Jürgen Stroop

SS troops in Warsaw Ghetto

At the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto on April 20, 1943, the second day’s fighting centered in the area of the Brushmaker’s District, on Mila Street, on Leszno, Nowolipie, and Smocza Streets and on the Muranowski Square.  There were also attacks by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) along the Nowiniarska Street.  The Germans again committed one or two tanks (probably the same ones that had been damaged the previous day as the LT-38 was easy to maintain, fix and put back into action) against two bastions of defenders at 7 and 9 Muranowska Street.

One tank again appears to have been damaged, probably with a thrown track.  But the armored vehicles began to pound both houses from their positions in the street with their 37mm guns.  Many of the defenders in the buildings were killed or captured although some resistance fighters escaped through a tunnel.  Jürgen Stroop, who had taken command of the SS and Police in Warsaw after Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg was relieved, began to employ small assault teams, which included Waffen-SS and Army engineers to move through the buildings.  (The Ghetto Men: The SS Destruction of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto April-May 1943)

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Adolf Hitler in World War I

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany, born April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria, winner of Iron Cross 1st Class in World War I, author of Mein Kampf, probably committed suicide by gunshot/poison April 30, 1945 in his bunker in Berlin, on war:

“No one can last forever.  We can’t; the other side can’t.  It’s merely a question of who can stand it longer.  The one who must hold out the longer is the one who’s got everything at stake.  We’ve got everything at stake.”  (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1000-Year Reich)