While it is likely that some people would notice people disappearing, how widespread was knowledge of the concentration and killing camps or the atrocities committed by the wehrmacht? How would this compare to the knowledge of people living in Poland of the Soviet Union?

(People told me to bring this question here from the tank subreddit so I thought I might as well ask any British military history experts around here)

From their original designs during world war 1 British tank designers had a huge variety of designs, with a wide variety of names, as interesting and original as "medium tank Mark III" or "Light Tank Mark II" (they also had designs with actual names such as valentine or Matilda) however, sometime during the World War 2 period, their naming convention shifted to one very strict seeming rule, any tank that made main production had a name starting with a "C". Wartime designs such as the Churchill or the Cromwell, late war/post war designs such as the Comet or the Centurion, and cold war to modern designs such as the Chieftain or the Challenger.

All of these designs are starting with a C, but I can't find anything that explains why they shifted to such a singular naming convention, especially one that doesn't make as much sense as the Germans naming tanks after big hunting cats, or Americans naming tanks after significant military figures.

I once read a comment on Reddit that said that the chained Bible was one of many things that led Martin Luther to lead the Protestant Reformation. The person who made that comment offered no sources and their comment seems a bit too polemical, so I would like to hear an expert's opinion on this.

Were chained Bibles in the Middle Ages one of the many issues that lead to the Reformation?

Please let me know if there is a more appropriate subreddit for this question.

I've been watching some Dutch docus about 'our' Waffen-SS units. None of the members said they did any killing. A few still expressed hatred towards Jews and backed it up with Palestine, but others told stories of handing out bread to the starving because they would just be resupplied more. One interview I saw did mention a targeting of Jews but were watched from the side and carried out by native Ukrainians and was claimed a national incident and were told to not intervene. This man also claimed to have fought in market garden as a Dutchman against the British.. But so far no one rationalised the killing they did because nobody actually claimed thet did. I would like to hear their thought proces first person. Or were they all executed during the Neurenberg trials? Still they should've been interviewed. Regular foot soldiers not officers preferably. Thanks!

I was watching an alternative history video and I clicked on a few related videos and after a while I found myself watching a video about WWII and the holocaust. The guy in the video said that there isn't a single war-time document showing Hitler knew anything about Auschwitz. I don't know much about the holocaust but I was pretty skeptical so I looked up the guy narrating (his name was David Irving) and apparently he's a really high profile holocaust denier. Reading his wiki it looks like before it came out that he was a fascist and nazi-sympathizer, he was taken seriously as a historian so it's hard to know what's true and what's not. In the video he said that he made that claim years ago and still not a single historian has been able to provide evidence disprove it.

It's a fairly bold claim to make because only a single document would need to be produced in order to disprove it. The fact that he would make such an easily disprovable claim makes me wonder if it's actually true. I did a little bit of searching online but I have no idea how to navigate historical documents (as an aside, is there a guide somewhere?) so I'm just wondering if it's true? And if it is true, how common is it for direct evidence to not exist in a case like this? For example, is there direct evidence indicating that Stalin knew about the GULAGs or that Pol Pot knew about the forced labor camps? Or is it common practice for historians to just assume that the dictator knows and has control over things like this?

P.S. I'm not a holocaust denier or anything. Like I said, I know virtually nothing about the holocaust. I'm just wondering if this is true.

Thanks.

Why did Napoleon invade Spain, a country that was already compliant, when he was losing a war already?

Maybe my facts are wrong but this just seems like a bonehead move.

For example, are all dogs descended from the neolithic wolves of a specific region? If that's the case, do we have any idea what region that is?

Bonus question: How homogenous were domestic animals in the ancient world? Did breeds exist in any sense of the word? Would a priest of the Old Kingdom recognize my sister's ornery Maine Coon as an emissary of Bastet? Would Alfred the Great have any idea why Pomeranians exist?

Obviously they are not identical, but they are fairly similar. Both were proud European nations in the midst of economic and social turmoil. This eventually lead to a populist leader with a new ideology, which in turn, lead to the conquering of the majority of Europe. Finally the old order lead by Britain and Russia (and of course the US in WWII) eventually subdued the them, and tried to restore the European balance of power to prevent another war.

If you leave out the holocaust and racist ideology of the Nazis, they are strikingly similar. And I am wondering if there has been any real study on their similarity, as well as your thoughts.

I read a thread in the history section of the Total War Forums talking about the term "Broken Lance" (which was a special unit for the Italian faction) and about the origin of the term. Generally a traditional "Lance" supposedly consisted of a mounted knight/men at arms, a combative squire and a auxiliary squire. If I recall, it seems to be the case that it was less common for that squire to also be ridding his own horse and are usually on foot (Such as a Guisarmer or an archer.) So I wonder how that actually works in the battlefield. Did the squire just followed and fought with his liege in the general vicinity?

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As I understand it, triremes have little function outside of combat, lacking cargo space and general seaworthiness, and require skilled crews to operate well. However, ancient Greek states' administrative structures were relatively primitive; Athens relied on its empire for tribute, and both it and Sparta took Persian subsidies to finance their fleets later on, but how did Greek states that didn't have overseas empires pay for these dedicated warships? Were they employed full time? What did the crews do if there wasn't a war raging?