key profiles Flashcards
1
Q
Ernst Rohm
1887-1934
A
- 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
2
Q
Heinrich Himmler
1900-45
A
- 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
3
Q
Martin Niemoller
1892-1984
A
- 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
4
Q
General Werner von Fritsch
1880-1939
A
- 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
