1.
Paul von Hindenburg
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Hindenburg retired from the army for the first time in 1911, but was recalled shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He first came to attention at the age of 66 as the victor of the decisive Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. As Germanys Chief of the General Staff from August 1916, Hindenburgs reputation rose greatly in German public esteem. He and his deputy Erich Ludendorff then led Germany in a de facto military dictatorship throughout the remainder of the war, in line with Lebensraum ideology, he advocated sweeping annexations of territories in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia in order to resettle Germans there. Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to life in 1925 to be elected the second President of Germany. In 1932, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election as German president, although 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff. He was opposed to Hitler and was a player in the increasing political instability in the Weimar Republic that ended with Hitlers rise to power. He dissolved the Reichstag twice in 1932 and finally, under pressure, in February, he signed off on the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave Hitlers regime arbitrary powers. Hindenburg died the year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant. Hindenburg was embarrassed by his mothers non-aristocratic background and hardly mentioned her at all in his memoirs and his paternal lineage was considered highly distinguished, in fact, he was descended from one of the most respected ancient noble families in Prussia. His paternal grandfather was Otto Ludwig von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, Hindenburg was also a descendant of Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora through their daughter Margareta Luther. Hindenburgs younger brothers and sister were Otto, Ida and Bernhard, Hindenburg was proud that one of his ancestors, Colonel Otto Frederich von Hindenburg had lost a leg at the Battle of Torgau in 1760 and had been awarded an estate at Neudeck by Frederich the Great. Hindenburg received a typical Junker upbringing, being taught the virtues of duty, discipline, obedience to authority and loyalty to Prussia, Hindenburgs governess was known to shout Quiet in the ranks. Before entering the Prussian Cadet Corps in 1859, the 12-year old Hindenburg soberly wrote up his last will and testament in case he should die, Hindenburgs favorite reading materials were war and adventure stories with The Pathfinder by James Fenimore Cooper being his favorite. As a cadet, Hindenburg was admired for his commitment to duty, obsession with details, however, he was considered of mediocre intelligence and utterly lacking in a sense of humor, a dedicated if somewhat dull cadet. After his education at schools in Berlin and Wahlstatt, Hindenburg was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1866. He fought in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, during the Seven Weeks War of 1866, Hindenburg wrote his parents, I rejoice in this bright-colored future. For the soldier war is the state of things…If I fall, it is the most honorable
2.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
3.
Franz von Papen
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Franz von Papen was a German nobleman, General Staff officer and politician. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–34 and he belonged to the group of close advisers to President Paul von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic. It was largely Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination. However, Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives, during which some of his confidantes were killed by the Nazis. Born into a wealthy and noble Roman Catholic family in Werl, Westphalia, an excellent horseman and man of much charm, Papen cut a dashing figure and during this time, made the fateful friendship with Kurt von Schleicher who become one of his best friends. He had married Martha von Boch-Galhau on 3 May 1905, Papen served for a period as a military attendant in the Kaisers Palace, before joining the German General Staff in March 1913. He entered the service in December 1913 as a military attaché to the German ambassador in the United States. In early 1914 he travelled to Mexico and observed the Mexican Revolution, returning to Washington, Papens wife was the daughter of a wealthy Saarland industrialist whose dowry made him a very rich man. Fluent in both French and English, Papen traveled widely all over Europe, the Middle East and North America, Papen supported the idea of selling German arms to Huerta, and was most anxious to go to Mexico City to win Huertas friendship. As result all of the European governments backed General Huerta, who attempted to create an intensely militarist regime as the best man to impose the iron hand alleged to be needed to pacify Mexico. Papen shared these views, reporting to Berlin that Huerta was the strong man in Mexico. At one time, when the Zapatisas were advancing on Mexico City, on July 30,1914, Papen arrived in Washington, D. C from Mexico to take up his post as German military attaché to the United States. During the autumn of 1914, while attached to the German Embassy in Washington D. C, Papens natural proclivities for intrigue got him involved in espionage activities. He communicates with them, and the consuls send the reservists on to New York, Papens inspiration for his plans to invade Canada were the Fenian raids. The Canadian historian Bryon Elson called Papens plans for invading Canada farcical, in October 1914, Papen became involved in the Hindu–German Conspiracy, when he contacted anti-British Indian nationalists living in California, and arranged for weapons to be handed over to them. In February 1915, Papen paid a German man Werner Horn $700 dollars to blow up a bridge owned by the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Vanceboro, Maine. Horn was arrested after blowing up the Vanceboro bridge, and the subsequent investigation pointed at Papen as the man responsible, through Papens diplomatic immunity protected him from arrest. After Huerta arrived in New York in May 1915, he met at times with Papen, Karl Boy-Ed and Franz von Rintelen
4.
Joachim von Ribbentrop
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Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop, more commonly known as Joachim von Ribbentrop, was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitlers notice as a businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis. He offered his house for the meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitlers appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a confidant of Adolf Hitler, to the disgust of some party members. He was nevertheless appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James in 1936, before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel and the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Arrested in June 1945, Ribbentrop was tried at the Nuremberg trials and convicted for his role in starting World War II, on 16 October 1946, he became the first of those sentenced to death by hanging. Joachim von Ribbentrop was born in Wesel, Rhenish Prussia, to Richard Ulrich Friedrich Joachim Ribbentrop, a army officer. From 1904 to 1908, Ribbentrop took French courses at Lycée Fabert in Metz, a former teacher later recalled Ribbentrop was the most stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy. His father was cashiered from the German Imperial Army in 1908 - after repeatedly disparaging Kaiser Wilhelm II for his alleged homosexuality -, following the stay in Arosa, Ribbentrop was sent to Britain for a year to improve his knowledge of the English language. Fluent in both French and English, young Ribbentrop lived at times in Grenoble, France, and London. He worked for the Molsons Bank on Stanley Street in Montreal and he was also employed by the National Transcontinental Railway, which constructed a line from Moncton to Winnipeg. He worked as a journalist in New York City and Boston and he returned to Canada and set up a small business in Ottawa importing German wine and champagne. In 1914, he competed for Ottawas famous Minto ice-skating team, when the First World War began later in 1914, Ribbentrop left Canada, which was at war with Germany as part of the British Empire, and moved to the neutral United States. He sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 15 August 1914 on the Holland-America ship The Potsdam, upon his return to Germany, he enlisted in the 12th Hussar Regiment. Ribbentrop served first on the Eastern Front, but was transferred to the Western Front and he earned a commission and was awarded the Iron Cross. In 1918, 1st Lieutenant Ribbentrop was stationed in Istanbul as a staff officer, during his time in Turkey, he became friends with another staff officer named Franz von Papen. In 1919, Ribbentrop met Anna Elisabeth Henkell, the daughter of a wealthy Wiesbaden wine-producer and they married on 5 July 1920, and Ribbentrop travelled throughout Europe as a wine salesman. He and Annelies had five children together, in 1925 his aunt, Gertrud von Ribbentrop, adopted him, which allowed him to add the nobiliary particle von to his name
5.
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
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Hácha was appointed president of the protectorate the same day. The Protectorate was an autonomous Nazi-administered territory which the German government considered part of the Greater German Reich, the states existence came to an end with the surrender of Germany to the Allies in 1945. To appease outraged international opinion, Hitler appointed former foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath to the post, German officials manned departments analogous to cabinet ministries, while small German control offices were established locally. The new authorities dismissed Jews from the service and placed them outside of the legal system. Political parties and trade unions were banned, and the press, many local Communist Party leaders fled to the Soviet Union. The population of the protectorate was mobilized for labor that would aid the German war effort, the Germans drafted Czechs to work in coal mines, in the iron and steel industry, and in armaments production. Consumer-goods production, much diminished, was directed toward supplying the German armed forces. The protectorates population was subjected to rationing, German rule was moderate—at least by Nazi standards—during the first months of the occupation. The Czech government and political system, reorganized by Hácha, continued in formal existence, the Gestapo directed its activities mainly against Czech politicians and the intelligentsia. Generalplan Ost assumed that around 50% of Czechs would be fit for Germanization, the Czech intellectual élites were to be removed not only from Czech territories but from Europe completely. The authors of Generalplan Ost believed it would be best if they emigrated overseas, as even in Siberia they were considered a threat to German rule, just like Jews, Poles, Serbs, and several other nations, Czechs were considered to be untermenschen by the Nazi state. The Czechs demonstrated against the occupation on 28 October 1939, the 21st anniversary of Czechoslovak independence, the death on 15 November 1939 of a medical student, Jan Opletal, who had been wounded in the October violence, precipitated widespread student demonstrations, and the Reich retaliated. Politicians were arrested en masse, as were an estimated 1,800 students, during World War II, Hitler decided that Neurath wasnt treating the Czechs harshly enough and adopted a more radical policy in the protectorate. On 29 September 1941, Hitler appointed SS hardliner Reinhard Heydrich as Deputy Reichsprotektor, at the same time Neurath was relieved of his day-to-day duties, so for all intents and purposes Heydrich replaced Neurath as Reichsprotektor. Under Heydrichs authority Prime Minister Alois Eliáš was arrested, the Czech government was reorganized, the Gestapo arrested and killed people. The deportation of Jews to concentration camps was organized, and the town of Terezín was made into a ghetto way-station for Jewish families. On 4 June 1942, Heydrich died after being wounded by an assassin in Operation Anthropoid, directives issued by Heydrichs successor, SS-Oberstgruppenführer Kurt Daluege, ordered mass arrests, executions and the obliteration of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. In 1943 the German war-effort was accelerated, under the authority of Karl Hermann Frank, German minister of state for Bohemia and Moravia, Within the protectorate, all non-war-related industry was prohibited
6.
Reinhard Heydrich
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Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and a main architect of the Holocaust. He was an SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei as well as chief of the Reich Main Security Office and he was also Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. Many historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite and he was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst, an intelligence organisation charged with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Party via arrests, deportations, and murders. He helped organise Kristallnacht, a series of co-ordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany, the attacks, carried out by SA stormtroopers and civilians, presaged the Holocaust. Upon his arrival in Prague, Heydrich sought to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation by suppressing Czech culture and he died from his injuries a week later. Nazi intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the villages of Lidice, both villages were razed, all men and boys over the age of 16 were shot, and all but a handful of its women and children were deported and killed in Nazi concentration camps. Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born in 1904 in Halle an der Saale to composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Heydrich and his wife and his father was Protestant and his mother was Roman Catholic. His two forenames were patriotic musical tributes, Reinhard referred to the hero from his fathers opera Amen. Heydrichs third name, Eugen, was his maternal grandfathers forename. Heydrichs family held social standing and substantial financial means, Music was a part of Heydrichs everyday life, his father founded the Halle Conservatory of Music, Theatre and Teaching and his mother taught piano there. Heydrich developed a passion for the violin and carried that interest into adulthood and his father was a German nationalist who instilled patriotic ideas in his three children, but was not affiliated with any political party until after World War I. As a youth, he engaged his younger brother, Heinz and he excelled in his schoolwork—especially in science—at the Reformgymnasium. A talented athlete, he became a swimmer and fencer. He was shy, insecure, and was bullied for his high-pitched voice. The latter claim earned him the nickname Moses Handel, in 1918, World War I ended with Germanys defeat. In late February 1919, civil unrest—including strikes and clashes between communist and anti-communist groups—took place in Heydrichs home town of Halle, under Defense Minister Gustav Noskes directives, a right-wing paramilitary unit was formed and ordered to recapture Halle. Heydrich, then 15 years old, joined Maerckers Volunteer Rifles, when the skirmishes ended, Heydrich was part of the force assigned to protect private property. Little is known about his role, but the left a strong impression
7.
Wilhelm Frick
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After the end of World War II, he was tried and convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials and executed by hanging. Frick was born in the Palatinate municipality of Alsenz, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany and he attended the gymnasium in Kaiserslautern, passing his Abitur exams in 1896. He went on studying philology at the University of Munich, but soon turned to study law in Heidelberg and Berlin, taking the Staatsexamen in 1900. Serving as a referendary since 1900, he joined the Bavarian civil service in 1903 and he was appointed a Bezirksamtassessor in Pirmasens in 1907 and became acting district executive in 1914. Rejected as unfit, Frick did not serve in World War I and he was promoted to the official rank of a Regierungsassessor and, at his own request, re-assumed his post at the Munich Police Department by 1917. On 25 April 1910, Frick had married Elisabetha Emilie Nagel in Pirmasens and they had two sons and a daughter. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1934. A few weeks later, on 12 March, Frick remarried in Münchberg to Margarete Schultze-Naumburg, Margarete gave birth to a son and a daughter. In Munich, Frick witnessed the end of the war and the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and he sympathized with Freikorps paramilitary units fighting against the Bavarian government of Premier Kurt Eisner. Chief of Police Ernst Pöhner introduced him to Adolf Hitler, whom he helped willingly with obtaining permissions to hold political rallies and demonstrations. Elevated to the rank of an Oberamtmann and head of the Kriminalpolizei security service from 1923, he, Frick tried to suppress the State Polices operation, wherefore he was arrested and imprisoned, and tried for aiding and abetting high treason by the Peoples Court in April 1924. After several months in custody, he was given a sentence of 15 months imprisonment and was dismissed from his police job. Later during the proceedings, the dismissal was declared unfair and revoked. Frick went on to work at the Munich social insurance office from 1926 onwards, in the aftermath of the Putsch, Wilhelm Frick was elected a member of the German Reichstag parliament in the federal election of May 1924. He had been nominated by the National Socialist Freedom Movement, an electoral list of the far-right German Völkisch Freedom Party, on 1 September 1925, Frick joined the re-established Nazi Party. Frick also appointed the eugenicist Hans F. K and he was removed from office by a Social Democratic motion of no confidence in the Thuringian Landtag parliament on 1 April 1931. When Reich president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933, though Frick held a key position, especially in organizing the federal elections of March 1933, he initially had far less power than his counterparts in the rest of Europe. Notably, he had no authority over the police, in Germany law enforcement has traditionally been a state, indeed, the main reason that Hindenburg and Franz von Papen agreed to give the interior ministry to the Nazis was that it was almost powerless at the time
8.
Vaihingen an der Enz
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Vaihingen an der Enz is located between Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, in southern Germany, on the western periphery of the Stuttgart Region. Vaihingen is situated on the river Enz, and has a population of around 30,000, the former ‘district-capital’ is now part of the district of Ludwigsburg in the Land of Baden-Württemberg. It is 25 km northwest of Stuttgart, and 15 km west of Ludwigsburg, Vaihingen may date back as far as 799 a. d. but the documents are not clear. In 1252 documents refer directly to Vaihingen as a town, established by Count Gottfried von Vaihingen, the city changed hands several times. In the sixteenth century it became a Protestant city, during the Thirty Years War, Vaihingen was besieged by both the Protestant and Catholic warring factions. The consequences of the 1848 revolution caused harvest failures and inflation, in the early 1900s, a connection to the railroad network brought more people and industries to Vaihingen. In 1938 Vaihingen became a regional center, Vaihingen was the site of a concentration camp during World War II. See Vaihingen an der Enz concentration camp, at the top of the town is since 1256 the mayor and the court, consisting of twelve citizens, including four mayors. Chairman of the court was the official mayor, with the elevation to Große Kreisstadt on January 1,1973, the mayor bears the official title Lord mayor. He is directly elected by the electorate every 8 years and he is chairman of the municipal council. His general deputy is the first councilor with the title of mayor. He took office on September 1,2006, gerd Maisch won against Matthias Ehrlein, and Helga Eberle with 62% of the votes. Vaihingen is located on the Württemberger Weinstraße and on the route of the German Timber-Frame Road. Vaihingen has a museum in the St. Peters Kirche. The memorial for the concentration camp Vaihingen in the Glattbachtal was opened on April 16,2005, a twenty minute audiovisual presentation reminiscent of the events of the years 1944 and 1945. Marketplace The panoramic sight at the market includes the city hall. Due to devastating fires in 1693 and 1784, housing facilities had to be rebuilt, City Hall A fire destroyed the old city hall building in 1693. It was rebuilt in the location in 1720, following long years of controversy between the citizens of Vaihingen and the administration of Württemberg
9.
German Empire
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The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
10.
West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany
11.
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany)
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The Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs is the head of the Federal Foreign Office and a member of the Cabinet of Germany. The current office holder is Sigmar Gabriel, since 1966, the Foreign Minister has often also simultaneously held the office of Vice Chancellor. The Foreign Office was established within the North German Confederation in 1870 and its head, in 1919, the Weimar Republic elevated the head of the foreign office to the position of Foreign Minister responsible for his department. As governments were now formed by parties entering coalitions with each other and his long term gave stability to Germanys foreign policy and improved the ministers position towards the relatively weak and short-lived chancellors. Stresemann was awarded the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for his work for reconciliation between Germany and France, the foreign office remained relatively unaffected by the establishment of the Nazi regime in 1933, as minister Konstantin von Neurath, appointed in 1932, remained in office until 1938. However, the office was increasingly marginalised in actual policy-making and with the replacement of Neurath by Ribbentrop lost any independent standing. After World War II, two separate German states emerged in 1949, the democratic Federal Republic of Germany in the West, then, Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo succeeded as foreign minister in 1955. In 1990, the GDR ceased to exist as a separate state, from the 1966 Grand Coalition government of Kurt Georg Kiesinger onwards, the office has been held by a member of the smaller partner in coalitions. Political Party, SPD Zentrum DDP DVP NSDP Political Party, CDU SED NDPD SPD Political Party, CDU SPD FDP Green
German Empire (1871–1918) 
Weimar Republic (1918–33) 
Nazi Germany (1933–45) 
German Democratic Republic1 (1949–90) 
Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present) 