1.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
2.
1940 in Germany
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Events in the year 1940 in Germany. Head of State Adolf Hitler Chancellor Adolf Hitler 4 January — World War II,16 February — World War II, Altmark Incident, The British destroyer Cossack pursues the German tanker Altmark into Jøssingfjord in southwestern Norway. 18 March — World War II, Axis powers, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom. 31 March — World War II, Commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Atlantis,9 April — World War II, Germany carries out Operation Weserübung, and invades Denmark and Norway. German forces land in several Norwegian ports and take Oslo, The Norwegian Campaign lasts two months, the Allied campaign in Norway is simultaneously commenced. 9 April — German invasion of Norway, German heavy cruiser Blücher is sunk by gunfire, of the 2,202 German crew and troops on board, some 830 died. Most either drowned or burnt to death in the oil slick surrounding the wreck. 20 April - on his 51st birthday, Hitler orders a new SS regiment to be set containing Norwegians,10 May — World War II, Battle of France begins – German forces invade Low Countries. 13 May — World War II, German armies open a 60-mile wide breach in the Maginot Line at Sedan,14 May — Rotterdam is subjected to savage terror bombing by the Luftwaffe,980 are killed, and 20,000 buildings destroyed. 17 May — Brussels falls to German forces,20 May — World War II, German forces, under General Rudolf Veiel, reach Noyelles on the English Channel. 20 May — Holocaust, The Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, between May 1940 and January 1945, around 1.1 million people were killed there. 3 June — The Holocaust, Nazi leader Franz Rademacher proposes the Madagascar Plan according to which the Jewish population of Europe would be relocated to the island of Madagascar,3 June — World War II, Paris is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time. 10 June — World War II, Norway surrenders to German forces,14 June — World War II, Paris falls under German occupation. 15 June — World War II, Verdun falls to German forces,17 June — A Luftwaffe Junkers 88 bomber sinks the British ship RMS Lancastria, which was evacuating troops from near Saint-Nazaire, France, killing some 5,800 men. 21 June — World War II, Vichy France and Germany sign an armistice at Compiegne,23 June — World War II, German leader Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated Paris in now occupied France. 30 June — World War II, German forces land in Guernsey,14 July — World War II, Winston Churchill, in a worldwide broadcast, proclaims the intention of Great Britain to fight alone against Germany whatever the outcome. Lord Halifax, British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on 22 July,8 August — World War II, Wilhelm Keitel signs the Aufbau Ost directive, which eventually leads to the invasion of the Soviet Union. 30 August — Second Vienna Award, Germany and Italy compel Romania to cede half of Transylvania to Hungary,7 September — World War II, The Blitz – Germany begins to rain bombs on London
3.
1941 in Germany
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Events in the year 1941 in Germany. Head of State Adolf Hitler Chancellor Adolf Hitler 3 January — A decree in Germany outlaws the use of Blackletter Gothic typefaces in favour of Antiqua,3 February — The Nazis forcibly restore Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy France. 12 February — Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli,230 deaths and 397 casualties reported. 24 March — Rommel launches his first offensive in Cyrenaica,6 April — Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece. 12 April — German troops enter Belgrade,27 April — German troops enter Athens. 9 May — The German submarine U-110 is captured by the British Royal Navy, on board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine, which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages. 10 May — The British House of Commons is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid,12 May — Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the worlds first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. 20 May — The Battle of Crete begins as Germany launches an invasion of Crete. 24 May — In the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks battlecruiser HMS Hood,26 May — In the North Atlantic, Fairey Swordfish aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal cripple the steering of Bismarck in an aerial torpedo attack. 27 May — Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic, killing 2,16 June — All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by 10 July. 22 June — Germany invades the Soviet Union under Operation Barbarossa,4 July — The mass murder of Polish scientists and writers is committed by German troops in the captured Polish city of Lwów. 5 July — German troops reach the Dnieper River,7 July — German troops take over Estonia from the Soviets 25 July — The Postal Code system is introduced for the first time in Germany. However, graduates of the T-4 Euthanasia Program are then transferred to concentration camps,22 August — The German Occupation Authority in France announces that anyone found either working for or aiding the Free French will be sentenced to death. 23 August - Hitler orders the end of the Action T4 programme,24 August — A Luftwaffe bomb hits an Estonian steamer with 3,500 Soviet-mobilized Estonian men on board, killing 598 of them. 6 September — The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word Jew inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas. 8 September — The Siege of Leningrad begins, German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Unions second-largest city,15 September — The Estonian Self-Administration, headed by Hjalmar Mäe, is appointed by the German military administration. 22 September — The town of Reshetylivka in the Soviet Union is occupied by German forces,29 September -30 September — Babi Yar massacre – German troops, assisted by Ukrainian police and local collaborators, killed 33,771 Jews of Kiev, Ukraine. 1 October — The Nazi German extermination camp Konzentrationslager Lublin opens in occupied Poland on the outskirts of Lublin, between October 1941 and July 1944 at least 200,000 people were killed in the camp
4.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
5.
Nazi Party
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Its precursor, the German Workers Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The party emerged from the German nationalist, racist, and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, the party was created as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Pseudo-scientific racism theories were central to Nazism, the Nazis propagated the idea of a peoples community. Their aim was to unite racially desirable Germans as national comrades, while excluding those deemed either to be political dissidents, to maintain the supposed purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews, Romani, and the physically and mentally handicapped. They imposed exclusionary segregation on homosexuals, Africans, Jehovahs Witnesses, the partys leader since 1921, Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. Hitler rapidly established a regime known as the Third Reich. The term Nazi derives from the name given in German to a party member Nationalsozialist and was coined in response to the German term Sozi, members of the party referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten, rarely as Nazis. The term Parteigenosse was commonly used among Nazis, with the feminine form Parteigenossin used when it was appropriate, the term was in use before the rise of the party as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backward peasant, characterising an awkward and clumsy person. It derived from Ignaz, being a version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria. Opponents seized on this and shortened the name in intentional association to the long-time existing Sozi to the dismissive Nazi. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler assumed power of the German government, usage of the designation Nazi diminished in Germany, the use of Nazi Germany, and Nazi regime, was popularised by anti-Nazis and German exiles abroad. Thereafter, the spread into other languages and eventually was brought back to Germany after the Second World War. The party grew out of political groups with a nationalist orientation that formed in the last years of World War I. In 1918, a called the Freien Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten Frieden was created in Bremen. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler, an avid German nationalist, Drexler saw the situation of political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the new Weimar Republic being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. These were all well-known themes popular with various Weimar paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps, though very small, Drexlers movement did receive attention and support from some influential figures. Supporter Dietrich Eckhart brought military figure Count Felix Graf von Bothmer, later in 1918, Karl Harrer, convinced Drexler and several others to form the Politischer Arbeiterzirkel. The members met periodically for discussions with themes of nationalism and racism directed against the Jews and they became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany at the time
6.
Chancellor of Germany
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The Chancellor of Germany is the head of government of Germany. The official title in German is Bundeskanzler, sometimes shortened to Kanzler, the term, dating from the early Middle Ages, is derived from the Latin term cancellarius. In German politics, the Chancellor is equivalent to that of a minister in many other countries. German has two equivalent translations of prime minister, Premierminister and Ministerpräsident, while Premierminister usually refers to heads of governments of foreign countries, Ministerpräsident may also refer to the heads of government of most German states. The current Chancellor is Angela Merkel, who is serving her term in office. She is the first female chancellor, thus being known in German as Bundeskanzlerin, the role of the Chancellor has varied greatly throughout Germanys modern history. Today, the Chancellor is the effective leader. The office of Chancellor has a history, stemming back to the Holy Roman Empire. The title was, at times, used in several states of German-speaking Europe, the modern office of Chancellor was established with the North German Confederation, of which Otto von Bismarck became Chancellor in 1867. After the Unification of Germany in 1871, the became known in German as Reichskanzler. With Germanys constitution of 1949, the title Bundeskanzler was revived in German, during the various eras, the role of the Chancellor has varied. From 1871 to 1918, the Chancellor was only responsible to the Emperor, with the founding of the republic and the constitutional reform in 1918, the Parliament was granted the right to dismiss the Reichskanzler. According to the Weimar Constitution of 1919, the Chancellor was appointed by the President and responsible to Parliament, when the Nazis came to power on 30 January 1933, the Weimar Constitution was de facto set aside. After the death of President Hindenburg in 1934, Adolf Hitler, the 1949 constitution gave the Chancellor much greater powers than during the Weimar Republic, while strongly diminishing the role of the President. Since 1867,33 individuals have served as heads of government of Germany or its predecessor, due to his administrative tasks, the head of the clerics at the chapel of an Imperial palace during the Carolingian Empire was called Chancellor. The chapels college acted as the Emperors chancery issuing deeds and capitularies and these three Prince-Archbishops were also Prince-electors of the Empire electing the King of the Romans. Already in medieval times, the German Chancellor had political power like Archbishop Willigis or Rainald von Dassel under Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In 1559, Emperor Ferdinand I established the agency of an Imperial chancellery at the Vienna Hofburg Palace, upon the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, Emperor Ferdinand II created the office of an Austrian Court Chancellor in charge of the internal and foreign affairs of the Habsburg Monarchy
7.
Werner von Blomberg
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Werner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg was a German Generalfeldmarschall, Minister of War, and Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces until January 1938. Born in Stargard, Pomerania, Prussia, Werner von Blomberg joined the army in 1897, in April 1904, he married Charlotte Hellmich. After graduating in 1907, Blomberg entered the General Staff in 1908, serving with distinction on the Western Front during the First World War, Blomberg was awarded the Pour le Mérite. In 1920, Blomberg was appointed chief of staff of the Döberitz Brigade, in 1925, Blomberg was made chief of army training by General Hans von Seeckt. By 1927, Blomberg was a major-general and chief of the Troop Office and this was part and parcel of a broader shift on the part of the German military to the idea of a totalitarian Wehrstaat which had become popular with officers starting in the mid-1920s. The German historian Eberhard Kolb wrote that, Blombergs visit to the Soviet Union in 1928 had the effect of confirming his views about totalitarian powers being the greatest military powers. After arguing with the powerful General Kurt von Schleicher in 1929, however, Blomberg was removed from his post, in 1929, Schleicher came into conflict with Blomberg at the Truppenamt. As a result, Blomberg was demoted from command of the Truppenamt, Blomberg was later to emerge as Schleichers most powerful enemy within the Reichswehr. Blombergs relations with the SA were excellent at this time, many generals saw East Prussia as an model for future Army-Nazi co-operation all over Germany. Blombergs interactions with the SA in East Prussia led him to the conclusion that Nazis made for excellent soldiers, which further increased the appeal of National Socialism for him. But at the time, Blomberg saw the SA only as a junior partner to the Army. In 1931, Blomberg visited the US, where he proclaimed his belief in the certainty. Blombergs first wife Charlotte died on 11 May 1932, leaving him two sons and three daughters. In his reports to Hindenburg, Blomberg wrote that his arch-rival Schleichers attempts to create the Wehrstaat had clearly failed, by late January 1933 it was clear that the Schleicher government could only stay in power by proclaiming martial law, and by sending the Reichswehr to crush popular opposition. Blomberg was one of the channels by which the Reichswehr informed Hindenburg of their wish to see Hitler become the chancellor. Upon learning of this, Schleicher guessed correctly that the order to recall Blomberg to Berlin meant his government was doomed. When Blomberg arrived at the station in Berlin on 28 January 1933, he was met by Major von Kuntzen and by Major Oskar von Hindenburg, adjutant. Kuntzen had orders from Hammerstein for him to report at once to the Defence Ministry, over Kuntzens protests, Blomberg chose to go with Hindenburg to meet the president, who swore him in as defence minister
8.
Werner von Fritsch
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Werner, Freiherr von Fritsch was the commander-in-chief of the German Army from 1933 to 1938. He served in the German High Command, Fritsch was born in Benrath in the Rhine Province of the German Empire. He entered the Prussian Army at the age of 18, in 1901, in 1911, he was appointed to the German General Staff, where he served during World War I. During the interwar period, Fritsch served in the Weimar Republics Armed Forces, Fritsch declared he was totally opposed to seeing another black, red and gold cur as Chancellor and wrote that he believed that Germany was being ruined by the propaganda of the Jewish papers. There may be small differences, but in the end it all amounts to the same. extreme disloyalty to the republic to which he had sworn an oath. As such, Fritsch who worked closely with the Soviet Union in secret rearmament favored a foreign policy. In 1928, Fritsch began work on the plan that became Fall Weiss and he was promoted to Major-General in 1932 by Kurt von Schleicher, who regarded him as a promising young officer. Schleicher then assigned Fritsch and Gerd von Rundstedt the duty of carrying out the Prussian coup that saw the Reichswehr oust the Social Democratic government of Prussia. In February 1934, when Blomberg ordered that all soldiers who might be considered Jewish be given dishonorable discharges, Fritsch made no objection, Fritsch ultimately betrayed the officer corps to the Führer by agreeing to this demand after consulting with his generals. He was named Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1935, Fritsch supported the Nazi regime but he was antagonistic towards attempts to create rivals to the Army, especially the SS. Shirer recalled hearing Fritsch make sarcastic remarks about the SS, as well as several Nazi leaders from Hitler on down, at a parade in Saarbrücken. He was also worried that Hitler would cause a war with the Soviet Union, like most of his fellow officers, given this compatibility of outlook, one may doubt whether Fritschs pronounced anti-Semitism reflected political naïveté as the historian Klaus-Jürgen Müller has asserted. In 1936, when Blomberg was promoted to Field Marshal, Fritsch received promotion to Blombergs vacated rank of Colonel General, Fritsch was among the officers present at the Hossbach Conference in 1937 where Hitler announced that he wanted to go to war as early as 1938. He was very critical of this demand, as he knew the army was not ready, Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring—inspired by the resignation of Blomberg—accused the unmarried Fritsch of engaging in homosexual activity. Fritsch had never been a womaniser and had preferred to concentrate on his army career and he was forced to resign on 4 February 1938. His replacement—Walther von Brauchitsch—was recommended for the post by Fritsch, adolf Hitler took advantage of the situation through the replacement of several generals and ministers with Nazi loyalists, which strengthened his control of the German Armed Forces. It soon became known that the charges were false, and a court of officers examined the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair. The successful annexation of Austria into Greater Germany of 12 March silenced all critics of Hitler, Göring, Fritsch was acquitted on 18 March, but the damage to his name had been done
9.
Walther von Brauchitsch
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Walther von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in the early years of World War II. Born into a military family, Brauchitsch entered army service in 1901. During World War I, he served with distinction on the staff of the XVI Corps, 34th Infantry Division, after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Brauchitsch was put in charge of the East Prussian Military District. Although he personally disliked Nazism, he borrowed immense sums of money from Hitler, Brauchitsch served as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army from February 1938 until December 1941. He played a key role in the Battle of France and oversaw the German invasions of Yugoslavia, for his part in the Battle of France, Brauchitsch became one of 12 generals promoted to Field Marshal. After World War II, Brauchitsch was arrested on charges of war crimes, Brauchitsch was born in Berlin on 4 October 1881 as the sixth child of Bernhard Eduard von Brauchitsch, a cavalry general, and his wife Charlotte Bertha von Gordon. The Brauchitsch family had a tradition of military service, and like his forefathers. His family moved in the social circles of Berlins high society. In his teens, Brauchitsch was interested in politics, and was fascinated by art, to help him pursue these interests, his father enrolled him at Französisches Gymnasium Berlin rather than a military academy. In 1895 Brauchitsch joined the academy in Potsdam. During his time serving the empress at court, he learned manners, upon graduation in 1900 he received his commission in an infantry regiment. A medical condition made him unfit for service in the infantry and he was put in charge of training recruits in riding and driving. He then joined the General Staff office in Berlin, where he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1909. By the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Brauchitsch had reached the rank of captain, during World War I, he served with the 34th Infantry Division and Guards Reserve Corps. Between 1914 and 1916, he took part in the Battle of Verdun, Brauchitsch was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class and the House Order of Hohenzollern, and ended the war with the rank of major. The German military underwent a reduction in 1919 to comply with the Treaty of Versailles. He remained with the General Staff, where he had no opportunity to use his knowledge of artillery, eventually, in 1920, he was permitted to transfer to the staff of the 2nd Artillery Regiment. The following year, he worked in the Ministry of the Reichswehr, Brauchitschs assignment in the Artillery Department was to reorganize artillery formations and implement lessons learned in the closing months of the war
10.
Konstantin von Neurath
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Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat remembered mostly for having served as Foreign minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. This aversion eventually induced Hitler to replace Neurath with the more compliant and fervent Nazi Joachim von Ribbentrop, Neurath served as Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia between 1939 and 1943, though his authority was only nominal after September 1941. He was tried as a war criminal in Nuremberg and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for his compliance. Neurath was born at the manor of Kleinglattbach in Württemberg, the scion of a Swabian dynasty of Freiherren and he studied law in Tübingen and in Berlin. After graduating in 1897 he initially joined a law firm in his home town. In 1901 he entered civil service and worked for the Foreign Office in Berlin. In 1903 he was assigned to the German embassy in London, at first as Vice-Consul and from 1909 as Legationsrat. Following the visit of the Prince of Wales to the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1904, as Lord Chamberlain to King William II, Neuraths career was decisively advanced by Secretary of State Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter. In 1914 he was sent to the embassy in Constantinople, on 30 May 1901 Neurath married Marie Auguste Moser von Filseck in Stuttgart. His son Konstantin was born in 1902, followed by his daughter Winifred in 1904, during World War I he served as an officer with an infantry regiment until 1916 when he was badly wounded. In December 1914 he was awarded the Iron Cross and he returned to the German diplomatic service in the Ottoman Empire, where he witnessed the Armenian Genocide. In 1917 he temporarily quit the service to succeed his uncle Julius von Soden as head of the royal Württemberg government. In 1919 Neurath with approval by president Friedrich Ebert returned to diplomacy, from 1921 until 1930 he was the ambassador to Rome, he was not overly impressed with Italian Fascism. In 1930 he returned to head the embassy in London, Neurath was recalled to Germany in 1932 and became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet of Barons under Chancellor Franz von Papen in June. He continued to hold that position under Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, during the early days of Hitlers rule, Neurath lent an aura of respectability to Hitlers expansionist foreign policy. He was involved in the German withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, the negotiations of the Anglo-German Naval Accord, in 1937, Neurath joined the Nazi Party. He was awarded the Golden Party Badge and was given the rank of a Gruppenführer in the SS—equivalent in Wehrmacht rank to a lieutenant general. On 5 November 1937, the conference between the Reichs top military-foreign policy leadership and Hitler recorded in the so-called Hossbach Memorandum occurred
11.
Joachim von Ribbentrop
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Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop, more commonly known as Joachim von Ribbentrop, was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitlers notice as a businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis. He offered his house for the meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitlers appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a confidant of Adolf Hitler, to the disgust of some party members. He was nevertheless appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James in 1936, before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel and the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Arrested in June 1945, Ribbentrop was tried at the Nuremberg trials and convicted for his role in starting World War II, on 16 October 1946, he became the first of those sentenced to death by hanging. Joachim von Ribbentrop was born in Wesel, Rhenish Prussia, to Richard Ulrich Friedrich Joachim Ribbentrop, a army officer. From 1904 to 1908, Ribbentrop took French courses at Lycée Fabert in Metz, a former teacher later recalled Ribbentrop was the most stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy. His father was cashiered from the German Imperial Army in 1908 - after repeatedly disparaging Kaiser Wilhelm II for his alleged homosexuality -, following the stay in Arosa, Ribbentrop was sent to Britain for a year to improve his knowledge of the English language. Fluent in both French and English, young Ribbentrop lived at times in Grenoble, France, and London. He worked for the Molsons Bank on Stanley Street in Montreal and he was also employed by the National Transcontinental Railway, which constructed a line from Moncton to Winnipeg. He worked as a journalist in New York City and Boston and he returned to Canada and set up a small business in Ottawa importing German wine and champagne. In 1914, he competed for Ottawas famous Minto ice-skating team, when the First World War began later in 1914, Ribbentrop left Canada, which was at war with Germany as part of the British Empire, and moved to the neutral United States. He sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 15 August 1914 on the Holland-America ship The Potsdam, upon his return to Germany, he enlisted in the 12th Hussar Regiment. Ribbentrop served first on the Eastern Front, but was transferred to the Western Front and he earned a commission and was awarded the Iron Cross. In 1918, 1st Lieutenant Ribbentrop was stationed in Istanbul as a staff officer, during his time in Turkey, he became friends with another staff officer named Franz von Papen. In 1919, Ribbentrop met Anna Elisabeth Henkell, the daughter of a wealthy Wiesbaden wine-producer and they married on 5 July 1920, and Ribbentrop travelled throughout Europe as a wine salesman. He and Annelies had five children together, in 1925 his aunt, Gertrud von Ribbentrop, adopted him, which allowed him to add the nobiliary particle von to his name
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