SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), meaning "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich.

The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau and Buchenwald; in Nazi-occupied Europe, it ran Auschwitz in German occupied Poland and Mauthausen in Austria as well as numerous other concentration and death camps. The death camps' primary function was genocide and included Treblinka, Bełżec extermination camp and Sobibor. It was responsible for facilitating what was called the Final Solution, known since as the Holocaust, in collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office and the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office or WVHA.

At the outbreak of WWII one of the first combat units of the Waffen-SS, the SS Division Totenkopf, was formed from SS-TV personnel. It soon developed a reputation for ferocity and fanaticism, participating in several war crimes such as the Le Paradis massacre in 1940 during the Fall of France and the murder of Russian civilians in Operation Barbarossa.

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

In Battle is an extreme metal band from Sundsvall, Sweden. The main lyrical themes of the band focus on Norse mythology and war.

The original line-up consisted of John Frölén on guitar and bass, John Odhinn Sandin on vocals, Håkan Sjödin on guitar and bass, and Otto Wiklund on drums. Håkan Sjödin left the band early so that he could play with Setherial full time. The band's first album, titled In Battle, was recorded at Sunlight Studio in Stockholm, Sweden and was released through Napalm Records in 1997. Their second release, called The Rage of the Northmen, came in March 1998. It was recorded at Ballerina Audio, Umeå, Sweden. In 1999 the only member left was Frölén, who started writing material for a third album. In 2002 he began rehearsing with Sandin (this time on drums), soon asking Hans Carlsson (guitar) of Diabolical to join the band. In 2003, Nils Fjellström of Aeon replaced Sandin on drums and Sandin went back to handling the vocals and the Soul Metamorphosis EP was recorded at Necromorbus Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2004, their album Welcome to the Battlefield (which was recorded in three different studios) was released through Cold Records and Metal Blade Records. The album was mixed and mastered by Erik Rutan from the bands Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal. Rutan also donated a guitar solo to the album. In April 2005, the band parted ways with their label partner Cold Records after that album's release. In 2006, In Battle signed a contract with Nocturnal Art Productions and began working on their 4th full-length album, which turned out to be Kingdom of Fear. The album was released on September 3, 2007. In Battle are currently working on a fifth studio album with a working title of Flames & Death.

Dietrich Eckart (23 March 1868 – 26 December 1923) was a German journalist and politician and, with Adolf Hitler, was one of the early key members of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and a participant in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.

Eckart was born Johann Dietrich Eckart in 1868 in Neumarkt, Upper Palatinate (about twenty miles southeast of Nuremberg) in the Kingdom of Bavaria, the son of royal notary and lawyer Christian Eckart and his wife Anna, a devout Catholic. His mother died when he was ten years old. Young Dietrich was expelled from several schools; in 1895, his father died also, leaving him a considerable amount of money that Eckart soon spent.

Eckart initially studied law at Erlangen, later medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and was an eager fencing and drinking corps member, but he finally decided in 1891 to work as a poet, playwright and journalist. Diagnosed with morphine addiction and nearly stranded, he moved to Berlin in 1899, where he wrote a number of plays, often autobiographical, becoming the protégé of Count Georg von Hülsen-Haeseler (1858 – 1922), the artistic director of the Prussian Royal Theatre. Eckart was a successful playwright, especially for his 1912 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, one of the best attended productions of the age with more than 600 performances in Berlin alone. It was this success that not only made Eckart a wealthy man, but gave him the social contacts needed to introduce Hitler to dozens of important German citizens of the day. These introductions proved to be pivotal in Hitler's ultimate rise to power.