A-Z of the Second World War

G

Gas mask. When war was declared gas attack was expected very quickly. It was made compulsory that everyone had to be issues with a gas mask. They had to be carried with you at all times and you could be find for not having it with you. Even babies were fitted for special gas mask cots. People found them uncomfortable and some people panicked when they put them on. Luckily gas was never actually used on British cities in the war. Some people found other uses for them. One was to filter out the dye in petrol so that you could use the fuel for your own car without getting caught.

Many people hated wearing their gas masks, but the initial fear of being attacked and stories of gas from the First World War made people use them.

Gestapo. The German secret police. They would ensure that anyone who was an enemy of the Reich (Nazi state) was imprisoned. The Gestapo would use torture and any means of rule by fear to keep Nazi Germany intact.

Guernica. A town in Spain that was bombed in 1937 as an act of assistance to General Franco from Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted to see if it was possible to destroy a target from the air. The death of the people of this town was an experiment in Blitzkrieg.

Hitler was extremely pleased with the results.

Pablo Picasso painted this picture called Guernica to illustrate the horror of the event.