Nazi/Japanese Leaders World War II

1. Nazi/Japanese LeadersWorld War II Chapter 14 Peace in Peril

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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 anti-communism with charismatic, oratory, and propaganda. • He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and quickly established a totalitarian and fascist dictatorship.

5. 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.

7. 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.

8. The Woman Who Loved Hitler: Eva Braun

9. Eva Braun

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

14. Mussolini and his wife

15. 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

16. 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.

20. 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.

21. Rudolf Hess

22. 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.

23. Adolf Eichmann

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. Himmler has been named Greatest Mass Murderer of All Time by German news magazine Der Spiegel.

28. 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.

29. Was assassinated in Prague on May 27th 1942.

30. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. Erwin Rommel “The Desert Fox”

36. 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.

37. 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.

40. Robert Lay • Head of DAF, The German Labor Front. • Committed suicide on 25 October 1945, before the Nuremberg trial began.

41. 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.

42. 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.

44. 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.

46. 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.