Even decades after its end, World War II still touches a sensitive fiber in the hearts of people from all corners of the world. For some, it was a moment of epic heroism and a struggle for morality and freedom. More than anything, these World War II images show that greatness can be achieved when good men and women commit to fighting monstrosity.
This photo was taken in 1945 and depicts German prisoners of war who were forced to see images of the horrors that were taking place in the Nazi concentration camps.
The young man photographed here was actually a hero. Before resuming his role as a machine gunner, he undressed in order to dive into Rabaul Harbor to rescue a Marine pilot who had been shot down by the Japanese.
This photo was taken in August 1941, when Hitler's right hand, Heinrich Himmler, visited a prison camp in Minsk, USSR.
Rudolf Höss was the architect and commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the legendary site of thousands of deaths. Although he was hanged next to the crematorium of the extermination camp, the guards who were present later commented that the execution did not seem sufficient to compensate the countless atrocities that Hoss orchestrated during the war.
Scientific research shows that the Nazis tried to create a whole army of dogs so they could communicate with their masters. Hitler even built a special school to teach dogs to speak with signs with their paws.
This photo was taken about 2 days before Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Here he is seen outside his bunker to Berlin in ruins.
This photo was taken in a concentration camp liberated by British soldiers. These forced the Nazi troops of the SS to load the bodies of its victims in trucks for his burial. It was later discovered that this was the camp where Anne Frank lost her life.
This disturbing image shows Japanese soldiers using Sikh prisoners of war for firing practices. The captured soldiers who fought with the Allied forces are blindfolded sitting 20 meters away.
This heartbreaking photo was taken at a home for children with emotional disorders in Poland after the war. When she was told to draw a house, a young woman who grew up in a concentration camp responded with this picture of the chaos she must have felt inside.
During the Battle of Saipan in 1944, about 22,000 Japanese citizens lost their lives. Many committed suicide because of the orders that the Emperor inculcated (to take the life before being captured alive). This terrified woman had hidden in a cave with her son, was probably reluctant to accept the help of the allies thanks to the Japanese propaganda that told the citizens that American soldiers were rapists and murderers.
This photo was taken during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, and you can see German soldiers surrounded by dead US soldiers. The red marks that can be seen in the posters are due to the late censorship of the Army.
An aircraft crashes into an aircraft carrier in the Pacific due to a ground fault in 1944.
Towards the end of the war, the Germans were so desperate that many children were forced to join the Nazi military forces. Among them was this 15-year-old boy, Hans Georg Henke, seen here crying after being captured by the United States Army in 1945. His parents had died and the boy had joined the military to survive.
These Senegalese soldiers of the Free France troops are serving near Besançon, France, during the winter of 1944. They used allied equipment, ranging from their British armament to American helmets, adorned with the anchor emblem Of the French colonial forces.
This photo was taken in 1942, somewhere in the Volkhov area of Russia, and shows a German soldier sharing a loaf with an orphaned child.
Photo taken in 1941, a Nazi in territory of Soviet Union. During this time, the Germans were promulgating their Hunger Plan, which consisted in starving millions of Soviet citizens by taking their food and giving it to the Nazi soldiers. Although the act of kindness of this German soldier was probably highly appreciated by this mother and her son, the actions of his army very possibly led to his death.
This photo of 1939 shows a line of men about to be executed in what would later be known as Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday took place in Bromberg, Poland, on September 3, two days after the Nazis invaded the country. The day saw the death of many members of considerable German minority of the city. After the capture of the city, the Germans used the murders as an excuse for the slaughter of countless Polish inhabitants.
This photo was taken in November 1942 in the east of Karelia and depicts a Soviet spy laughing through his execution. It was declassified by the Finnish Ministry of Defense in 2006, with the description: Unknown official Soviet intelligence before being assassinated, Finland, 1942.
An abandoned child sits holding a stuffed animal in the middle of the ruins that used to be his house in London. This image was captured by Toni Frissell after a German bombing in 1945.
Technical Sergeant William E. Thomas and First Class Soldier Joseph Jackson. They had a very special Easter egg for Hitler in 1945.
This photo was taken in London in 1940 and shows the skies of the city after an aerial battle between British and German pilots.
This photo shows US troops listening to Bernard Herzog who had just been released from a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines. Herzog lost 35 kilos while in the camp and suffered from a vitamin deficiency disease called beriberi, which probably explains also the swelling in the legs.
This photo of three fallen American soldiers was taken in 1943 by photographer George Strock. The fallen soldiers had died in battle, in Buna Beach, New Guinea.
When the Nazis captured Athens in the early 1940's, they decided to celebrate by hoisting their flag above the Acropolis. The flag did not last long. She was shot down by two 19-year-old students a month later. This was one of the first acts of what would be known as the Greek Resistance.
A German soldier fires a cigarette with a flamethrower at an unknown date during the war.
The bombing in the German city of Dresden during World War II remains one of the most controversial movements by allied forces. The bombings of February of 1945 resulted in the death of 22,000 to 40,000 people, many of them civilians. .
In this rare color photograph, an unidentified soldier enjoys dinner at an improvised bullet-proof table in 1944, England.
On May 2, 1945, Soviet soldiers raised their flag over the Reichstag in Berlin. The victory was very important since the Soviet soldiers considered the building symbol of his enemy.
This tragic photo, taken in 1946 in Frankfurt, shows a German prisoner of war returning home after the war, only to discover that it had been bombed. His family was nowhere to be found.
Aleksandra Samusenko was one of the few tank officers of the Soviet armed forces. He served as tank commander in 1943 until 1944. Samusenko rose to fame for his heroic performance during the Battle of Kursk and for evading an ambush later, where his commander lost his life.
During the Nazi occupation of France in 1940, Hitler originally ordered the Eiffel Tower to be destroyed. His orders were never carried out. Later, French resistance fighters cut the wires of the tower lifts, the Nazis had to climb the stairs in order to have a wider view of the area.
This 1944 photograph captured the sight of a Japanese plane crashing after being shot down during the Battle of Saipan.
Photo taken in 1945, about a month before Hiroshima and the day after the Philippines had been released. Allied soldiers tease Hitler from his famous balcony in the Chancellery of Berlin.
A photo taken in 1945 from the interior of the rotting Hitler bunker.
In 1941, this reindeer was photographed, but what is shocking is seen behind him, bombs falling on Russia.
A Jewish prisoner freed from a concentration camp leads a Nazi, a former guardian of the camp, to gunpoint.
