key profiles

Question 1

Ernst Rohm
1887-1934

Answer 1

• Captain in WWI
• Joined the Freikorps after WWI and was employed by the army to gather information on opposition groups
• Met Hitler in 1919 and recruited him to infiltrate the German Workers’ Party
• Later joined the renamed National Socialist German Workers’ Party and helped set up the SA
• Took part in the Beer Hall Putsch and was briefly jailed
• Recalled to Germany by Hitler in 1930 to control the SA
• Turned the SA into a fighting force but his radical views and his lifestyle -heavy drinking and homosexuality -proved a source of embarrassment to Hitler

Question 2

Heinrich Himmler
1900-45

Answer 2

• Was the leader of the SS
• Joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and took over SS in 1929
• Extended his power within the Nazi state when Hitler came to power, gradually taking control of police forces and concentration camps
• SS established military units under his command
• Responsible for carrying out the rounding up and killing of Jews in occupied countries
• Appointed as military commander at the end of the war to organise the fight against the Red Army’s advance, but lack of military experience caused Hitler to relieve him of this duty
• Himmler betrayed Hitler by attempting to negotiate a secret peace deal with the Allies
• Hitler found out and Himmler went on the run but was captured by British forces
• Committed suicide in custody

Question 3

Martin Niemoller
1892-1984

Answer 3

• A Protestant pastor who had been a U-boat commander during the First World War
• Held strong nationalist views
• Initially welcomed Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in January 1933 but was not a Nazi Party member
• Started to oppose Nazi efforts to politicise the Evangelical Church
• Was anti-Semetic himself but opposed the Church adoption of the Aryan paragraph because he believed that Jews should be welcomed into the Christian faith
• Was a co-founder of the Confessional Church
• Was arrested and put on trial but acquitted on all charges
• Immediately rearrested and sent to a concentration camp in 1937
• Treated as Hitler’s personal prisoner and allowed a certain privileges
• Was seen as a martyr in the Confessional Church

Question 4

General Werner von Fritsch
1880-1939

Answer 4

• Promoted to Germany army Commander-in-Chief in 1934
• Welcomed the appointment of Hitler as an anti-Semite and anti-democrat
• Helped Hitler to gain army support to succeed Hindenburg as President
• Became increasingly critical of the regime as the SS was developing into a rival of the army
• Feared that Germany was not ready for was that Hitler’s foreign policy seemed likely to provoke
• Forced to resign in February 1938 after accused of being homosexual
• Was cleared of the charges and continued to serve in the army until he was killed in action in Poland

Question 5

Robert Ley
1890-1945

Answer 5

• Former fighter pilot in WWI
• Joined Nazi Party in 1924
• Elected to the Reichstag in 1930
• Reich Organisation Leader in 1932
• Leader of DAF in 1933
• Committed suicide in 1945

Question 6

Ludwig Muller
1883-1945

Answer 6

• Protestant pastor who had been associated with the Nazis since 1920s
• Appointment as Reich Bishop was imposed on the Church by the Nazis
• Failed to establish complete mastery of the Church because of his own political ineptness and growing resentment at his appointment
• Committed suicide in 1945 after Germany’s defeat

Question 7

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1945

Answer 7

• Co-founder of the Pastors’ Emergency League and joined the Confessional Church
• An outspoken opponent of the Aryan paragraph and of Nazi attempts to take over the Church
• Retained his freedom and became involved with other anti-Nazi elements among army officers
• Arrested in 1943 and murdered by the Gestapo in 1945