key profiles

Question 1

Dr Philipp Bouhler
1899-1945

Answer 1

• Served in WW1 + worked for Nazi newspaper in 1920s
• Became Reich secretary of the NSDAP in 1925
• 1933 was appointed head of Hitler’s party office, handling internal correspondence
• Used his control over letters to Hitler to influence decision to introduce euthanasia programme, known as Aktion T4
• Worked with Karl Brandt to architect the killings programme
• Committed suicide in 1945 to avoid arrest by American forces

Question 2

Dr Karl Brandt
1904-48

Answer 2

• Senior SS doctor + member of Hitler’s inner circle
• Founded the euthanasia programme with Bouhler in 1939
• Rose to rank of SS Major General + appointed Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation
• Guilty of supervising medical experiments during the war
• Arrested in 1945 and executed for war crimes in 1948

Question 3

Reinhard Heydrich
1904-42

Answer 3

• Most important senior commander in the SS after Himmler
• Vital role in organising Reich Security Head Office
• 1941 responsible for coordinating the Final Solution + plans launced at Wannsee Conference in January 1942 were code-named ‘Operation Reinhard’
• Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, governing Czech territories in the Reich
• Assassinated by Jewish partisans trained in Britain in 1942

Question 4

Adolf Eichmann
1899-1961

Answer 4

• Rose to prominence in Race and Resettlement Unit of SS
• Involved in planning for Jewish emigration to Palestine in 1930s
• Became an architect of the Final Solution
• Key role in arranging 1942 Wannsee Conference + main driving force behind deportation and mass murder of Hungarian Jews in 1944
• Escaped to South America after the war
• Israeli secret agents kidnapped him and was brought back to face trial as a war criminal, sentenced to death.

Question 5

Albert Speer
1905-81

Answer 5

• An architect who joined the Nazi Party in 1931
• Helped design the settings for the Nuremberg rallies
• Responsible for designing many iconic Nazi buildings, including Hitler’s Reich Chancellery in Berlin
• 1942 was appointed Minister of Armaments
• After Germany’s defeat was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years in prison