General Erwin Lahousen testifying against Hermann Göring and 21 other Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg war crimes trial in 1946.

Erwin Lahousen was a German military officer and an opponent of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime. Originally an Austrian intelligence officer, he joined the German intelligence service, the Abwehr, after the Anschluss resulted in Austria's absorption by the Nazi Third Reich. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (677x838, 80 KB)Erwin Lahousen testifying before the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (677x838, 80 KB)Erwin Lahousen testifying before the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... The Abwehr was the common name for the German military foreign information and counterintelligence department, during both World War I and World War II. Abwehr is a German word, which is commonly translated to the English defence. The head of the Abwehr during World War II was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. ... 12 March 1938: German troops march into Austria The German term Anschluss[1] (literally meaning connection, or political union) often refers to the 1938 Anschluss Österreichs — the incorporation of Austria in Greater Germany under the Nazi Regime . ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

Before joining the Wehrmacht, Lahousen was advised by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, commander of the Abwehr, not to bring any Austrian Nazis to the Abwehr. The reason was, Canaris had formed within the Abwehr a group of Wehrmacht officers opposed to Hitler and the Nazi regime. Lahousen became an active member of the "Canaris group" and actively opposed Hitler for the remainder of the war. Wehrmacht   listen? was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ... Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (January 1, 1887 – April 9, 1945) was head of the German military intelligence service, the Abwehr, for much of World War II. He was born in Aplerbeck, in Westphalia. ...

Most of the members of the Canaris group, including Canaris himself, were executed by the Gestapo before the end of the war. Lahousen escaped notice, however, and voluntarily testified against Hermann Göring and 21 other defendants at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in 1945-1946. Among other things, he gave evidence about the murder of hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war and the Einsatzgruppen death squads, who annhilated more more than half a million Jews in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union. The Nuremberg Trials is the general name for two sets of trials of Nazis involved in World War II and the Holocaust. ... A member of Einsatzgruppe D prepares to murder a Jew kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. ...