors that these people actually had to endure. I can't begin to imagine such a nightmare.

10/17/2011 3:47:56 PM

New series up on the surrender of Japan.

Quote :

"The expanding fireball and shockwave of the Trinity test explosion, seen .025 seconds after detonation in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. (U.S. Department of Defense)"

10/25/2011 9:32:58 AM

Quote :

"If this ain't badass, then I don't know what is."

Probably been posted, but here is that guy's story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

Edit: Maybe not him, but I'll just imagine that it is.


[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 10:21 AM. Reason : -]

10/25/2011 10:19:19 AM

I love this one:


Pretty wild to imagine how it felt to be a japanese soldier at the end of the war.

10/25/2011 10:25:48 AM

The U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island very early on the morning of August 6th, carrying "Little Boy", a 4,000 kg (8,900 lb) uranium bomb. At 8:15 am, Little Boy was dropped from 9,400 m (31,000 ft) above the city, freefalling for 57 seconds while a complicated series of fuse triggers looked for a target height of 600 m (2,000 ft) above the ground. At the moment of detonation, a small explosive initiated a super-critical mass in 64 kg (141 lbs) of uranium. Of that 64 kg, only .7 kg (1.5 lbs) underwent fission, and of that mass, only 600 milligrams was converted into energy - an explosive energy that seared everything within a few miles, flattened the city below with a massive shockwave, set off a raging firestorm and bathed every living thing in deadly radiation. At the time this photo was made, smoke billowed in a column 20,000 feet above Hiroshima while smoke from the burst had spread over 10,000 feet at the base of the rising column.

10/25/2011 4:49:13 PM

Final entry up:

Quote :

"In March of 1974, some 29 years after the official end of World War II, Hiroo Onoda, a former Japanese Army intelligence officer, walks out of the jungle of Lubang Island in the Philippines, where he was finally relieved of duty. He handed over his sword (hanging from his hip in photo), his rifle, ammunition and several hand grenades. Onoda had been sent to Lubang Island in December of 1944 to join an existing group of soldiers and hamper any enemy attacks. Allied forces overtook the island just a few months later, capturing or killing all but Onoda and three other Japanese soldiers. The four ran into the hills and began a decades-long insurgency extending well past the end of the war. Several times they found or were handed leaflets notifying them that the war had ended, but they refused to believe it. In 1950, one of the soldiers turned himself in to Philippine authorities. By 1972, Onoda's two other compatriots were dead, killed during guerrilla activities, leaving Onoda alone. In 1974, Onoda met a Japanese college dropout, Norio Suzuki, who was traveling the world, and through their friendship, Onoda's former commanding officer was located and flew to Lubang Island to formally relieve Onoda of duty, and bring him home to Japan. Over the years, the small group had killed some 30 Filipinos in various attacks, but Onoda ended up going free, after he received a pardon from President Ferdinand Marcos."

10/31/2011 9:10:40 AM

^ I read that guy's autobiography. Dude was nuts.

10/31/2011 11:45:08 AM

I'm not sure how you stumbled across that site Mr. Joshua, but thank you for sharing.

A+++ thread, in all sincerity. Amazing.

10/31/2011 12:17:19 PM

bttt for pearl harbor day

12/7/2011 12:03:07 PM

12/7/2011 12:15:18 PM

see all the torpedo wakes in that photo? wild.

12/7/2011 4:10:35 PM

I looked through all the pics over the course of a few days lunch breaks. Amazing stuff. Really unbelievable the sacrifices that everyone made. The Greatest Generation.

Thanks for sharing Mr. Joshua

12/7/2011 4:14:09 PM

^^ That actually might be the one that they used when they determined that a japanese mini-sub made it into the harbor a few years ago.

12/7/2011 6:18:02 PM