Germany: Leaders and Groups

Heinrich Himmler

responsible for the SS, Gestapo and concentration camps and later oversaw the “Final Solution”

• believed in racial purity & the superiority of the Aryan race

• committed suicide after being captured by the Allies in 1945

Joseph Goebbels

appointed PROPAGANDA CHIEF in 1930 & became MINISTER FOR PROPAGANDA in 1933

• used radio, films, posters and rallies to portray Hitler as the saviour of Germany

• committed suicide a day after Hitler, a few hours after they killed six of their children

SS

Hitler’s personal bodyguards, led by Heinrich Himmler after 1929

• 50,000 members in 1934, 200,000 members in 1939, 1 million in 1944

• primary responsibility was to destroy opposition and carry out Nazi racial policies

Gestapo

secret state police

• arrested and sent people to concentration camps

• relied on network of informers → members of the public who alerted it to suspect activity

• understaffed and not as powerful as everyone thought

SA

stormtroopers

• official “muscle” of the Nazi party, nicknamed “brownshirts”

• anti-communist and anti-democratic

• controlled crowds at Nazi events and disrupted meetings of political opponents using threats and violence

Gustav Stresemann

chancellor of Germany 1923 → Foreign Minister 1923-29

• ended hyperinflation crisis and French occupation of the Ruhr

• restored some of Germany’s reputation among international relations

Freikorps

irregular military volunteers

• anti-democratic, anti-communist and strongly nationalist

• armed by Weimar government and used to crush the communist uprising

Rosa Luxemborg

leader of Spartacist Uprising

Erich Ludendorff

Germany’s second highest ranking General

• strongly objected to Armistice

• Hitler wanted to place him in charge of Germany

Wolfgang Kapp

Kapp Putsch planned to have him lead a new right wing government

Paul von Hindenburg

president of Germany

• 1925 elected due to his status as a war hero and re-elected in 1932

• strongly anti-communist and had an authoritarian in outlook

Wilhelm II

kaiser (1888-1918)

• exiled and abdicated

Ernst Rohm

head of SA

• shot during Night of Long Knives in 1934

• criticised Hitler for not being radical enough after 1933

Franz von Papen

chancellor (1932)

• pushed to vice chancellor and boasted to Hindenburg that he would “push Hitler so far into a corner” that he would “squeak”