Statue of Liberty — 1940

The Statue of Liberty is seen in this aerial photo of Liberty Island from 1940 — when everything that she stood for was under attack in Asia and in Europe. And soon America would be called upon to save those peoples from a new Dark Age.

The American Infantryman

Technical Sergeant Richard S. Westhoven of Lancaster, Ohio, poses in full field equipment as issued to an infantryman with a U.S. Rifle Platoon.

Basic Army Training

German soldiers proceed with their basic training near Munich in the late Thirties. Every infantry soldier was armed with a rifle (usually the 7.92mm Karabiner 98k) and had to become proficient at using it, so plenty of time was spent on the firing range.

Hitler at the Reich Chancellery

Adolf Hitler is seen at the Reich Chancellery on June 1, 1939, during a ceremony to award banners to outstanding industrial plants. He had long wooed leading industrialists, and arms giants such as Krupp — realizing where their future lay — were not slow in putting their finances and support firmly behind the Nazis.

The People’s Car

Adolf Hitler is seen here at the Auto Exhibition in Berlin on February 17, 1939. He took an interest in cars and made sure that the Volkswagen “Beetle” was dangled like a carrot in front of the people, and that they were encouraged to save up for “the People’s Car.” Money was soon diverted to the war effort, however, along with the car factories’ capacities.

Kristallnacht

“Kristallnacht,” or “Night of the Broken Glass,” took place on the night of November 9, 1938. Terror attacks were made on Jewish businesses and property as bands of Nazis looted and destroyed seven and a half thousand Jewish shops, claiming the attacks were the public’s reaction to the murder of Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy of Paris, by a Polish Jew.

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old German Jew enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany, walked into the German Embassy in Paris and fired five shots at the junior diplomat. Two days later, he died and Germany was in the grip of skillfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of November 10, coordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich.

The consequences of this violence were disastrous for the Jews of the Third Reich. In a single night, Kristallnacht saw the destruction of more than 200 Synagogues, and the ransacking of tens of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of a people who could trace their ancestry in Germany to Roman times, and served as a prelude to the Holocaust that was to follow.

On a single night, 92 Jews were murdered, and 25,000–30,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camps.

Reich Party Congress, 1938

An adoring crowd greets their beloved Führer at the opening of the Reich Party Congress in Nuremburg on September 6, 1938. After inspecting his personal bodyguard, Hitler drove through the beflagged city to the sound of church bells and cheering crowds.