Durham County Record Office: the official archive service for County Durham and Darlington
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Exhibitions
- 'Adventurers and Pirates' - Hetton Coal Company, 1820
- Looking back at Consett Steel Works
- Celebrating Gala Day 2020
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County Durham remembers VE Day 1945
- 'We have come through' - Remembering VE Day 1945
- 9th Battalion DLI: From D-Day to Berlin
- 9th Battalion DLI: VE Day
- 9th Battalion DLI: In Berlin, June - September 1945
- Berlin Victory Parade, 7 September 1945
- Victory Parade at Belsen, 8 May 1945
- The Northern Echo, Victory edition, 9 May 1945
- VE Day and Durham Schools
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Burma 1945
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Rangoon Victory Parade, 15 June 1945
- VE Day and the Durham Miners' Association
- County Durham celebrates VE Day
- Haswell Victory Celebrations, 1945
- Soldier: Victory Souvenir edition, 8 May 1945
- Parade: European Victory edition, 26 May 1945
- VE Day not forgotten by one Spennymoor family
- County Durham celebrates VJ Day
- Victory Day, 8 June 1946
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel (SS), established in 1925, was the personal bodyguard of Adolf Hitler. Heinrich Himmler was in charge and he gradually expanded the SS, personally vetting applicants to ensure they conformed to the Nazi ideal of racial purity. Their uniform was all black, with a silver death's head cap badge.
As the power of the SS grew, SS men were in all the key government posts in Nazi Germany. In December 1940, Himmler established the Waffen SS. This new army grew rapidly, to a strength of over 150,000 men in 6 months.
SS Death's Head Units were in charge of concentration camp and the Waffen SS followed the German Army into the Soviet Union, killing Jews, gypsies and political opponents of the Nazi Party.
For these war crimes, a large number of the SS leaders were tried by an international war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945, and executed. The Schutzstaffel was declared a criminal organisation.