title: Agra

text: However, air pollution caused by emissions from foundries and other nearby factories and exhaust from motor vehicles has damaged the Taj, notably its marble facade. A number of measures have been taken to reduce the threat to the monument, among them the closing of some foundries and the installation of pollution-control equipment at others, the creation of a parkland buffer zone around the complex, and the banning of nearby vehicular traffic, and more recently, use of 'mud pack' therapy. Perhaps most importantly, the Taj Trapezium Zone has been created around the Taj Mahal and other nearby monuments where strict pollution restrictions are in place on industries, following a 1996 Supreme Court of India ruling.


title: Agra

text: Some antique views were published in the Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books, namely by Samuel Prout from a mid-distant angle (1832) and by S. Austin from those said ruins (1836). Both are accompanied by poetical illustrations by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.


title: Agra

text: The Agra Fort is a large 16th-century fortress of red sandstone located by the Yamuna River in Agra. It was first established by the Mughal Emperor Akbar and served as the seat of royal government when Agra was the capital of the Mughal empire in addition to being a military base and a royal residence. Built on the site of earlier fortifications by Islam Shah Suri(son of Sher Shah Suri), the Agra Fort lies on the right bank of the Yamuna River and is connected to the Taj Mahal (downstream, around a bend in the Yamuna), by a stretch of parkland. The fort was commissioned by Akbar in 1565, taking around eight years to build. Though much of the structure of the fort was founded by Akbar, both the interior and exterior underwent considerable changes under his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan, who added many new structures, often of marble. The red sandstone walls of the roughly semi-circular structure have a perimeter of about 2.5 km, rise 21 meters high, and are surrounded by a moat. There are two entrances in the walls: the Delhi Gate facing west, the original entrance, situated nearly opposite to the Agra Fort railway station and Jama Masjid, and decorated with intricate marble inlays; and the Amar Singh Gate(also known as "Hathi Pol", or Elephant Gate) facing south, presently the only means in or out of the fort complex). The complex of buildings in the fort—reminiscent of Persian and Timurid architecture, with great inspiration from Jain and Hindu architecture—forms a city within a city.


title: Agra

text: Among the major attractions in the fort is Jahangiri Mahal, the largest residence in the complex, built by Akbar as a private palace for his Rajput wives. In the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience), the emperor would listen to public petitions and meet state officials. The Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audience) was used for receiving distinguished visitors. The famous Peacock Throne was once kept there, before Aurangzeb took it to Delhi. Near the Diwan-i-Khas stands the Musamman Burj, an octagonal Tower which was the residence of Shah Jahan's favourite empress, Mumtaz Maḥal. The Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque), constructed by Shah Jahan, is a structure made entirely of white marble. The emperor's private residence was the Khas Mahal, whose marble walls were once adorned with flowers depicted by precious gems. Located to its northeast is the Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Mirrors), its walls and ceilings inlaid with thousands of small mirrors. Numerous other structures are there in the complex, including the "Anguri Bagh", the "Mina Bazaar" etc.


title: Agra

text: In addition to its other functions, the fort also served as a prison for Shah Jahan when Aurangzeb, his son and successor as emperor, had him confined there from 1658 until his death in 1666.


title: Agra

text: Nur Jahan commissioned Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb, sometimes called the "Baby Taj", for her father, Mirza Ghiyas Beg, the Chief Minister of the Emperor Jahangir. Located on the left bank of the Yamuna river, the mausoleum is set in a large cruciform garden, crisscrossed by water courses and walkways. The area of the mausoleum itself is about , and is built on a base that is about and about high. On each corner are hexagonal towers, about tall. Small in comparison to many other Mughal-era tombs, it is sometimes described as a jewel box. Its garden layout and use of white marble, pietra dura, inlay designs, and latticework presage many elements of the Taj Mahal.


title: Agra

text: The walls are white marble from Rajasthan encrusted with semi-precious stone decorations – cornelian, jasper, lapis lazuli, onyx, and topaz in images of cypress trees and wine bottles or more elaborate decorations like cut fruit or vases containing bouquets. Light penetrates the interior through delicate Jali screens of intricately carved white marble.


title: Agra

text: Sikandra, the last resting place of the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great, is on the Delhi-Agra Highway, about from the Agra Fort. The four-storied tomb combines both marble and sandstone in its exterior. The construction of Sikandra was commenced in Akbar's reign and was completed by his heir and son Jahangir in 1613. The tomb with is set amidst a large garden and is enclosed by four battlemented walls, each with a large gateway. The 99 names of Allah have been inscribed on the tomb. The tomb has seen some damage to its minarets and other aspects, which was inflicted by the Jats of Bharatpur. The vast gardens around Sikandra are inhabited by several Blackbucks, which are in the process of being shifted to the Etawah Safari Park. Next to Akbar's tomb, stands the Tomb of Mariam-uz-Zamani, the favorite wife of Akbar.


title: Agra

text: Agra also has several other places of interest, most of them from its Mughal past. They include the Jama Masjid, Chini Ka Rauza, Aram Bagh, Mariam's Tomb, and Mehtab Bagh among others. The Jama Masjid is a large mosque attributed to Shah Jahan's daughter Jahanara Begum, built-in 1648, notable for its unusual dome and absence of minarets. The Chini Ka Rauza, notable for its Persian influenced dome of blue glazed tiles, is dedicated to the prime minister of Shah Jahan, Afzal Khan. The Aram Bagh, commonly known as Ram Bagh today, is one of the oldest Mughal garden in India, and was built by the Mughal emperor Babur in 1528 on the bank of the Yamuna. It lies about north of the Taj Mahal. The original name of the gardens was Aram Bagh, or 'Garden of Relaxation', and this was where Babur used to spend his leisure time. Tomb of Mariam-uz-Zamani, is the tomb of Mariam, the favorite wife of Emperor Akbar. The tomb is within the compound of the Christian Missionary Society. The Mehtab Bagh, or 'Moonlight Garden', is on the opposite bank of the River Yamuna from the Taj Mahal. Agra also has a nearby bird sanctuary, Keetham Lake. Also known as Sur Sarovar Bird Sanctuary, it is situated within the Surdas Reserved Forest. The lake has nearly two dozen varieties of migratory and resident birds.


title: Agra

text: Agra's cuisine is derived from its Mughal past. Mughlai cuisine mainly consists of meat enriched with creamy, boldly flavoured curries, with lots of dried fruits and spices. Vegetarian dishes, using "paneer" instead of meat are equally loved. Mughal cuisine is available in restaurants all around the city. "Petha", a sweet made using ash gourd, is one of the famous dishes of Agra, and is available in many varieties. Another dish that is endemic to Agra is "Dalmoth", which is a dry snack made with spicy fried "dal" (lentils), nuts and raisins. The breakfast specialties include "Bedai", which is a puffy "kachori" (made with all purpose flour, which is deep fried) with spicy filling inside and is generally served with spicy "aloo sabzi" and "dahi".(Curd) Equally popular as a snack is "Chaat", a collective term which includes snacks like "Dahi-bhalla", "Raj kachori", "samosas", and "gol gappas", among others. "Paratha", a pan fried flat wheat bread which is stuffed with potatoes, cauliflower, carrots or "paneer", is also popular, and eaten accompanied with curd, pickle and chutney.


title: Agra

text: Taj Mahotsav is a cultural festival and craft fair that was started in the year 1992 and has grown since then. The year 2019 was the 28th year of this Mahotsav. The fair is held in a big field in Shilpgram, near the eastern gate of the Taj Mahal. This festival also figures in the calendar of events of the Department of Tourism, Government of India. A large number of Indian and foreign tourists coming to Agra join this festivity. One of the objectives of this craft fair is to provide encouragement to the artisans. It also makes available works of art and craft at reasonable prices that are not inflated by high maintenance cost. The Mahotsav is hosted from 18 to 27 February every year. The theme for the 2020 Taj Mahotsav was "Sanskriti ke Rang, Taj ke Sang." For the first time since 1992, Taj Mahotsav 2021 has been cancelled, because of tourism restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Agra

text: As of April 2021, Indigo operates regular flights between Agra airport and Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bhopal and Bengaluru. The Agra Airport at Kheria is controlled by the Indian Air Force.


title: Agra

text: The city of Agra is served by 7 Railway stations viz. Agra Cant.(major station for Delhi - Mumbai line), Raja-Ki-Mandi, Agra Fort(Major station for Jodhpur- Hawrah Line), Idgah, Agra City, Jamuna Bridge and Billochpura. Agra City comes under the jurisdiction of Agra Division of North Central Railways Zone of the Indian Railways. Agra is served by multiple mail/express trains, as well as Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Gatiman express. The Gatiman express is India's first semi-high train speed service, which cut travel time between Agra and Delhi to 100 minutes. Being a major tourist destination, Agra is also served by the luxury train Maharajas' Express.


title: Agra

text: Inter-State Bus Terminal (I.S.B.T.), Idgah Bus Stand, Taj Depot and Fort Depot are the major bus stands in Agra, connecting Agra to most of the bigger cities in northern India. It is a major junction of highways with three national highways and two expressways (Yamuna Expressway & Agra Lucknow Expressway) originating from Agra.


title: Agra

text: Bus services are run by the UPSRTC(As far as I know, Bus services are not run by Amc, there's nothing mentioning that on their website. It ought to be upsrtc. Hard to disprove something, to prove you just need a citation.--> Other para-transit modes include rickshaws. Polluting vehicles are not allowed near the Taj Mahal. Within the city, Mahatma Gandhi Marg is the main artery.


title: Agra

text: Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) had proposed 30 stations, 11 underground and 19 elevated, for two corridors of the Metro Rail in the city. The two lines are Sikandra to the Taj Mahal's east gate via Agra Fort and Agra Cantt to Kalindi Vihar. On 24 March 2017, State Chief Minister Yogi Aditya Nath approved the project. In December 2017, the cabinet of the UP Government approved the DPR as per New Metro Policy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Agra Metro on 8 March 2019.


title: Agra

text: It was during the advent of the Mughal era that Agra grew as a centre of Islamic education. In the year 1823, Agra College, one of the oldest colleges in India was formed out of a Sanskrit school established by the Scindia rulers.


title: Agra

text: In the British era, Agra became a great centre of Hindi literature with people like Babu Gulab Rai at the helm.


title: Agra

text: Agra University was established on 1 July 1927 and catered to colleges spread across the United Provinces, the Rajputana, the Central Provinces and almost to entire northern India. There are 10 institutes comprising various departments and around 700 Colleges are affiliated to this university. The historic Agra University was later rechristened as Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University by the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati.


title: Agra

text: Agra is home to the "Dainik Jagran" newspaper, the most read Hindi newspaper in India. Other widely read papers include "Amar Ujala", "Rajasthan Patrika", "Aaj", "Hindustan", "The Sea Express", "daily Amar Bharti", Deepsheel Bharat, DLA. The English dailies published are "The Times of India", "Hindustan Times", "Economic Times", and "The Pioneer". The Urdy dailies published are Prabhanjan Sanket, and "Inksaaf". There is also the Hindi and English mixed newspaper tabloid "I-Next".


title: Agra

text: State-owned All India Radio has a local station in Agra which transmits various programs of mass interest. There are four private FM radio stations, 92.7 BIG FM (Reliance Broadcast Network Limited), 93.7 Fever FM, 94.5 Tadka FM and Radio City 91.9 FM. There is a community Radio Station 90.4 FM.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine is a tropane alkaloid and anticholinergic medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings as well as some types of slow heart rate, and to decrease saliva production during surgery. It is typically given intravenously or by injection into a muscle. Eye drops are also available which are used to treat uveitis and early amblyopia. The intravenous solution usually begins working within a minute and lasts half an hour to an hour. Large doses may be required to treat some poisonings.


title: Atropine

text: Common side effects include a dry mouth, large pupils, urinary retention, constipation, and a fast heart rate. It should generally not be used in people with angle closure glaucoma. While there is no evidence that its use during pregnancy causes birth defects, that has not been well studied. It is likely safe during breastfeeding. It is an antimuscarinic (a type of anticholinergic) that works by inhibiting the parasympathetic nervous system.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine occurs naturally in a number of plants of the nightshade family, including deadly nightshade (belladonna), Jimson weed, and mandrake. It was first isolated in 1833, It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication.


title: Atropine

text: Topical atropine is used as a cycloplegic, to temporarily paralyze the accommodation reflex, and as a mydriatic, to dilate the pupils. Atropine degrades slowly, typically wearing off in 7 to 14 days, so it is generally used as a therapeutic mydriatic, whereas tropicamide (a shorter-acting cholinergic antagonist) or phenylephrine (an α-adrenergic agonist) is preferred as an aid to ophthalmic examination.


title: Atropine

text: In refractive and accommodative amblyopia, when occlusion is not appropriate sometimes atropine is given to induce blur in the good eye. Evidence suggests that atropine penalization is just as effective as occlusion in improving visual acuity. Antimuscarinic topical medication is effective in slowing myopia progression in children; accommodation difficulties and papillae and follicles are possible side-effects. All doses of atropine appear similarly effective, while higher doses have greater side effects. The lower dose of 0.01% is thus generally recommended due to fewer side effects and potential less rebound worsening when the atropine is stopped.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine was previously included in international resuscitation guidelines for use in cardiac arrest associated with asystole and PEA, but was removed from these guidelines in 2010 due to a lack of evidence for its effectiveness. For symptomatic bradycardia, the usual dosage is 0.5 to 1 mg IV push, may repeat every 3 to 5 minutes up to a total dose of 3 mg (maximum 0.04 mg/kg).


title: Atropine

text: Atropine is also useful in treating second-degree heart block Mobitz type 1 (Wenckebach block), and also third-degree heart block with a high Purkinje or AV-nodal escape rhythm. It is usually not effective in second-degree heart block Mobitz type 2, and in third-degree heart block with a low Purkinje or ventricular escape rhythm.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine has also been used in an effort to prevent a low heart rate during intubation of children; however, evidence does not support this use.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine's actions on the parasympathetic nervous system inhibit salivary and mucus glands. The drug may also inhibit sweating via the sympathetic nervous system. This can be useful in treating hyperhidrosis, and can prevent the death rattle of dying patients. Even though atropine has not been officially indicated for either of these purposes by the FDA, it has been used by physicians for these purposes.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine is not an actual antidote for organophosphate poisoning. However, by blocking the action of acetylcholine at muscarinic receptors, atropine also serves as a treatment for poisoning by organophosphate insecticides and nerve agents, such as tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD), and VX. Troops who are likely to be attacked with chemical weapons often carry autoinjectors with atropine and an oxime, for rapid injection into the muscles of the thigh. In a developed case of nerve-gas poisoning, maximum atropinization is desirable. Atropine is often used in conjunction with the oxime pralidoxime chloride.


title: Atropine

text: Some of the nerve agents attack and destroy acetylcholinesterase by phosphorylation, so the action of acetylcholine becomes excessive and prolonged. Pralidoxime (2-PAM) can be effective against organophosphate poisoning because it can re-cleave this phosphorylation. Atropine can be used to reduce the effect of the poisoning by blocking muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, which would otherwise be overstimulated, by excessive acetylcholine accumulation.


title: Atropine

text: Adverse reactions to atropine include ventricular fibrillation, supraventricular or ventricular tachycardia, dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, loss of balance, dilated pupils, photophobia, dry mouth and potentially extreme confusion, deliriant hallucinations, and excitation especially among the elderly. These latter effects are because atropine is able to cross the blood–brain barrier. Because of the hallucinogenic properties, some have used the drug recreationally, though this is potentially dangerous and often unpleasant.


title: Atropine

text: In overdoses, atropine is poisonous. Atropine is sometimes added to potentially addictive drugs, particularly antidiarrhea opioid drugs such as diphenoxylate or difenoxin, wherein the secretion-reducing effects of the atropine can also aid the antidiarrhea effects.


title: Atropine

text: Although atropine treats bradycardia (slow heart rate) in emergency settings, it can cause paradoxical heart rate slowing when given at very low doses (i.e. <0.5 mg), presumably as a result of central action in the CNS. One proposed mechanism for atropine's paradoxical bradycardia effect at low doses involves blockade of inhibitory presynaptic muscarinic autoreceptors, thereby blocking a system that inhibits the parasympathetic response.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine is incapacitating at doses of 10 to 20 mg per person. Its LD is estimated to be 453 mg per person (by mouth) with a probit slope of 1.8.


title: Atropine

text: A common mnemonic used to describe the physiologic manifestations of atropine overdose is: "hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, and mad as a hatter". These associations reflect the specific changes of warm, dry skin from decreased sweating, blurry vision, decreased lacrimation, vasodilation, and central nervous system effects on muscarinic receptors, type 4 and 5. This set of symptoms is known as anticholinergic toxidrome, and may also be caused by other drugs with anticholinergic effects, such as hyoscine hydrobromide (scopolamine), diphenhydramine, phenothiazine antipsychotics and benztropine.


title: Atropine

text: It is generally contraindicated in people with glaucoma, pyloric stenosis, or prostatic hypertrophy, except in doses ordinarily used for preanesthesia.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine, a tropane alkaloid, is an enantiomeric mixture of "d"-hyoscyamine and "l"-hyoscyamine, with most of its physiological effects due to "l"-hyoscyamine. Its pharmacological effects are due to binding to muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. It is an antimuscarinic agent. Significant levels are achieved in the CNS within 30 minutes to 1 hour and disappears rapidly from the blood with a half-life of 2 hours. About 60% is excreted unchanged in the urine, most of the rest appears in urine as hydrolysis and conjugation products. Noratropine (24%), atropine-N-oxide (15%), tropine (2%) and tropic acid (3%) appear to be the major metabolites, while 50% of the administered dose is excreted as apparently unchanged atropine. No conjugates were detectable. Evidence that atropine is present as (+)-hyoscyamine was found, suggesting that stereoselective metabolism of atropine probably occurs. Effects on the iris and ciliary muscle may persist for longer than 72 hours.


title: Atropine

text: The most common atropine compound used in medicine is atropine sulfate (monohydrate) ()·HSO·HO, the full chemical name is 1α H, 5α H-Tropan-3-α ol (±)-tropate(ester), sulfate monohydrate.


title: Atropine

text: In general, atropine counters the "rest and digest" activity of glands regulated by the parasympathetic nervous system. This occurs because atropine is a competitive, reversible antagonist of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (acetylcholine being the main neurotransmitter used by the parasympathetic nervous system).


title: Atropine

text: Atropine is a competitive antagonist of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor types M1, M2, M3, M4 and M5. It is classified as an anticholinergic drug (parasympatholytic).


title: Atropine

text: In cardiac uses, it works as a nonselective muscarinic acetylcholinergic antagonist, increasing firing of the sinoatrial node (SA) and conduction through the atrioventricular node (AV) of the heart, opposes the actions of the vagus nerve, blocks acetylcholine receptor sites, and decreases bronchial secretions.


title: Atropine

text: In the eye, atropine induces mydriasis by blocking contraction of the circular pupillary sphincter muscle, which is normally stimulated by acetylcholine release, thereby allowing the radial iris dilator muscle to contract and dilate the pupil. Atropine induces cycloplegia by paralyzing the ciliary muscles, whose action inhibits accommodation to allow accurate refraction in children, helps to relieve pain associated with iridocyclitis, and treats ciliary block (malignant) glaucoma.


title: Atropine

text: The vagus (parasympathetic) nerves that innervate the heart release acetylcholine (ACh) as their primary neurotransmitter. ACh binds to muscarinic receptors (M2) that are found principally on cells comprising the sinoatrial (SA) and atrioventricular (AV) nodes. Muscarinic receptors are coupled to the G subunit; therefore, vagal activation decreases cAMP. Gi-protein activation also leads to the activation of KACh channels that increase potassium efflux and hyperpolarizes the cells.


title: Atropine

text: Increases in vagal activities to the SA node decreases the firing rate of the pacemaker cells by decreasing the slope of the pacemaker potential (phase 4 of the action potential); this decreases heart rate (negative chronotropy). The change in phase 4 slope results from alterations in potassium and calcium currents, as well as the slow-inward sodium current that is thought to be responsible for the pacemaker current (If). By hyperpolarizing the cells, vagal activation increases the cell's threshold for firing, which contributes to the reduction in the firing rate. Similar electrophysiological effects also occur at the AV node; however, in this tissue, these changes are manifested as a reduction in impulse conduction velocity through the AV node (negative dromotropy). In the resting state, there is a large degree of vagal tone on the heart, which is responsible for low resting heart rates.


title: Atropine

text: There is also some vagal innervation of the atrial muscle, and to a much lesser extent, the ventricular muscle. Vagus activation, therefore, results in modest reductions in atrial contractility (inotropy) and even smaller decreases in ventricular contractility.


title: Atropine

text: Muscarinic receptor antagonists bind to muscarinic receptors thereby preventing ACh from binding to and activating the receptor. By blocking the actions of ACh, muscarinic receptor antagonists very effectively block the effects of vagal nerve activity on the heart. By doing so, they increase heart rate and conduction velocity.


title: Atropine

text: The name "atropine" was coined in the 19th century, when pure extracts from the belladonna plant "Atropa belladonna" were first made. The medicinal use of preparations from plants in the nightshade family is much older however. "Mandragora" (mandrake) was described by Theophrastus in the fourth century B.C. for treatment of wounds, gout, and sleeplessness, and as a love potion. By the first century A.D. Dioscorides recognized wine of mandrake as an anaesthetic for treatment of pain or sleeplessness, to be given prior to surgery or cautery. The use of nightshade preparations for anesthesia, often in combination with opium, persisted throughout the Roman and Islamic Empires and continued in Europe until superseded in the 19th century by modern anesthetics.


title: Atropine

text: Atropine-rich extracts from the Egyptian henbane plant (another nightshade) were used by Cleopatra in the last century B.C. to dilate the pupils of her eyes, in the hope that she would appear more alluring. Likewise in the Renaissance, women used the juice of the berries of the nightshade "Atropa belladonna" to enlarge their pupils for cosmetic reasons. This practice resumed briefly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Paris.


title: Atropine

text: The pharmacological study of "belladonna" extracts was begun by the German chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (1795–1867). In 1831, the German pharmacist Heinrich F. G. Mein (1799-1864) succeeded in preparing a pure crystalline form of the active substance, which was named "atropine".


title: Atropine

text: Atropine is found in many members of the family Solanaceae. The most commonly found sources are "Atropa belladonna" (the deadly nightshade), "Datura innoxia", "D. wrightii", "D. metel", and "D. stramonium". Other sources include members of the genera "Brugmansia" (angel's trumpets) and "Hyoscyamus".


title: Atropine

text: Atropine can be synthesized by the reaction of tropine with tropic acid in the presence of hydrochloric acid.


title: Atropine

text: The biosynthesis of atropine starting from "l"-phenylalanine first undergoes a transamination forming phenylpyruvic acid which is then reduced to phenyl-lactic acid. Coenzyme A then couples phenyl-lactic acid with tropine forming littorine, which then undergoes a radical rearrangement initiated with a P450 enzyme forming hyoscyamine aldehyde. A dehydrogenase then reduces the aldehyde to a primary alcohol making (−)-hyoscyamine, which upon racemization forms atropine.


title: Atropine

text: The species name "belladonna" ('beautiful woman' in Italian) comes from the original use of deadly nightshade to dilate the pupils of the eyes for cosmetic effect. Both atropine and the genus name for deadly nightshade derive from Atropos, one of the three Fates who, according to Greek mythology, chose how a person was to die.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Coulomb's inverse-square law, or simply Coulomb's law, is an experimental law of physics that quantifies the amount of force between two stationary, electrically charged particles. The electric force between charged bodies at rest is conventionally called "electrostatic force" or Coulomb force. Although the law was known earlier, it was first published in 1785 by French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, hence the name. Coulomb's law was essential to the development of the theory of electromagnetism, maybe even its starting point, as it made it possible to discuss the quantity of electric charge in a meaningful way.


title: Coulomb's law

text: The law states that the magnitude of the electrostatic force of attraction or repulsion between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the magnitudes of charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them,


title: Coulomb's law

text: Here, or is the Coulomb constant (), and are the signed magnitudes of the charges, and the scalar "r" is the distance between the charges.


title: Coulomb's law

text: The force is along the straight line joining the two charges. If the charges have the same sign, the electrostatic force between them is repulsive; if they have different signs, the force between them is attractive.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Being an inverse-square law, the law is analogous to Isaac Newton's inverse-square law of universal gravitation, but gravitational forces are always attractive, while electrostatic forces can be attractive or repulsive. Coulomb's law can be used to derive Gauss's law, and vice versa. In the case of a single stationary point charge, the two laws are equivalent, expressing the same physical law in different ways. The law has been tested extensively, and observations have upheld the law on the scale from 10 m to 10 m.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as rods of amber, could be rubbed with cat's fur to attract light objects like feathers and papers. Thales of Miletus made the first recorded description of static electricity around 600 BC, when he noticed that friction could render a piece of amber magnetic.


title: Coulomb's law

text: In 1600, English scientist William Gilbert made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. He coined the New Latin word "electricus" ("of amber" or "like amber", from ["elektron"], the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed. This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's "Pseudodoxia Epidemica" of 1646.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Early investigators of the 18th century who suspected that the electrical force diminished with distance as the force of gravity did (i.e., as the inverse square of the distance) included Daniel Bernoulli and Alessandro Volta, both of whom measured the force between plates of a capacitor, and Franz Aepinus who supposed the inverse-square law in 1758.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Based on experiments with electrically charged spheres, Joseph Priestley of England was among the first to propose that electrical force followed an inverse-square law, similar to Newton's law of universal gravitation. However, he did not generalize or elaborate on this. In 1767, he conjectured that the force between charges varied as the inverse square of the distance.


title: Coulomb's law

text: In 1769, Scottish physicist John Robison announced that, according to his measurements, the force of repulsion between two spheres with charges of the same sign varied as .


title: Coulomb's law

text: In the early 1770s, the dependence of the force between charged bodies upon both distance and charge had already been discovered, but not published, by Henry Cavendish of England.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Finally, in 1785, the French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb published his first three reports of electricity and magnetism where he stated his law. This publication was essential to the development of the theory of electromagnetism. He used a torsion balance to study the repulsion and attraction forces of charged particles, and determined that the magnitude of the electric force between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.


title: Coulomb's law

text: The torsion balance consists of a bar suspended from its middle by a thin fiber. The fiber acts as a very weak torsion spring. In Coulomb's experiment, the torsion balance was an insulating rod with a metal-coated ball attached to one end, suspended by a silk thread. The ball was charged with a known charge of static electricity, and a second charged ball of the same polarity was brought near it. The two charged balls repelled one another, twisting the fiber through a certain angle, which could be read from a scale on the instrument. By knowing how much force it took to twist the fiber through a given angle, Coulomb was able to calculate the force between the balls and derive his inverse-square proportionality law.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Coulomb's law can be stated as a simple mathematical expression. The scalar form gives the magnitude of the vector of the electrostatic force between two point charges and , but not its direction. If is the distance between the charges, the magnitude of the force is


title: Coulomb's law

text: The constant is called the Coulomb constant and is equal to , where is the electric constant; . If the product is positive, the force between the two charges is repulsive; if the product is negative, the force between them is attractive.


title: Coulomb's law

text: Coulomb's law in vector form states that the electrostatic force formula_3 experienced by a charge, formula_4 at position formula_5, in the vicinity of another charge, formula_6 at position formula_7, in a vacuum is equal to


title: Coulomb's law

text: In this way, the verification is limited to measuring the distance between the charges and check that the division approximates the theoretical value.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS- Reinhard Heydrich, the operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The worked hand-in-hand with the Order Police battalions on the Eastern Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar with 33,771 Jews murdered in two days, and the Rumbula massacre (with about 25,000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting). As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the "Wehrmacht" cooperated with the , providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass murders. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the , related agencies, and foreign auxiliary personnel murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million of the 5.5 to 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out. However, only four of these death sentences were carried out. Four additional leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The were formed under the direction of SS- Reinhard Heydrich and operated by the (SS) before and during World War II. The had their origins in the ad hoc formed by Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the in Austria in March 1938. Originally part of the (Security Police; SiPo), two units of were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary due to the Munich Agreement, the were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They also secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens. From September 1939, the (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) had overall command of the .


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: As part of the drive by the Nazi regime to remove so-called "undesirable" elements from the German population, from September to December 1939 the and others took part in Action T4, a program of systematic murder of persons with physical and mental disabilities and patients of psychiatric hospitals. Aktion T4 mainly took place from 1939 to 1941, but the murders continued until the end of the war. Initially the victims were shot by the and others, but gas chambers were put into use by spring 1940.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: In response to Adolf Hitler's plan to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, Heydrich re-formed the to travel in the wake of the German armies. Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, the (Security Service; SD), the police, and the Gestapo. Heydrich placed SS- Werner Best in command, who assigned to choose personnel for the task forces and their subgroups, called , from among educated people with military experience and a strong ideological commitment to Nazism. Some had previously been members of paramilitary groups such as the . Heydrich instructed Wagner in meetings in late July that the should undertake their operations in cooperation with the (Order Police; Orpo) and military commanders in the area. Army intelligence was in constant contact with to coordinate their activities with other units.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Initially numbering 2,700 men (and ultimately 4,250 in Poland), the 's mission was to murder members of the Polish leadership most clearly identified with Polish national identity: the intelligentsia, members of the clergy, teachers, and members of the nobility. As stated by Hitler: "... there must be no Polish leaders; where Polish leaders exist they must be killed, however harsh that sounds". SS- Lothar Beutel, commander of IV, later testified that Heydrich gave the order for these murders at a series of meetings in mid-August. The lists of people to be murderedhad been drawn up by the SS as early as May 1939, using dossiers collected by the SD from 1936 forward. The performed these murders with the support of the , a paramilitary group consisting of ethnic Germans living in Poland. Members of the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the also shot civilians during the Polish campaign. Approximately 65,000 civilians were murdered by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, they murdered Jews, prostitutes, Romani people, and the mentally ill. Psychiatric patients in Poland were initially murdered by shooting, but by spring 1941 gas vans were widely used.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Seven of battalion strength (around 500 men) operated in Poland. Each was subdivided into five of company strength (around 100 men).


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Though they were formally under the command of the army, the received their orders from Heydrich and for the most part acted independently of the army. Many senior army officers were only too glad to leave these genocidal actions to the task forces, as the murders violated the rules of warfare as set down in the Geneva Conventions. However, Hitler had decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the when it was tactically possible to do so. Some army commanders complained about unauthorised shootings, looting, and rapes committed by members of the and the , to little effect. For example, when Johannes Blaskowitz sent a memorandum of complaint to Hitler about the atrocities, Hitler dismissed his concerns as "childish", and Blaskowitz was relieved of his post in May 1940. He continued to serve in the army but never received promotion to field marshal.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The final task of the in Poland was to round up the remaining Jews and concentrate them in ghettos within major cities with good railway connections. The intention was to eventually remove all the Jews from Poland, but at this point their final destination had not yet been determined. Together, the "Wehrmacht" and the also drove tens of thousands of Jews eastward into Soviet-controlled territory.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: On 13 March 1941, in the lead-up to Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler dictated his "Guidelines in Special Spheres re: Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)". Sub-paragraph B specified that Heinrich Himmler would be given "special tasks" on direct orders from the Führer, which he would carry out independently. This directive was intended to prevent friction between the "Wehrmacht" and the SS in the upcoming offensive. Hitler also specified that criminal acts against civilians perpetrated by members of the "Wehrmacht" during the upcoming campaign would not be prosecuted in the military courts, and thus would go unpunished.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: In a speech to his leading generals on 30 March 1941, Hitler described his envisioned war against the Soviet Union. General Franz Halder, the Army's Chief of Staff, described the speech:


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Though General Halder did not record any mention of Jews, German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that because of Hitler's frequent contemporary statements about the coming war of annihilation against "Judeo-Bolshevism", his generals would have understood Hitler's call for the destruction of the Soviet Union as also comprising a call for the destruction of its Jewish population. The genocide was often described using euphemisms such as "special tasks" and "executive measures"; victims were often described as having been shot while trying to escape. In May 1941, Heydrich verbally passed on the order to murder the Soviet Jews to the SiPo NCO School in Pretzsch, where the commanders of the reorganised were being trained for Operation Barbarossa. In spring 1941, Heydrich and the First Quartermaster of the , General Eduard Wagner, successfully completed negotiations for co-operation between the and the German Army to allow the implementation of the "special tasks". Following the Heydrich-Wagner agreement on 28 April 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that when Operation Barbarossa began, all German Army commanders were to immediately identify and register all Jews in occupied areas in the Soviet Union, and fully co-operate with the .


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: In further meetings held in June 1941 Himmler outlined to top SS leaders the regime's intention to reduce the population of the Soviet Union by 30 million people, not only through direct murder of those considered racially inferior, but by depriving the remainder of food and other necessities of life.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: For Operation Barbarossa, initially four were created, each numbering 500–990 men to comprise a total force of 3,000. A, B, and C were to be attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; D was assigned to the 11th Army. The for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. The were under the control of the RSHA, headed by Heydrich and later by his successor, SS- Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Heydrich gave them a mandate to secure the offices and papers of the Soviet state and Communist Party; to liquidate all the higher cadres of the Soviet state; and to instigate and encourage pogroms against Jewish populations. The men of the were recruited from the SD, Gestapo, (Kripo), Orpo, and Waffen-SS. Each was under the operational control of the Higher SS Police Chiefs in its area of operations. In May 1941, General Wagner and SS- Walter Schellenberg agreed that the in front-line areas were to operate under army command, while the army provided the with all necessary logistical support. Given their main task was defeating the enemy, the army left the pacification of the civilian population to the , who offered support as well as prevented subversion. This did not preclude their participation in acts of violence against civilians, as many members of the "Wehrmacht" assisted the in rounding up and murdering Jews of their own accord.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Heydrich acted under orders from Himmler, who supplied security forces on an "as needed" basis to the local SS and Police Leaders. Led by SD, Gestapo, and Kripo officers, included recruits from the Orpo, Security Service and Waffen-SS, augmented by uniformed volunteers from the local auxiliary police force. Each was supplemented with Waffen-SS and Order Police battalions as well as support personnel such as drivers and radio operators. On average, the Order Police formations were larger and better armed, with heavy machine-gun detachments, which enabled them to carry out operations beyond the capability of the SS. Each death squad followed an assigned army group as they advanced into the Soviet Union. During the course of their operations, the commanders received assistance from the "Wehrmacht". Activities ranged from the murder of targeted groups of individuals named on carefully prepared lists, to joint citywide operations with which lasted for two or more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar, perpetrated by the Police Battalion 45, and at Rumbula, by Battalion 22, reinforced by local (auxiliary police). The SS brigades, wrote historian Christopher Browning, were "only the thin cutting edge of German units that became involved in political and racial mass murder."


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Many leaders were highly educated; for example, nine of seventeen leaders of A held doctorate degrees. Three were commanded by holders of doctorates, one of whom SS- Otto Rasch) held a double doctorate.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Additional were created as additional territories were occupied. E operated in Independent State of Croatia under three commanders, SS- , SS- Günther Herrmann, and lastly SS- Wilhelm Fuchs. The unit was subdivided into five located in Vinkovci, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Knin, and Zagreb. F worked with Army Group South. G operated in Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine, commanded by SS- . H was assigned to Slovakia. K and L, under SS- Emanuel Schäfer and SS- Ludwig Hahn, worked alongside 5th and 6th Panzer Armies during the Ardennes offensive. Hahn had previously been in command of in Greece.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Other and included (operated in Carinthia, on the border between Slovenia and Austria) under SS- Paul Blobel, (Yugoslavia) (Luxembourg), (Norway) commanded by SS- Franz Walter Stahlecker, (Yugoslavia) under SS- Wilhelm Fuchs and SS- August Meysner, "" (Lithuania, Poland), and (Tunis), commanded by SS- Walter Rauff.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the 's main assignment was to kill civilians, as in Poland, but this time its targets specifically included Soviet Communist Party commissars and Jews. In a letter dated 2 July 1941 Heydrich communicated to his SS and Police Leaders that the were to execute all senior and middle ranking Comintern officials; all senior and middle ranking members of the central, provincial, and district committees of the Communist Party; extremist and radical Communist Party members; people's commissars; and Jews in party and government posts. Open-ended instructions were given to execute "other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.)." He instructed that any pogroms spontaneously initiated by the population of the occupied territories were to be quietly encouraged.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: On 8 July, Heydrich announced that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot. On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the were to murder all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war, plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia, as they too might be Jews. Unlike in Germany, where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, the defined as Jewish anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent; in either case, whether or not the person practised the religion was irrelevant. The unit was also assigned to exterminate Romani people and the mentally ill. It was common practice for the to shoot hostages.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: As the invasion began, the Germans pursued the fleeing Red Army, leaving a security vacuum. Reports surfaced of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area, with local Jews immediately suspected of collaboration. Heydrich ordered his officers to incite anti-Jewish pogroms in the newly occupied territories. Pogroms, some of which were orchestrated by the , broke out in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Within the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, 10,000 Jews had been murdered in 40 pogroms, and by the end of 1941 some 60 pogroms had taken place, claiming as many as 24,000 victims. However, Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of A, reported to his superiors in mid-October that the residents of Kaunas were not spontaneously starting pogroms, and secret assistance by the Germans was required. A similar reticence was noted by B in Russia and Belarus and C in Ukraine; the further east the travelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into murdering their Jewish neighbours.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: All four main took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war. Initially the targets were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population. Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings, with trumped-up charges being read out (arson, sabotage, black marketeering, or refusal to work, for example) and victims being murdered by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow, the began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared. Some started to use automatic weapons, with survivors being murdered with a pistol shot.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: As word of the massacres got out, many Jews fled; in Ukraine, 70 to 90 per cent of the Jews ran away. This was seen by the leader of VI as beneficial, as it would save the regime the costs of deporting the victims further east over the Urals. In other areas the invasion was so successful that the had insufficient forces to immediately murder all the Jews in the conquered territories. A situation report from C in September 1941 noted that not all Jews were members of the Bolshevist apparatus, and suggested that the total elimination of Jewry would have a negative impact on the economy and the food supply. The Nazis began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the most part rendered (free of Jews). Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were totally eliminated, a goal that was postponed until 1942.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The used public hangings as a terror tactic against the local population. An B report, dated 9 October 1941, described one such hanging. Due to suspected partisan activity near Demidov, all male residents aged 15 to 55 were put in a camp to be screened. The screening produced seventeen people who were identified as "partisans" and "Communists". Five members of the group were hanged while 400 local residents were assembled to watch; the rest were shot.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the took place on 29 and 30 September 1941 at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kyiv city center in Ukraine that had fallen to the Germans on 19 September. The perpetrators included a company of Waffen-SS attached to C under Rasch, members of 4a under SS- Friedrich Jeckeln, and some Ukrainian auxiliary police. The Jews of Kyiv were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kyiv and the assembly point was near the train station, they assumed they were being deported. People showed up at the rendezvous point in large numbers, laden with possessions and food for the journey.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: After being marched northwest of the city centre, the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and numerous Ukrainian police and German troops. Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs. Anyone who tried to escape was beaten. Soon the victims reached an open area, where they were forced to strip, and then were herded down into the ravine. People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims, and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims. Sand was shovelled and bulldozed over the bodies and the sides of the ravine were dynamited to bring down more material. Anton Heidborn, a member of 4a, later testified that three days later that there were still people alive among the corpses. Heidborn spent the next few days helping smooth out the "millions" of banknotes taken from the victims' possessions. The clothing was taken away, destined to be re-used by German citizens. Jeckeln's troops shot more than 100,000 Jews by the end of October.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: A operated in Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (the three Baltic countries which had been occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940–1941). According to its own reports to Himmler, A murdered almost 140,000 people in the five months following the 1941 German invasion: 136,421 Jews, 1,064 Communists, 653 people with mental illnesses, 56 partisans, 44 Poles, five Romani, and one Armenian were reported murdered between 22 June and 25 November 1941.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Upon entering Kaunas, Lithuania, on 25 June 1941, the released the criminals from the local jail and encouraged them to join the pogrom which was underway. Between 23 and 27 June 1941, 4,000 Jews were murdered on the streets of Kaunas and in nearby open pits and ditches. Particularly active in the Kaunas pogrom was the so-called "Death Dealer of Kaunas", a young man who murdered Jews with a crowbar at the Lietukis Garage before a large crowd that cheered each murder with much applause; he occasionally paused to play the Lithuanian national anthem "Tautiška giesmė" on his accordion before resuming the murders.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: As A advanced into Lithuania, it actively recruited local nationalists and antisemitic groups. In July 1941, local Lithuanian collaborators, pejoratively called "White Armbands" (), joined the massacres. A pogrom in the Latvian capital Riga in early July 1941 killed 400 Jews. Latvian nationalist Viktors Arājs and his supporters undertook a campaign of arson against synagogues. On 2 July, A commander Stahlecker appointed Arājs to head the , a of about 300 men, mostly university students. Together, A and the murdered 2,300 Jews in Riga on 6–7 July. Within six months, Arājs and collaborators would murder about half of Latvia's Jewish population.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Local officials, the , and the (Auxiliary Police) played a key role in rounding up and massacring local Jews in German-occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. These groups also helped the and other killing units to identify Jews. For example, in Latvia, the , consisting of auxiliary police organised by the Germans and recruited from former Latvian army and police officers, ex-, members of the Pērkonkrusts, and university students, assisted in the murder of Latvia's Jewish citizens. Similar units were created elsewhere, and provided much of the manpower for the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: With the creation of units such as the in Latvia and the in Lithuania, the attacks changed from the spontaneous mob violence of the pogroms to more systematic massacres. With extensive local help, A was the first to attempt to systematically exterminate all the Jews in its area. Latvian historian Modris Eksteins wrote:


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: In late 1941, the settled into headquarters in Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn. A grew less mobile and faced problems because of its small size. The Germans relied increasingly on the Latvian and similar groups to perform massacres of Jews.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Such extensive and enthusiastic collaboration with the has been attributed to several factors. Since the Russian Revolution of 1905, the and other borderlands had experienced a political culture of violence. The 1940–1941 Soviet occupation had been profoundly traumatic for residents of the Baltic states and areas that had been part of Poland until 1939; the population was brutalised and terrorised, and the existing familiar structures of society were destroyed.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Historian Erich Haberer has suggested that many survived and made sense of the "totalitarian atomization" of society by seeking conformity with communism. As a result, by the time of the German invasion in 1941, many had come to see conformity with a totalitarian regime as socially acceptable behaviour; thus, people simply transferred their allegiance to the German regime when it arrived. Some who had collaborated with the Soviet regime sought to divert attention from themselves by naming Jews as collaborators and murdering them.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: In November 1941 Himmler was dissatisfied with the pace of the exterminations in Latvia, as he intended to move Jews from Germany into the area. He assigned SS- Jeckeln, one of the perpetrators of the Babi Yar massacre, to liquidate the Riga ghetto. Jeckeln selected a site about southeast of Riga near the Rumbula railway station, and had 300 Russian prisoners of war prepare the site by digging pits in which to bury the victims. Jeckeln organised around 1,700 men, including 300 members of the , 50 German SD men, and 50 Latvian guards, most of whom had already participated in mass-murdering of civilians. These troops were supplemented by Latvians, including members of the Riga city police, battalion police, and ghetto guards. Around 1,500 able-bodied Jews would be spared execution so their slave labour could be exploited; a thousand men were relocated to a fenced-off area within the ghetto and 500 women were temporarily housed in a prison and later moved to a separate nearby ghetto, where they were put to work mending uniforms.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Although Rumbula was on the rail line, Jeckeln decided that the victims should travel on foot from Riga to the execution ground. Trucks and buses were arranged to carry children and the elderly. The victims were told that they were being relocated, and were advised to bring up to of possessions. The first day of executions, 30 November 1941, began with the perpetrators rousing and assembling the victims at 4:00 am. The victims were moved in columns of a thousand people toward the execution ground. As they walked, some SS men went up and down the line, shooting people who could not keep up the pace or who tried to run away or rest.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: When the columns neared the prepared execution site, the victims were driven some from the road into the forest, where any possessions that had not yet been abandoned were seized. Here the victims were split into groups of fifty and taken deeper into the forest, near the pits, where they were ordered to strip. The victims were driven into the prepared trenches, made to lie down, and shot in the head or the back of the neck by members of Jeckeln's bodyguard. Around 13,000 Jews from Riga were murdered at the pits that day, along with a thousand Jews from Berlin who had just arrived by train. On the second day of the operation, 8 December 1941, the remaining 10,000 Jews of Riga were murdered in the same way. About a thousand were murdered on the streets of the city or on the way to the site, bringing the total number of deaths for the two-day extermination to 25,000 people. For his part in organising the massacre, Jeckeln was promoted to Leader of the SS Upper Section, Ostland.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: B, C, and D did not immediately follow A's example in systematically murdering all Jews in their areas. The commanders, with the exception of A's Stahlecker, were of the opinion by the fall of 1941 that it was impossible to murder the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union in one sweep, and thought the murders should stop. An report dated 17 September advised that the Germans would be better off using any skilled Jews as labourers rather than shooting them. Also, in some areas poor weather and a lack of transportation led to a slowdown in deportations of Jews from points further west. Thus, an interval passed between the first round of massacres in summer and fall, and what American historian Raul Hilberg called the second sweep, which started in December 1941 and lasted into the summer of 1942. During the interval, the surviving Jews were forced into ghettos.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The second wave of exterminations in the Soviet Union met with armed resistance in some areas, though the chance of success was poor. Weapons were typically primitive or home-made. Communications were impossible between ghettos in various cities, so there was no way to create a unified strategy. Few in the ghetto leadership supported resistance for fear of reprisals on the ghetto residents. Mass break-outs were sometimes attempted, though survival in the forest was nearly impossible due to the lack of food and the fact that escapees were often tracked down and murdered.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the were inefficient: they were costly, demoralising for the troops, and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough. Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems, and many turned to drink. As much as possible, the leaders militarized the genocide. The historian Christian Ingrao notes an attempt was made to make the shootings a collective act without individual responsibility. Framing the shootings in this way was not psychologically sufficient for every perpetrator to feel absolved of guilt. Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators: those who were eager to participate right from the start, those who participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so, and a significant minority who refused to take part. A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for the task. Commander of D, SS- Otto Ohlendorf, particularly noted this propensity towards excess, and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any further executions.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: During a visit to Minsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed an mass execution first-hand and concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men. By November he made arrangements for any SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions to be provided with rest and mental health care. He also decided a transition should be made to gassing the victims, especially the women and children, and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders. Gas vans, which had been used previously to murder mental patients, began to see service by all four main from 1942. However, the gas vans were not popular with the , because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma. Some of the early mass murders at extermination camps used carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines, similar to the method used in gas vans, but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitz using Zyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide gas.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Plans for the total eradication of the Jewish population of Europe—eleven million people—were formalised at the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942. Some would be worked to death, and the rest would be murdered in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question (). Permanent killing centres at Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and other Nazi extermination camps replaced mobile death squads as the primary method of mass-murder. The remained active, however, and were put to work fighting partisans, particularly in Belarus.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: After the fall of Stalingrad in February 1943, Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war, and ordered the formation of a special task force, "Sonderaktion 1005", under SS- Paul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves all along the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: By 1944 the Red Army had begun to push the German forces out of Eastern Europe, and the retreated alongside the "Wehrmacht". By late 1944, most personnel had been folded into Waffen-SS combat units or transferred to permanent death camps. Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at 5.5 to six million people.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: According to research by German historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and , Einsatzgruppe Egypt, led by Walter Rauff, was raised in 1942 in Athens. The unit was to enter Egypt and Mandatory Palestine once German forces arrived there. According to Mallmann and Cüppers, the unit's purpose was to carry out mass-murder of the Jewish populations in those areas. Given its small staff of only 24 men, Mallmann and Cüppers theorize the unit would have needed help from local residents and from the to complete their assignment. Former Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini played roles, engaging in antisemitic radio propaganda, preparing to recruit volunteers, and in raising an Arab-German Battalion that would also follow Egypt to the Middle East. On 20 July 1942 Rauff was sent to Tobruk to report to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Commander of the . Since Rommel was 500 km away at the First Battle of El Alamein, it is unlikely that the two met. According to historian Haim Saadon, Director of the Center of Research on North African Jewry in World War II, Rauff's documents show that his foremost concern was assisting the "Wehrmacht", and his plan for this was to place the Jews in forced labour camps. In relative terms, the North African Jews largely escaped the Final Solution. The plans for Egypt were set aside after the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Had Operation Sea Lion, the German plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom been launched, six were scheduled to follow the invasion force into Britain. They were provided with a list called the ('Special Search List, G.B'), known as The Black Book after the war, of 2,300 people to be immediately imprisoned by the Gestapo. The list included Churchill, members of the cabinet, prominent journalists and authors, and members of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The kept official records of many of their massacres and provided detailed reports to their superiors. The Jäger Report, filed by Commander SS- Karl Jäger on 1 December 1941 to his superior, Stahlecker (head of A), covers the activities of III in Lithuania over the five-month period from 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Jäger's report provides an almost daily running total of the liquidations of 137,346 people, the vast majority of them Jews. The report documents the exact date and place of massacres, the number of victims, and their breakdown into categories (Jews, Communists, criminals, and so on). Women were shot from the very beginning, but initially in fewer numbers than men. Children were first included in the tally starting in mid-August, when 3,207 people were murdered in Rokiškis on 15–16 August 1941. For the most part the report does not give any military justification for the murderes; people were murdered solely because they were Jews. In total, the report lists over 100 executions in 71 different locations. Jäger wrote: "I can state today that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by 3. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families." In a February 1942 addendum to the report, Jäger increased the total number of victims to 138,272, giving a breakdown of 48,252 men, 55,556 women, and 34,464 children. Only 1,851 of the victims were non-Jewish.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Jäger escaped capture by the Allies when the war ended. He lived in Heidelberg under his own name until his report was discovered in March 1959. Arrested and charged, Jäger committed suicide on 22 June 1959 in a Hohenasperg prison while awaiting trial for his crimes.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: The murders took place with the knowledge and support of the German Army in the east. As ordered by Hitler, the "Wehrmacht" cooperated with the , providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass killings. On 10 October 1941 Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau drafted an order to be read to the German Sixth Army on the Eastern Front. Now known as the Severity Order, it read in part:


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt of Army Group South expressed his "complete agreement" with the order. He sent out a circular to the generals under his command urging them to release their own versions and to impress upon their troops the need to exterminate the Jews. General Erich von Manstein, in an order to his troops on 20 November, stated that "the Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and for all." Manstein sent a letter to D commanding officer Ohlendorf complaining that it was unfair that the SS was keeping all of the murdered Jews' wristwatches for themselves instead of sharing with the Army.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Beyond this trivial complaint, the Army and the worked closely and effectively. On 6 July 1941 4b of C reported that "Armed forces surprisingly welcome hostility against the Jews". Few complaints about the murders were ever raised by "Wehrmacht" officers. On 8 September, D reported that relations with the German Army were "excellent". In the same month, Stahlecker of A wrote that Army Group North had been exemplary in co-operating with the exterminations and that relations with the 4th Panzer Army, commanded by General Erich Hoepner, were "very close, almost cordial". In the south, the Romanian Army worked closely with D to massacre Ukrainian Jews, murdering around 26,000 Jews in the Odessa massacre. The German historian Peter Longerich thinks it probable that the "Wehrmacht", along with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), incited the Lviv pogroms, during which 8,500 to 9,000 Jews were murdered by the native population and C in July 1941. Moreover, most people on the home front in Germany had some idea of the massacres being committed by the . British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper noted that although Himmler had forbidden photographs of the murders, it was common for both the men of the and for bystanders to take pictures to send to their loved ones, which he felt suggested widespread approval of the massacres.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Officers in the field were well aware of the killing operations being conducted by the . The "Wehrmacht" tried to justify their considerable involvement in the massacres as being anti-partisan operations rather than racist attacks, but Hillgruber wrote that this was just an excuse. He states that those German generals who claimed that the were a necessary anti-partisan response were lying, and maintained that the slaughter of about 2.2 million defenceless civilians for reasons of racist ideology cannot be justified.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947–48, part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held under United States military authority. The men were charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and membership in the SS (which had been declared a criminal organization). Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were among the judgments; only four executions were carried out, on 7 June 1951; the rest were reduced to lesser sentences. Four additional leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Several leaders, including Ohlendorf, claimed at the trial to have received an order before Operation Barbarossa requiring them to murder all Soviet Jews. To date no evidence has been found that such an order was ever issued. German prosecutor Alfred Streim noted that if such an order had been given, post-war courts would only have been able to convict the leaders as "accomplices" to mass murder. However, if it could be established that the had committed mass murder without orders, then they could have been convicted as "perpetrators" of mass murder, and hence could have received stiffer sentences, including capital punishment.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Streim postulated that the existence of an early comprehensive order was a fabrication created for use in Ohlendorf's defence. This theory is now widely accepted by historians. Longerich notes that most orders received by the leaders—especially when they were being ordered to carry out criminal activities—were vague, and couched in terminology that had a specific meaning for members of the regime. Leaders were given briefings about the need to be "severe" and "firm"; all Jews were to be viewed as potential enemies that had to be dealt with ruthlessly. British historian Sir Ian Kershaw argues that Hitler's apocalyptic remarks before Barbarossa about the necessity for a war without mercy to "annihilate" the forces of "Judeo-Bolshevism" were interpreted by commanders as permission and encouragement to engage in extreme antisemitic violence, with each commander to use his own discretion about how far he was prepared to go.


title: Einsatzgruppen

text: Most of the perpetrators of Nazi war crimes were never charged, and returned unremarked to civilian life. The West German Central Prosecution Office of Nazi War Criminals only charged about a hundred former members with war crimes. And as time went on, it became more difficult to obtain prosecutions; witnesses grew older and were less likely to be able to offer valuable testimony. Funding for trials was inadequate, and the governments of Austria and Germany became less interested in obtaining convictions for wartime events, preferring to forget the Nazi past.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian adult animated science fantasy anthology film directed by Gerald Potterton, produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of "Heavy Metal" magazine, which was the basis for the film. It starred the voices of Rodger Bumpass, Jackie Burroughs, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Don Francks, Martin Lavut, Marilyn Lightstone, Eugene Levy, Alice Playten, Harold Ramis, Percy Rodriguez, Susan Roman, Richard Romanus, August Schellenberg, John Vernon, and Zal Yanovsky. The screenplay was written by Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The film is an anthology of various science fiction and fantasy stories tied together by a single theme of an evil force that is "the sum of all evils". It was adapted from "Heavy Metal" magazine and original stories in the same spirit. Like the magazine, the film features a great deal of graphic violence, sexuality, and nudity. Its production was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments. Despite the mixed reviews by film critics on its initial release, the film was a modest success at the box office and has since achieved cult status. The film's influential soundtrack was packaged by music manager Irving Azoff and included several popular rock bands and artists, including Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Sammy Hagar, Don Felder, Cheap Trick, DEVO, Journey, and Nazareth, among others.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The title sequence story opens with a Space Shuttle orbiting the Earth. The bay doors open, releasing a 1960 Corvette. An astronaut seated in the car then begins descending through Earth's atmosphere, landing in a desert canyon.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: In the framing story, the astronaut Grimaldi arrives at home, where he is greeted by his daughter. He says he has something to show her. When he opens his case, a green, crystalline sphere rises out and melts him. It introduces itself to the terrified girl as "the sum of all evils". Looking into the orb known as the Loc-Nar, the girl sees how it has influenced societies throughout time and space. At the end of the film (the Epilogue), the anthology's theme comes full-circle back to the girl's home.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: In a dystopian and crime-ridden New York City in 2031, cynical taxicab driver Harry Canyon narrates his day in film noir style, grumbling about his fares and frequent robbery attempts he thwarts with a disintegrator installed in the back of his seat. He stumbles into an incident where he rescues a sexy young woman from Rudnick, a gangster who murdered her father. She explains that her father discovered the Loc-Nar, and they have been pursued relentlessly by people attempting to obtain it. Harry takes her to his apartment, where they have sex. She decides to sell the Loc-Nar to Rudnick and split the money with Harry. Rudnick is disintegrated by the Loc-Nar at the exchange, and she attempts to double-cross Harry to keep the money for herself. When she pulls out a gun, Harry uses the disintegrator on her. He keeps the money, and summarizes the incident as a "two-day ride with one hell of a tip".


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: A nerdy teenager finds a "green meteorite" near his house and adds it to his rock collection. During a lightning experiment, the orb hurls the young man into the world of Neverwhere, where he transforms into a naked, muscular man called Den, an acronym for his earth name, David Ellis Norman. There, Den witnesses a strange ritual, rescuing a beautiful, young woman who is about to be sacrificed to Uhluhtc. Reaching safety, she introduces herself as Katherine Wells from the British colony of Gibraltar. The two start having sex, but are interrupted by the minions of Ard, an immortal man who wants to obtain the Loc-Nar for himself. After being taken to see Ard, Den demands to see Katherine. His request is ignored and Ard orders his men to castrate Den. Den fights off the soldiers and shoots Ard, who is immortal and heals immediately. The girl turns out to be sleeping, encased in glass under a spell where only Ard can awaken her. Ard offers Den a deal: if he gets the Loc-Nar from the Queen and brings it to him, the girl will be released. Den agrees and infiltrates the palace along with Ard's best soldier, Norl. They are promptly caught by the Queen's guards, but she offers leniency if Den has sex with her. He complies, thereby distracting the Queen while the raiding party steals the Loc-Nar. Den escapes and races back to rescue Katherine from Ard. Recreating the lightning incident that drew him to Neverwhere, he is able to banish Ard and the Queen. Den suspects that they were teleported to Earth. Refusing the opportunity to take the Loc-Nar for himself, Den rides with Katherine into the sunset, content to remain in Neverwhere. As for the Loc-Nar, it rises into the sky and lands on a space station where it is picked up by someone else.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: On a space station, crooked space captain Lincoln F. Sternn is on trial for numerous serious charges presented by the prosecutor consisting of 12 counts of murder in the first degree, 14 counts of armed theft of Federation property, 22 counts of piracy in high space, 18 counts of fraud, 37 counts of rape — and one moving violation. Pleading "not guilty" against the advice of his lawyer Charlie, Sternn explains that he expects to be acquitted because he bribed a witness named Hanover Fiste. Fiste takes the stand upon being called to by the prosecutor, but his perjury is subverted when the Loc-Nar, now the size of a marble, causes him to blurt out highly incriminating statements about Sternn (though whether or not any of them are true is unknown) before changing him into a hulking muscular brute that chases Sternn throughout the station, breaking through bulkheads and wreaking havoc. Eventually, he corners Sternn, who gives him his promised payoff, and he promptly shrinks back to his scrawny original form. Sternn opens a trap door under Fiste, ejecting him into space. The Loc-Nar enters Earth's atmosphere with Fiste's flaming severed hand still clinging to it.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Because of time constraints, a segment called "Neverwhere Land", which would have connected "Captain Sternn" to "B-17", was cut.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The story follows the influence of the Loc-Nar upon the evolution of a planet, from the Loc-Nar landing in a body of water, influencing the rise of the industrial age, and a world war. This original story was created by Cornelius Cole III.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The original rough animatics are set to a loop of the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Time". The 1996 VHS release included this segment at the end of the tape. On the DVD release, this segment is included as a bonus feature. In both released versions, the sequence is set to the music of "Passacaglia" (from "Magnificat"), composed and conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: A World War II B-17 bomber nicknamed the "Pacific Pearl" makes a difficult bombing run with heavy damage and casualties. As the bomber limps home, the co-pilot goes back to check on the crew. Finding nothing but dead bodies, he notices the Loc-Nar trailing the plane. Informing the pilot, he heads back to the cockpit, when the Loc-Nar rams itself into the plane and reanimates the dead crew members as zombies. The co-pilot is killed, while the pilot parachutes away in time. He lands on an island where he finds a graveyard of airplanes from various times, along with the wrecked airplanes' zombified airmen, who surround him, sealing the horrified pilot's fate.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Dr. Anrak, a prominent scientist, arrives at The Pentagon for a meeting regarding mysterious mutations that are plaguing the United States. At the meeting, the doctor tries to dismiss the occurrences. When he sees the Loc-Nar in the locket of Gloria, a beautiful buxom stenographer, he begins to behave erratically and sexually assaults her. A colossal starship drills through the roof and abducts the doctor and, by accident, Gloria. The ship's robot is irritated at Anrak, who is actually a malfunctioning android, but its mood changes when it sees Gloria. With the help of the ship's alien pilot Edsel and co-pilot Zeke, the robot convinces Gloria to stay on board and have "robot sex" (albeit off-screen). Meanwhile, Edsel and Zeke snort a huge amount of a powdered drug called Plutonian Nyborg before flying home, zoning out on the cosmos. Too intoxicated to fly straight, they crash-land unharmed in a huge space station.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The Loc-Nar, now the size of a giant meteor, crashes into a volcano on another world and draws a large mass of curious people. As they begin to climb the volcano, it erupts, and green slime covers the crowd, mutating them into an evil barbarian army. The mutants subsequently attack a nearby city of peaceful scholars. Desperate, the city leaders mentally summon the Taarakians, a once powerful but declining warrior race with whom the city had a pact, but the city falls before the call can be answered.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Taarna, a beautiful, mute warrior and the last of the Taarakians, receives the summons, and after ritually preparing herself, she and her avian mount fly to the beleaguered city, only to find the citizens dead. Determined to avenge them, she begins following the trail of their murderers and encounters a small band of the mutant barbarians. After killing them, and with more information at hand, she travels towards the mutant camp, but she and her mount are captured.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Taarna is tortured and thrown into an open pit, unconscious. Her mount escapes and rescues her. She tries going for the Loc-Nar, but the mutants pursue and shoot her mount down. The mutant leader faces Taarna in a duel to the death, wounding her, but Taarna manages to kill him. With the last of their strength, Taarna and her companion make a death flight to the volcano. As they approach, the Loc-Nar warns her off, claiming that sacrificing herself would be futile. Ignoring the Loc-Nar, Taarna unleashes the power imbued in her sword and dives into the volcano, destroying the Loc-Nar.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: As the final story ends, the Loc-Nar that was terrorizing the girl explodes, destroying the mansion in the process. Taarna's reborn mount appears outside, and the girl happily flies away on it. It is then revealed that Taarna's soul has been reincarnated in the girl, transforming her into a new Taarakian.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The film uses the rotoscoping technique of animation in several shots. This process consists of shooting models and actors, then tracing the shot onto film for animation purposes. The B-17 bomber was shot using a 10-foot (3 m) replica, which was then animated. Additionally, Taarna the Taarakian was rotoscoped, using Toronto model Carole Desbiens as a model for the animated character. The shot of the exploding house near the end of the movie was originally to be rotoscoped, but as the film's release date had been moved up from October/November to August 7, 1981, a lack of time prevented this. This remains as the only non-animated sequence in the film. During development of this film, the Canadian animation studio, Nelvana Limited, was offered the chance to work on "Heavy Metal", but they declined their offer, instead working on their first theatrical film, "Rock & Rule".


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Fantasy illustrator Chris Achilléos designed and painted the iconic promotional poster image, commissioned in 1980, that features the central character Taarna on her birdlike steed. That artwork continues to be used for home video releases. Achelleos also did conceptual design work for the Taarna character.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The film was released on August 7, 1981. It was a financial success, grossing over $20 million on a $9 million budget.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The film was met with mixed response. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 66% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10 and the critical consensus: "It's sexist, juvenile, and dated, but "Heavy Metal" makes up for its flaws with eye-popping animation and a classic, smartly-used soundtrack."


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that "for anyone who doesn't think an hour and a half is a long time to spend with a comic book, "Heavy Metal" is impressive," and noted that the film "was scored very well, with music much less ear-splitting than the title would suggest." "Variety" declared, "Initial segments have a boisterous blend of dynamic graphics, intriguing plot premises and sly wit that unfortunately slide gradually downhill ... Still, the net effect is an overridingly positive one and will likely find its way into upbeat word-of-mouth." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film three stars, writing that it "isn't intended for close scrutiny on a literal level. The film clearly is intended as a trip, and on that level it works very nicely." He criticized the film as "blatantly sexist" and for having "wildly romanticized" violence. Sheila Benson of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "Somehow a great deal of the charm [of the magazine] leaked out on the way to the movie house, but all of the sadism stayed put. And then some. It's the most expensive adolescent fantasy revenge fulfillment wet dream ever to slither onto a screen." John Pym of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" found that it was "to put it mildly, something of a hodge-podge." Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 stars out of 4 in his "Movie Guide", calling the feature "... uneven, but great fun on a mindless, adolescent level."


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: On the whole, in terms of individual segments, critics were typically most favorable towards the "Den" story. Critic Janet Maslin gave the film a positive review in "The New York Times". She said, "The other highly memorable story is about a bookworm from earth who winds up on another planet, where his spindly body is transformed into that of an extraterrestrial Hercules." She also complimented John Candy's vocal performance as Den.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Christopher John reviewed "Heavy Metal" in "Ares Magazine" #11 and commented that "Sadly, what could have been a true boost for animation in this country is a weak, opportunistic failure, put together with very little care and no love at all."


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Prior to official release on VHS and LaserDisc in 1996, the film was re-released to 54 theatres on March 8, 1996, remixed in Sony's 8-track SDDS audio system, taking in $550,000. The subsequent home video release, the first animated film issued on the VHS format to be THX-certified, moved over one million units.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The film was released on Blu-ray Disc on February 1, 2011 as a Best Buy exclusive and it was later released everywhere on June 14.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: A remastered 4K version was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on April 19, 2022, bundled with a Blu-ray Disc release of the sequel, "Heavy Metal 2000".


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The soundtrack was released on LP in 1981, but for legal reasons, was not released on CD until 1995. The album peaked at number 12 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. The film's theme song, "Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride)" was sung by Don Felder. It was released as a single in the U.S. and reached number 43 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number five on the Mainstream Rock chart on September 19, 1981.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Blue Öyster Cult wrote and recorded a song called "Vengeance (The Pact)" for the film, but the producers declined to use the song because the lyrics provided a capsulized summary of the "Taarna" vignette. "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" was used instead. Both songs can be found on Blue Öyster Cult's album "Fire of Unknown Origin". Though used in the film, the songs "Through Being Cool" by Devo and "E5150" by Black Sabbath were not included in the released soundtrack album. These songs are on "New Traditionalists" and "Mob Rules", respectively.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: The legal difficulties surrounding the use of some songs in the film delayed its release to home media. The production company's use of some songs was limited solely to the theatrical release and soundtrack and did not include home media releases. It was not until 1996 that there was an official home media release on VHS when Kevin Eastman, who had bought the publishing rights of "Heavy Metal" magazine in 1992 and previously contributed to the magazine, reached a settlement with the music copyright holders.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Rhino Records reissued the two-LP collection in 2017, programmed in standard order (A, B, C, D), as part of their "Rocktober" collection.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Unusual for the time, an LP recording of Elmer Bernstein's score was released alongside the soundtrack in 1981, and it featured the composer's first use of the ondes Martenot, an instrument which became a trademark of Bernstein's later career. On March 13, 2008, "Film Score Monthly" released an official, expanded CD release of Bernstein's score, which he conducted. The score was performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the London Voices and Jeanne Loriod on the ondes Martenot.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: In March 2008, "Variety" reported that Paramount Pictures was set to make another animated film with David Fincher "spearheading the project". Kevin Eastman, who is the current owner and publisher of "Heavy Metal", will direct a segment, as will Tim Miller, "whose Blur Studio will handle the animation for what is being conceived as an R-rated, adult-themed feature".


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Entertainment website IGN announced, on July 14, 2008, "David Fincher's edgy new project has suffered a serious setback after it was dropped by Paramount, according to "Entertainment Weekly"." "Entertainment Weekly" quoted Tim Miller as saying "David really believes in the project. It's just a matter of time."


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: In September 2008, Eastman was quoted as saying "Fincher is directing one, Guillermo del Toro wants to direct one, Zack Snyder wants to direct one, Gore Verbinski wants to direct one". It was reported that the film had been moved to Sony division Columbia Pictures (which had released the original) and had a budget of $50 million.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: In June 2009, Eastman said "I've got breaking news that Fincher and James Cameron are going to be co-executive producers on the film, Cameron will direct one. Mark Osborne and Jack Black from Tenacious D were going to do a comedy segment for the film."


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: Production is stalled indefinitely, as no film distributor or production company has shown interest in distributing or producing the remake since Paramount Pictures decided to forgo being the film's distributor, who purportedly thought such a film was "too risqué for mainstream audiences".


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: In July 2011, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez announced at the Comic-Con that he had purchased the film rights to "Heavy Metal" and planned to develop a new animated film at the new Quick Draw Studios. On March 11, 2014, with the formation of his very own television network, El Rey, Rodriguez considered switching gears and bringing it to TV.


title: Heavy Metal (film)

text: On March 15, 2019, the reboot was released on Netflix as a reimagining titled "Love, Death & Robots".


title: Autobahn

text: The ' (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is ' (abbreviated "BAB"), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'.


title: Autobahn

text: German have no federally mandated general speed limit for some classes of vehicles. However, limits are posted and enforced in areas that are urbanised, substandard, accident-prone, or under construction. On speed-unrestricted stretches, an advisory speed limit () of applies. While driving faster is not illegal in the absence of a speed limit, it can cause an increased liability in the case of a collision (which mandatory auto insurance has to cover); courts have ruled that an "ideal driver" who is exempt from absolute liability for "inevitable" tort under the law would not exceed .


title: Autobahn

text: A 2017 report by the Federal Road Research Institute reported that in 2015, 70.4% of the Autobahn network had only the advisory speed limit, 6.2% had temporary speed limits due to weather or traffic conditions, and 23.4% had permanent speed limits. Measurements from the German state of Brandenburg in 2006 showed average speeds of on a 6-lane section of Autobahn in free-flowing conditions.


title: Autobahn

text: Only federally built controlled-access highways with certain construction standards including at least two lanes per direction are called "Bundesautobahn". They have their own white-on-blue signs and numbering system. In the 1930s, when construction began on the system, the official name was "Reichsautobahn". Various other controlled-access highways exist on the federal ("Bundesstraße"), state ("Landesstraße"), district, and municipal level but are not part of the "Autobahn" network and are officially referred to as "Kraftfahrstraße" (with rare exceptions, like A 995 Munich-Giesing–Brunntal until 2018). These highways are considered "autobahnähnlich" (autobahn-like) and are sometimes colloquially called "Gelbe Autobahn" (yellow autobahn) because most of them are "Bundesstraßen" (federal highways) with yellow signs. Some controlled-access highways are classified as "Bundesautobahn" in spite of not meeting the autobahn construction standard (for example, the A 62 near Pirmasens).


title: Autobahn

text: Similar to some other German words, the term "autobahn" when used in English is usually understood to refer specifically to the national highway system of Germany, whereas in German the word "autobahn" is applied to any controlled highway in any country. For this reason in German, the more specific term "Bundesautobahn" is strongly preferred when the intent is to make specific reference to Germany's Autobahn network.


title: Autobahn

text: Similar to high-speed motorways in other countries, autobahns have multiple lanes of traffic in each direction, separated by a central barrier with grade-separated junctions and access restricted to motor vehicles with a top speed greater than . Nearly all exits are to the right; rare left-hand exits result from incomplete interchanges where the "straight-on" leads into the exit. The earliest motorways were flanked by shoulders about in width, constructed of varying materials; right-hand shoulders on many autobahns were later retrofitted to in width when it was realized cars needed the additional space to pull off the autobahn safely. In the postwar years, a thicker asphaltic concrete cross-section with full paved hard shoulders came into general use. The top design speed was approximately in flat country but lower design speeds were used in hilly or mountainous terrain. A flat-country autobahn that was constructed to meet standards during the Nazi period could support speeds of up to on curves.