Other Nazi Leaders

8/3/2019 Other Nazi Leaders

1/17

OTHER NAZI LEADERS

The Third Reich was a creation ofAdolf Hitler. It was, however, operatedby a number of unscrupulous men who

contributed in various ways to theupholding of the Nazi regime.


2/17

Herman Goering

Impressive and popular. Versatile/successful at first.

Aristocratic connections,

ace fighter in WWI. 1932 Speaker then

President of Reichstag.

Played role in setting uppolice state.

Air Minister, foundedLuftwaffe in 1933.


3/17

Directed 4 year plan 36-40 to prepare for war.Reichsmarshall in 1940.

Lived life of luxury. First wife died Swedisharistocrat died in 1931. 1935 married actressEmmy Sonnemann. Fat, glamorous andcharming, he enjoyed his power and wealth.

Clothes changed 5 times a day. Extravaganceand sexual activity a focus of humour.

After Luftwaffe failed to stop RAF bombingGermany, his influence declined.

Nuremburg Trials 45-46 found guilty on allcharges, but killed himself with cyanide beforehis execution. His body was burnt in a Dachau

oven.


4/17

JOSEPH GOEBBELS.

Master of Propaganda

born 1897 to poor Catholicmanual worker parents.

Leg crippled by polio,possibly made him

embittered. Most educated and

intelligent of Nazi leaders.

1921 Doctor of Philology.

Failed playwrightbecamejournalist.


5/17

Joined Nazi party in 1922, head of propagandain 1929. 1930 elected to Reichstag, from 33-45Hitlers Minister of Propaganda.

Violently anti-Semitic, organised Kristallnacht 38 Affair with Czech Slav) actress led to row with

Hitler. Colleagues ridiculed him behind his back,called little mouse doctor.

Although he ridiculed decadence etc, he visitednightclubs and had mistresses. He ownedseveral houses.

After Stalingrad 43 played a part in domesticwar effort.

Dramatic suicide 45, poisoned his children, shothis wife and then ended his own life


6/17

Heinrich Himmler

One of the most notorious

Nazis, looked more like abank clerk

Evolution from popular

schoolboy to heartlessexterminator is somethingof a mystery.

Noakes describes him as

a bizarre combo of navecrank, pedanticschoolmaster and coldlyefficient bureaucrat.


7/17

1929, made head of recently formed SS. Rose tohave leadership of whole SS and Gestaponetwork.

Absolutely no feelings of guilt, responsible fordeaths of millions, but suffered psychosomaticillnesses, he could not watch mass execution(squeamish), opposed to hunting of animals.Believed in occult and homeopathic medicine.

Yet he organised inhuman scientific experimentsand modernised murder. He ran theconcentration camps and had overall control ofthe Holocaust.

Captured by Allies, he committed suicide on 23rdMay 45.


8/17

Reynard Heydrich

Son of a musician, may have been

Jewish. He served in the navy, butwas dismissed over a sexualallegation.

Tall, blond and athletic, he thus,unlike the other Nazi leaders,

typified the ideal Aryan. 1932 joined the SS and rose

rapidly in its ranks and became aclose associate of Himmler.

1936- Chief of the Security Policeand the SD, security service of theSS. He organised a vast policenetwork.


9/17

He became SS general in 1941.

Established the first Jewish Ghetto and became

the first administrator of the concentration campsystem. At the Wannsee Conference in 42 hewas chosen the administer the Final Solution.

May 42killed by a grenade thrown by Czech hit

squad. Known as the Blond Beast was one of the least

attractive Nazis, being cold, suspicious andsadistic, with a morbid self-hatred. His savagetreatment of the Jews may have been partlycaused by his fear that he himself had Jewishblood.


10/17

Rudolph Hess

Hitlers earliest and most

loyal supporter Served in same regiment as

Hitler in WWI. Took part inMunich Putsch and was

imprisoned with Hitler. Had many posts including:

SS General, and DeputyFuhrer in 33. He had to ok

decrees and he had powerto select all senior Naziofficials.


11/17

He helped develop the cult of Fuhrer. He was shy and had a weak submissive

character, totally dependent on Hitler as a fatherfigure. Few political skills but compensated by his total

belief in the infallible Fuhrer. From 39 increasingly cut of from Hitler.

Dramatic decision to fly to Scotland in 41 hopingto arrange peace.

He was imprisoned for the rest of the war andput on trial at Nuremberg in 46.

He was sentenced to life at Spandau Prison, last21 years only he was there. Committed suicideby strangling himself with a heater cable in1987.


12/17

Martin Bormann

In many ways the mostmysterious and sinisterfigure in the Third Reich.

Used part machine andHitlers trust toeventually become 2ndmost powerful person inGermany.

Son of a civil servantBormann dropped out ofschool.

Joined Nazi party in1925


13/17

He was a member of the supreme command of the SAand became Chief-of-Staff to Hess in 1933.

He was brutish, ruthless and ambitious, a tirelessadministrator able to thrive in the Nazi machine. WasHitlers secretary by 1943, controlling Hitlers

appointments. He cut off Hitler from more cautiousopinions, allowing Hitler to indulge his fanaticism, which

Bormann shared. He pushed forward the Holocaust andthe struggle against Christianity.

In 1945 he vanished. Suicide? Killed by tank? Escape toSouth America? 1946 sentenced to death in absentia.

In 1937 bones found in Berlin were officially stated to behis. This was confirmed by DNA test in 1998.


14/17

ALBERT SPEER architect Born to middle-class parents like

father became an architect.

Joined Nazi Party in 1931, hearranged Berlin party rally, attractingHitlers attention.

1934 Nuremberg Rally was a further

triumph, where he produced acathedral of light by borrowing theLuftwaffes searchlights.

Speer then became Hitlers personalarchitect and unusually with Hitler apersonal friendship developed.

Head of Beauty of Work andArchitectural Inspector of the Reich


15/17

1942 became Minister of Armaments and WarProduction. He was now virtual dictator of thewar economy.

Towards the end of the war his influence withHitler waned, he opposed Hitlers orders todestroy Germanys industrial base in front of theinvading Allies.

Tried at Nuremberg for using slave labour, hewas the only defendant to plead guilty. Got 20years, released from Spandau in 1966. In prisonwrote a book Inside the Third Reich said to beeconomical with the truth, especially about hisrole.

His true role is still being assessed.


16/17


17/17

Other Nazi Leaders

Documents