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Nazi/Japanese Leaders
World War II
Chapter 14
Peace in Peril
Famous Quotes
• “I rather see the German race cease to exist and all of Germany
burn then let it fall to the Communists.” Adolf Hitler after
learning that Berlin was completely surrounded by the Red Army.
• "In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and
have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle
for power, it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that
received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would
one day take over the leadership of the state and with it that of the
whole nation and that I would then among other things settle the
Jewish problem...but I think that for some time now they have
been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once
more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and
outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more
into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevising of the
earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the
Jewish race in Europe!".
Adolf Hitler - Speech to the Reichstag - 30th January 1939
Famous Quotes
• "Germany must either be a world power or there
will be no Germany"
German Chancellor and dictator Adolf Hitler,
from his autobiography 'Mein Kampf' meaning
'My Struggle', date unknown
• "You only have to kick in the door and the whole
rotten structure will come crashing down."
German Chancellor and dictator Adolf Hitler on
invading the Soviet Union, date unknown
Adolf Hitler
• A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler
joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and became its
leader in 1921.
• Following his imprisonment after a failed coup
in 1923, he gained support by promoting
nationalism, anti-Semitism and anticommunism with charismatic, oratory, and
propaganda.
• He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and
quickly established a totalitarian and fascist
dictatorship.
• Within three years, Germany and the Axis
powers occupied most of Europe and large
parts of Africa, East and Southeast Asia and
the Pacific Ocean.
• However, the Allies gained the upper hand
from 1942 onward and in 1945 Allied armies
invaded Germany from all sides.
• His forces committed numerous atrocities
during the war, including the systematic
killing of as many as 17 million civilians
including the genocide of an estimated six
million Jews, a crime known as the Holocaust.
• During the final days of the war in 1945,
Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva
Braun. Less than 40 hours later, the two
committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin.
The Woman Who Loved Hitler:
Eva Braun
Eva Braun
Benito Mussolini
• He was an Italian politician who
led the National Fascist Party and
is credited with being one of the
key figures in the creation of
Fascism. He became the Prime
Minister of Italy in 1922 and began
using the title Il Duce by 1925.
• Mussolini became one of the main figures of
the Axis powers and, on 10 June 1940,
Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the
side of Axis.
• Three years later, Mussolini was deposed at
the Grand Council of Fascism, prompted by
the Allied invasion.
• Soon after his incarceration began, Mussolini
was rescued from prison in the daring Gran
Sasso raid by German special forces.
• Following his rescue, Mussolini headed the
Italian Social Republic in parts of Italy that
were not occupied by Allied forces.
• In late April 1945, with total defeat looming,
Mussolini attempted to escape to
Switzerland, only to be captured and
summarily executed near Lake Como by
Communist Italian partisans.
• His body was taken to Milan where it was
hung upside down at a petrol station for
public viewing and to provide confirmation
of his demise.
Mussolini and his wife
Quote
• "My Luftwaffe is invincible...And so now
we turn to England. How long will this one
last - two, three weeks?"
Hermann Goring - June 1940
Hitler’s Second in Command:
Hermann Goering
• Flew with the Red Baron squadron in World
War One and was a highly decorated officer.
• Hermann Göring, Commander-in-Chief of the
Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, Prime
Minister of Prussia, Plenipotentiary for the
Implementation of the Four Year (economic)
Plan, and designated successor to Hitler.
• In 1933, Göring created the secret state police,
the Gestapo, that would later by taken over by
Himmler and terrorize the continent of
Europe.
Rudolf Hess
• Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), Deputy Führer
and considered to be the number 3 man
in Hitler's Germany after Göring.
• Hess was a somewhat neurotic member of
Hitler's inner circle best known for his
surprise flight to Scotland on May 10,
1941 in which he intended to negotiate
peace with the British, but which resulted
in his capture and long term
imprisonment.
Rudolf Hess
Adolf Eichmann
• Karl Adolf Eichmann (March 19, 1906–May 31,
1962), sometimes referred to as "the architect of
the Holocaust", was a Nazi and a Lieutenant
Colonel).
• Due to his organizational talents and ideological
reliability, he was charged by Reinhard Heydrich
with the task of facilitating and managing the
logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos
and extermination camps in Nazi-occupied
Eastern Europe.
• He was hanged in for crimes against Humanity
after fleeing to Argentina.
Adolf Eichmann
Heinrich Himmler
• May 23, 1945) was a Nazi German
politician and head of the Schutzstaffel
(SS).
• He was one of the most powerful men in
Nazi Germany, competing with Hermann
Göring, Martin Bormann and Joseph
Goebbels.
• As Reichsführer-SS he oversaw all police
and security forces, including the Gestapo.
• As overseer of concentration camps, extermination
camps, and Einsatzgruppen (literally: task forces,
often used as killing squads), Himmler coordinated
the killing of millions of Jews, between 700,000 and
900,000 gypsies, many prisoners of war, and
possibly another three to four million Poles,
communists, or other groups whom the Nazis
deemed unworthy to live or simply 'in the way',
which included homosexuals and those with
physical and mental disabilities.
• Shortly before the end of the war, he offered to
surrender to the Allies if he were spared from
prosecution. After being arrested by British forces,
he committed suicide before he could be
questioned.
• Himmler has been named Greatest Mass
Murderer of All Time by German news
magazine Der Spiegel.
Reinhard Heydrich
• In a time of barbarity, Reinhard Tristan Heydrich, “the
Hangman,” stood out as one of the cruelest and most
brutal mass murderers in Nazi Germany.
• Hitler considered him as a possible successor.
• Those who worked Heydrich feared him, as did those
who were unfortunate enough to be under his control.
• Heydrich's own protégé, Walter Schellenberg,
described him as a man with "a cruel, brave and cold
intelligence" for whom "truth and goodness had no
intrinsic meaning."
• On the side, Heydrich was a fencer, a musician and a
pilot. As his main job, Heydrich murdered thousands of
Jews and other "enemies" of the Reich.
• Was assassinated in Prague on May 27th 1942.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
• Ernst Kaltenbrunner was an
Obergruppenführer and chief of the SD
(Sicherheitsdienst), Gestapo, SIPO
(Sicherheitspolizei), KRIPO (Kriminalpolizei) and
Einsatzgruppen death squads.
• Under Himmler, he was Reinhard Heydrich's
replacement as chief of the RSHA
(Reichssicherheitshauptamt) and the highest
ranking SS leader to face trial at Nuremberg and
be executed.
Erwin Rommel
• He was perhaps the most famous German Field
Marshal of World War II.
• He was the commander of the Deutsches
Afrikakorps and became known for the skillful
military campaigns he waged on behalf of the
German Army in North Africa.
• He was later in command of the German forces
opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion at
Normandy. He is thought by many to have been
the most skilled commander of desert warfare in
World War II.
• Rommel's military successes earned
the respect not only of his troops and
Adolf Hitler, but also that of his enemy
General Montgomery (British) and
General Patton (United States) in the
North African Campaign.
• An enduring legacy of Rommel's
character is that he is also considered
to be a chivalrous and humane
military officer in contrast with many
other figures of Nazi Germany.
• Following the defeat of Axis forces in
North Africa, and while commanding
the defense of Occupied France, his
fortunes changed when he was
suspected of involvement in the failed
July 20 Plot of 1944 to kill Hitler and
was forced to commit suicide.
• Was responsible for the building of the
Atlantic Wall still consider a
construction marvel today.
Erwin Rommel “The Desert Fox”
Albert Speer
• Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931.
• His architectural skills made him increasingly
prominent within the Party and he became a member
of Hitler's inner circle.
• The dictator commissioned him to design and
construct a number of structures, including the Reich
Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld stadium in
Nuremberg where Party rallies were held.
• Speer also made plans to reconstruct Berlin on a
grand scale, with huge buildings, wide boulevards,
and a reorganized transportation system.
• As Hitler's Minister of Armaments
and War Production, Speer was so
successful that Germany's war
production continued to increase
despite massive and devastating
Allied bombing.
• After the war, he was tried at
Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years
in prison for his role in the Nazi
regime, principally for the use of
forced labor.
Robert Lay
• Head of DAF,
The German
Labor Front.
• Committed
suicide on 25
October 1945,
before the
Nuremberg trial
began.
Japanese Leaders
• The Hirohito’s era was the longest reign of any
historical Japanese emperor, encompassing a
period of tremendous change in Japanese society.
• At the start of his reign, Japan was still a fairly rural
country with a limited industrial base. Japan's
militarization in the 1930s eventually led to Japan's
involvement in World War II.
• After the war ended with the unconditional
surrender of Japan, the Emperor cooperated with
the reorganization of the Japanese state during the
occupation of Japan, and lived to see Japan
becoming a highly urbanized democracy and one
of the industrial and technological powerhouses of
the world.
Emperor Hirohito
• According to Akira Fujiwara, the Emperor
personally ratified the proposal by the
Japanese Army to remove the constraints
of international law on the treatment of
Chinese prisoners.
• Also condoned the brutal treatment of
American prisoners of war.
• Surrender after the atomic bomb was
dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Hideki Tōjō
• He was a general in the Imperial Japanese
Army and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan
during much of World War II, from 18
October 1941 to 22 July 1944.
• After the end of the war, Tōjō was
sentenced to death for war crimes by the
International Military Tribunal of the Far
East and executed on 23 December 1948.
Isoroku Yamamoto
• Isoroku Yamamoto was commander-in-chief of the
Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy from
1939 to 1943 and was responsible for Japan's early
naval victories, including the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• He died during an inspection tour of forward positions
in the Solomon Islands when his aircraft (a G4M Betty
bomber) was ambushed by American P-38 Lightning
fighter planes.
• Considered the most brilliant Japanese naval
commander of the war, his death in 1943 deprived the
military of a skilled tactician and was a severe blow to
Japanese morale.