A 94-year-old former guard at Auschwitz lowered his eyes as he arrived at a German court on Thursday to be tried as an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people in what is likely to be one of the last Nazi war crimes trials.

Reinhold Hanning was 20 years old in 1942 when he started serving as a Waffen SS guard at the death camp in occupied Poland, where more than 1.1 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

There was a heavy police presence around the court in the western town of Detmold as Hanning walked in, wearing glasses and a dark brown tweed jacket and looking at the ground, for a session limited to just two hours because of his age.

Prosecutors said Hanning had joined the Waffen SS, the armed wing of the Nazi party, voluntarily at the age of 18 and fought in Eastern Europe during the early stages of World War II before being transferred to Auschwitz in January 1942.

Accused by the prosecutor's office in Dortmund as well as by 38 joint plaintiffs from Hungary, Israel, Canada, Britain, the United States, and Germany, Hanning will hear the testimony of former camp inmates in court.

One of them is Erna de Vries, who was deported to Auschwitz along with her mother in 1943, at the age of 23. Considered a "Jewish crossbreed" as her father was Protestant, she was saved from the gas chamber and transferred to a labor camp.

"I survived, but to this day I don't know exactly how my mother was killed," she told Reuters ahead of the trial. "The last thing she said to me was, 'You will survive and explain what happened to us.'

"I am not hateful but it somehow feels like justice to see this man, who was working there when my mother died, on trial."

Demjanjuk precedent

Germany's Nazi war crimes office in Ludwigsburg has found that Hanning served as a guard at Auschwitz until at least June 1944.

He has admitted to having been a guard, in a statement to the prosecution, but has denied involvement in the mass killings, part of the Nazis' Final Solution for the extermination of Europe's Jews.

Investigators say he also served at Auschwitz's Birkenau subdivision, where about 90% of more than 1.2 million killings in the camp were carried out in four gas chambers.

Prosecutors maintain that the Nazis' machinery of murder hinged on people like Hanning guarding the prisoners, and they accuse him of expediting, or at least facilitating, the slaughter.

A precedent for such an approach was set in 2011 when death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to mass murder.

Last year, 94-year-old Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz," was sentenced to four years in prison for being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people in Auschwitz.

Three other former death camp workers in their 90s — two men and a woman — are due to go on trial in the next few months.

Because of their age, their hearings, like Hanning's, will be restricted to two hours a day, assuming they are fit to face trial.

But Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, responsible for war crime investigations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said from his office in Jerusalem that age should not be an obstacle to prosecution.

"When you think of these cases, don't think of frail, old, sick men and women," he said, "but of young people who devoted their energies to a system that implemented the Final Solution and aimed to obliterate the Jewish people. 

(Reporting by Bernd Thissen; Writing by Tina Bellon; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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1. Operation Torch

The first large-scale deployment of American paratroopers took place on 8 November 1942 as part of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. The men of the 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion (at the time designated 2^nd Battalion, 509^th Parachute Infantry Regiment) were tasked with securing airfields ahead of the seaborne force landings.

To accomplish this, they conducted the longest flight of airborne forces, originating from airfields in England.

However, the jump was unsuccessful with troops widely scattered and ten planes having to land in a dry lake bed to disembark their troops due to a lack of fuel. A week later, three hundred men of the battalion conducted a successful combat jump on Youks-les-Bains Airfield in Algeria.

2. Operation Husky

However, due to numerous Axis air attacks and confusion within the invasion fleet, the troop carrier aircraft were mistaken for German bombers and fired on. This resulted in twenty three planes being shot down and the loss of eighty one paratroopers with many more wounded.

3. Landing at Nadzab (Operation Alamo)

A series of incredible images show how quickly the world can change. 

In photographer Patrick Strijards' "Old vs. New" collection, he combines images of Germany during World War II with photos of the present day. The photographs artfully contrast the broad sweeps of Nazi propaganda and the devastation of the war in Berlin with the vibrancy of the city today.

The following photos are republished with permission from Patrick Strijards.

The Brandenburg Gate, with Nazi propaganda on full display.

The Reichstag in Berlin, heavily damaged after the war.

US soldiers maintain the US Army Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known crossing between East and West Berlin following World War II.

SEE ALSO: The remarkable story of the World War II 'Ghost Army' that duped Hitler

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Norwood Thomas was stationed in London during World War II. He dated Joyce Durrant for a few months while serving. In 1944, he was called to fight at Normandy, cutting their romance short. 70 years later, they found each other online. Here's what happened when they met in person.

Story by Jacob Shamsian, editing by Adam Banicki.

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Nearly 83 years ago this month, Hitler secretly began rearming the Nazis in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1934, Hitler told Nazi military leaders that 1942 was the target year for going to war in the east.

Hitler's engineers secretly developed ambitious projects and rapidly produced sophisticated technology that was decades ahead of its time.

In the 2015 fall issue of Weapons of WWII magazine, author KM Lee detailed some of Hitler's advanced weaponry.

Here's a look at are some of the secret weapons the Nazis created during World War II:

SEE ALSO: Hitler created the largest gun ever, and it was a disaster

Hitler's stealth "flying wing" bomber

Referred to as "Hitler's secret weapon," the Horten Ho 229 bomber was designed to carry 2,000 pounds of armaments while flying at 49,000 feet at speeds north of 600 mph.

Equipped with twin turbojet engines, two cannons, and R4M rockets, the Horten Ho 229 was the world's first stealth aircraft, making its first flight in 1944.

Source: Weapons of WWII magazine

According to the Smithsonian, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring allocated half a million reichsmarks to brothers Reimar and Walter Horten to manufacture the aircraft.

Plagued with problems, the Horten didn't last long in combat. But the bomber's engineering did inspire today's stealth aircraft — like the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber.

Source: Weapons of WWII magazine

The Fritz X radio-guided bomb

Considered the grandfather of smart bombs, the Fritz X was a 3,450-pound explosive equipped with a radio receiver and sophisticated tail controls that helped guide the bomb to its target.

According to the US Air Force, the Fritz X could penetrate 28 inches of armor and could be deployed from 20,000 feet,an altitude out of reach of antiaircraft equipment at the time.

Less than a month after the bomb was developed, the Nazis sank the Italian battleship Roma off Sardinia in September 1943. The Fritz X's combat use was limited, however, because only a few German aircraft were designed to carry the bomb.

Source: Weapons of WWII magazine

An unexploded bomb dropped from a US airplane during World War Two will halt car and train transportation south of the Brenner Pass on the Austrian-Italian border on Sunday morning as explosives units defuse and dispose of the device.

Austrian autobahn police said on Saturday that the A22, a major north-south link between Italy and Austria, as well as the Brenner Pass highway and train connections would all be closed in both directions between 0830 CET (0230 ET) to around noon.

A spokesman for the Austrian police said cars would be halted in a line for the duration of the disposal. There is no alternative route available during the closure, he said.

The spokesman said the bomb had been found near the Italian town of Sterzing in November. Residents near the site will be evacuated during the operation.

The conflict between 1939 and 1945 continues to cast a shadow on Europe after more than 70 years as unexploded bombs dropped by airplanes from rival powers are discovered. In Germany, more than 2,000 tonnes of live bombs and munitions are found every year.

(Reporting by John Miller; Editing by Digby Lidstone)

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When Germany began its assault on Holland on May 10, 1940, the international community was not just worried about the lives of the Dutch people but also about the massive stocks of industrial diamonds in Amsterdam.

Industrial diamonds were used for many manufacturing purposes and the country that controlled the diamonds could create more weapons, vehicles, and sophisticated technology like radar.

That’s why two diamond traders in England, Jan Smit and Walter Keyser, offered their services to the British government.

Jan’s father ran a large trading interest in Amsterdam and was friends with many more traders. Smit was certain that if he were allowed passage into and out of Amsterdam, he could get many diamonds out before the Nazis could seize them.

Approval for the mission went all the way to the new prime minister Winston Churchill himself. Churchill ordered a military officer to escort the two men and granted them the use of an old World War I destroyer, the HMS Walpole, to get them into the city.

The Walpole had to thread a mile gap between German and British minefields at night under blackout conditions to get across the English Channel.

During the transit, the Walpole almost struck another British ship sneaking through the darkness. Those on the Walpole would learn years later that the other ship was evacuating members of the Dutch Royal family.

Keyser and Smit arrived in the harbor just before daybreak and spent the day working with Smit’s father to convince traders to release the diamonds to the Keyser and Smit. From their landing at the docks to their trips around the city, the men were driven by a Jewish woman, Anna, who protected them from possible German spies.

Throughout the men’s day in Amsterdam, Dutch police and soldiers were attempting to root out pockets of German paratroopers wreaking havoc in the city. Across the country, German forces were quickly taking over and quashing resistance. Gunfire interrupted a few of their meetings.

Many of the diamond traders were Jewish and could have bribed their way out of the country with their stocks and possibly escaped the Holocaust. Instead, they took the chance to get them away from German hands. Most of the traders even refused receipts out of fear that the Germans would learn how many diamonds they had prevented the Third Reich from getting their hands on.

While the men gave many of their diamonds to the English agents, the attack had come during a bank weekend and many were in safes that couldn’t be opened for another day or more.

Luckily another British agent, Lt. Col. Montagu R. Chidson, made his way to the massive vault at the Amsterdam Mart and spent hours breaking into it, even as German paratroopers forced their way into the building. He escaped with the diamonds as the soldiers forced their way down the stairs.

At the end of the day, Chidson escaped on his own while Anna rushed Smit, Keyser, and their military escort back to the docks just in time to rendezvous with the HMS Walpole. Smit carried a thick canvas bag filled with the diamonds and forced a tug driver at gunpoint to take them to the British destroyer.

Chidson’s diamonds made their way to Queen Wilhelmina while the diamonds recovered by Smit and Keyser were held in London for the duration of the war.

(h/t David E. Walker for his 1955 book, “Adventure In Diamonds” where he recounts much of the first-hand testimony of the men who took part in the operations to recover diamonds ahead of the Nazi advance).

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The raising of the US flag atop Mount Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima 71 years ago is perhaps the most iconic image of World War Two.

No other picture so succinctly and evocatively captures the triumph of the Allied forces, while also highlighting the critical role that US troops played in the Pacific. The picture has also become one of the enduring symbols of the US Marine Corps.

Joe Rosenthal, at the time an unknown Associated Press photographer, is the man behind the photo. Although it was technically the second flag raising on Iwo Jima, which shows five Marines and a Navy Corpsman, it is no less important. The first flag planted was replaced, as it was too small to be seen from the coast.

Rosenthal, in an attempt to position himself properly for the shot, almost actually missed the flag raising. In a desperate attempt to capture the scene, Rosenthal shot the image without the use of his viewfinder. His gut instinct certainly hit the mar. He went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his image.

Almost immediately, though, the overall quality of the framing led to accusations that Rosenthal had framed the picture.

This controversy still remains. Fortunately, an official video of the flag raising by a Marine photographer shows that the events transpired naturally, and exactly as Rosenthal had claimed.

Rosenthal's photo has gone on to become a deeply ingrained cultural image for America. The US Marine Corps War Memorial, in Arlington, Virginia, is modeled after this photo. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also used the image to promote war bonds at the end of the war, and it was featured on stamps.

It's important to note that while the image evoked a feeling of American victory, it was shot only five days into the Iwo Jima campaign. The battle went on for many more weeks, and three of the Marines who raised the flag were later killed in action.

Although Rosenthal's image has become synonymous with the courage of the Marines, many still debate the value of invading Iwo Jima.

The battle was particularly bloody and was the only battle in which the US Marine Corps suffered more casualties than the Japanese Army. The Japanese were well entrenched on the island when the US decided to invade. Iwo Jima is also a mountainous island, and its topography proved extremely difficult for US troops.

Once taken though, Iwo Jima proved of significant tactical importance as the US military pursued its strategy of "island hopping" to the Japanese mainland. For pushing the US deeper into Japan's Pacific holdings, the military command decided that the 26,000 American casualties was worth the island.

Both the cost and the accomplishment of the campaign is forever immortalized in Rosenthal's photograph.

SEE ALSO: The most iconic photo of World War II is also a reminder of how deadly the battle of Iwo Jima was

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Eager to invade France, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler demanded a new weapon that could easily pierce the concrete fortifications of the French Maginot Line— the only major physical barrier standing between him and the rest of Western Europe.

In 1941, the year after France fell, German steelmaker and arms manufacturer Friedrich Krupp A.G. company began constructing Hitler's Gustav gun, according to "Top Secret Weapons" documentary.

The four-story, 155-foot-long gun, which weighs 1,350 tons, shot 10,000-pound shells from its mammoth 98-foot bore.

Here's what the gun looked like when fired:

The massive weapon was presented to the Nazis free of charge to show Krupp's contribution to the German war effort, according to historian C. Peter Chen.

In spring 1942, the Gustav gun made its debut at the siege of Sevastopol. The 31-inch gun barrel fired 300 shells on the Crimean city.

As the Nazis would soon find out, however, the ostentatious gun had some serious disadvantages:

• Its size made it an easy target for Allied bombers flying overhead
• Its weight meant it could be transported only via a costly specialized railway (which the Nazis had to build in advance)
• It required a crew of 2,000 to operate
• The five-part gun took four days to assemble in the field and hours to calibrate for a single shot
• It could fire only 14 rounds a day

Within a year, the Nazis discontinued the Gustav gun, and Chen notes that Allied forces eventually scrapped the massive weapon.

SEE ALSO: Amazing insight into what US intelligence knew about Hitler in 1943

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While hiding in a fortified two-level 3,000-square-foot underground bunker, one of history's most brutal tyrants promised the world that his empire would last 1,000 years.

Hitler's Third Reich lasted 12, officially ending on April 30, 1945, when the Führer committed suicide in his bunker with his new wife after learning that Allied forces had surrounded Berlin.

Before retreating to the Führerbunker, Hitler and top Nazi officials enjoyed lavish compounds in Berchtesgaden, a resort village in the Bavarian Alps.

These are the best surviving photographs of Allied troops reveling in the spoils of war at Hitler's private residence.

SEE ALSO: Hitler's secret Nazi war machines of World War II

Easy Company after taking the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's former residence.

A paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division enjoys the view and a cognac while lounging on the terrace of Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden after the end of the war in 1945.

Maj. Dick Winters, Lewis Nixon, Harry Welsh, and two other battalion staff members, celebrate VE-Day in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

A 94-year-old World War II veteran held aReddit AMA, with the help of his grandson, in which he provides a startling look at his time serving behind Nazi lines as an intelligence staff sergeant.

John Cardinalli, who was sworn to secrecy for 65 years following the end of World War II, has taken to Reddit to explain his time with the US Office of Strategic Services. The OSS was the forerunner of the CIA, and it was dedicated to coordinating espionage and intelligence gathering behind enemy lines during WWII.

Cardinalli was unable to tell his story until the FBI and CIA declassified his mission in 2008. Now, realizing the historical importance of his role, Cardinalli has written the book "65 Years of Secrecy" about his roles during the war.

In the AMA, Cardinalli explains of how he joined the OSS in the first place:

I got into the OSS while in the infantry in North Carolina and I saw a sign that said "Men Wanted for Hazardous Duty, Need to know Morse Code, and must speak a Foreign Language, which I am fluent in Italian". There is more to the story of how I actually was accepted, it is all in my book. I am not trying to push my book, but it has everything in there. It is available on Amazon "65 Years of Secrecy by John Cardinalli."

Cardinalli described his exact role:

My role was an agent behind enemy lines collecting information and radio back to allied forces. I was a master at Morse Code, which is how most of our communication was done.

He also briefly explained how the OSS teams functioned behind enemy lines:

I worked with a small team that were grouped in twos. The code name who was in charge of all these teams was named "The Dutchman". There is a lot to this, but basically, but the groups all had a task and a name. For example, we had a "married couple" named jack and jill. Yes, I was in Holland and spent a lot of time hiding in windmills which were strategically chosen along Rhine River.

Cardinalli also shared the scariest thing he ever experienced:

Battle of the Bulge. Our team completely split up, by ourselves, with just radios to communicate. Everyone was completely on their own for 2 days.

The Battle of the Bulge was one of the last German offensives in Western Europe against the Allies, during which US forces sustained the brunt of the assault. It was the largest and bloodiest battle that the US took part in during WWII.

Despite the amazing adversity that Cardinalli had to fight through during WWII, he also admits that he never missed a chance to lightheartedly poke fun at his fellow team members:

One of my team members needed a hair cut and I told him I was the best Italian Barber in the military. I never cut hair in my life. I cut his and he looked like a dog with mange. He literally almost shot me.

Cardinalli also shared his advice for those thinking of joining the military:

If one was going to join the military, go into intelligence.

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The first Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) was founded in the areas of Fontana and San Bernardino, California in 1948.

From there, the club grew exponentially, becoming one of the largest in the world.

The club has since earned a reputation in media and popular culture, thanks to a number of high-profile raids and wars on its various national charters, and in no small part to Gimme Shelter, a 1970 documentary about a riot during a Rolling Stones concert.

The Stones’ management allegedly paid the Hell’s Angels to provide security at the concert and paid them in beer, which was a terrible idea. As a banner once read on the club’s website, “when we do right, no one remembers; when we do wrong, no one forgets.”

What the motorcycle club never forgets is its own heritage. While mainstream media gave the club a creation myth involving drunken, misfit airmen who flew bomber missions in World War II and struggled to adapt to life after the war, the real story is much simpler.

The fake story starts with a WWII Army Air Forces unit in Europe during WWII, the 303rd Bombardment Group. The 303rd was not a misfit group, as popular lore has implied, but rather one of the highest performers in the entire air war. In its official history, the motorcycle club tells the story of the B-17 the 303rd named “Hell’s Angels,” and its commander, the capable (and not drunken) Capt. Irl E. Baldwin.

Why? To make sure the world knows this aircrew wasn’t a band of drunken misfits, but instead were heroes of the war in Europe. The aircrew has nothing to do with the motorcycle club. The Angels just care that the memory of the crew isn’t dragged through the mud. (They care too much, right? That’s always been a fault of the Hell’s Angels.)

This B-17F, tail number 41-24577, was named Hell’s Angels after the Howard Hughes movie about World War I fighter pilots. The bomber would fly with several commanders and numerous crewmen over 15 months and was the first B-17 to complete 25 combat missions in Eighth Air Force.

The 303rd’s story starts with naming their B-17 “Hell’s Angels” after the 1930 movie by famed aviator Howard Hughes. The plane was the first 8th Air Force B-17 to complete 25 combat sorties in the European Theater. It even participated in one of the first strikes on Berlin 1944. Two of the plane’s crewmen would earn the Medal of Honor. Another four would ear the Distinguished Service Cross. Fifty years later, the entire 303rd would vote to change its name to the Hell’s Angels, with “Might in Flight” as its motto. That name is the only common thread between the bikers and the airmen of the 303rd.

So where did the name Hell’s Angels really come from? The motorcycle club’s official history says it comes from a World War II veteran from the All-Volunteer Group (AVG), better known as “the Flying Tigers.” This Flying Tiger, named Arvid Olson, was a close friend of the founders of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club after the war, but never even tried to become a member.

The Flying Tigers were an all-volunteer group of airmen and maintainers in service to the Chinese Air Force who fought the Japanese Imperial Air Forces in China, preparing for combat even before the US entered World War II. The unit’s 3rd Pursuit Squadron, comprised entirely of Marine Corps aviators, called themselves the Hell’s Angels. They first saw combat against Japan days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Over the life of the unit, the Flying Tigers would down almost 300 Japanese aircraft in combat between December 20, 1941 and July 4, 1942.

The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club’s copyrighted “Death’s Head” logo (below, left) can even be traced back to two US Army Air Corps patches, from the 85th Fighter Squadron (center) and the 552nd Medium Bomber Squadron (right).

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Military designers and the countries they work for have always sought to outdo one another on the battlefield, and creating massive artillery pieces has been no exception. Though there have been many extremely large artillery pieces manufactured, and some that are even larger than the ones listed here, these are the only ones that were actually used in combat.

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1. Schwerer Gustav and Dora

The Schwerer Gustav and its sister gun Dora were the two largest artillery pieces every constructed in terms of overall weight (1350 tonnes) and weight of projectiles (15,700 pounds), while it’s 800mm rounds are the largest ever fired in combat. The guns also had a range of over 24 miles.

The guns were originally designed to be deployed against the French Maginot Line though the Blitzkrieg rendered that mission obsolete. Instead, the guns were deployed to the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. The Schwerer Gustav entered combat during the German siege of Sevastopol in June 1942.

The gun was manned by a crew of over 1400 men, 250 to assemble the weapon, two anti-aircraft battalions to protect it, and the rest to load and fire the weapon. Dora was set up to be deployed against Stalingrad, though it cannot be confirmed whether it fired against its target or not.

Both guns remained on the Eastern Front but were not used in combat again. They were destroyed in Germany to avoid capture by the advancing allied armies.

2. Karl-Gerät

Another product of Germany, the Karl-Gerät was a massive self-propelled mortar. Though it was capable of its own propulsion, its massive size made this an inconvenience, so it was usually disassembled and reassembled when it arrived at its firing position. The Karl-Gerät was designed as a siege weapon in particular to attack the Maginot Line.

Its 21 man crew could fire a 600mm heavy bunker-busting shell nearly 3 miles at a rate of about 6 per hour. A total of 7 of these weapons were produced, one test piece and 6 others that saw extensive combat on both fronts.

The Karl-Gerät made its combat debut when a 3 gun battery shelled the fortress at Brest-Litovsk during the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. The following year, a battery of Karl-Geräts took part in the siege of Sevastopol in June and July of 1942.

Though it was planned for use in other operations on the Eastern Front, the threat of being captured by Soviet forces kept it out of the fight until 1944 when in August, one and then several other guns were sent to Warsaw to assist in quelling an on-going uprising against the German occupiers.

The Karl-Gerät fired its last shots of the war during the Battle of Remagen in an attempt to destroy the Ludendorff Bridge.

3. Obusier de 520 modèle 1916

The Obusier de 520 was a railroad gun developed by the French during World War I. However, due to a delayed procurement process, the first gun did not reach trails until late 1917 during which a round exploded prematurely and destroyed it. The second gun was completed in 1918 but did not finish trails before the war ended after which it was put in storage.

The Obusier de 520 modèle 1916 fired a 520mm round weighing over 3600 pounds to a range of over 8 miles. When Germany invaded France in 1940, the remaining gun was being renovated for battle where it was captured, still in the workshop, by the Germans.

Germany, with a penchant for enormous artillery, pressed the Obusier de 520 into their own service where it participated in the siege of Leningrad in 1942 before also being destroyed by a round prematurely exploding in the barrel in January 1943.

While hiding in a fortified two-level 3,000-square-foot underground bunker, one of history's most brutal tyrants promised the world that his empire would last 1,000 years.

Hitler's Third Reich lasted 12 years, officially ending on April 30, 1945, when the Führer committed suicide in his bunker with his new wife after learning that Allied forces had surrounded Berlin.

Before retreating to the Führerbunker, Hitler and top Nazi officials enjoyed lavish compounds in Berchtesgaden, a resort village in the Bavarian Alps.

These are the best surviving photographs of Allied troops reveling in the spoils of war at Hitler's private residence and at Eagle's Nest.

SEE ALSO: Hitler's secret Nazi war machines of World War II

Easy Company after taking the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's former residence.

A paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division enjoys the view and a cognac while lounging on the terrace of Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden after the end of the war in 1945.

Maj. Dick Winters, Lewis Nixon, Harry Welsh, and two other battalion staff members, celebrate VE-Day in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

The 1930s and 1940s were a time of upheaval for the US and the world at large.

Reeling from the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the world soon faced a greater disaster with the start of World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. Although the US did not enter into the war officially until after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the global war still affected the country.

The following photos, from the US Library of Congress, give us a rare glimpse of life in the US during World War II in color. They show some of the amazing changes that the war helped usher into the US, such as women in the workforce and the widespread adoption of aerial and mechanized warfare.

SEE ALSO: These amazing colorized photographs bring World War I to life

Mrs. Virginia Davis, a riveter in the assembly and repairs department of the naval air base, supervises Chas. Potter, a National Youth Administration trainee from Michigan, at Corpus Christi, Texas. After eight weeks of training, he will go into the civil service.

Answering the nation's need for woman-power, Davis made arrangements for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work at the naval air base in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Jesse Rhodes Waller, AOM, third class, tries out a 30-caliber machine gun he has just installed in a US Navy plane at the base in Corpus Christi, Texas.

On July 16, 1945, the US conducted the world's first test of a nuclear weapon. Less than a month later, two bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing about the end of World War II.

No nuclear bombs have been used as weapons since the attacks on Japan, but thousands of tests have been conducted — primarily by the US and USSR throughout the Cold War.

Produced by Alex Kuzoian

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PARIS (AP) — French historians on Wednesday unveiled secret services' archives from World War II that offer a unique insight into underground operations led by both the Nazis and the French resistance — along with the individual paths taken by thousands of agents, including celebrities like French designer Coco Chanel.

Most of the letters, reports, cables and photos from the rival intelligence agencies of the French Resistance, the collaborationist Vichy regime and the German authorities remain unpublished. The documents, stored for years in the archives at the medieval castle of Vincennes, east of Paris, have not been explored by historians until recently.

They include details of operations led by German spies hunting members of the French resistance, the secret activities of London-based Gen. Charles De Gaulle's government and efforts to track war criminals.

The French secret services also had files on celebrities they deemed suspicious. Designer Coco Chanel's file includes a note written in Paris in November 1944.

"A source in Madrid informed us that Madam Chanel was in 1942-43 the mistress and agent of Baron Guenter von Dinklage. Dinklage used to be an attache at the German embassy in 1935. He worked as a propagandist and we suspect him of being a (German) agent," the document says.

According to Frederic Queguineur, in charge of the secret services' archives, the file shows that Coco Chanel was documented as an agent by the Nazi intelligence organization, the Abwehr.

"From the German point of view, they registered her, so it means she potentially could be a source of information, fulfill a mission, work for them. But from her point of view, we don't know if she was really aware of that," he told the AP.

Following a government decision in 1999, hundreds of boxes were given to the defense ministry's archives with no classification system — an intelligence technique so no foreign country would get easy access to secret documents. Only half of the archives have now been inventoried.

"We have been captivated by the importance ... and the richness of these archives, the feeling, in some way, to find documents that had never been seen for 70 years," Queguineur said.

Once the archives have been identified, the public can get access to them but as they are not digitized, people need to go to the Chateau de Vincennes.

The secret services' archives include German documents seized by the French at the end of the war and thousands of individual files of members of the French resistance and investigation files of suspected collaborators.

Historian Thomas Fontaine stressed that history is more complex than a complete division between the ones who resisted and the ones who betrayed, giving the example of a regional Resistance group leader who later served the Germans.

"It's very clear in the files of the Gestapo that they detain his wife and daughter in order to make him talk," he said.

Lots of notes provide personal details on people involved in French or German operations. De Gaulle's intelligence services in 1943 wrote a note on American-born singer and dancer Josephine Baker, who helped his Free French effort.

"She demonstrates a tremendous devotion, she is totally unselfish. Keen and vibrant spirit, she is able to render us great services," it said.

Many Resistance members told their stories to the French intelligence services at the end of the war. Historian Sebastien Albertelli is starting research on some 600 women who served in uniform in De Gaulle's army.

"I can hear their voices, I can let them talk (with these documents)," he said.

The archives also include private documents, such as a moving handwritten letter from De Gaulle's niece Genevieve to her "dear uncle Charles" in which she seeks advice on the better way to serve in May 1943.

Yet historians noted that some files are incomplete, with some documents having probably been purged to keep some details secret. Those appear to include the file of former French President Francois Mitterrand, who served under the Vichy regime before joining the Resistance.

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The Anne Frank Foundation has criticized an "escape room" game, based on the apartment in Amsterdam in which the Jewish teenager hid from the Nazis during WWII. The Escape Bunker in the southern Dutch town of Valkenswaard offers you the chance to "be in the shoes of Anne Frank" during the style of game in which players have to solve puzzles and work in a team to get out of a room before the time runs out.

The description of the game on the company's site reads: "You are effectively being Anne Frank.

You decide to seek shelter/hide out of fear that you, too, will be sent away to the camps. You will face several different challenges. With the constant threat of Germans that can storm in at any given moment, you will have to overcome these challenges."

The Foundation, which looks after the teenager's house and hidden room in Amsterdam, which has since become a popular tourist destination, said the game shows very little empathy for the survivors of the Holocaust. A spokesperson added the bunker "creates the impression that hiding [from the Nazis] is an exciting game and if those hiding are smart enough they won't be caught.

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Chesapeake City (United States) (AFP) - A copy of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" owned by the Nazi leader and found in his Munich apartment sold for $20,655 in the United States on Friday, an auction house said.

The book, which is bound in red leather, was discovered by US soldiers who liberated Munich at the end of World War II, said Alexander Historical Auctions.

It was likely kept by Hitler for his own use or as a potential gift for an admirer, the auction house said.

The flyleaf is signed by 11 officers from a US field artillery battalion of the 45th Infantry Division, the first soldiers to liberate Munich.

"From Adolph Hitlers apartment in Munich on May 2 1945," wrote one officer followed by his signature and that of 10 others.

An August 20, 2015 letter from the daughter of Captain Daniel Allen of the 45th Infantry Division says that her father, who belonged to a field artillery unit, brought the book home with him at the end of the war.

There were more than 10 bidders, on phone and online, and the book sold to an American buyer, the auction house in Chesapeake City, Maryland told AFP. It had been valued pre-sale at $12,000 to 15,000.

Hitler wrote the book, whose title means "My Struggle," in 1924 while jailed for treason after his failed takeover of the Bavarian state government.

The inflammatory tract sets out the political doctrine he enacted as Fuehrer: annexing neighboring countries to gain "Lebensraum" or "living space" for Germans, and his hatred of Jews, which led to the Holocaust.

The limited edition sold Friday is a 354-page volume II of the manifesto, printed by the Nazi Party's publishers Verlag Franz Eher in Munich, 1927.

Millions of copies of the book were published in Germany after Hitler seized power in 1933 until his fall in 1945. From 1936, the Nazi state gave a copy to all newlyweds as a gift.

New copies of the book were printed in Germany in January for the first time since World War II, unsettling some Jewish community leaders, after its copyright expired.

For 70 years, Bavarian authorities refused to allow it to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent incitement of hatred.

In February 2014, two rare copies of "Mein Kampf" signed by a young Hitler sold at auction in Los Angeles for $64,850.

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Astrophysicist and StarTalk Radio host Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with George Takei, to talk about 'Star Trek', social media, the future of technology, and everything else. 

Produced by Kamelia Angelova, Kevin Reilly, and Darren Weaver and by StarTalk Radio, a Curved Light Production, executive producer Helen Matsos, and producer Laura Berland.

Edited by Christine Nguyen

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StarTalk Radio is a podcast and radio program hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, where comic co-hosts, guest celebrities, and scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Follow StarTalk Radio on Twitter, and watch StarTalk Radio "Behind the Scenes" on YouTube.

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