1.
Stanley Kramer
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Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer, responsible for making many of Hollywoods most famous message films. As an independent producer and director, he brought attention to social issues that most studios avoided. Among the subjects covered in his films were racism, nuclear war, greed, creationism vs. evolution and his other notable films included High Noon, The Caine Mutiny, and Ship of Fools. Kramer was recognized for his independence as a producer-director, with author Victor Navasky writing that among the independents. None seemed more vocal, more liberal, more pugnacious than young Stanley Kramer and his friend, Kevin Spacey, during his acceptance speech at the 2015 Golden Globes, honored Kramers work, calling him one of the great filmmakers of all time. In 1961, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, in 1963, he was a member of the jury at the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival. In 1998, he was awarded the first NAACP Vanguard Award in recognition of the social themes that ran through his body of work. In 2002, the Stanley Kramer Award was created, to be given to recipients for work that dramatically illustrates provocative social issues, Stanley Kramer was born in Manhattan, New York, in a neighborhood known as Hells Kitchen due to its reputation as a tough, gang-ridden area. His parents were Jewish, and having separated when he was very young and his mother worked at a New York office of Paramount Pictures, during which time his grandparents took care of him at home. His uncle, Earl Kramer, worked in distribution at Universal Pictures, Kramer attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx, where he graduated at age fifteen. He then enrolled in New York University where he became a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and he graduated in 1933 at the age of nineteen with a degree in business administration. After developing a zest for writing with the newspaper, notes biographer Donald Spoto, he was offered an internship in the writing department of 20th Century Fox. Until receiving that writing job, he had planned to enroll in law school and those years as an apprentice writer and editor helped him acquire an exceptional aptitude in editing and develop the ability to understand the overall structure of the films he worked on. They enabled him to compose and edit in camera, as he shot scenes. He left the army with the rank of first lieutenant, after the war, Kramer soon discovered that there were no available jobs in Hollywood in 1947, so he created an independent production company, Screen Plays Inc. He partnered with writer Herbie Baker, publicist George Glass and producer Carl Foreman, Foreman justified the production company by noting that the big studios had become dinosaurs, which, being shocked by the onrush of television, jettisoned virtually everything to survive. But they failed to develop cadres of younger creative talent in their wake, Kramer also saw this as an opportunity to produce films dealing with subjects the studios previously avoided, especially those about controversial topics. However, Kramer soon learned that financing such independent films was a major obstacle, but with studios no longer involved, rival independent companies were created which all competed for those limited funds
2.
Playhouse 90
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Playhouse 90 was an American television anthology drama series that aired on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. The show was produced at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, the producers of the show were Martin Manulis, John Houseman, Russell Stoneman, Fred Coe, Arthur Penn, and Hubbell Robinson. The leading director was John Frankenheimer, followed by Franklin Schaffner, other directors included Sidney Lumet, George Roy Hill, Delbert Mann, and Robert Mulligan. With Alex Norths opening theme music, the series debuted October 4,1956 with Rod Serlings adaptation of Pat Franks novel Forbidden Area starring Charlton Heston, Serling was given the first Peabody Award for television writing. For many viewers, live television drama had moved to a loftier plateau, Playhouse 90 established a reputation as televisions most distinguished anthology drama series and maintained a high standard for four seasons. From the start, productions were planned to be live and filmed, with a filmed show every fourth Thursday to relieve the pressure of mounting the live telecasts. The first filmed Playhouse 90 was The Country Husband with Barbara Hale, the filmed episodes were produced variously, by Screen Gems and CBS. Playhouse 90 received many Emmy Award nominations, and it later ranked #33 on the TV Guide 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, in 1997, the acclaimed Requiem for a Heavyweight was ranked #30 on the TV Guide 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. Early on, in 1956, Playhouse 90 faced some controversy due to scheduling, worried about this issue, CBS suspended its plans for the series in fear that they had violated anti-trust laws. Soon afterward, however, CBS received an opinion from its legal counsel that no laws had been violated. Playwright Tad Mosel, who wrote four teleplays for Playhouse 90, recalled, glamour had come to television because CBS had built this magnificent Television City in Los Angeles. Television had come to deserve buildings for itself and this was a whole new idea, that youd have a building for television. Playhouse 90 was one of the first shows to go into that mammoth building, between 1954 and 1960, John Frankenheimer directed 152 live television dramas, an average of one every two weeks. During the 1950s he was regarded as televisions top talent and much of his significant work was for Playhouse 90. In later interviews, Frankenheimer expressed his admiration for Rooneys acting in this memorable drama, a kinescope of The Comedian survives and remains available for viewing at the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles. After The Last Tycoon, adapted from the F. Robert Alan Aurthurs script for A Sound of Different Drummers borrowed so heavily from Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 that Bradbury sued. The Troublemakers was George Bellaks adaptation of his own 1956 play about a newspaper editor killed by other students. Frankenheimer ended the year with The Thundering Wave, starring James, a Town Has Turned to Dust, a Serling drama about a 1870 lynching of an innocent Mexican in a southwestern town, was based on the Emmett Till case
3.
Spencer Tracy
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Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor, noted for his natural style and versatility. One of the stars of Hollywoods Golden Age, Tracy was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Actor. Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College and he spent seven years in the theatre, working in a succession of stock companies and intermittently on Broadway. Tracys breakthrough came in 1930, when his performance in The Last Mile caught the attention of Hollywood. After a successful debut in Up the River, Tracy was signed to a contract with Fox Film Corporation. His five years with Fox were unremarkable, and he remained unknown to audiences after 25 films. In 1935 Tracy joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, at the time Hollywoods most prestigious studio and his career flourished with a series of hit films, and in 1937 and 1938 he won consecutive Oscars for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. By the 1940s, Tracy was one of the top stars. In 1942 he appeared with Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year, Tracy left MGM in 1955 and continued to work regularly as a freelance star, despite an increasing weariness as he aged. His personal life was troubled, with a struggle against alcoholism. Tracy became estranged from his wife in the 1930s, but never divorced, towards the end of his life, Tracy worked almost exclusively for director Stanley Kramer. It was for Kramer that he made his last film, Guess Whos Coming to Dinner in 1967, during his career, Tracy appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screens greatest actors. In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema, Tracy was born on April 5,1900, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the son of Caroline and John Edward Tracy. His mother was a Presbyterian from a wealthy Midwestern family, and his one brother, Carroll, was four years older. Spencer was a difficult and hyperactive child with poor school attendance, raised as a Catholic, at nine years old he was placed in the care of Dominican nuns in the hope of transforming his behavior. Later in life he remarked, I never would have back to school if there had been any other way of learning to read the subtitles in the movies. He became fascinated with motion pictures, watching the same ones repeatedly and then re-enacting scenes to his friends, Tracy attended several Jesuit academies in his teenage years, which he claimed took the badness out of him and helped him improve his grades
4.
Burt Lancaster
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Burton Stephen Burt Lancaster was an American film actor. Initially known for playing tough guys, Lancaster went on to success with more complex. He was nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960 and he also won a Golden Globe for that performance and BAFTA Awards for The Birdman of Alcatraz and Atlantic City. During the 1950s his production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster was highly successful, making such as Marty, Trapeze, Sweet Smell of Success, Run Silent, Run Deep. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema, Lancaster was born in Manhattan, New York City, at his parents home at 209 East 106th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, today the site of Benjamin Franklin Plaza. Lancaster was the son of Elizabeth and James Henry Lancaster, who was a mailman, both of his parents were Protestants of working class origin. All of Lancasters grandparents were Ulster immigrants to the United States, the family believed themselves to be related to Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts. Before he graduated from DeWitt Clinton, his mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage, Lancaster was accepted by New York University with an athletic scholarship, but subsequently dropped out. At the age of 19, Lancaster met Nick Cravat, with whom he developed a lifelong partnership, together they learned to act in local theatre productions and circus arts at Union Settlement, one of the citys oldest settlement houses. They formed the acrobat duo Lang and Cravat in the 1930s, however, in 1939, an injury forced Lancaster to give up the profession, with great regret. He then found work, first as a salesman for Marshall Fields. He served with General Mark Clarks Fifth Army in Italy from 1943–45, although initially unenthusiastic about acting, after returning to New York from his Army service, Lancaster auditioned for a Broadway play and was offered a role. Wallis, who signed him to an eight-movie contract, Lancasters first filmed movie was Desert Fury. Fortunately for Lancaster, producer Mark Hellinger approached him to star in The Killers, in 1946, the tall, muscular actor won significant acclaim and appeared in two more films the following year. Subsequently, he played in a variety of films, especially in dramas, thrillers, and military and adventure films. In two, The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate, a friend from his circus years, Nick Cravat, played a key supporting role, in 1953, Lancaster played one of his best-remembered roles with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. The American Film Institute acknowledged the iconic status of the scene from film in which Deborah Kerr. The organization named it one of AFIs top 100 Most Romantic Films of all time, Lancaster won the 1960 Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe Award, and the New York Film Critics Award for his performance in Elmer Gantry
5.
Richard Widmark
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Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor and producer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his film, Kiss of Death. For his contribution to the picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Widmark was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota, the son of Ethel Mae and Carl Henry Widmark. His father was of Swedish descent and his mother of English and Scottish ancestry, Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and also lived in Henry, Illinois for a short time, moving frequently because of his fathers work as a traveling salesman. He attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting and also taught acting after he graduated, Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 on Aunt Jennys Real Life Stories. The story of a newspaperman and his wife, the story of David. Farrell was a top reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle, when the series moved to NBC, Widmark turned the role over to Carleton G. Young and Staats Cotsworth. During the 1940s, Widmark was also heard on network radio programs as Gang Busters, The Shadow, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M. D. Molle Mystery Theater, Suspense and Ethel. In 1952 he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of Cavalcade of America titled Adventure on the Kentucky and he returned to radio drama decades later, performing on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and was also one of the five hosts on Sears Radio Theater from 1979–81. Widmark appeared on Broadway in 1943 in F and he was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum. He was in Chicago appearing in a production of Dream Girl with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract. Widmarks first movie appearance was in Kiss of Death, as the giggling, in his most notorious scene Udo pushed a wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs to her death. He said, The director, Henry Hathaway, didnt want me, I have a high forehead, he thought I looked too intellectual. Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, Hathaway gave me kind of a bad time, recalled Widmark. Widmark played Dude in the Western film Yellow Sky, with Gregory Peck and his name was billed third, above the title. They are considered examples of film noir. Around the same time, Widmark starred with Sidney Poitier in the gripping racial melodrama No Way Out, in 1952, Widmark had his handprints cast in cement at Graumans Chinese Theatre
6.
Marlene Dietrich
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Marie Magdalene Marlene Dietrich was a German actress and singer who held both German and American citizenship. Throughout her unusually long career, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, in the 1920s in Berlin, Dietrich acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel brought her international fame, Dietrich starred in Hollywood films such as Morocco, Shanghai Express, and Desire. She successfully traded on her glamorous persona and exotic looks, throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she still made occasional films after the war, Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer. Dietrich was noted for her efforts during the war, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received honors from the United States, France, Belgium. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema, Dietrich was born on 27 December 1901 on Leberstraße 65 in the neighborhood of Rote Insel in Schöneberg, now a district of Berlin. She was the younger of two daughters of Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine and Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, who married in December 1898, Dietrichs mother was from an affluent Berlin family who owned a jewelry and clock making firm. Her father was a lieutenant who died in 1907. Von Losch never officially adopted the Dietrich girls, so Dietrichs surname was never von Losch, Dietrichs family nicknamed her Lena and Lene. Around age 11, she contracted her two first names to form the name Marlene, Dietrich attended the Auguste-Viktoria Girls School from 1907 to 1917 and graduated from the Victoria-Luise-Schule in 1918. She studied the violin and became interested in theater and poetry as a teenager. Her dreams of becoming a concert violinist were curtailed by a wrist injury and she was fired after only four weeks. Her earliest professional stage appearances were as a girl on tour with Guido Thielschers Girl-Kabarett vaudeville-style entertainments. She did not attract any attention at first. She made her film debut playing a bit part in the film The Little Napoleon and she met her future husband, Rudolf Sieber, on the set of Tragödie der Liebe in 1923. Dietrich and Sieber were married in a ceremony in Berlin on 17 May 1923
7.
Judy Garland
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Judy Garland was an American singer, actress, and vaudevillian. Garland began performing in vaudeville with her two sisters and was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. She made more than two films with MGM, including nine with Mickey Rooney. Garlands most famous role was as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and her other roles at MGM included Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls and Easter Parade. After 15 years, she was released from the studio and made record-breaking concert appearances, a recording career. Film appearances became fewer in her years, but included two Academy Award nominated performances in A Star Is Born and Judgment at Nuremberg. Garland received a Golden Globe Award, a Juvenile Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award, deMille Award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. She was the first woman to win a Grammy for Album of the Year for her recording of Judy at Carnegie Hall. In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the 10 greatest female stars of classic American cinema, from an early age Garland struggled in her personal life. The pressures of adolescent stardom sent her to a psychiatrist at age eighteen and her self-image was influenced by film executives who said she was unattractive and manipulated her on-screen physical appearance. She was plagued by instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. She married five times, with her first four marriages ending in divorce and she also had a long battle with drugs and alcohol, which ultimately led to her death from a barbiturate overdose at the age of 47. Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10,1922, in Grand Rapids and she was the youngest child of Ethel Marion and Francis Avent Frank Gumm. Her parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a theater that featured vaudeville acts. She was of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, named after both of her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church, baby shared her familys flair for song and dance. The Gumm Sisters performed there for the few years, accompanied by their mother on piano. The family relocated to Lancaster, California, in June 1926, Frank purchased and operated another theater in Lancaster, and Ethel began managing her daughters and working to get them into motion pictures
8.
Maximilian Schell
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Maximilian Schell was a Swiss film and stage actor, who also wrote, directed and produced some of his own films. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1961 American film Judgment at Nuremberg, born in Austria, his parents were involved in the arts and he grew up surrounded by acting and literature. While he was a child, his family fled to Switzerland in 1938 when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, after World War II ended, Schell took up acting or directing full-time. He appeared in numerous German films, often anti-war, before moving on to Hollywood, Schell was top billed in a number of Nazi-era themed films, as he could speak both English and German. For his role as Vladimir Lenin in the film, Stalin. On stage, Schell acted in a number of plays, in Schells private life, he was an accomplished pianist and conductor, performing with Claudio Abbado and Leonard Bernstein, and with orchestras in Berlin and Vienna. His elder sister, Maria Schell, was also a noted Hollywood actress, about whom he produced the documentary, My Sister Maria, in 2002. Schell was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Margarethe, an actress who ran a school, and Hermann Ferdinand Schell. Schells father was never enthusiastic about young Maximilian becoming an actor like his mother, however, Schell was surrounded by acting in his early youth, I grew up in a theatre atmosphere and took it for granted. I remember the theatre, as a child, the way most people remember their mothers cooking, acting was all around me, and so was poetry. I made my debut in the theatre at the age of three, in Vienna, the Schell family was forced to flee Vienna in 1938 to get away from Hitler after the Anschluss, when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. In Zurich, Schell grew up reading the classics, and when he was ten, Schell later attended the University of Zurich for a year, where he also played soccer and was on the rowing team, along with writing for newspapers as a part-time journalist for income. Following the end of World War II, he moved to Germany where he enrolled in the University of Munich and studied philosophy and art history. During breaks, he would return home to Zurich or stay at his familys farm in the country so he could write in seclusion, My father and my uncle hunt deer there. I like to walk through the forest by myself, Schell then returned to Zurich, where he served in the Swiss Army for a year, after which he re-entered the University of Zurich for another year, and later, the University of Basel for six months. To me it is more important. To admire and feel and be stimulated and inspired, art comes out of chaos, not out of a mechanical analyzing. So as soon as I made up my mind, there was no sense any more in continuing to study and it is like an award, it does not mean anything in itself
9.
William Shatner
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William Shatner is a Canadian actor, author, producer, and director. In his seven decades of television, Shatner became an icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek and he has written a series of science fiction novels called TekWar, which were adapted for television. Shatner also appeared in the NBC series, 3rd Rock from the Sun in seasons 4 and 5 as the role of the Big Giant Head whom the characters of the Series reported to. He has worked as a musician, an author, a director, and he starred as attorney Denny Crane in the final season of the legal drama The Practice and its spinoff series Boston Legal, a role that earned him two Emmy Awards. Shatner was born on March 22,1931, in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the son of Anne and Joseph Shatner and he has two sisters, Joy and Farla. His paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, anglicized the name to Shatner. All of Shatners grandparents were Jewish immigrants, and he was raised in Conservative Judaism, Shatner attended two schools in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Willingdon Elementary School and Westhill High School, and is an alumnus of the Montreal Childrens Theatre. He studied Economics at the McGill University Faculty of Management in Montreal, Canada, in June 2011, McGill University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Letters. Shatner began performing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, in 1954, he was cast as Ranger Bob on The Canadian Howdy Doody Show. Shatner was an understudy to Christopher Plummer, the two would appear as adversaries in Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country. Shatner had a role in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents third-season episode titled The Glass Eye. In 1959, he received good reviews when he played the role of Lomax in the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong. He appeared twice as Wayne Gorham in NBCs Outlaws Western series with Barton MacLane, in 1961, he starred in the Broadway play A Shot in the Dark with Julie Harris and directed by Harold Clurman. Walter Matthau and Gene Saks were also featured in this play, Shatner featured in two episodes of the NBC television series Thriller and the film The Explosive Generation. Guthrie had called the young Shatner the Stratford Festivals most promising actor, Shatner was not as successful as the others, however, and during the 1960s he became a working actor who showed up on time, knew his lines, worked cheap and always answered his phone. His motto was Work equals work, but Shatners willingness to take any role, no matter how forgettable, in the 1963–1964 season, he appeared in episodes of two ABC series, Channing and The Outer Limits. In 1963, he starred in the Family Theater production called The Soldier and that same year, he guest starred in Route 66, in the episode, Build Your Houses with Their Backs to the Sea
10.
Montgomery Clift
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Edward Montgomery Monty Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary of Clift noted his portrayal of moody and he received four Academy Award nominations during his career, three for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor. Clift was born on October 17,1920, in Omaha and his father, William Brooks Clift, was a vice-president of Omaha National Trust Company. His mother was the former Ethel Fogg Anderson, mostly called Sunny, Clift had English, as well as Dutch and Scottish ancestry. Sunny Clift was an adopted child, at eighteen shed been told that her real father and mother were members of prominent Yankee families, forced to part by the tyrannical will of the girls mother. She spent the rest of her trying to gain the recognition of her alleged relations. Part of her effort was her determination that her children should be brought up in the style of true aristocrats, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s ruined Bill Clift financially. Montgomery, however, could not adjust to school and never went to college, instead, he took to stage acting, beginning in a summer production which led, by 1935, to his debut on Broadway. He appeared in plays written by Moss Hart, Robert Sherwood, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams and Thornton Wilder, creating the part of Henry in the original production of The Skin of Our Teeth. In 1939, as a member of the cast of the 1939 Broadway production of Noël Cowards Hay Fever, a performance of Hay Fever was aired during the New York Worlds Fair as part of the introduction of television. It is not likely that any recording of the broadcast exists and he resided in Jackson Heights, Queens, until he got his break on Broadway. He first acted on Broadway when, at just 15-years-of-age, he appeared as Prince Peter in the Cole Porter musical Jubilee on Broadway, at 20, he played the son in the Broadway production of There Shall Be No Night, which won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize. At the age of 25, he moved to Hollywood and his first movie role was opposite John Wayne in Red River, which was shot in 1946 and released in 1948. His second movie was The Search, Clift was unhappy with the quality of the script, and edited it himself. The movie was awarded a screenwriting Academy Award for the credited writers, Clifts performance saw him nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. His naturalistic performance led to director Fred Zinnemanns being asked, Where did you find a soldier who can act so well, Clifts next movie was The Heiress. He signed on for the movie in order to avoid being typecast, again unhappy with the script, Clift told friends that he wanted to change his co-star Olivia de Havillands lines because she isnt giving me enough to respond. Clift also was unable to get along with most of the cast, he criticized de Havilland, the studio marketed Clift as a sex symbol prior to the movies release in 1949
11.
Werner Klemperer
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Werner Klemperer was a German-American stage, film, and television actor and singer/musician. Born in Cologne, Rhine Province, Germany, Klemperer and his family fled Germany in 1935, after serving in the United States Army during World War II, he began his professional acting career on the Broadway stage in 1947. Klemperer appeared in films and numerous guest starring roles during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1965, he won the role of Colonel Wilhelm Klink on the CBS television sitcom Hogans Heroes. The series aired for six seasons with Klemperer receiving a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series nomination for each year, Klemperer was born in Cologne, Germany, to a musical family. His father was renowned conductor Otto Klemperer and his mother was soprano Johanna Geisler and he had a younger sister named Lotte. His father was Jewish who converted to Catholicism but later converted back to Judaism, the Klemperer family emigrated to the United States in 1935, settling in Los Angeles, where Otto Klemperer took up work as a conductor. Werner Klemperer began acting in school and enrolled in acting courses at the Pasadena Playhouse before joining the United States Army to serve in World War II. While stationed in Hawaii, he joined the Armys Special Services unit, at the wars end, he performed on Broadway before moving into television acting. Klemperer was also a violinist and a concert pianist. He broadened his acting career by performing as an operatic baritone and he can also be heard as the Speaker in Arnold Schoenbergs Gurre-Lieder, in a 1979 live performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Klemperers first major role was as a psychiatrist in Alfred Hitchcocks The Wrong Man. He then received significant notice for his role in the award-winning 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg, the film presents a fictionalized account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, with Klemperer portraying Emil Hahn, a Nazi prosecutor and one of the defendants at the trial. Prior to this, he had a role in the 1957 Errol Flynn film Istanbul. He played the role in the 1961 film Operation Eichmann. He guest starred in the first Brian Keith television series, Crusader and he is best known, however, as Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the bumbling, cowardly and self-serving Kommandant of Stalag 13 on Hogans Heroes, which aired from 1965–1971. When Klemperers father, the conductor, saw his first episode of Hogans Heroes, he said to his son. But who is the author of this material, in addition to the characters bumblings, Klink was also remembered for his horribly screechy violin playing, spoofing Klemperers talent for the violin
12.
United Artists
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United Artists is an American film and television entertainment studio. The studio was bought, sold and restructured over the ensuing century. On December 14 of the year, however, MGM acquired the 48% stake of UAMG it did not own. UA was incorporated as a joint venture on February 5,1919, by Pickford, Chaplin, Fairbanks, each held a 20% stake, with the remaining 20% held by lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo. The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford, already Hollywood veterans, the four stars talked of forming their own company to better control their own work. They were spurred on by established Hollywood producers and distributors who were tightening their control over salaries and creative decisions. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before anything was formalized, when he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, is said to have observed, The inmates are taking over the asylum. The four partners, with advice from McAdoo, formed their distribution company and its headquarters was established at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City. The original terms called for each of the stars to produce five pictures each year, UAs first film was a success. Without selling stock to the public, following the other studios, as a result, production was slow and the company distributed an annual average of five films during its first five years. By 1924 Griffith had dropped out and the company was facing a crisis, veteran producer Joseph Schenck was hired as president. He had been producing pictures for a decade, and he brought commitments for films starring his wife, Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law, Constance Talmadge, contracts were signed with independent producers, most notably Samuel Goldwyn, and Howard Hughes. In 1933, Schenck organized a new company with Darryl F. Zanuck, called Twentieth Century Pictures, Schenck formed a separate partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters under the United Artists name. They began international operations, first in Canada and then in Mexico, by the end of the 1930s, United Artists was represented in over 40 countries. When he was denied a share in 1935, Schenck resigned. He set up 20th Century Pictures merger with Fox Film Corporation to form 20th Century Fox, al Lichtman succeeded Schenck as company president. Other independent producers distributed through United Artists in the 1930s including, Walt Disney Productions, Alexander Korda, Hal Roach, David O. Selznick, as the years passed, and the dynamics of the business changed, these producing partners drifted away. Samuel Goldwyn Productions and Disney went to RKO, and Wanger to Universal Pictures, in the late 1930s, UA turned a profit
13.
Courtroom
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A courtroom is the enclosed space in which courts of law are held in front of a judge. A number of courtrooms, which may also be known as courts, the judge generally sits behind a raised desk, known as the bench. Benches in U. S. federal courtrooms and some state courtrooms are usually bullet-resistant to protect judges from courtroom shootouts, behind the judge are the great seal of the jurisdiction and the flags of the appropriate federal and state governments. Judges usually wear a black robe. An exception was the late U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, adjacent to the bench are the witness stand and the desks where the court clerk and the court reporter sit. The courtroom is divided into two parts by a known as the bar. The bar may be an actual railing, or an imaginary barrier, the bailiff stands against one wall and keeps order in the courtroom. On one side is the bench, the tables for the plaintiff, the defendant, and their respective counsel. Apart from the parties to the case and any witnesses, only the lawyers can literally pass the bar, there is usually a podium or lectern between the two tables where the lawyers may stand when they argue their case before the judge. There is usually a space between the bench and the counsel tables, because of the court clerk and court reporters tables in front of the bench. This space is called the well, instead, if documents need to be given to or taken from the judge, attorneys are normally expected to approach the court clerk or bailiff, who acts as an intermediary. During trials, attorneys will ask the permission to traverse the well or approach the bench for sidebar conferences with the judge. The other side of the bar is open to the general public, seating for the gallery can either be pew style benches or theater seats. The theater seats are directly above the gallery, giving sight over the entire courtroom, all of the above applies only to trial courts. Appellate courts in the United States are not finders of fact, so they do not use juries or receive evidence into the record, that is the trial courts job. Therefore, in a court, there is neither a witness stand nor a jury box. The walls are partially or completely wood-paneled. This is a matter of style and tradition, but some jurisdictions have elected to construct courtrooms with a modern appearance
14.
Nuremberg
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Nuremberg is a city on the river Pegnitz and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia, about 170 kilometres north of Munich. It is the second-largest city in Bavaria, and the largest in Franconia, the population as of February 2015, is 517,498, which makes it Germanys fourteenth-largest city. The urban area also includes Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach with a population of 763,854. The European Metropolitan Area Nuremberg has ca.3.5 million inhabitants, Nuremberg was, according to the first documentary mention of the city in 1050, the location of an Imperial castle between the East Franks and the Bavarian March of the Nordgau. From 1050 to 1571, the city expanded and rose dramatically in importance due to its location on key trade routes, Nuremberg is often referred to as having been the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly because Imperial Diet and courts met at Nuremberg Castle. The Diets of Nuremberg were an important part of the structure of the empire. The increasing demand of the court and the increasing importance of the city attracted increased trade. Nuremberg soon became, with Augsburg, one of the two great trade centers on the route from Italy to Northern Europe. In 1298, the Jews of the town were accused of having desecrated the host, behind the massacre of 1298 was also the desire to combine the northern and southern parts of the city, which were divided by the Pegnitz. The Jews of the German lands suffered many massacres during the plague years, in 1349, Nurembergs Jews were subjected to a pogrom. They were burned at the stake or expelled, and a marketplace was built over the former Jewish quarter, the plague returned to the city in 1405,1435,1437,1482,1494,1520 and 1534. Charles was the patron of the Frauenkirche, built between 1352 and 1362, where the Imperial court worshipped during its stays in Nuremberg. Charles IV conferred upon the city the right to conclude alliances independently, frequent fights took place with the burgraves without, however, inflicting lasting damage upon the city. Through these and other acquisitions the city accumulated considerable territory, the Hussite Wars, recurrence of the Black Death in 1437, and the First Margrave War led to a severe fall in population in the mid-15th century. During the Middle Ages, Nurembergs literary culture was rich, varied, the cultural flowering of Nuremberg, in the 15th and 16th centuries, made it the centre of the German Renaissance. In 1525, Nuremberg accepted the Protestant Reformation, and in 1532, during the 1552 revolution against Charles V, Nuremberg tried to purchase its neutrality, but the city was attacked without a declaration of war and was forced into a disadvantageous peace. The state of affairs in the early 16th century, increased trade routes elsewhere, frequent quartering of Imperial, Swedish and League soldiers, the financial costs of the war and the cessation of trade caused irreparable damage to the city and a near-halving of the population. In 1632, the city, occupied by the forces of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, was besieged by the army of Imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein, the city declined after the war and recovered its importance only in the 19th century, when it grew as an industrial centre
15.
Judges' Trial
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The Judges Trial was the third of the 12 trials for war crimes the U. S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U. S. military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal, but took place in the same rooms at the Palace of Justice. The twelve U. S. trials are known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials or, more formally. The defendants in this case were 16 German jurists and lawyers, nine had been officials of the Reich Ministry of Justice, the others were prosecutors and judges of the Special Courts and Peoples Courts of Nazi Germany. They were—amongst other charges—held responsible for implementing and furthering the Nazi racial purity program through the eugenic, blair, formerly judge of the Third Court of Appeals of Texas, and Justin Woodward Harding of the Bar of the State of Ohio as an alternate judge. Marshall had to due to illness on June 19,1947, at which point Brand became president. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Telford Taylor, his deputy was Charles M. LaFollette, the indictment was presented on January 4,1947, the trial lasted from March 5 to December 4,1947. Ten of the defendants were guilty, four received sentences for lifetime imprisonment. Four persons were acquitted of all charges, crimes against humanity on the same grounds, including slave labor charges. Membership in an organization, the NSDAP or SS leadership corps. Count 4 applied only to Altstötter, Cuhorst, Engert, Joel and to Cuhorst, Oeschy, Nebelung, both organizations had been found criminal previously by the IMT. Count 1 was dropped, the declared the charge to be outside its jurisdiction. One who was alive but not tried was Hans Globke, all convicts were found guilty on all charges brought before them, except Rothaug, who was found guilty only on count 3 of the indictment, while he was found not guilty on counts 2 and 4. However, the court commented in its judgment that, By his manner and methods he made his court an instrumentality of terror and won the fear and hatred of the population. From the evidence of his closest associates as well as his victims, we find that Oswald Rothaug represented in Germany the personification of the secret Nazi intrigue and he was and is a sadistic and evil man. The public considered the sentences generally too low, most of the convicts were released already in the early 1950s, some even received retirement pensions in West Germany. The guide to German law entitled Das Recht der Gegenwart is still being published under the name Franz Schlegelberger, Trial proceedings from the Mazal Library. Description of the trial from the U. S
16.
Subsequent Nuremberg trials
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The subsequent Nuremberg trials were a series of twelve U. S. Although it had initially planned to hold more than just one international trial at the IMT. However, the Control Council Law No,10, which the Allied Control Council had issued on 20 December 1945, empowered any of the occupying authorities to try suspected war criminals in their respective occupation zones. Based on this law, the U. S. authorities proceeded after the end of the initial Nuremberg Trial against the war criminals to hold another twelve trials in Nuremberg. The judges in all trials were American, and so were the prosecutors. In the other occupation zones similar trials took place, the twelve U. S. trials before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals took place from 9 December 1946 to 13 April 1949. The trials were as follows, The Nuremberg process initiated 3,887 cases of which 3400 were dropped, less than 500 cases went to trial that involved 1672 defendants. 1416 were found guilty, but less than 200 were executed, another 279 defendants were sent to life in prison but by the 1950s almost all of them have been released. The same year, an amnesty released many of those who had received prison sentences, in a 2005 interview for the Washington Post, Benjamin B. Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal the situation was, he said. The Americans delivered at least a dozen low-ranking German SS suspects to displaced persons camps for the purpose of having them executed by the DPs, under military law at that time, it was legal to hand over suspects to their victims for further questioning. I once saw DPs beat an SS man and then strap him to the steel gurney of a crematorium and they slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and took him back out. Beat him again, and put him back in until he was burnt alive, I did nothing to stop it. I suppose I could have brandished my weapon or shot in the air, does that make me an accomplice to murder. In the interview, Ferencz also pointed out that the legal norms at the time permitted actions that would not be possible today. You know how I got witness statements, Id go into a village where, say, an American pilot had parachuted and been beaten to death and line everyone up against the wall. Then Id say, Anyone who lies will be shot on the spot and it never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid
17.
Crimes against humanity
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The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials. The law of crimes against humanity has developed through the evolution of customary international law. Crimes against humanity are not codified in a convention, although there is currently an international effort to establish such a treaty. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during peace or war and they are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. The term crimes against humanity is potentially ambiguous because of the ambiguity of the word humanity, the history of the term shows that the latter sense is intended. The term crimes against humanity was used by George Washington Williams, in a pamphlet published in 1890, the preamble of the two Conventions referenced the “laws of humanity” as an expression of underlying inarticulated humanistic values. The term is part of what is known as the Martens Clause, on May 24,1915, the Allied Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing a crime against humanity. At the conclusion of the war, a war crimes commission recommended the creation of a tribunal to try violations of the laws of humanity. However, the US representative objected to references to law of humanity as being imprecise and insufficiently developed at that time, the drafters of this document were faced with the problem of how to respond to the Holocaust and grave crimes committed by the Nazi regime. A traditional understanding of war crimes gave no provision for crimes committed by a power on its own citizens, the legal basis for the trial was established by the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that was proclaimed on 19 January 1946. The tribunal convened on May 3,1946, and was adjourned on November 12,1948, in the Tokyo Trial, Crimes against Humanity was not applied for any suspect. This was because the values of lives of Asian civilians were considered to be less than the lives of Caucasian or Jewish civilians. Prosecutions related to the Nanking Massacre were categorised as infringements upon the Laws of War, War crimes charges against more junior personnel were dealt with separately, in other cities throughout Far East Asia, such as the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal and the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials. A panel of eleven judges presided over the IMTFE, one each from victorious Allied powers, the different types of crimes which may constitute crimes against humanity differs between definitions both internationally and on the domestic level. The Charter of the United Nations makes actions of the General Assembly advisory to the Security Council, in regard to apartheid in particular, the UN General Assembly has not made any findings, nor have apartheid-related trials for crimes against humanity been conducted. The statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, there are eleven international texts defining crimes against humanity, but they all differ slightly as to their definition of that crime and its legal elements. In 2008, the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative was launched to address this gap in international law, the Initiative represents the first concerted effort to address the gap that exists in international criminal law by enumerating a comprehensive international convention on crimes against humanity. On July 30,2013, the United Nations International Law Commission voted to include the topic of crimes against humanity in its program of work
18.
The Holocaust
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The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitlers Nazi Germany, and the World War II collaborators with the Nazis. The victims included 1.5 million children, and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe, killings took place throughout German-occupied Europe, as well as within Nazi Germany, and across all territories controlled by its allies. Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, communists, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovahs Witnesses, some 42,500 detention facilities were utilized in the concentration of victims for the purpose of gross violations of human rights. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators, the persecution was carried out in stages, culminating in the policy of extermination of European Jews termed the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Following Hitlers rise to power, the German government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, starting in 1933 the Nazis began to establish a network of concentration camps. After the outbreak of war in 1939 both German and foreign Jews were herded into wartime ghettos, in 1941, as Germany began to conquer new territory in the East, all anti-Jewish measures radicalized. Specialized paramilitary units called Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million Jews in mass shootings actions in less than a year, by mid-1942, victims were being regularly transported by freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. This continued until the end of World War II in Europe in April–May 1945, the most notable exception was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when thousands of poorly-armed Jewish fighters held the Waffen-SS at bay for four weeks. An estimated 20, 000–30,000 Jewish partisans actively fought against the Nazis, French Jews took part in the French Resistance, which conducted a guerilla campaign against the Nazis and Vichy French authorities. Over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings took place, the term holocaust comes from the Greek adjective holókaustos, a variant of holókautos, referring to an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole animal is completely burnt. Often used substantively in apposition with the noun thysia, the term appears in a fragment of pseudo-Callisthenes, writing in Latin, Jerome Latinized the Greek word as a neuter noun holocaustum, using it to translate references to the Jewish burnt offering in his translations of Exodus and Leviticus. In his Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, Richard of Devizes, the English poet John Milton had used the word to denote a conflagration in his 1671 poem Samson Agonistes and the word gradually developed to mean a massacre thereon. The term was used in the 1950s by historians as a translation of the Jewish word shoah to refer specifically to the Nazi genocide of Jews, the television mini-series Holocaust is credited with introducing the term into common parlance after 1978. The biblical word shoah, meaning calamity became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s, especially in Europe and Israel. Shoah is preferred by some Jews for several reasons including the offensive nature of the word holocaust which they take to refer to the Greek pagan custom. The Nazis used the phrase Final Solution to the Jewish Question, all branches of Germanys bureaucracy were engaged in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar, Michael Berenbaum, has called a genocidal state. Every arm of the countrys sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process, as prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property, which was catalogued and tagged before being sent to Germany to be reused or recycled. Berenbaum writes that the Final Solution of the Jewish question was in the eyes of the perpetrators, through a concealed account, the German National Bank helped launder valuables stolen from the victims
19.
Aftermath of World War II
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Western Europe and Japan were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan whereas Eastern Europe fell in the Soviet sphere of influence and rejected the plan. Europe was divided into a US-led Western Bloc and a Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, internationally, alliances with the two blocs gradually shifted, with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement. As a consequence of the war, the Allies created the United Nations, members of the United Nations agreed to outlaw wars of aggression in an attempt to avoid a third world war. The devastated great powers of Western Europe formed the European Coal and Steel Community and this effort primarily began as an attempt to avoid another war between Germany and France by economic cooperation and integration, and a common market for important natural resources. Also related to this was Israel gaining independence from its previous status as part of Mandatory Palestine in the immediately following the war. Independence for the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa came more slowly, the aftermath of World War II also saw the rise of the Peoples Republic of China, as the Chinese Communists emerged victorious from the Chinese Civil War in 1949. At the end of the war, millions of people were homeless, the European economy had collapsed, the Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected. In response, in 1947, U. S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the European Recovery Program, under the plan, during 1948–1952 the United States government allocated US$13 billion for the reconstruction of Western Europe. By the end of the war, the economy of the United Kingdom was exhausted, more than a quarter of its national wealth had been spent. Until the introduction in 1941 of Lend-Lease aid from the US, lend-lease came just before its reserves were exhausted. Britain put 55% of its labor force into war production. In spring 1945, the Labour Party withdrew from the coalition government. Following a landslide victory, Labour held more than 60% of the seats in the House of Commons, britains war debt was described by some in the American administration as a millstone round the neck of the British economy. Although there were suggestions for a conference to tackle the issue. The abrupt withdrawal of American Lend Lease support to Britain on 2 September 1945 dealt a blow to the plans of the new government. It was only with the completion of the Anglo-American loan by the United States to Great Britain on 15 July 1946 that some measure of stability was restored. Although the loan was agreed on terms, its conditions included what proved to be damaging fiscal conditions for Sterling. From 1946-1948, the UK introduced bread rationing which it never did during the war, the Soviet Union suffered enormous losses in the war against Germany
20.
Nuremberg trials
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The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, and their decisions marked a turning point between classical international law and contemporary international law. Not included were Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels, all of whom had committed suicide in the spring of 1945, reinhard Heydrich was not included, as he had been assassinated in 1942. The second set of trials of war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No.10 at the U. S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which included the Doctors Trial. This article primarily deals with the IMT, see Subsequent Nuremberg Trials for details on the NMT, at the beginning of 1940, the Polish government-in-exile asked the British and French governments to condemn the German invasion of their country. The British initially declined to do so, however, in April 1940, three-and-a-half years later, the stated intention to punish the Germans was much more trenchant. In order that justice may be done and this intention by the Allies to dispense justice was reiterated at the Yalta Conference and at Berlin in 1945. British War Cabinet documents, released on 2 January 2006, showed that as early as December 1944 the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of the leading Nazis if captured. In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Churchill was vigorously opposed to executions for political purposes, US Secretary of the Treasury, suggested a plan for the total denazification of Germany, this was known as the Morgenthau Plan. The plan advocated the forced de-industrialisation of Germany and the execution of so-called arch-criminals. Roosevelt initially supported this plan, and managed to convince Churchill to support it in a less drastic form, later, details were leaked generating widespread condemnation by the nations newspapers. Roosevelt, aware of public disapproval, abandoned the plan. The demise of the Morgenthau Plan created the need for a method of dealing with the Nazi leadership. The plan for the Trial of European War Criminals was drafted by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, following Roosevelts death in April 1945, the new president, Harry S. Truman, gave strong approval for a judicial process. After a series of negotiations between Britain, the US, Soviet Union and France, details of the trial were worked out, the trials were to commence on 20 November 1945, in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. On 20 April 1942, representatives from the nine countries occupied by Germany met in London to draft the Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes, France was also awarded a place on the tribunal. The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany. Because the court was limited to violations of the laws of war, leipzig and Luxembourg were briefly considered as the location for the trial
21.
National Film Registry
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The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Boards selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The NFPB, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992,1996,2005, and again in October 2008. The NFPBs mission, to which the NFR contributes, is to ensure the survival, conservation, the 1996 law also created the non-profit National Film Preservation Foundation which, although affiliated with the NFPB, raises money from the private sector. To be eligible for inclusion, a film must be at least ten years old, for the first selection in 1989, the public nominated almost 1,000 films for consideration. Members of the NFPB then developed individual ballots of possible films for inclusion, the ballots were tabulated into a list of 25 films which was then modified by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and his staff at the Library for the final selection. Since 1997, members of the public have been able to nominate up to 50 films a year for the NFPB, the NFR includes films ranging from Hollywood classics to orphan films. A film is not required to be feature-length, nor is it required to have been released in the traditional sense. As of the 2016 listing, there are 700 films preserved in the Registry, currently, the earliest listed film is Newark Athlete, and the most recent is 13 Lakes. Counting the 11 multi-year serials in the NFR once each by year of completion, the years with the most films selected are 1928,1939, the time between a films debut and its selection varies greatly. The longest span is 119 years, Newark Athlete was originally released in 1891, the shortest span is the minimum 10 years, this distinction is shared by Raging Bull, Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Toy Story, Fargo and 13 Lakes. For purposes of this list, multi-year serials are counted once by year of completion
22.
Library of Congress
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The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
23.
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
24.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
25.
Germans
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Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans. The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages, before the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans constituted the largest divided nation in Europe by far. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. Thus, the number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied. Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities most often subscribe to their own national identities, the German term Deutsche originates from the Old High German word diutisc, referring to the Germanic language of the people. It is not clear how commonly, if at all, the word was used as an ethnonym in Old High German, used as a noun, ein diutscher in the sense of a German emerges in Middle High German, attested from the second half of the 12th century. The Old French term alemans is taken from the name of the Alamanni and it was loaned into Middle English as almains in the early 14th century. The word Dutch is attested in English from the 14th century, denoting continental West Germanic dialects, while in most Romance languages the Germans have been named from the Alamanni, the Old Norse, Finnish and Estonian names for the Germans were taken from that of the Saxons. In Slavic languages, the Germans were given the name of němьci, originally with a meaning foreigner, the English term Germans is only attested from the mid-16th century, based on the classical Latin term Germani used by Julius Caesar and later Tacitus. It gradually replaced Dutch and Almains, the latter becoming mostly obsolete by the early 18th century, the Germans are a Germanic people, who as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. Originally part of the Holy Roman Empire, around 300 independent German states emerged during its decline after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War and these states eventually formed into modern Germany in the 19th century. The concept of a German ethnicity is linked to Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe, the early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was significantly increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe, during antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at that time. In the European Iron Age the area that is now Germany was divided into the La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, and had spread west into what is now Belgium and France. Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine, in Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, and Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions intermingled. The adoption of Christianity would later become an influence in the development of a common German identity
26.
Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
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United States, and is one of the most influential American common law judges, honored during his lifetime in Great Britain as well as the United States. Holmes retired from the Court at the age of 90 years and he also served as an Associate Justice and as Chief Justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and was Weld Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, of which he was an alumnus. Holmes espoused a form of skepticism and opposed the doctrine of natural law. As he wrote in one of his most famous decisions, his dissent in Abrams v and these positions as well as his distinctive personality and writing style made him a popular figure, especially with American progressives. He was one of only a handful of justices to be known as a scholar, Holmes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of the prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and abolitionist Amelia Lee Jackson. Known as Wendell in his youth, Holmes, Henry James Jr. Holmes accordingly grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement, and early formed the ambition to be a man of letters like Emerson. While still in Harvard College he wrote essays on philosophic themes, Emerson famously replied, If you strike at a king, you must kill him. He supported the Abolitionist movement that thrived in Boston society during the 1850s, at Harvard, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian Club, both of which his father had also been a member. In the Pudding, he served as Secretary and Poet, as his father also had, in the summer of 1861 with his fathers help he obtained a lieutenants commission in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Holmess early life was described in detail by Mark DeWolfe Howe, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes--The Shaping Years, 1841-1870. He saw much action, from the Peninsula Campaign to the Wilderness, suffering wounds at the Battle of Balls Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, Holmes particularly admired and was close to his fellow officer in the 20th Massachusetts, Henry Livermore Abbott. Holmes rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but eschewed promotion in his regiment, Abbott took command of the regiment in his place, and was later killed. Holmes is said to have shouted to Lincoln to take cover during the Battle of Fort Stevens, Holmes himself expressed uncertainty about who had warned Lincoln and other sources state he likely was not present on the day Lincoln visited Fort Stevens. Holmes received a promotion to colonel in recognition of his services during the war. He retired to his home in Boston after his enlistment ended in 1864, weary and ill. But by the fall, when it became clear that the war would end, Holmes enrolled in the Harvard Law School, kicked into the law by his father. He attended lectures there for a year, reading extensively in theoretical works. He was admitted to the bar in 1866, and after a visit to London, to complete his education
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Eugenics
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Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population. The exact definition of eugenics has been a matter of debate since the term was coined, frederick Osborns 1937 journal article Development of a Eugenic Philosophy framed it as a social philosophy—that is, a philosophy with implications for social order. That definition is not universally accepted, osborn advocated for higher rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits, or reduced rates of sexual reproduction and sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits. Alternatively, gene selection rather than people selection has recently been made possible through advances in genome editing, in this period, eugenic ideas were espoused across the political spectrum. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies with the intent to improve the quality of stock of their countries. S. Furthermore, negative eugenics in particular is considered by many to be a violation of human rights. Another criticism is that eugenic policies eventually lead to a loss of genetic diversity, the concept of positive eugenics to produce better human beings has existed at least since Plato suggested selective mating to produce a guardian class. The idea of eugenics to decrease the birth of inferior human beings has existed at least since William Goodell advocated the castration. Galton had read his half-cousin Charles Darwins theory of evolution, which sought to explain the development of plant and animal species, based on his biographical studies, Galton believed that desirable human qualities were hereditary traits, though Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory. In 1883, one year after Darwins death, Galton gave his research a name, with the introduction of genetics, eugenics relied on an ideology of genetic determinism in which human character was due to genes, unaffected by education or living conditions. Many of the early geneticists were not Darwinians, and evolution theory was not needed for eugenics policies based on genetic determinism, throughout its recent history, eugenics has remained controversial. Eugenics became a discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from many sources. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals, in 1909 the Anglican clergymen William Inge and James Peile both wrote for the British Eugenics Education Society. Inge was a speaker at the 1921 International Eugenics Conference. Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenists with meetings in 1912 in London, Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States. It also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain, later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan and Sweden. In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations, politically, the movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws. In its moral dimension, eugenics rejected the doctrine that all beings are born equal
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Buck v. Bell
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Buck v. Bell,274 U. S.200, is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The decision was seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve the human race by eliminating defectives from the gene pool. The Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell, the concept of eugenics had been put forward in 1883 by Francis Galton, who also coined the name. The trend first became popular in Europe, but also found proponents in the United States by the start of the 20th century, indiana passed the first eugenic sterilization statute, but it was legally flawed. To remedy this situation, Harry Laughlin of the Eugenics Record Office at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in 1924 the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted a statute authorizing the compulsory sterilization of the intellectually disabled for the purpose of eugenics. This 1924 statute was based on Laughlins model. Looking to determine if the new law would pass a legal challenge, according to Priddy, Bucks 52-year-old mother possessed a mental age of 8 and had a record of prostitution and immorality. She had three children without good knowledge of their parentage, Carrie, one of these children, had been adopted and attended school for five years, reaching the level of sixth grade. However, according to Priddy, she had proved to be incorrigible. Her adopted family had committed her to the State Colony as feeble-minded and it was later discovered that Carries pregnancy was not caused by any immorality on her own part. While the litigation was making its way through the system, Priddy died and his successor, Dr. John Hendren Bell. The Board of Directors issued an order for the sterilization of Buck, and her guardian appealed the case to the Circuit Court of Amherst County, the case then moved to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. The appellate court sustained the law as compliant with both the state and federal constitutions, and it then went to the United States Supreme Court. Buck and her guardian contended that the due process clause guarantees all adults the right to procreate which was being violated and they also made the argument that the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment was being violated since not all similarly situated people were being treated the same. The sterilization law was only for the feeble-minded at certain state institutions and made no mention of other state institutions or those who were not in an institution. On May 2,1927, in an 8–1 decision, the Court accepted that she, her mother and her daughter were feeble-minded and promiscuous, the ruling legitimized Virginias sterilization procedures until they were repealed in 1974. The ruling was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, the principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Holmes concluded his argument by declaring that Three generations of imbeciles are enough, the sole dissenter in the court, Justice Pierce Butler, a devout Catholic, did not write a dissenting opinion
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Reichskonkordat
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The Reichskonkordat is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was ratified September 10,1933 and it has been in force from that date onward, the treaty guarantees the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office Article 16 states they are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution, the treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. The Nazis planned to eliminate the Churchs influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities, the Reichskonkordat is the most controversial of several concordats that the Vatican negotiated during the pontificate of Pius XI. It is frequently discussed in works that deal with the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s, the treaty places constraints on the political activity of German clergy of the Catholic Church. This contributed to a decrease in the vocal criticism of Nazism by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Germany. Though some German bishops were unenthusiastic, and the Allies at the end of World War II felt it inappropriate and it is still in force today. The Reichskonkordat between Germany and the Holy See was signed on July 20,1933 and ratified in September of that year, Kulturkampf Accounts of 20th-century diplomatic relations between Germany and the Vatican commonly take as their starting point the political scene in the late 19th century. Bismarcks Culture Struggle was largely a failure, Bismarck sought to restrict the power of the Catholic Church in Germany. He regarded the Roman Church as “the enemy within” and his Kulturkampf included the disbanding of Catholic organizations, confiscation of church property, banishment or imprisonment of clergy and an ongoing feud with the Vatican. Key issues that the Church hoped to resolve related to state subsidies to the Church, support for Catholic schools, the appointment of bishops, the Reich government, in turn, wished for reasons of foreign policy to have friendly relations with the Holy See. Also, Germany wanted to prevent new diocesan boundaries being established which would dilute Germanys ties to ceded German territories in the east such as Danzig, negotiations relating to specific points, rather than a general concordat, took place between 1919 and 1922. Pope Pius XI Pius XI was elected Pope in 1922 and his pontificate coincided with the early aftermath of the First World War. The old European monarchies had been swept away and a new. In the East, the Soviet Union arose, in Italy, the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini took power, while in Germany, the fragile Weimar Republic collapsed with the Nazi seizure of power. Pope Piuss major diplomatic approach was to make concordats, in Article 24 of the concordat, the papacy undertook to remain outside temporal conflicts unless the parties concerned jointly appealed for the pacifying mission of the Holy See. Other major concordats included those signed with Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia and Latvia, the concordats were generally observed by the countries involved, with the exception of Germany. In January 1933, Hitler became Chancellor, the passing of the Enabling Act on 23 March, in part, removed the Reichstag as an obstacle to concluding a concordat with the Vatican
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Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
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Invasion of Poland
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The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty. German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident, as the Wehrmacht advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish–German border to more established lines of defence to the east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited expected support and relief from France and the United Kingdom. While those two countries had pacts with Poland and had declared war on Germany on 3 September, in the end their aid to Poland was very limited. The Soviet Red Armys invasion of Eastern Poland on 17 September, in accordance with a protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible, on 6 October, following the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet forces gained full control over Poland. The success of the invasion marked the end of the Second Polish Republic, the Soviet Union incorporated its newly acquired areas into its constituent Belarusian and Ukrainian republics, and immediately started a campaign of sovietization. In the aftermath of the invasion, a collective of underground resistance formed the Polish Underground State within the territory of the former Polish state. Many of the exiles that managed to escape Poland subsequently joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West. On 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party, under its leader Adolf Hitler, as part of this long-term policy, Hitler at first pursued a policy of rapprochement with Poland, trying to improve opinion in Germany, culminating in the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934. Earlier, Hitlers foreign policy worked to weaken ties between Poland and France, and attempted to manoeuvre Poland into the Anti-Comintern Pact, forming a front against the Soviet Union. The Poles feared that their independence would eventually be threatened altogether, the so-called Polish Corridor constituted land long disputed by Poland and Germany, and inhabited by a Polish majority. The Corridor had become a part of Poland after the Treaty of Versailles, many Germans also wanted the city of Danzig and its environs to be reincorporated into Germany. Danzig was a city with a German majority. It had been separated from Germany after Versailles and made into the nominally independent Free City of Danzig, the series of border violations, which are unbearable to a great power, prove that the Poles no longer are willing to respect the German frontier. Poland participated with Germany in the partition of Czechoslovakia that followed the Munich Agreement and it coerced Czechoslovakia to surrender the region of Český Těšín by issuing an ultimatum to that effect on 30 September 1938, which was accepted by Czechoslovakia on 1 October. This region had a Polish majority and had been disputed between Czechoslovakia and Poland in the aftermath of World War I, the Polish annexation of Slovak territory later served as the justification for the Slovak state to join the German invasion. Poland rejected this proposal, fearing that after accepting these demands, it would become subject to the will of Germany
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Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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The United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9,1945, respectively, during the final stage of World War II. The United States had dropped the bombs with the consent of the United Kingdom as outlined in the Quebec Agreement, the two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. In the final year of the war, the Allies prepared for what was anticipated to be a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by a U. S. conventional and firebombing campaign that destroyed 67 Japanese cities, the war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8,1945, just after Hitler committed suicide. The Japanese, facing the fate, refused to accept the Allies demands for unconditional surrender. The Allies called for the surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being prompt. The Japanese response to this ultimatum was to ignore it, orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities were issued on July 25. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, in both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison. Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, on September 2, the Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The justification for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still debated to this day, in 1945, the Pacific War between the Empire of Japan and the Allies entered its fourth year. The Japanese fought fiercely, ensuring that U. S. victory would come at an enormous cost, December 1944 saw American battle casualties hit an all-time monthly high of 88,000 as a result of the German Ardennes Offensive. In the Pacific, the Allies returned to the Philippines, recaptured Burma, offensives were undertaken to reduce the Japanese forces remaining in Bougainville, New Guinea and the Philippines. In April 1945, American forces landed on Okinawa, where fighting continued until June. Along the way, the ratio of Japanese to American casualties dropped from 5,1 in the Philippines to 2,1 on Okinawa, although some Japanese were taken prisoner, most fought until they were killed or committed suicide. Nearly 99% of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima were killed, of the 117,000 Japanese troops defending Okinawa in April–June 1945, 94% were killed. American military leaders used these figures to estimate high casualties among American soldiers in the invasion of Japan. As the Allies advanced towards Japan, conditions became steadily worse for the Japanese people, Japans merchant fleet declined from 5,250,000 gross tons in 1941 to 1,560,000 tons in March 1945, and 557,000 tons in August 1945
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Rassenschande
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Initially, these laws referred predominantly to relations between Germans and non-Aryans. In the early stages the culprits were targeted informally, and then later on punished systematically by a legal apparatus. In the course of the war years, relations between Reichsdeutsche Germans and millions of foreign Ostarbeiters brought to Germany by force, were also legally forbidden. Concerted efforts were made to foment popular distaste for it, as early as 1924, Julius Streicher argued for the death penalty for Jews found guilty of having sexual relations with Gentiles. Some regarded the number of intermarriages as too small to be harmful, local officials, however, were already requiring betrothed couples to prove they were worthy to marry by presenting proof of Aryan ancestry. In 1934, Wilhelm Frick warned local officials about banning such marriages on their own, even before the Nuremberg Laws were passed, the SS regularly arrested those accused of racial defilement and paraded them through the streets with placards around their necks detailing their crime. Stormtroopers acted with hostility toward mixed couples. One girl was paraded through the streets, with her hair shaved, placards were widely used to humiliate. Das Schwarze Korps, in its April 1935 issue, called for laws against it as preferable to the violence being indulged in. In Nazi Germany, after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935 sexual relations, although the laws at first were primarily against Jews, they were later extended to the Romani, Blacks, and their offspring. Persons accused of racial defilement were publicly humiliated by being paraded through the streets with placards around their necks proclaiming their crime and those convicted were sentenced to a period of time in a concentration camp. As the laws themselves did not permit the death penalty for those charged with racial defilement, the extent of the law meant that the police were insufficient to the task of detecting infractions, more than three-fifths of all Gestapo cases were prompted by denunciations. Germans who had intermarried with Jews and other prior to the Nuremberg Laws did not have their unions nullified. Rape of Jewish women during World War II was also forbidden, though it did little to stop the soldiers who killed the woman afterwards. The press was to describe Poles as on the level as Jews. After the war in the East began, the race defilement law was extended to include all foreigners. Himmler issued a decree on 7 December 1942 which stated that any unauthorized sexual intercourse would result in the death penalty, the Gestapo persecuted sexual relations between Germans and the peoples of Eastern Europe on the grounds of the risk for the racial integrity of the German nation. Robert Gellately in his book The Gestapo and German Society, Enforcing Racial Policy, the event was met with complete disapproval but was pursued to put fear into the German public in order to avoid the Poles
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Racism
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Racism is discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Today, the use of the term racism does not easily fall under a single definition, the Holocaust is the classic example of institutionalized racism which led to the death of millions of people based on their race. Ethnicity is often used in a close to one traditionally attributed to race. Therefore, racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, according to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms racial and ethnic discrimination. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life, Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, in the 19th century, many scientists subscribed to the belief that the human population can be divided into races. The term racism is a noun describing the state of being racist, the origin of the root word race is not clear. Linguists generally agree that it came to the English language from Middle French, a recent proposal is that it derives from the Arabic ras, which means head, beginning, origin or the Hebrew rosh, which has a similar meaning. Early race theorists generally held that some races were inferior to others and these early theories guided pseudo-scientific research assumptions, the collective endeavors to adequately define and form hypotheses about racial differences are generally termed scientific racism. To date, there is evidence in human genome research indicating that race can be defined in such a way as to be useful in a genetic classification of humans. An entry in the Oxford English Dictionary defines racialism simply as An earlier term than racism, but now superseded by it. The revised Oxford English Dictionary cites the shortened term racism in a quote from the year,1903. It was first defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as he theory that human characteristics and abilities are determined by race. Additionally, the Oxford English Dictionary records racism as a synonym of racialism, as its history indicates, popular use of the word racism is relatively recent. The word came into usage in the Western world in the 1930s, when it was used to describe the social and political ideology of Nazism. It is commonly agreed that racism existed before the coinage of the word, garner summarizes different existing definitions of racism and identifies three common elements contained in those definitions of racism. First, a historical, hierarchical power relationship between groups, second, a set of ideas about racial differences, and, third, the UDHR was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all form a part of humanity
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World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
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Treaty of Versailles
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The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers and it was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties, although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919 and this article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, in 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion marks. On the other hand, prominent figures on the Allied side such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently, although it is often referred to as the Versailles Conference, only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the Big Four meetings taking place generally at the Quai dOrsay, the First World War was fought across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Countries beyond the war zones were also affected by the disruption of trade, finance. In 1917, two revolutions occurred within the Russian Empire, which led to the collapse of the Imperial Government, the American war aim was to detach the war from nationalistic disputes and ambitions after the Bolshevik disclosure of secret treaties between the Allies. The existence of these treaties tended to discredit Allied claims that Germany was the power with aggressive ambitions. On 8 January 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement that became known as the Fourteen Points and this speech outlined a policy of free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination. After the Central Powers launched Operation Faustschlag on the Eastern Front and this treaty ended the war between Russia and the Central powers and annexed 1,300,000 square miles of territory and 62 million people. During the autumn of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse, desertion rates within the German army began to increase, and civilian strikes drastically reduced war production. On the Western Front, the Allied forces launched the Hundred Days Offensive, sailors of the Imperial German Navy at Kiel mutinied, which prompted uprisings in Germany, which became known as the German Revolution. The German government tried to obtain a settlement based on the Fourteen Points. Following negotiations, the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice, the terms of the armistice called for an immediate evacuation of German troops from occupied Belgium, France, and Luxembourg within fifteen days. In addition, it established that Allied forces would occupy the Rhineland, in late 1918, Allied troops entered Germany and began the occupation. Both the German Empire and Great Britain were dependent on imports of food and raw materials, primarily from the Americas, the Blockade of Germany was a naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers to stop the supply of raw materials and foodstuffs reaching the Central Powers
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Geopolitics
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Geopolitics is the study of the effects of geography on international politics and international relations. Geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain and these include area studies, climate, topography, demography, natural resources, and applied science of the region being evaluated. Geopolitics focuses on power in relation to geographic space. In particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history, academically, geopolitics analyses history and social science with reference to geography in relation to politics. Outside of academia, a variety of groups offer a geopolitical prognosis, including non-profit groups, critical geopolitics deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political/ideological functions for great powers during and after the age of imperialism. Mahan distinguished a key region of the world in the Eurasian context, namely, in this zone independent countries still survived – Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. Mahan regarded those countries, located between Britain and Russia, as if between Scylla and Charybdis, of the two monsters – Britain and Russia – it was the later that Mahan considered more threatening to the fate of Central Asia. Mahan was impressed by Russias transcontinental size and strategically favorable position for southward expansion, therefore, he found it necessary for the Anglo-Saxon sea power to resist Russia. The Austro-Hungarian historian Emil Reich is considered to be the first having coined the acceptance in English as early as 1902, lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at England, the center of the British Empire. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents, sir Halford Mackinders Heartland Theory initially received little attention outside geography, but some thinkers would claim that it subsequently influenced the foreign policies of world powers. His formulation of the Heartland Theory was set out in his article entitled The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinders doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies in world conflict. He saw navy as a basis of Colombian era empire, the Heartland theory hypothesized a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland—which wouldnt need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to remain coherent. Mackinder posited that the centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The World Island could send its navy to destroy one of them in turn. Mackinder called this region the Heartland and it essentially comprised Central and Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Western Russia, and Mitteleuropa. The Heartland contained the grain reserves of Ukraine, and many natural resources. Mackinders notion of geopolitics was summed up when he said, Who rules Central, who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World, nicholas J. Spykman is both a follower and critic of geostrategists Alfred Mahan, and Halford Mackinder
