Word: waffen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...lipped concentration as the thin, wispy-haired writer graciously accepted his medal, handed it to his son Elisha, 12, and then turned to the sensitive topic everyone present had awaited: Reagan's intention to visit a West German cemetery at Bitburg, where 47 of the Third Reich's notorious Waffen SS troops, as well as some 2,000 regular German soldiers, lie buried. As criticism mounted, Reagan had belatedly added a concentration camp to his itinerary next month in West Germany, where he will help Chancellor Helmut Kohl observe the 40th anniversary of the ending of the war in Europe...
...onslaught was waged in large measure by members of the Waffen (Weapons) SS, the combat branch of the Third Reich's elite guard. Forty-seven of those buried at Bitburg were members of the SS, which is clearly marked on many headstones. Most of those 47 SS casualties were between the ages of 17 and 20 when they died, though some were reportedly over...
...thugs recruited in 1923 to protect Hitler, and was originally the security arm of the Nazi Party. When it came under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler in 1929, the SS began to expand; by the war's end almost 1 million men had passed through its ranks. The Waffen combat units were formed in the late 1930s. It was members of the Totenkopf ("Death Head") SS who served as guards and executioners at the concentration camps, wearing black caps and skull-and-crossbone insignia on their collars. The double S was rendered in a lightning-bolt design that, along with...
Today it does, and the SOG's capacities are growing. Its maritime branch has speedboats to carry commandos to shore, and the agency can rent cargo ships through its front companies to transport larger equipment. The air arm, which Pentagon officials have nicknamed the Waffen CIA, has small passenger jets on alert to fly paramilitary operatives anywhere in the world on two hours' notice. Other cargo planes, reminiscent of the Air America fleet that the agency had in Vietnam, can drop supplies to replenish teams in remote locations. For areas like Afghanistan and Central Asia, where a Russian-made helicopter...
...Genoa. Friedrich Engel, now a frail 93, is accused of ordering the execution of 59 Italian inmates from a Genoa prison in May 1944 in retaliation for a bomb blast at a cinema that killed five German marines. Engel, who was a member of the Nazis' élite Waffen SS security service, admits he took part in the executions. "Yes I was involved, but I don't feel entirely guilty," he told German television last year. "They were all partisans, terrorists who participated in earlier actions against Germans." Now Engel is being brought to trial in Germany in what...